The Empire Builders Podcast

Synonymous with gaming Alienware rode the wave of easy to use and beautiful gaming computers. Now they are the G.O.A.T. Dave Young: Welcome to The Empire Builders Podcast, teaching business owners the not-so-secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom and pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector, and storyteller. I'm Stephen's sidekick and business partner, Dave Young. Before we get into today's episode, a word from our sponsor, which is... Well, it's us, but we're highlighting ads we've written and produced for our clients. So here's one of those. [Pinpoint Ad] Dave Young: Welcome back to The Empire Builders Podcast, Dave Young here with Stephen Semple, and we're talking about empires. This is The Empire Builders Podcast. You tuned in because you wanted to hear us talk about empires, right? Stephen Semple: I hope that's why they tuned in. Dave Young: I mean, I'm assuming that's why you... Stephen Semple: Either that, or you're in the wrong place. But still, stay with us, you might like it. Dave Young: If you're expecting steamy ghost stories, this is not your podcast. Stephen Semple: Oh, there goes half our audience. Dave Young: That's all right. "Choose who to lose," that's what we always say. People that are interested in steamy, ghost stories, this is not it. Stephen Semple: But. Dave Young: Aliens. Stephen Semple: Aliens? Dave Young: Maybe. Maybe- Stephen Semple: Maybe. Dave Young: ... I'm saying. Maybe. Stephen Semple: Yeah, maybe. Dave Young: Because today's topic, Stephen told me we're going to talk about Alienware, as an empire. And I know them because I remember, back in the day, one of my kids insisting that that was the only computer that would allow them to play World of Warcraft in any kind of successful fashion. Does that sound right? Stephen Semple: Yep. That would be pretty accurate. Did you end up buying an Alienware computer? Dave Young: Probably. I don't know. Dad was just the checkbook. Stephen Semple: Well, we're going to talk about Alienware, but even before we go into Alienware, I want to take a little bit of a detour, because it actually speaks to Alienware. Is, one of the things that Alienware was really good at recognizing, was things going on in the world. And you know how we often talk about tapping into what's happening out there, and the emotions that's happening out there, and looking outside of your world. I had a really interesting conversation this weekend with Bob Camp. Now, Bob Camp is the co-creator of Ren and Stimpy. Dave Young: Okay, yeah, yeah. Stephen Semple: Now, if you remember, remember back at the Slinky episode? Remember when we covered Slinky? Dave Young: We talked about Log. Stephen Semple: And we talked about Log. Well, as it turns out, Dave, you are completely right. Bob Camp told me that the whole thing Log, was actually completely inspired by Slinky. Dave Young: Oh, yeah, I was just, yeah. Stephen Semple: And here's what happened. It was in the very first episode of Ren and Stimpy, and they had produced it, and they suddenly realized just before it was about to go on air, they were a minute short. And he was like, "How do we come up a minute fricking short?" So that night he decided, "I got to come up with a minute of content." And what he decide to do is create a commercial. He thought. "Let's start the commercial." So the very first Ren and Stimpy episode started with that commercial Log, and he very specifically wanted to tie into something that was a shared experience, that had a positive emotional context, and that he could kind of have some fun with. But it was that whole looking outside the world, and that's how he came up with Log. Yeah. Dave Young: Nice. Stephen Semple: When I come see you in Austin, people can't see this podcast,

Instead of talking like all the others about EVs being environmentally friendly, Tesla made a sure everyone knew just how exciting driving one was. Dave Young: Welcome to The Empire Builders Podcast, teaching business owners the not-so-secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom and pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector, and storyteller. I'm Stephen's sidekick and business partner Dave Young. Before we get into today's episode, a word from our sponsor, which is, well, it's us, but we're highlighting ads we've written and produced for our clients. So here's one of those. [Travis Crawford HVAC Ad] Dave Young: Welcome back to The Empire Builders Podcast. I'm Dave Young, and Stephen Semple is here. We're going to talk about an empire that's boy, it's been in the news a lot lately, but we're going back to the early days of Tesla. We're going to ignore the whole Cybertruck knock down. Stephen Semple: Right, but we're going to talk about the electric car. We are going to talk about that. And if people are interested in terms of some of my views in terms of what's going on today, Matthew Burns and I did a Sticky Sales Story over on YouTube about what's going on with Tesla today and the challenges that they're facing and what has created all of that, especially around brand promise and things along that lines. But for a long time I've been wanting to talk about Tesla for a simple reason. So you know how you and I talk about one of the very first things that we will always want to do before we take on company, before you make up the messaging, before you do anything, you got to get really clear on the strategy and you want to always try to find unleveraged assets. I think I feel like the success of Tesla and how they've changed the world and really brought the electric car to the forefront is a great example of that, especially the unleveraged assets. So if we go back to the early days of Tesla and we take a look, or even early days of the electric car, the electric cars were basically being marketed as green. And they were ugly, and they were poor performing and they were dull, and they were uninteresting and uninspiring, and they were basically a golf cart. Dave Young: Basically a golf cart. Stephen Semple: Yeah, yeah they really were. And didn't get traction going, didn't capture the imagination, and really was sort of only this small segment of the population was where the market was, and it wasn't growing beyond that. And so that's kind of where the market was. Now, here's what Tesla did. Tesla changed the whole conversation through an unleveraged asset. And the unleveraged asset was this. When you took a look at an electric motor, if you put a high-powered electric motor in there, you could make that thing accelerate like it's nobody's business. So what they did, so while everybody else was going the whole environmental tree hugger conversation, they went, we're going to make a car that accelerates so fast that you can set your iPhone on the passenger seat halfway up, hit the accelerator and the phone will stay hung there on the car. Dave Young: Just from the acceleration. Stephen Semple: Just on the acceleration. And will beat most supercars, gas-powered supercars. We could just take this car right off the production line, it could go out and drag race and blow the doors off of pretty much every gas car on the market other than the multi-million dollar supercars. And even a few of those, it was able to beat. Dave Young: So up until this point, electric cars and hybrids in particular were, you think about Toyota Prius, right? Or something like that. And you don't think super performance, you don't think zippy fast, but you think, oh, I'm just putting along, I'm going to get from here to there, and we're not going to pollute very much. Stephen Semple: And it's economical and all this other stuff.

What would you do if you were a starving actor that just lost his last orange? Start a cookware Company of course. Dave Young: Welcome to The Empire Builders Podcast, teaching business owners the not-so-secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom-and-pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector, and storyteller. I'm Stephen's sidekick in business partner Dave Young. Before we get into today's episode, a word from our sponsor, which is, well, it's us, but we're highlighting ads we've written and produced for our clients. So here's one of those. [Eco Office Ad] Dave Young: Welcome back to The Empire Builders Podcast. Dave Young here alongside Stephen Semple and we're talking empires. Empires, businesses that started from scratch and are now, well, as the title suggests, empires, kind of the whole idea. I saw that we were listed in some top lists in Canada as well, like top business podcasts and top reverse engineering podcasts. I thought that was a cool, that's the list that I'd rather be on anyway. Stephen Semple: Well, we were higher ranked on that one, so there you go. I think it was number two or three on that, wasn't it? Dave Young: It didn't even know it was a thing. Stephen Semple: Yeah, pretty exciting. Dave Young: So today, you whispered in my ear that we're talking about the HexClad Corporation. Stephen Semple: HexClad. Dave Young: These are the pots and pans. People with the, apparently according to ads that I've caught glimpses of are now the perfect pans. They think they've built a better mousetrap. Stephen Semple: Yeah, and it is interesting. If you take a look at them, if you've ever seen them, they actually have this pattern in them, and there's now a bunch of knockoffs, of course. But the whole idea is with the raised surface of stainless steel, you can actually, the pan will brown, because a lot of nonstick pans don't brown very well. So the whole idea is you can get a nice searing with them. And also the way it's constructed, the nonstick surface is better protected. Dave Young: So you're not going to scrape the Teflon right off the bottom of your pan with your eggs. Stephen Semple: It'll withstand higher heat. You can put it in a 500-degree oven. So in many ways, one could argue with those things that that is a better nonstick pan. Dave Young: Sure. So who, what, when did this happen? Stephen Semple: So they were founded in December of 2016 by Danny Winer and Cole McCray. And boy, I'll tell you very much a bootstrapped backyard business when they started. And in 2024, it's estimated the business did 500 million in sales, have become $1 billion brand. Dave Young: How do you build Teflon pans, nonstick pans as a backyard kind of thing? Stephen Semple: Well, that's what we're going to learn here. Now, here's the other interesting thing. They now do cookware and knives and accessories and all that other stuff, but they started basically with pots and pans and Danny's first business was, he was an actor. Dave Young: Oh, okay. Well, that makes perfect sense. Stephen Semple: Doesn't it? Dave Young: Sure. Stephen Semple: So Danny started off as an actor. That was his goal, and he moved to LA, of course, lots of auditions. And there's a certain point when you're doing that, one of the things that starts to creep in is that sense of that feeling of failure. So he's struggling a little bit with that. And then in 1994, he's in a really bad car accident, literally shatters his leg and does some damages to the vertebrae. He's doing lots of rehab, many months with a cane, and there's no way to act and he has to figure out how to recover and make money, and he's never felt so poor. One day he's coming home, and this is literally his worst moment. He's coming home. He has this home that's on the side of a hill and he has no money and he couldn't work yet.

You don't create 4 years of podcasts and walk away without some insights. Dave and Stephen talk about what they have learned so far on The Empire Builders Podcast. Dave Young: Welcome to the Empire Builders Podcast, teaching business owners the not-so-secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom-and-pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector, and storyteller. I'm Stephen's sidekick and business partner Dave Young. Before we get into today's episode, a word from our sponsor, which is, well, it's us, but we're highlighting ads we've written and produced for our clients. So here's one of those. [Waukee Feet Ad] Dave Young: Welcome back to the Empire Builders Podcast. Dave Young here with Stephen Semple, and we're talking about empires being built and fortunes being made. I understand today we're not really talking about a business. We're going to talk about the Empire Builders Podcast in a way. Stephen Semple: Yeah, because we're episode 208. We've been doing this for four years, my friend. Dave Young: My gosh. Stephen Semple: Haven't missed a week in four years. Dave Young: That's pretty amazing. Pretty amazing. Stephen Semple: Well, especially for two people like you and I, who are not following through on things is not really. Dave Young: That's because we get together once a year and record 52 episodes. Stephen Semple: Well, on top of that, after I download these, we have a team of people who produce it and post it and all that other stuff. Dave Young: That's the key. That's the key. My job is, as I think I've mentioned before, is to show up. So what you wanted to talk about, just reminisce and see if there's lessons learned about this. Stephen Semple: Well, the funny thing is, normally something like this would be like, "Hey, David. Dave, tell us your favorite episodes." Your reply would be your favorite episode was the last one you did because... Dave Young: Exactly. Stephen Semple: That's just the way you live. Then I thought, well, maybe there's some things that we've, after going through 207 of these, is there some things that we've learned from this, from either the experience of doing it or the things we've covered? Or is there just some lessons there? Dave Young: So do you want me to go first or you want to go first? Stephen Semple: Whichever way you want to do it, my friend. Dave Young: Go ahead. Stephen Semple: Okay. So for me, probably the most interesting thing has been the research of these stories because all these companies have got these great stories. Even after we go through the stories, it's amazing how often, like you've said, this is now my favorite whiskey. We did one recently on a cookware company and I then went out and bought one of their frying pans after hearing the story. They actually do create this greater connection with the business. Here's the crazy thing, they're all great stories and they're all hard to find. People are not glorying in these stories. They're not actually sharing them. They're not on their website, they're not prominent. Even if there is something that's on the website, it's all positive milestones. The struggle, the challenge, the packaging things in your backyard and cleaning the blood off the packaging because you got so many paper cuts is not being talked about on the websites or in the company pages or anything like that. They're obscure. They're coming out with interviews with the owner or there's some weird researcher who's really dug into things. I look at it and go, I don't understand that. Why are you not wanting to tell these stories about your business? Dave Young: I love that. Stephen Semple: Literally, all of these things should be just on their home page and their about you. Dave Young: Absolutely, absolutely. Stephen Semple: It isn't. Dave Young:

Dr. Dennis met Carrie in the elevator and they would make fun of how skincare products had no real value to them. Then they changed that. Dave Young: Welcome to the Empire Builders Podcast, teaching business owners the not-so-secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom and pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector, and storyteller. I'm Stephen's sidekick and business partner, Dave Young. Before we get into today's episode, a word from our sponsor, which is, well, it's us. But we're highlighting ads we've written and produced for our clients, so here's one of those. [Travis Crawford Ad] Dave Young: Welcome back to the Empire Builders Podcast, Dave Young here, Stephen Semple is standing by. He told me the title, he told me, the topic that we're going to cover today, the Empire, and it's Dr. Steven Gross. Stephen Semple: Dennis. Dave Young: Dennis. Stephen Semple: Dr. Dennis Gross Skincare. Dave Young: It doesn't actually roll off the tongue, Dr. Dennis Gross Skincare. I have to admit, I've not heard of this one. Stephen Semple: Well, you're such a skincare buff, I'm kind of surprised. Dave Young: Well, a lot of people say I have amazing skin for a 90-year-old man. In my 60s, but... Stephen Semple: Now, you may not have heard of it, but the company was started by Dr. Dennis Gross and his wife, Carrie Gross, in 2000, and in 2023, it was sold to Shiseido, a big Japanese skincare company for $450 million. Dave Young: Okay, that's not chump change. Stephen Semple: That gets a little attention, right? Dave Young: Yeah, sure. Stephen Semple: Yeah. So, the products were created by Dr. Dennis and his dermatology clinic, and they were originally just sold and marketed to his patients. So, it was literally one of these little tiny businesses, where the stuff is being designed by a real doctor, a real dermatologist, but in the early days, basically the only place you could buy it was his clinic, and the only people who really knew about it were the patients, and the people the patients told. So that's really how it started. And Carrie grew up in California, so they're in New York, but Carrie grew up in California, and she spent her days outdoors, and her skin was starting to show its age. And Dennis, basically, when they met, Dennis was already a dermatologist, and he started to give her hope and optimism. And actually, how they met was she was not a patient or anything like that, don't go there with your minds, they lived in the same building, and they met on the elevator, and basically got to know each other because they ride up the elevator together periodically. And at the time, dermatology was just being used for rashes and things along that lines. And it's the 90s, and creams were being bought in the department store, and they were moisturizers, and there were no indie brands. And for fun, they would look at the labels together, and he was amazed at how little there was in terms of effective ingredients in these creams. As a dermatologist, he could look at it and go, these really don't do anything. And peels were starting to be done, the whole thing, you put stuff off... But they were aggressive, and to him, it made no sense that the skin would be a part of the body where the best thing you could do would be to injure it so that it comes back stronger, it just didn't make sense to him. And he really didn't see the results, and people would look blotchy afterwards, and things along that line. So, he decided to design a peel that would work better. And the whole secret ingredient was, there was a second step that would turn the chemical reaction off, so that it wouldn't be so damaging. So, it was a two-step process that he created. Now, his offices were near the UN, and he had lots of variety of clients. So, the whole thing that he found that was amazing is he was able to test the product on a lo...

Tonka needed something to get them out of a $10,000,000 hole. The needed to transform their situation. Dave Young: Welcome to the Empire Builders Podcast, teaching business owners the not-so-secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom and pop to major brands. Stephen Simple is a marketing consultant, story collector and storyteller. I'm Stephen's sidekick and business partner, Dave Young. Before we get into today's episode, a word from our sponsor, which is, well, it's us, but we're highlighting ads we've written and produced for our clients. So, here's one of those. [Pinpoint Ad] Dave Young: Welcome back to the Empire Builders Podcast, Dave Young here, along with Stephen Semple, and we're talking about empires. And the one you gave me now is I have to admit, I am familiar with the brand, but I'm not an active participant in the brand. I think I've mentioned on here before, I raised four daughters, and so today's topic is Transformers. And none of my daughters were ever into Transformers as a toy. I was beyond toys when Transformers, I think first came around. So I've never even really jumped into the movies. But big, big brand. Stephen Semple: Huge brand. Dave Young: Tell me how they got started. Stephen Semple: Well, and the interesting thing, I almost included my oldest daughter, Crystal, in the recording of this, and I decided that, no, we might do a follow-up episode with her because she is a massive Transformers fan. Dave Young: Wow. Okay. Stephen Semple: And the interesting thing is she never played with them as a kid, but she found herself into the fandom. And today there's a whole thing I want to do about fandoms because it really speaks to the role that social media plays with a lot of companies. Dave Young: I feel like as a kid, I would've loved them. Stephen Semple: Because there's this unbelievably rich storyline behind Transformers that is incredible. And then it's actually one that is fragmented into the Michael Bay Transformers storyline versus the historic ones, because Michael Bay is the one who made the movies. It's this crazy world when you dig into it. But, the story of Transformers is actually a story of a battle between two decent-sized companies. So it's not normally what we do, but it was so interesting, I thought we got to talk about this because it's a story about a battle between Tonka and Hasbro. Dave Young: Oh, man. Just like Wonka and the other guy. Yeah. Stephen Semple: Yeah. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. Today the Transformers franchise, I think is a $25 billion franchise between the movies and the toys. It is massive. And the story goes back to we're in July of 1983, and Tonka is struggling for a new hit. Tonka is being run by Steve Shank, and they're like $10 million in the hole, and they're known for trucks. And think back to the '80s, what's happening, video games are growing and the market is shifting away from things like playing with trucks. And Tonka did not shift with it. So they're really, really struggling. And Shank has hired a Mattel veteran, Pat Fellie. He's the guy who basically helped turn things around at Mattel with He-Man. So he was basically the really a key person with developing of He-Man. And so they need something quick. And the shortcut is to license existing toys because the development and manufacturing is done. It's quicker and cheaper to market. So they go out everywhere looking around for something to market, and they come across this toy that Knickerbocker has. Knickerbocker is going out of business, and it's this interesting toy, which is a car and a robot, but it's a cheap knockoff. The real one is being done in Japan by Bandai, which is making this thing called a Machine Robo. And so Steve Shank heads to Tokyo to get the rights. And Bandai demands, okay, well, we can make this for you, but you got to buy 800,000 units as part of the deal, and Tonka has never sold that much,

Mike Sinyard dropped out of school at 16, toured Europe on a bike and became the Specialist no one knew they needed. Dave Young: Welcome to the Empire Builders Podcast, teaching business owners the not-so-secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom and pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector and storyteller. I'm Stephen's sidekick and business partner, Dave Young. Before we get into today's episode, a word from our sponsor, which is, well, it's us, but we're highlighting ads we've written and produced for our clients. So here's one of those. [ECO Office Ad] Dave Young: Welcome to the Empire Builders Podcast. I'm Dave Young, and that's Stephen Semple. We're talking about empires and business building and all of the things. And the subject that you whispered in my ear just as we started was Specialized mountain bikes. Mountain bikes is not my area of expertise. Specialized is a brand name or are we just talking about mountain bikes in general? Stephen Semple: No, Specialized is a brand name, but they do more than mountain bikes, but where they're really known is mountain bikes. Dave Young: I kind of thought that they were a- Stephen Semple: Yeah. Dave Young: Yeah, which is first of all, Specialized is a strange name for a brand. Stephen Semple: It is. Dave Young: Like calling yourself exclusive, okay. But I'm anxious to hear more. Like when you and I were kids, mountain bikes didn't exist. It just wasn't even a thing. Stephen Semple: They did not. No, they did not exist. Dave Young: There were bikes and there were road bikes, racing bikes, or you had a bike with just the usual kind of fat tires. Stephen Semple: Yes. And even before the mountain bike came along, you had a period of time there was the BMX bike actually predates the mountain bike. Dave Young: But more for kids and early teens. Stephen Semple: Yeah, exactly. So it was founded by Mike Sinyard in mid 1974 is when he started this business. So- Dave Young: It does go back a ways. Stephen Semple: Yes. And he didn't start right away building mountain bikes. That does give you an idea where the mountain bike trend happens. And today they have like 1,300 employees, they do half a billion in sales. And he started selling parts for bicycles. And it really wasn't until the mid 1980s that they became a big force in the mountain biking space. And the interesting thing that we're going to be talking about is they made some decisions along the way that almost put them out of business. Dave Young: Okay, love that kind of thing. Stephen Semple: That's the thing that really jumped out at me on their whole story. So Mike grew up in San Diego. His dad was a machinist in the Navy. His mom cleaned houses. They didn't have a lot of money. They didn't go out to eat, they didn't do all those sort of things. They were just a very basic household. He did poorly in school. He was in school in the '60s and had ADHD and really, again, not much known about that back in those days. And so he moved out of the house, dropped out of school at age of 16, and what he would start doing is he would go to flea markets and he would buy things, then resell them. And what he figured out was live cheap. So he had lived in a house with lots of roommates, was doing this living cheap thing, going to flea markets, buying stuff, reselling it, and eventually he decides to go back to school and give school another go. And he attended San Jose State University. And one of the things that happened is remedial programs started coming out and that's what allowed him to go back to school. And he basically did remedial everything. Like every class, every class was a remedial class, gets out of school, gets a job at an airport refueling planes, and he decides to become a pilot and started in an aviation program, got his pilot's license. Which,

Levi help Jacob patent the famous rivet on the Levis jeans that make the pockets so durable. That is how Levis starts to build the empire. Dave Young: Welcome to the Empire Builders Podcast, teaching business owners the not-so-secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom and pop to major brands. Stephen Simple is a marketing consultant, story collector, and storyteller. I'm Stephen's sidekick and business partner Dave Young. Before we get into today's episode, a word from our sponsor, which is, well, it's us, but we're highlighting ads we've written and produced for our clients. So here's one of those. [OG Law Ad] Dave Young: Welcome to the Empire Builders Podcast, Dave Young, here alongside Stephen Semple. We're talking about empires, we're talking about things that people built, businesses, and you know what I mean, empires. Stephen Semple: That sort of thing. Dave Young: What don't you get about empires? Come on. Boy, the one you just whispered in my ear as the countdown started, I know a little bit about it just because it's like a classic business lesson. Right? Stephen Semple: Yeah. Dave Young: If you're going to follow the gold rush, man, don't dig for gold, sell to miners. Stephen Semple: Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. Big time. Dave Young: You said it's going to be Levi's, so I assume Levi Strauss and Company. Stephen Semple: Yep. Dave Young: This is the guy that started the little store to sell to the miners out in California. Stephen Semple: Yeah. We're going way back because Levi Strauss was founded May 1, 1853. So we're going way back. Today, it's trades on the stock exchange under L-E-V-I, Levi. They've got 3,400 company operated stores. They do like 6 billion in sales and almost 19,000 employees. It is the best selling five pocket gene out there. Dave Young: I don't even think about them as having stores for some reason. That must be outlet mall kind of things. Stephen Semple: Yeah, I think that's primarily what they are because, again, I was the same. I looked, I went 3,400 stores, boy. It's one of those ones you just don't think about it. Dave Young: Yeah. In high school, man, if you weren't wearing Levi, button-up five-pocket jeans, you weren't cool at all unless you had the Jordache back in the day designer jeans. Stephen Semple: There you go. Dave Young: You either go standard Levi's or full designer. God help if your mom bought you Lee. Stephen Semple: Yeah. Dave Young: Or some off-brand from Sears. Stephen Semple: Yep. Oh yeah. Then it was going to be a rough week at school. Dave Young: Well, take us back to 1853. Stephen Semple: The other thing that's interesting is they hold the original patent for the rivet in the jeans. They actually hold the original patent for that. Dave Young: Okay. Stephen Semple: You know the little rivet that you see in the jeans? Dave Young: Yeah. Stephen Semple: That's their original patent. Dave Young: Well, that's cool. Stephen Semple: Yeah. Now, jeans were not invented by Levi, so that's often a misconception. The company was started by Levi Strauss, and Levi was a Bavarian immigrant. He actually first had a business doing dry goods in New York City. He built that business basically selling these dry goods door-to-door. Dave Young: Okay. Stephen Semple: As you were talking about, Dave, he hears about this thing called the Gold Rush in California. The boom is amazing. I knew it was a boom, but I didn't realize this. In the two years from 1849 to 1850, the population in San Francisco grew from 1,000 people to 25,000 people in two years. Dave Young: I know the Oregon Trail, but man. Stephen Semple: That is just mind blowing. Dave Young: I think a fair number of them actually sailed around South America. Stephen Semple: When people talk about it being a boom and a rush,

Making games better and getting them into the world seems like the thing to do when your dad passes and you need money. Sounds like Monopoly. Dave Young: Welcome to The Empire Builders Podcast, teaching business owners the not-so-secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom and pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector, and storyteller. I'm Stephen's sidekick and business partner Dave Young. Before we get into today's episode, a word from our sponsor, which is, well, it's us, but we're highlighting ads we've written and produced for our clients. So here's one of those. [Tapper's Jewelry Ad] Dave Young: Welcome back to The Empire Builders Podcast. I'm Dave Young, and I'm here with Stephen Semple, who's been researching yet another empire for us to dissect and discuss. And today it's Parker Brothers, the game mogul. Were these guys on Game Row? Didn't we talk about it in another episode, the inventor of a game that was like he was over there in the part of town where all the games come from? I'm assuming. Stephen Semple: No, this kind of predates that. This sort of predates that. We're going way back. Dave Young: I mean, Parker Brothers, I know the name and I'm trying to even think of a game that's Parker Brothers. Parker Brothers. Who are these guys? Stephen Semple: We're going way back. The business was started by George Parker when he was 16 years old back in 1883. Dave Young: See, I was thinking you were going to go back farther than that. Stephen Semple: Really? Dave Young: These guys invented the stick. But 1883, that's okay. 1883 or 18... Stephen Semple: 1883. Dave Young: 1883. Okay. Stephen Semple: Yeah, so we're going back a little bit here, going back here a little bit. And one of the things that was happening around that time, because we're talking about the early stages of the Industrial Revolution, and one of the things that was being created was the eight-hour workday, which actually started to build leisure time for people. Dave Young: Because before that, the work day was waking hours. Wasn't it? It was just like... Stephen Semple: Basically. Pretty much. Yeah, pretty much. And so board games had started to come out, but most board games at that time were developed with an agenda. They were dealing with the moral decline of America is what a lot of them were. And they weren't really all that interesting or fun. And basically, George Parker was the youngest of two older brothers, and his father was a successful merchant, but had passed away and he had to find a way to make money. And what he noticed was at this time, capitalism was really changing. It was becoming actually acceptable. So for example, in 1840, there were 60 millionaires in the United States. By 1880, there were 1,000. Dave Young: Wow! Stephen Semple: Wealth was exploding, and people were actually able to imagine being wealthy. It was not just the aristocracy. There were actually regular people breaking through. And the first game he creates is a game called Banking. Dave Young: Banking. I'm pretty sure he didn't invent banking. Stephen Semple: But he invented a game game called Banking. And it's rejected by several publishers, but he spends his life savings, prints 500 copies, takes a month off school to go and sell it. He does sell all the sets for a profit of 80 bucks, but it was a lot of work, but gives him kind of a taste of success. And this is in the era of tycoons, and they were being admired. And Parker wanted to create an idea that taps into this. Dave Young: The Vanderbilts and all the... Stephen Semple: Yeah, the Carnegies and all of that stuff. And he didn't like business, so he convinced his brother Charles to join, and they formed Parker Brothers. So basically, Charles is going to manage the business, and George is going to create the games.

Sour Patch Kids were the result of paying attention to the industry and the wants and delights of the world at large. And delivering what the people wanted. Dave Young: Welcome to the Empire Builders Podcast, teaching business owners the not-so-secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom and pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector, and storyteller. I'm Stephen's sidekick and business partner, Dave Young. Before we get into today's episode, a word from our sponsor, which is, well, it's us, but we're highlighting ads we've written and produced for our clients. So, here's one of those. [Waulkie Feet Ad] Dave Young: Welcome to Empire Builders Podcast. Dave Young here, along with Stephen Semple. All Stephen told me for this episode is that he's excited about doing it because it's got a Canadian tie-in, but he didn't whisper the name of the company or anything into my ear as we counted down. Stephen Semple: I forgot to. Dave Young: Yeah. Stephen Semple: Oh, I forgot to. Dave Young: He just stood there looking at me. Stephen Semple: I'll tell you now, Sour Patch Kids. You know the candy? Dave Young: Sour Patch Kids. Oh, gosh. Are they the origin of all the little sour candies that are out now? Stephen Semple: It's always hard to say if they're the exact origin, but they were certainly one of the first ones that went big, for sure. Dave Young: And the candy was after most of my candy-eating days. So let's dive in. Stephen Semple: So you're trying to tell me you eat no candy now? None? Dave Young: Well, that's what the doctor says should be happening. But as a child, I'm just too old to devour a lot of Sour Patch Kids, I think. Tell me when this started. Stephen Semple: So the Sour Patch Kids started basically in the early 1970s, is kind of when they came out. It was a Canadian company, but the other thing is it didn't, first of all, start as Sour Patch Kids. It was actually first called Mars Men. And in 1985, they renamed it Sour Patch. Dave Young: Okay. I was adulting by then. Where did this start? Wait, Mars Men? Stephen Semple: Mars Men. Dave Young: Yeah, that's not a good name. Stephen Semple: No. So today, it's part of a big conglomerate, it's part of the Mondelēz Group, and it's estimated that there's about $248 million worth of Sour Patch Kids sold every year. So that's a lot of little kids. And it was started by a little Canadian company. There was a guy by the name of Frank Galatolie who was working at Jaret International, and he was admiring the American candy revolution, and he was the sales and marketing manager for Jaret. And what Jaret did was they were an importer of food that foreign transplants would like. So they would go out and they would find some sort of food that people from India would like and bring it in or from Poland and they would bring it in. So basically, they really specialized in this whole idea of finding foods that foreign transplants would like. Dave Young: Interesting. I like that idea. Stephen Semple: And he wanted to do a twist on gummy candy. So in 1920, Hans Riegel, in Germany, made the first gummy, and that was like a gummy bear. And they were really popular in Europe, but they weren't super popular here. And he didn't want to do a traditional sweet candy, and Halloween was really growing candy, and candy could now be found in different places, and all of this other stuff going on. And he also started to notice that there was an emergence of a different type of candy, like the Atomic Fireball came out and sour Lemonheads came out. So he was noticing that there was this desire for stuff that was not just sweet, and they were really the first to do this whole idea of sour and sweet. So they combined two acids, so it would be super sour and that super sour would drop off and then would come back as being sweet.

1000 fishing flies and an ad that failed turned a furniture store family into a sporting goods store empire. Way to go Cabela's. Dave Young: Welcome to the Empire Builders Podcast, teaching business owners the not-so-secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom and pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector, and storyteller. I'm Stephen's sidekick and business partner, Dave Young. Before we get into today's episode, a word from our sponsor, which is, well, it's us, but we're highlighting ads we've written and produced for our clients. So, here's one of those. [No Bull RV Ad] Stephen Semple: Hey, David, we're going to do something different here. Dave Young: Okay. I'm all ears. Stephen Semple: Because you have a special history with this company. So we're going to talk about Cabela's. Dave Young: Okay. Okay. Stephen Semple: Because of the fact that Cabela's started in your little town in Nebraska. Dave Young: Kind of. Kind of. Stephen Semple: Kind of. Dave Young: Yeah. Stephen Semple: So we're going to do this completely unrehearsed, Dave running with things, and I'll fill in certain- Dave Young: You're going to Google dates and names in the background? Stephen Semple: Yeah, that's what we're going to do. So let's give that a roll. Cabela's is an interesting story. Dave Young: It really is, and it still is a brand, right? It's still around, but it's owned by the Bass Pro Shop guy, Johnny, whatever his name is. I didn't get to know him because that's a Missouri thing. So Sidney, Nebraska- Stephen Semple: We don't like talking about those people. Dave Young: Well, he came in and bought it up and saved the company. That's part of the story. But Sidney, Nebraska was the home of Cabela's, the family and the corporate headquarters for years and years. It started, though, in a town about 30 miles away, a town of Chappell, Nebraska. Stephen Semple: Right. Yes. Dave Young: 1962. Stephen Semple: Well actually, you're really good. According to what I have here is December, 1961, but 1962 is a month later. Dave Young: Yeah. '62 is what was always on their logo. Stephen Semple: Okay, cool. Cool. Dave Young: And the shirts you could buy, like Cabela's EST 1962, but yeah, December '61. So Chappell, Nebraska, their dad is in the furniture business, and- Stephen Semple: I didn't realize he was in the furniture business. Okay, cool. Dave Young: Yeah, and the story. As I recall, is that two of the sons, Dick and Jim, well, at least it was Dick that went to the furniture show with dad in Chicago, where you see all the furniture that you're going to buy for your store and you make deals with the manufacturers and all that stuff arrives then over the course of the next year. Well, he found a company that he bought like a thousand Chinese-made fishing flies. Stephen Semple: Yeah. Dave Young: Little flies for fly fishing. Stephen Semple: Right. And what I have here is it cost him like 45 bucks. Dave Young: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Dirt cheap. Didn't know what he was going to do with them, but he bought a thousand of them and brought them home. Takes out a little ad in a Wyoming hunters' newspaper or newsletter. All right? And he- Stephen Semple: Sports Afield is the name of the- Dave Young: Sports Afield, and the ad, if... So yeah, gosh, now I feel like I'm doing this story and Stephen's fact checking me, live. So this is, I think, from an ad writing perspective and a business making an offer, this is actually the pivotal moment in the genesis of the Cabela's story is that they ran this ad in Sports Afield and nothing happened. Stephen Semple: Right. I think they got one response or something like that? Dave Young: Yeah, but it was the offer. The offer was buy, I think it was 12 hand-tied fishing flies for a dollar,

Because of the Happy Meal McDonalds is the world's largest toy distributor. Larger than Hasbro or Mattel. This is an Empire! Dave Young: Welcome to The Empire Builders Podcast, teaching business owners the not-so-secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom and pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector, and storyteller. I'm Stephen's sidekick and business partner, Dave Young. Before we get into today's episode, a word from our sponsor, which is... Well, it's us, but we're highlighting ads we've written and produced for our clients. So here's one of those. [Out Of This World Plumbing Ad] Dave Young: Welcome back to The Empire Builders Podcast. Dave Young here, along with Stephen Semple, and I was ranting and raving about a new book I'm fascinated with and crazed about. And Stephen hit the record button and decided we were going to talk about Happy Meals instead of that. So here we are. Happy Meals, huh? Stephen Semple: Happy Meals, yeah. Dave Young: The McDonald Happy Meal. The precursor to the Playland. I've always enjoyed going through the McDonald's drive-through and ordering a happy meal, whether I had a kid in the car or not. Stephen Semple: I could see you doing that. Dave Young: And then sometimes they look and go, "Well, where's the kid?" I'm like, "Hey, mind your own business about the kid." Stephen Semple: They're in the trunk. Dave Young: There's a kid somewhere. Give me my damn toy. Stephen Semple: I was going to ask, what's your favorite part? Is it the toy? Dave Young: Absolutely. You can get a nugget, a few of them. Stephen Semple: Well, here's the crazy thing is it is the most sold meal in history. There's been like 35 billion happy meals sold. Dave Young: Is it, really? That's a lot of happy. Stephen Semple: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Dave Young: Sure. Stephen Semple: And it actually makes McDonald's one of the largest toy distributors in the world. They've given away billions of toys. Dave Young: Oh, sure they did. Stephen Semple: More toys than Hasbro or Mattel. Dave Young: And just controversy like when they were giving away Beanie Baby toys. Good Lord, people were losing their minds. Stephen Semple: Yeah. Yeah. Dave Young: I'm trying to think of who this is. It might be our mutual friend, Gordon. Somebody in our circle tells a story about their dad driving the family through McDonald's when they were kids and everybody getting really excited because like, "I'm going to get a Happy Meal." And their dad orders one cup of coffee and just keeps going. I'm like, "Oh, man, that would suck." Stephen Semple: That would be a very unhappy car. Dave Young: So when did the Happy Meal start? Stephen Semple: There's a bit of a debate about who actually created the Happy Meal. So we're going to explore a couple of the different stories, but it was basically 1974. Dave Young: Okay. Yeah. Stephen Semple: One of the stories is it was created in Guatemala by Dona Yoly and her husband who opened the first franchise in that country. Dave Young: Wow. Stephen Semple: And Dona wanted her restaurant to feel like a family restaurant. Look, she understood things had to be done the McDonald's way- Dave Young: Sure. Stephen Semple: ... to the corporate standards because McDonald's even has a Hamburger University- Dave Young: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Stephen Semple: ... which was a brainchild of Fred Turner, and it's a training program for franchisees. We could even do a thing on Hamburger University because it was the first of its type. It was the first training program of its type for franchisees. So there's always this thing that McDonald's is trying to set where there's this goal of a consistent experience, but they also want to give franchisees some freedom because what they have found is that franchisees oft...

When a family friend is diagnosed with skin cancer, Holly Thaggard polls a bunch a skin care chemists and comes up with the Unseen Sunscreen. Dave Young: Welcome to The Empire Builders Podcast, teaching business owners the not-so-secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom and pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector, and storyteller. I'm Stephen's sidekick in business partner Dave Young. Before we get into today's episode, a word from our sponsor, which is, well, it's us, but we're highlighting ads we've written and produced for our clients, so here's one of those. [No Bull RV Ad] Dave Young: Welcome back to The Empire Builders Podcast. Dave Young here with Stephen Semple, and we're talking about empires. And so Stephen said we're going to revisit one. And I think really, Stephen, what you're doing is just testing my ability to remember shit. Supergoop is what you told me, that it rings a bell, but help me out here. Stephen Semple: This is a rerecording because we did one recording, which didn't work out so well, and here I am in a hotel and you immediately informed me, "Boy, the microphone doesn't sound so good, so we might be recording it again in the future." Dave Young: It'll be Supergoop part three. Oh, dear. On the plus side, the listener doesn't remember this episode because it was never released. Stephen Semple: No, that's true. Dave Young: Okay, good. Stephen Semple: That's true because we had some real recording issues that we could not recover from. Dave Young: All right, we get another mulligan on Supergoop. Stephen Semple: Supergoop, for those who don't know, is a sunscreen and- Dave Young: Oh, that makes sense. Stephen Semple: ... basically- Dave Young: Now it sort of rings a bell. I think probably. Stephen Semple: It sort of rings a bell, does it? And in 2022, Supergoop did $250 million in sales, so that's- Dave Young: That's a lot of goop. Stephen Semple: That's a lot of goop. It was started in 2007 by Holly Thaggard who's from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. And she has no background in cosmetics or sunscreens or any of those things, so again, another one of these empires that came from somebody completely from outside the industry. Dave Young: She wasn't a Nickelodeon child star or anything like that? Stephen Semple: No, she was none of those things. Dave Young: I'm looking for something goop related. Stephen Semple: Well, that'll come. That'll come. Dave Young: Okay. Stephen Semple: She started in 2007, and the inspiration started in 2005 when she had a close family friend who was diagnosed with skin cancer. And what she found out was that basically 70% of people don't wear sunscreen regularly, and you really need to be wearing it, it's not just about the beach, you really need to be wearing it all the time. And this whole issue with this skin cancer diagnosis sent her down this path of doing a lot of research. She had an entrepreneurial bent. Both of her parents were entrepreneurs, and she started a business when she was in high school. Dave Young: Oh, wow. Stephen Semple: She played the harp. Dave Young: That was a bigger reminder to me than the goop. Stephen Semple: She started Holly the Harp in high school, and she would go on weekends to country clubs and things along this lines, and she charged $100 an hour because there was no competition. Here she's this kid in high school charging a hundred bucks an hour going around playing the harp. Dave Young: Cool. Stephen Semple: Now, at one point she went into teaching and there was a bunch of things that fell apart on that. And there's a certain point where her brother moves to the Dallas area and she's helping her brother move. And she looks around and she's like, wow, this is a pretty swanky neighborhood and there's all these country clubs around,...

From writing a regular article in Radio Ink magazine to a weekly outbound memo to free clinics, Roy H. Williams created a marketing school like no other. Dave Young: Welcome to the Empire Builders Podcast, teaching business owners the not-so-secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom and pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector and storyteller. I'm Stephen's sidekick in business partner Dave Young. Before we get into today's episode, a word from our sponsor, which is, well, it's us, but we're highlighting ads we've written and produced for our clients. So here's one of those. [Travis Crawford Ad] Dave Young: Welcome back to the Empire Builders Podcast, Dave Young here alongside Stephen Semple. And Stephen has just told me what the topic for today's episode is and well, I have some thoughts. Stephen Semple: I sure hope so. Dave Young: So we're going to talk about Wizard Academy, we've mentioned it quite a few times on the podcast and I don't know that it falls into the pantheon of super empire type brands, but the things that Wizard Academy teaches have definitely helped some businesses achieve at least some local empire status in the growth of their business. Well, thank you for making this one of the topics. Stephen Semple: Yeah, and part of the reason why I wanted as one of the topics is first of all, we've referred to it a lot and so we might as well let people know what the heck this thing is that we refer to you work there, I'm a major donor there, taught there a few times, been a student there a lot of times. And the thing I find incredible is, look, it's not a big school. When you go to do a class, it's not a hundred people, it's small classes it's like 18 people. But when I was there last, when I taught the course there with Matthew Burns and Gary Bernier, we had people from the Czech Republic, we had somebody from Australia. I've been there where there's been people from Central America and South America. When you go and there's people that are from around the world coming to this little place, it fits it to a degree because it tells us how special this place is. So let's talk a little bit about the specialness of it and the origin of it. Dave Young: I love it. Yeah. So origin-wise, man, I'll go back to my origin and my first exposure to Roy Williams who founded Wizard Academy. I was managing my family's small market radio stations in Nebraska starting in the mid eighties and in the radio broadcasting world, there are national groups like the National Association of Broadcasters, the Radio Advertising Bureau, and there's only ever been a handful of privately held industry publications that focused entirely on the radio broadcast industry. One of those is a magazine called Radio Ink, and it's not INC like incorporated it's Radio Ink as in printers ink, I-N-K. And started by a guy named Eric Rhoades, and I'm not sure how he and Roy first met, and by the way, Roy's got a hilarious story about Eric Rhoades dad speaking of empire building. We'll save that for another time. But Roy started writing a column for Radio Ink in the nineties, and the column was just, Hey, here's some things that you ought to consider when you're writing ads for businesses and you're in the radio business, or here are some tips for radio salespeople to sell more long form kind of schedules. And so I'd been reading those, you'd go to the post office once a month and there'd be the Radio Ink in the mail and it was always exciting because it was great writing, it was one of the few pieces of industry focused Journalism that was really engaging if you were in the radio business and Roy's column was always the first thing I looked at. And at some point he started doing the Monday morning memo and I think promoted it in the Radio Ink article. Hey, if you want, subscribe to The Monday Morning Memo send us a fax at this number.

A feeling of authenticity is what really brought 007 to life and the Broccoli family brought it to the screen. Dave Young: Welcome to the Empire Builders Podcast, teaching business owners the not-so-secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom-and-pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector, and storyteller. I'm Stephen's sidekick and business partner Dave Young. Before we get into today's episode, a word from our sponsor, which is, well, it's us. But we're highlighting ads we've written and produced for our clients, so here's one of those. [No Bull RV Ad] Dave Young: Welcome back to the Empire Builders Podcast. Dave Young with you, alongside Stephen Semple. We're talking about famous brands. This is, I guess it's a brand, sure. It's Bond, James Bond we're going to talk about. Stephen Semple: Yes. Dave Young: It's not a consumer product. Stephen Semple: Well- Dave Young: It's one of those things where there's a story and it fits the zeitgeist of marketing in the popular, I don't even know what I'm trying ... Save me, Stephen. What am I trying to say? Stephen Semple: Well, I look at it this way. How is it not a brand? Dave Young: Oh, it's a brand. Stephen Semple: The moment I say Bond. Dave Young: Yeah. Stephen Semple: Shaken not stirred. Dave Young: Sure. Stephen Semple: We all know who it is. Dave Young: Evil geniuses. Stephen Semple: The first movie came out in 1962. Dave Young: Yeah. Stephen Semple: And has generated billions and billions of dollars, both in a Hollywood, and spinoffs, and product placements. We all know about Aston Martin DB-whatevers because of Bond. Dave Young: Sure. Stephen Semple: To me, how is this not a brand? Dave Young: It's definitely a brand. I guess I'm thinking that most of what we've done have been consumer-facing products. Stephen Semple: Correct. Dave Young: Bond definitely is, in that selling seats to movies. Stephen Semple: Yeah. Dave Young: For sure, that's consumer-focused. I'm with you. I'm all for talking about Bond. Stephen Semple: Yeah. Dave Young: We just have to think differently, which I think like an evil genius. Stephen Semple: Well, the other part is it was the world's first blockbuster franchise. It's estimated that it's done seven billion in revenues. Dave Young: Yeah. Stephen Semple: Big, big, big, big, big, big bucks. Dave Young: We're always wondering, even when there's no Bond movie out, we're wondering who's the next Bond going to be? Stephen Semple: Who's the next Bond? Dave Young: Yeah. Stephen Semple: Who's the next Bond? Which is the controversy right now today. Dave Young: Sure. Stephen Semple: That we're going to come back and talk a little bit about. One of the funniest things though, when I was researching this, one of the funniest things is how Ian Fleming ... Ian Fleming created the Bond character and wrote the James Bond books, of which, what is it, the original dozen movies or so were all based upon the books. But here's the interesting thing, how he came up with the name James Bond. He's sitting writing, and he looks up at this book, The Birds of the West Indies because he's living in Jamaica, and it's written by James Bond. He goes, "That's a really cool name. That's what I'm going to name my spy." Dave Young: I like that, yeah. People that have single-syllable names always roll off the tongue. Stephen Semple: Yeah. I'm not going to go into a lot of the history. We're going to talk about it a little bit. I want to talk about something different, and it's going to seem weird. Because part of the reason why I believe James Bond, the Bond franchise and the Bond movies, have become so big and so successful is there's actually a degree of authenticity in all of them.

Japan's digital watches massively disrupted the Swiss watch market. So, an entry level fashion watch is created to save the day. Swatch! Dave Young: Welcome to the Empire Builders Podcast, teaching business owners the not-so-secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom-and-pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector, and storyteller. I'm Stephen's sidekick and business partner, Dave Young. Before we get into today's episode, a word from our sponsor, which is, well, it's us. But we're highlighting ads we've written and produced for our clients, so here's one of those. [Waukee Feet Ad] Dave Young: Welcome back to the Empire Realtors podcast. Dave Young here alongside Stephen Semple. And as usual, Stephen has whispered the topic into my ear as the five-second countdown commenced. So, I have three seconds to come up with my initial reaction to the brand is that we're going to discuss. And my recollection for this one is ... Let me tell you what it is first. It's Swatch. Remember the watches? And my recollection of it is they were just too damn cool for me. Stephen Semple: I mean, you're not a fashionista, Dave? Dave Young: I never have been. But here's the thing. I think by the time ... you'll have to fill in the dates here, but I think by the time I got out of college and was making my way in small market radio, the point of having fashionable timepieces on your wrist, which is ... was like, "That's just too cool for me. No." I recognize it as a cool idea that was going to make somebody a gazillion dollars. Stephen Semple: Yeah. Dave Young: But it wasn't going to be my dollars that got it done. Stephen Semple: Well, you're somewhat accurate, and somewhat aren't because I believe that we are around the same age. I might be a tick older, but it was fall of 82 when Swatch was launched, but they became really big, late eighties, early nineties. Dave Young: So, yeah, I graduated college in 84, and so, yeah, by the late eighties ... and remember, I was in Western Nebraska. Stephen Semple: And there was no Amazon. Dave Young: Dude, Gone With the Wind has just now arrived at theaters in Western Nebraska. When you think about the good old days, they haven't even hit Western Nebraska yet. They're still waiting. So, go ahead. Stephen Semple: As I got looking at Swatch, here's the thing that's really remarkable about Swatch is how much they changed the watch industry. It is an idea that was remarkable because not only did it change the watch industry, it saved the Swiss watch industry. Dave Young: Oh, I believe it. Yeah. Stephen Semple: The change that came about was incredible. If we go back pre-Swatch, the idea of a watch is it was a single purchase item. Dave Young: There's a time ... yeah. Stephen Semple: People own one wristwatch. Dave Young: Yeah, and you decided, do you want a leather watch band or one of those metal expandy ones? Stephen Semple: Yeah. Dave Young: Which watch guy are you? Stephen Semple: Right. And Rolex, for example, was not even a high-end luxury product at that time. It was an expensive watch, but it was not a luxury watch. It was not an aspirational one. And it's really interesting. Even if you take a look at Rolex's advertisements from the seventies versus the ones 2000 and on, they're a very, very different feel. One was it's rugged, and you can use it, and they aligned with certain sports such as diving and things along that lines. You look at how it's positioned today, and it's a fashion statement. Dave Young: Yeah, I see that. Stephen Semple: It's very, very different. In 10 years following the launch of Swatch, they became the largest watch brand on the planet. Dave Young: Well, I'm sure we're going to hear about tons of imitators. And they hit right in that slice of time. There's a couple of decades,

How Steve Glue made 4 Million giving the people what they wanted by beating the system; and how Pez ran him out of the business. Dave Young: Welcome to the Empire Builders Podcast, teaching business owners the not-so-secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom and pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector and storyteller. I'm Stephen's sidekick and business partner Dave Young. Before we get into today's episode, a word from our sponsor, which is... Well, it's us, but we're highlighting ads we've written and produced for our clients. So here's one of those. [ASAP Commercial Doors Ad] Dave Young: Welcome back to the Empire Builders Podcast, Dave Young here with Stephen Semple and part two of the PEZ story. We're going to talk about the PEZ collectibles, the whole frenzy. Stephen, I'm going to turn it over to you because I'm fascinated with this. I did just 30 seconds worth of Googling, and yeah, there are PEZ dispensers that are worth bucks out there. Stephen Semple: And the whole collectibles and the PEZ story is crazy. And as we know, the '90s is when this whole idea of collectibles just took off. You had Swatch watches come onto the market, and in fact, stay tuned, we're going to do an episode on Swatch. Swatch is probably going to end up becoming one of my favorite all time stories. So Swatch is going to be coming up. Because as I was going down this whole collectibles thing, it opens other doors. But you had Beanie Babies and you had Pokemon, and of course, PEZ. And PEZ is so popular that it ended up being on the cover of the Forbes magazine edition on collectibles. And people who collect PEZ dispensers call themselves PEZ heads. And one of the biggest people in the space is a guy whose name is Stephen Glew, who's also known as the PEZ Outlaw. Dave Young: The Pez Outlaw. Stephen Semple: The PEZ Outlaw. You're immediately intrigued, aren't you? Dave Young: Oh, sure. Stephen Semple: And Steve Glew is a machine operator from Michigan, and he started doing collectibles as a side hustle. And he started by collecting cereal boxes. So he would go to the local recycling plant and clip the coupons and ask for the toy to send them, things like those secret decoder rings. Have you ever noticed that there's a disclaimer now on those things that says only one per customer Dave Young: Because of him? Stephen Semple: It's because of him. Because at a certain point, Kellogg's notices that they're sending tons of toys to this one address- Dave Young: To one guy. Stephen Semple: ... in rural Michigan, to this one guy. He's basically getting these things and then going to trade shows and selling them. Dave Young: Nice. That's smart. Stephen Semple: That's smart, hey. Dave Young: Yeah. Stephen Semple: It's funny, I bought a book a little while ago that is somebody had put together a book of all of the ads and the products that we saw in comics. Dave Young: Oh, sure. Stephen Semple: And in fact, the reason why I had got the book is when I did my comic, I was looking for ideas for fun, made-up placement. Dave Young: My dad had a story about when he was a kid, he sent off for something and it was a model airplane, a Balsa model airplane, send a dollar or whatever. I think this had to be a joke. Basically, he got back a big block of balsa wood and a knife. There you go. Stephen Semple: There you go, that's awesome. Yeah. Dave Young: Yeah, so Steve Glew. Stephen Semple: So we thank Steve Glew for the origin of the disclaimer of one per customer. So Steve's got a problem. He needs to find new things to sell because this side hustle is about to disappear because he's no longer able to scavenge these boxes and send in and get all these toys to sell. He's clearing out the last of his inventory and he notices a nearby vendor selling Pez dispensers.

What do you do when you think cigarette smoke is disgusting and you are a bit of a germaphobe? Create a collectable candy empire, of course. Dave Young: Welcome to the Empire Builders Podcast, teaching business owners the not-so-secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom and pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector, and storyteller. I'm Stephen's sidekick and business partner, Dave Young. Before we get into today's episode, a word from our sponsor, which is, well, it's us, but we're highlighting ads we've written and produced for our clients. So here's one of those. [Waukee Feet Ad] Dave Young: Welcome back to the Empire Builders Podcast. And I'm Dave Young, alongside Stephen Semple, where we're talking about empires. And Stephen whispered the subject of today's episode into my ear, and immediately, immediately my thoughts went not to my childhood as usually happens. Stephen Semple: Well, this is a variation. Can I guess where your brain went? Dave Young: Go ahead. Stephen Semple: Seinfeld? Dave Young: No, not even se Seinfeld. Stephen Semple: Okay. All right. Dave Young: I think it's on Apple, the current, maybe it's not on Apple. Maybe it's Prime. I'm not sure. But it's a current series, sci-fi series going on called Silo. Stephen Semple: Oh, yes, yes. I've started watching it. Yes. Dave Young: And they have these artifacts and somebody has a Pez dispenser, this Silo, futuristic, that mankind's been living in these silos for 350 years. They can't come out, but there's some people have these trinkets from the past and there's a Pez dispenser amongst them. Stephen Semple: That's right. Dave Young: They have no idea what it is. Stephen Semple: Right, yeah. And then there's that famous Seinfeld episode with the Pez dispenser in it as well. That was super popular one, where Jerry basically is being pain in the neck with this Pez dispenser. Yeah, but they're huge. They sell about 75 million Pez dispensers a year, still, across 80 countries, as well as five billion individual Pez candies. There's like 900 employees working for Pez. Dave Young: Wow. Okay. And the candy's nothing special, other than it's all uniform, like little bricks. It's almost like eating a Lego and almost as flavorful. Stephen Semple: Yeah, there you go. Well, I can't comment, because I've never eaten a Lego, but... Dave Young: Well, you didn't have my childhood, Stephen. Stephen Semple: So, the Pez company starts in 1927. I didn't realize how old it was. And it was started by Edward Haas III, and he lived in Vienna, and he couldn't stand the smell of smoke. And he's running this family, this successful family business, making a special kind of baking powder that was invented by his grandfather. So he was already a business person making this baking powder. And Edwin took the business in a new direction when he created the world's first ready mix cake mixture during World War I. Dave Young: Oh, wow. Okay. Stephen Semple: Yeah. And so, by the late 1920s, they have a number of factories in Europe, and at this time, smoking booms with the invention of the rolling machine, the automated rolling machine, which suddenly makes cigarettes cheap and plentiful. And if you want to learn more about this trend, go back to episode 85 for American tobacco. So first, Dave, can you believe that was like a year and a half ago that we recorded that? Dave Young: No kidding, yeah, the automatic rolling machines. Stephen Semple: Yeah. So there's a whole episode really on that. Go back and check it out. It's actually quite a fascinating story. Dave Young: But this guy, he doesn't like smoke. Stephen Semple: He does not like it. And one of the other things that happened is during World War I, soldiers are provided cigarettes as rations. And it's really interesting.

The Jacuzzi Seven were obsessed with flight and engineered better propellers. What is the difference between propellers of air or water??? Dave Young: Welcome to the Empire Builders Podcast, teaching business owners the not-so-secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom and pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector, and storyteller. I'm Stephen's sidekick and business partner, Dave Young. Before we get into today's episode, a word from our sponsor, which is, well, it's us. But we're highlighting ads we've written and produced for our clients, so here's one of those. [Tapper's Jewelry Ad] Dave Young: Welcome back to the Empire Builders Podcast, Dave Young here, alongside Stephen Semple, discussing empires, entrepreneurial empires that started from just somebody's crazy idea and became something huge. And today, Jacuzzi. Stephen Semple: Jacuzzi. Dave Young: We're not talking about a hot tub, we're talking about a Jacuzzi. Stephen Semple: Correct. Dave Young: Which, sort of became the generic name for hot tubs, but I'm fascinated to hear the story. I'm guessing we're headed to the 70s, baby. Is that ring true or no? Stephen Semple: The business was founded in 1915. Dave Young: All right, so we're not headed to the 70s, but we'll still be around. Was it founded as Jacuzzi? Stephen Semple: Well, here's the interesting thing, here's the really fun part. Dave Young: Oh wait. Stephen Semple: Guess what their first business was? Dave Young: Wait, I'm thinking. These might be like therapeutic Whirlpool things too, no? I don't know. I'm getting ahead, I don't know what their first business was. Stephen Semple: Their first business was in the airplane business. Dave Young: Okay. The 1915 three engine Jacuzzi. No, I don't know. Stephen Semple: No, they started by making props for airplanes, that was their first business. Dave Young: Really? Stephen Semple: Yes. How crazy is that? Dave Young: That's nuts. Okay. Stephen Semple: Isn't that nuts? Yeah. So, they were founded in 1915 in Berkeley, California by seven siblings, there were seven kids in the Jacuzzi family. Dave Young: Holy. Stephen Semple: And they were- Dave Young: Was Jacuzzi their name? Stephen Semple: Well, actually, it was Iacuzzi, and when they immigrated, the classic. Dave Young: Yeah. Stephen Semple: Yeah, the classic mistake of being written down wrong, and that's the new spelling is what stuck. They were immigrants from Casarsa della Delizia in Italy, and I'm sure I'm completely butchering that. Dave Young: Yeah, just say Italy. Stephen Semple: Yeah. And as said, the original family name was Iacuzzi. Dave Young: Okay. Stephen Semple: And it became Jacuzzi, and of course, it defined the hot tub business, which today is a $6 billion global market. Dave Young: But airplane propellers. Stephen Semple: Airplane propellers. Dave Young: Seven siblings had the bright idea of making airplane propellers. Stephen Semple: Yeah. Dave Young: But this is shortly after Orville and Wilbur- Stephen Semple: Oh yeah. This is- Dave Young: Had invented airplane propellers. Stephen Semple: Well, this is the day of biplanes, right? So, it's 1915, and Rachele Jacuzzi, who's the youngest of the seven, is visiting the San Francisco Fair, and he sees biplanes. And one of the sons is working as an engineer for the founder of McDonnell Douglas, and they're obsessed with flight, and they see these stunt plane props, and they look at them and go, these are really inefficient. So, they invented propeller that is curved and smaller and more efficient, and it's called the toothpick propeller. Got these little tiny blades. And they open up a machine shop to start making these propellers,

What happens when you are in the polarization film business and your daughter asks why she can't see the picture right away? You invent Polaroid. Dave Young: Welcome to the Empire Builders Podcast, teaching business owners the not-so-secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom and pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector, and storyteller. I'm Stephen's sidekick and business partner, Dave Young. Before we get into today's episode, a word from our sponsor, which is, well, it's us. But we're highlighting ads we've written and produced for our clients. So here's one of those. [No Bull RV Ad] Dave Young: Welcome back to the Empire Builders Podcast, Dave Young here alongside Stephen Semple. And today's topic, man, you keep picking topics that take me back to my childhood, Stephen. And for this one, it's the camera my dad had. It's the Polaroid. Stephen Semple: Is that right? Your dad had one? Dave Young: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And it was a great camera. He used to let me take pictures. And he'd set the timer and I'd peel the backing off. These were the old kind, not the SX-70, modern day seventies. Stephen Semple: You were old school. You had the little backing you had to peel off. Right? Dave Young: Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Stephen Semple: Awesome. Dave Young: And he had extra doodads and things like a little timer that would snap onto the button so we could do a family pic. Stephen Semple: Oh, is that right? Dave Young: Oh, yeah. Stephen Semple: Wow. Dave Young: All the fun stuff. Stephen Semple: Well, when I got talking about this with my oldest daughter, Crystal, what I was surprised to learn, and I learned this when I said to her I was going to do this and then discovered more about it. Polaroid is still around. She is a camp counselor in the summertime. Little kids show up at camp with a Polaroid camera. And it's still the point it and comes out, and you've got to wait for a minute for it to it develop. But yeah, it's still a thing. Dave Young: And honestly, the nice part is the algorithm doesn't get ahold of that image. Stephen Semple: That's true. That's true Dave Young: Big data doesn't have a picture of your kid If you use a Polaroid. Stephen Semple: Well, that's maybe why they're giving these little kids to do that. It's estimated that they do around $770 million in business. Dave Young: Wow. Wow. Stephen Semple: So it's not insignificant. Yeah. Yeah. Dave Young: I'd say that's not insignificant, I think. Stephen Semple: Yeah. But as we know, it was revolutionary at the time, this whole instant picture. And at their peak, which was 1991, they were doing about $3 billion in business. Dave Young: Yeah. Stephen Semple: So that's- Dave Young: Man, I would've thought their peak was way earlier than that for some reason. Stephen Semple: Yeah, that was the peak, '91. Yeah. Dave Young: Just before digital kind of came in. Stephen Semple: And kind of messed with a bunch of things. Yeah. The company was founded by Edwin Land and George Wheelwright in 1937 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. But didn't start off as a camera company. Edwin Land was in Harvard, and he dropped out of Harvard to pursue business. But what he had invented was the coating that polarizes lenses. Dave Young: Oh, okay. Stephen Semple: So hence the name Polaroid. Dave Young: Polaroid. Yeah. Stephen Semple: Yeah. And I've always wondered about that. Why Polaroid? And it came from that. And the business became huge in 1941 when the US entered World War II, because it was being used for flight goggles. It was massive. Sales went from $760,000 pre-war to like $16 million in 1943. Dave Young: Wow. Stephen Semple: Selling this polarizing technology. But 90% of the contracts were military. There was no Sunglass Hut yet. Right?

Stephen has been studying and learning how to use and explain trust for Organizations. Let's just say, you need to get vulnerable for this one. Dave Young: Welcome to the Empire Builders Podcast, teaching business owners the not-so-secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom and pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector, and storyteller. I'm Stephen's sidekick and business partner, Dave Young. Before we get into today's episode, a word from our sponsor, which is, well, it's us, but we're highlighting ads we've written and produced for our clients, so here's one of those. [Out Of This World Plumbing Ad] Dave Young: Welcome back to the Empire Builders Podcast, Dave Young, alongside Stephen Semple, and Stephen, you're supposed to whisper- Stephen Semple: We're going off the reservation, I know. Yes. Dave Young: You were supposed to whisper in my ear today's business that we're going to discuss, and you just mentioned trust, and I'm thinking, this is not like a bank and trust. This is not like a trust fund. Stephen Semple: In God, we trust, money. Dave Young: No, not that. Basically, this is like trust. This is like consumer trust, people trusting each other, people trusting businesses, people trusting, I don't know, government. Are we living in a post-trust age? Is that the question? Stephen Semple: Well, Gallup and other organizations that measure basically people's trust in institutions and organizations and businesses and things like that across the board all agree, it's at an all-time low. Across the board, our trust in organizations, businesses, other people, things like that has declined to a level not seen before. And what's disturbing on this is if you're coming up with an innovative idea, if you're wanting to create a movement, if you're wanting to get support from something, if you're wanting to sell a product or service, everyone agreed. I had the opportunity to run lots of workshops and speak at lots of places, and I'll ask people, is trust important to what you do? Everyone agrees, trust is super important. Dave Young: Sure. Stephen Semple: We all agree on that. Studies show trust is way down. So we all agree it's really important, all the studies show its way down, so it got me to thinking and really studying, how do we establish and build trust as organizations? And what I found was there's actually three levels of trust, and one of the things we're going to dive into here in a little bit, the highest level is this concept of parasocial relationships, which we'll dig into. But I just thought, if you're wanting to build something big and large and grand, there's a point where what you've got to recognize is you've got to get people to trust this new idea that you're doing. So when I get talking to folks about trust, I'll often ask, "What are the things that you do to build trust?" And we did this in the workshop that I did with Matthew Burns and Gary Bernier. Dave Young: Selling professional services. Stephen Semple: On the selling professional services, one of the questions was that, and people talked about how, well, you do what you say you're going to do and be on time and be polite and be transparent and all those things build trust, and it's true, but those are like level one trust things. They will form a basic level of trust. And the other challenge with it is, for the most part, they were things that you had to have an interaction with the client or the prospective client in order to even establish that. Dave Young: Man, this is a Gordian knot. [inaudible 00:04:46] This is a tough nut you want to crack. Stephen Semple: Yeah. Dave Young: I think of a lot of things. When do you want to dive into the parasocial effect? It happens to me, oh, I don't know, three, four times a month. Somebody will show up at Wizard Academy at a class and they'll go, "Wow,

Sergei Kaminskiy stated his empire by taking jobs that he didn't know how to do and then hiring a professional to learn from. Wow. Dave Young:  Welcome to the Empire Builders Podcast, teaching business owners the not-so-secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom and pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector and storyteller. I'm Stephen's sidekick and business partner, Dave Young. Before we get into today's episode, a word from our sponsor, which is, well, it's us. But we're highlighting ads we've written and produced for our clients so here's one of those.  [Tapper's Jewelry Ad] Stephen Semple:  Hey, it's Stephen Semple here, and yes, it's unusual, I'm opening the episode. We've given Dave Young the week off because he's been working really hard lately. And I managed to meet Sergei Kaminskiy. We had a bit of a brief conversation and I was immediately, "Dude, I got to get you onto the podcast." There were so many things we talked about that were just really, really great lessons and he's in the home services business. We're going to be talking about handyman, but this is applicable to all sorts of different businesses. But the first thing that fascinated me was really how you got started in the handyman business before creating the franchise model. Tell me about the start, that was just a cool story.  Sergei Kaminskiy:  Yeah, I got married. I was really young, I was just 19 years old.  Stephen Semple:  Right there tells us you're a little nuts, but...  Sergei Kaminskiy:  I look at 19 year olds now and I'm like, "You're not ready to get married." But anyhow, we got married and then about three months into it, we look at the bank account, there's about $70 in the bank account. And here I am, I'm working as a framing contractor, I mean as a framer for a framing contractor and making $17 an hour. I went to the owner of the business and I said, "Hey, Jim, can I get a raise? I bought a truck, I bought the tools." And he goes, "Sergei, you are already making pretty much at the top of what framers make." And he was right, they were already compensating me fairly, but yet, it was not enough for us to make ends meet. My wife brought in a nice BMW into the marriage that we had to make payments on, and by the time we did all the things we had to do, we were running out of money.  So I told my wife, I said, "Listen, what I do know is that I can do a business on a small scale. I can do some handyman work, I can take on some side jobs." Going to my parents and asking them for money was not an option. I said, "I have to figure out a way to make this thing work." And so literally it was raining outside that day, and we went to the club room of our apartment complex. There was a little room with a computer and a printer. We didn't even have a computer or a printer in our apartment, so we started our business with no computer, no printer, nothing. Literally went to the complex and printed out 25 flyers. I designed them on Microsoft Word and I had little palm trees around the piece of paper, and it says San Diego County.  Stephen Semple:  I bet you wish now that you had some old copies of those.  Sergei Kaminskiy:  I have a photo actually.  Stephen Semple:  Do you really?  Sergei Kaminskiy:  Yes.  Stephen Semple:  Oh my God, you've got to send that to me. You have to send that to me.  Sergei Kaminskiy:  It's amazing, so literally printed out these flyers. It's raining outside, we wrapped them real nice with the bow. And I'm running door to door as Elena's driving in the rain, and she's kind of following me as I'm running door to door. I pass out about 25 flyers and I'm like, "Oh, great, we passed out some flyers. Let's wait for the phone to ring." And sure enough, one guy called me. One guy called me and he said, "I need some service done on one of the rental units that I own.

You know you have a great idea when you start having competitors copy you. Well, Dr. Scholl's copied the foot bed from Birkenstock. Dave Young: Welcome to the Empire Builders Podcast, teaching business owners the not-so-secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom and pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector, and storyteller. I'm Stephen's sidekick and business partner, Dave Young. Before we get into today's episode, a word from our sponsor, which is... Well, it's us, but we're highlighting ads we've written and produced for our clients, so here's one of those. [Out Of This World Plumbing Ad] Dave Young: Welcome back to the Empire Builders Podcast. Dave Young, here with Stephen Semple. And today, man, today is the day, man. Dude, we're going to rap about Birkenstocks. It's the crunchy granola shoe from the seventies. That's what I think of with Birkenstocks, and I want to like Birkenstocks. I tried them on many times in my life and I don't know that I could get through the learning curve or whatever it is. They just didn't. Anyway, I'm anxious to hear the story, because I think we're headed to Europe. Stephen Semple: So the average, so people who own Birkenstocks on average own Fortair. Dave Young: Yeah, I get it. Stephen Semple: In 2023, Birkenstock went public. Dave Young: Oh, did they? Stephen Semple: At a $7 billion valuation. Dave Young: Dang. Why? Why would they need to? Stephen Semple: A lot of times, I think when things like this happen, it's to free up money for the family. Dave Young: Yeah, they're cashing out. Stephen Semple: It's the give ability for key employees to have ownership. Often, there's a lot of reasons for doing an IPO, and in future, we're going to do one on Jacuzzi where it'll really highlight that really well because it's a crazy story. Dave Young: Cool. Well, take me back to the beginning of Birkenstock, man. Stephen Semple: Yeah. The model that Birkenstock is really known for is that classic one with the strap and whatnot. Dave Young: Yeah. Stephen Semple: And it's called the Arizona. And it has been growing, sales on the Arizona have been growing like 24% a year. It just Dave Young: Just year over year? Stephen Semple: It's just growing, and growing, and growing, and growing year over year. But Birkenstock is a really old company. It was founded in 1774 by Johann. Dave Young: Well, that's pretty old. Stephen Semple: Yeah, Johann Adam Birkenstock in Germany. And the original idea was to create shoes that gave support and contour to the foot. And in 1896, the Fußbett, which is footbed, was designed. And by 1925, Birkenstocks were being sold all over Europe. And in 1966 is when they were brought to America. And literally the first documented mention of Birkenstock was basically March 25th, 1774 as a vassal and shoemaker in some local church archives is where it was first mentioned. Dave Young: Wow. Stephen Semple: Right. I mean, holy crap. We're talking generation, after generation, after generation of master shoemakers or part-time shoemakers, all called Birkenstock. This is a business that's gone from Birkenstock to Birkenstock to Birkenstock to Birkenstock. Dave Young: Wow. Stephen Semple: It's been really quite incredible. Dave Young: That is amazing. Yeah. Stephen Semple: Yeah. And so basically where they really had their big breakthrough was following World War I, because shoes were now starting to be mass-produced. It started to become cheap. But here's the crazy thing is the early mass-produced shoes, there were no arch support. And in a lot of cases there was not even a left or right. Dave Young: Yeah. Stephen Semple: And so this is when they created this whole idea of a footbed being able to be put in the shoe to create better comfort and whatnot.

Sam Walton left JC Penny and realized that people in rural America had to travel to shop in department stores. He changed all that. Dave Young: Welcome to the Empire Builders Podcast, teaching business owners the not-so-secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom and pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector, and storyteller. I'm Stephen's sidekick and business partner, Dave Young. Before we get into today's episode, a word from our sponsor, which is... Well, it's us, but we're highlighting ads we've written and produced for our clients. So here's one of those. AirVantage Heating & Cooling Ad] Dave Young: Welcome back to the Empire Builders Podcast, Dave Young here alongside Stephen Semple. And Stephen just told me the topic for today's podcast, and it's Walmart. Stephen Semple: That's it. You're so excited. Dave Young: Oh my gosh. We're finally going to talk about Walmart. Stephen Semple: Walmart's just one of those companies that they've been unbelievably successful, and I'm going to defend Walmart here, but they're hard to love. Dave Young: They're hard to love, but man, if you live in a small town, they're hard to avoid too. Stephen Semple: Yes. Dave Young: And you got to hand it to Sam Walton. Stephen Semple: Yep. Dave Young: I've read his book. It is actually the one that was ghostwritten while he was dying in the hospital. And it's a really good read and it's got some great lessons, so I'm anxious to hear what you found out. Stephen Semple: It's a great read. It has some fantastic lessons in it. I think there are a few things that Walmart as a corporation has started to deviate from those ideas that if they had kept closer to them, Walmart is a company that would be deeply loved. There's a few things I think they've moved away from, but here's one of the things that I'm going to say I admire about Walmart is that if we did not have a Walmart in the marketplace, I think it would be far easier for prices to increase for consumers on certain products, groceries, and things along that lines, Walmart being in there, to a degree, has managed to keep prices for certain commodities at a certain level because Walmart is dedicated to that, keeping prices down. And I think having somebody in that space is good. And this was stats from a couple of years ago was over 10,500 stores in 24 countries, that number surprised me. I didn't realize it was 24 countries, and it was started in 1945 by a former JCPenney employee. I didn't realize that Sam Walton had worked for JCPenney, and the first thing he did when he left JCPenney is he bought a branch of Ben Franklin stores from the Butler brothers. So he started with those stores, and what Sam saw was retailers were putting a few large stores in big cities, but those big stores in big cities was inconvenient for rural shoppers. And what he decided to do was open a large department store in Rogers, Arkansas. Now, here's the crazy thing is, this was a place with a population of 6,000 people. So one would go, "This is nuts. Why would you open a store in a town of that size?" So it's 1962, and he opens basically the first Walmart. And his primary focus was to sell products at low prices, higher volume sales, lower profit margin, and really do this crusading for the consumer. And the funny part is the name Walmart was derived from Fed Mart, which was, if we remember when we did the episode on Costco, was the first version of Costco that was done by Saul Price, was Fed Mart. And Walton has also stated he liked the idea of calling the chain Walmart because he really liked Saul's name, Fed Mart. He even talks about how a lot of his really good ideas came from studying Saul. So it's really, really interesting. But within its first five years, the company expanded to 18 stores in Arkansas and was 9 million in sales. So it really did this... Really, really, really,

Stephen and Dave stroll down memory lane to discover just how the Willy Wonka bar came to be. Dave was a little disappointed. But you won't be. Dave Young: Welcome to the Empire Builders Podcast, teaching business owners the not-so-secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom-and-pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector, and storyteller. I'm Stephen's sidekick and business partner, Dave Young. Before we get into today's episode, a word from our sponsor, which is, well, it's us, but we're highlighting ads we've written and produced for our clients. So here's one of those. [Waukee Feet Ad] Dave Young: Welcome back to the Empire Builders Podcast. Dave Young here alongside Stephen Semple. And the topic whispered in my ear this morning was one that Stephen reminded me that I requested because we've- Stephen Semple: And you've remembered so well. Dave Young: That's the fun part of being me is I like to hide my own Easter eggs. We have talked about so many brands of chocolate, and I think I mentioned that sometime we need to talk about Wonka. Stephen Semple: Yes. Dave Young: And I kind of wish you'd told me beforehand because I'd go back and watch the movie just for the fun of it. I haven't watched the latest one, the Timothée Chalamet or whatever. Stephen Semple: I watched it on a flight recently because it was one of those ones where I didn't want to run the risk of spending the money and going to the theater for it. Dave Young: Sure. Yeah. Stephen Semple: So I was on a flight and it was one of the movies, and I thought, "Oh, I'll watch this." And it was actually a good rendition. It's the prequel, is how it's set. Dave Young: Oh, it's the origin story. Stephen Semple: It's the origin story, and it's good. Dave Young: Oh, cool. Stephen Semple: It's good. I enjoyed it. Dave Young: I'm going to have to watch it. Stephen Semple: I thought they did a nice job of it. Yeah. Dave Young: Well, we're actually recording these on a Saturday morning. Maybe I'll talk to Julie and see if we can watch Wonka this afternoon. Stephen Semple: I think you'd enjoy it. Dave Young: It might be kind of fun. Stephen Semple: I think you'd enjoy it. Dave Young: So what'd you find out? I'm dying to know. Was there really a golden ticket? Stephen Semple: Well, you're just going to have to wait and see. Dave Young: Did he really dress that way? Stephen Semple: It's the late 1960s, and the candy business is in a bit of a slump. There hasn't been really much innovation. It's completely controlled by Mars and Hershey at this point. Dave Young: Probably the American Dental Association had just formed. Stephen Semple: And what we've got is we've got this food executive, Kenneth Mason, who's looking to shake things up at Quaker Oats. He's an executive at Quaker Oats. And Quaker Oats is famous for oatmeal and Cap'n Crunch cereal. Dave Young: And the old Quaker dude in the hat staring at you from the box. Sure. Stephen Semple: Yeah, that's it. And Kenneth Mason sees a bigger opportunity. Now, he graduated with a degree in English from Yale before going into the food business, and he has aspirations to become president of Quaker. And he's about to head into candy. So he goes, "You know what? I really want to make a big splash in this division." Because in the 1960s, candy is boring, there's no new innovation, there's no advertising going on. Mason believes, "This is my opportunity to create the next new thing, make my mark, and become president of the company." But he needs a launching pad to create that splash. And he's read the book, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and it inspires him what to do. And this idea went on to become a $2.8 billion business. Wonka is a big deal. But it starts with this book that's about to become a film,

Affinity marketing at it's very, very finest. Rolex has made Mariners, Aviators, Drivers, etc, seek out and own a luxury time piece. Dave Young:  Welcome to The Empire Builders Podcast, teaching business owners the not-so-secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom-and-pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector, and storyteller. I'm Stephen's sidekick and business partner, Dave Young. Before we get into today's episode, a word from our sponsor, which is, well, it's us, but we're highlighting ads we've written and produced for our clients. So here's one of those.  [Bonney Home Services Ad] Dave Young:  Welcome back to the Empire Builders Podcast. Dave Young here alongside Stephen Semple. And Stephen whispered in my ear, as we all know he does at the very beginning of the show, but he whispered in my ear that he's not going to tell me the topic. He's going to keep it to himself and tell a little story.  Stephen Semple:  Yeah, I'm going to rob you of your preparation time.  Dave Young:  See, it's the thing that my brain loves is to hear the thing and remember my story about whatever the product is. So you go ahead with your little story.  Stephen Semple:  And you go into your imaginary world and ignore me.  Dave Young:  I'll be over here just doodling. Let me know when we're ready to start.  Stephen Semple:  So what inspired this was I was in Vegas recently and I was speaking at one of these big international cleaning conferences-  Dave Young:  As one does well.  Stephen Semple:  And these things are huge. Like Vegas is so big, man, it's crazy. But what I did each morning is there's a coffee shop I really like in the Bellagio that has just great espresso. So my morning routine was get up, go over to this coffee shop, grab an espresso. And if anyone's been in the Bellagio, the retail outlets in the Bellagio are phenomenal.  Dave Young:  Oh, God.  Stephen Semple:  They're Harry Winston, and Tiffany's, and Cartier, and Rolex. They are all the big fancy brands.  Dave Young:  I am so clumsy. I can't afford to sneeze if I go into one of those places.  Stephen Semple:  And what's incredible actually, if you're a retailer, and I've said this a lot, if you're a retailer and you're looking for ideas on how to do store displays, spend two days wandering through Vegas. The store displays are just phenomenal. But here's the thing that stood out to me. Each morning I was there just before the retail stores would open, and there's one store that every morning had a lineup, and that was Rolex.  Dave Young:  Rolex?  Stephen Semple:  Every morning there was a lineup at Rolex. Not at Cartier, not at Tiffany's, at Rolex. And I went, "Wow, that says something about the power of Rolex." So I looked at it and said, we all know Rolex is a super powerful brand. People who have Rolex stores can't keep Rolex in stock. But that just really did it for me.  Dave Young:  It turns out Rolex means coffee in Italian or something. They were just in the wrong place.  Stephen Semple:  Might've been. Might've been. So what I want to do with Rolex is we'll talk a little bit about the early innovation of Rolex, but the big thing I want to talk about is how Rolex promoted its brand. Because they did some really interesting things how they promoted the company. So Rolex was founded by Hans Wilsdorf, and he really was a pioneer in taking the pocket watch to the wristwatch. And legend, whatever has it that the name Rolex, as he describes it, the name Rolex was whispered in his ear when he was in a horse-drawn carriage going through Cheapside in the City of London. It was just this inspirational name.  And it didn't mean anything, but he just liked the sound of it. And the first breakthrough came in July. He was given Class A Observatory Certificate was awarded to the wristwatch,

Bennett Maxwell continues by explaining how, when you are starting out, it is critically important to invest time and win peoples hearts. Dave Young: Welcome to the Empire Builders Podcast, teaching business owners the not-so-secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom-and-pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector and storyteller. I'm Stephen's sidekick and business partner Dave Young. Before we get into today's episode, a word from our sponsor, which is, well, it's us, but we're highlighting ads we've written and produced for our clients. So here's one of those. [ASAP Commercial Doors Ad] Rick: Told you, Brian. Brian: Told me what? Rick: This is part two of last week's episode. Brian: Oh, yeah. And it was getting good. Rick: If you missed it, go back and listen to part one first. Take it away, fellas. Stephen Semple: It's very compelling. I could put my business hat on and go 500 square feet, one oven timed single employee can do this and if the product's really great, that's quite compelling. But you still got to pound the pavement to find those franchisees and you still got to have a pretty good pitch. So if I'm a potential franchisee, what's the pitch? A Dirty Dough franchise? Bennett Maxwell: I think I would kind of reiterate with just what you just told me as well. So it's hitting on the team first. We have a really experienced team. Now our CEO, Jill, who I mentioned is now our president and our CEO is Gregg Majewski, who was the CEO for Jimmy John's during all of their rapid growth and now he owns another X amount of brands. So okay, here's the team, but that's one thing. The other thing is cost. How much does it cost to open up us versus a competitor? And we're going more towards the how do you lower the barrier of entry to entrepreneurship by allowing new people to become entrepreneurs? Well, what does it take to become a business owner? You need time, money, and expertise. Well, we've taken away the expertise out of it because you don't need to be a baker. All you have to do is learn how to use an oven. Stephen Semple: Right. Bennett Maxwell: The time it takes to run a business is generally correlated pretty closely with the number of employees. Stephen Semple: Yes. Bennett Maxwell: If a competitor requires 50 employees before opening day and we require 15, which one is going to take more time? Stephen Semple: Correct. Bennett Maxwell: And then the money it requires, well if you only have a 500 square foot build out or even a thousand square foot build out in only one oven, you don't have to buy all the mixers, nor do you have to have all the storage for all your raw ingredients because I'm shipping you a finished product. Now you no longer have to have all of the same amount of capital. So it's less capital, less expertise, and less time required backed up by a really good product. Generally speaking, we get a little bit better reviews than anybody else. I mean a 4.8 star and some of the competitors are 4.6, but it's also more by unique product. Go try to make a three layer cookie at home or in Insomnia Cookies or Crumbl Cookies store by hand and you can't do it. So we corner the market on having a unique product and the barrier of entry to competing with us is you go spend a few million dollars like the idiot that I was before you even have a freaking franchise open. You know what I mean? It was a high risk, but now I think it's paying off because we've allowed our franchisees to sell a more unique product and nobody else has broken into that space yet, probably due to the cost. Stephen Semple: So what's the typical investment that somebody would require to open up one of your franchises? Bennett Maxwell: 250, 275 is average. If you get a good space that's a second gen and your construction cost is low, you can open it up for less than 200.

Bennett Maxwell understood that to run a successful company he needed to know the business and be the least important person in it. Dave Young: Welcome to the Empire Builders Podcast, teaching business owners the not-so-secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom and pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector, and storyteller. I'm Stephen's sidekick and business partner, Dave Young. Before we get into today's episode, a word from our sponsor, which is, well, it's us. But we're highlighting ads we've written and produced for our clients. So here's one of those. [Waukee Feet Ad] Stephen Semple: Hey, it's Stephen Semple here, and we've given Dave another break. Dave Young has been getting lots of breaks lately. But he's a hard-working guy, so it's good that we can give him a week off. And I'm really excited. I have with me Bennett Maxwell, who's the CEO of Dirty Dough. And I'm going to let him explain what Dirty Dough is. And in fact, I'm even going to let him explain what a CEO is, because we were talking earlier about whatever the heck that is. Bennett Maxwell: You can write it chairman over CEO, because we'll probably get it in the story that I have a CEO, which is why I don't know what the hell a chairman is because I'm like, it's the title you get when you have a CEO and they're like, get out of my way. Here's a title. Stephen Semple: Even better. Even better. Right out of the gate, I made a mistake. But it's not about the titles, it's about what you've built. And it's pretty cool what you guys have built and how you found yourself in the food business. Because one of the things that is remarkable about so many of the stories that I've come across for the Empire Builders Podcast is how many of the businesses have been started by people who are not from the industry. And you're the same. You're not from the food business. So tell us a little bit about the beginning, and then how you ended up stumbling into Dirty Dough. Bennett Maxwell: Yes. The beginning of me or the beginning of Dirty Dough? Stephen Semple: Beginning of you. To me, that was really interesting. Bennett Maxwell: Okay. Beginning of me. Raised in Utah, one of nine kids, to a single mom. And there was seven boys. So me and my brothers were always hustling to make some money, selling everything from lawn aeration door to door, to discount cards for the schools, to shaved dice. My first real job, I would say, was Cutco, which is all sales as well. Learned a ton of good referrals or referral based sales from that. I served a two-year Mormon mission in Tijuana, Mexico. Stephen Semple: Because Cutco, they do door to door knives, right? Bennett Maxwell: Not door to door, or at least not how I was trained. It's sit down with your close friends and family, tell them that you make $15 an hour presentation or commission, whichever one's higher. But they don't need to buy anything. And just go get practice. And then at the end of the presentation, you say, "Okay, Stephen, whether you bought or not, who are 10 people that would be willing to listen to our presentation?" And you're like, "Oh, yeah, I could think of them." Like, "No, I need you to think of them right now. And now I need you to call them." So that was a really good practice of ask for referrals, and unapologetically ask for referrals. Really good. And I think that's led to a lot of success with Dirty Dough, which we might get into. But a two-year Mormon mission. And then I did a lot of door to door sales, pest control, satellite, direct TV led me to do solar. Started a solar company, and then that kind of led me into the Dirty Dough side, which, going from solar to cookies is a little bit of a stretch. Stephen Semple: Now, if I remember correctly, when we were talking, you had built the solar business up to a stage where you were able to sell that business and exit out of that business.

Stephen talks about how embracing AI is the best way for the world to head into the future. It will be brighter and more creative. Dave Young: Welcome to The Empire Builders Podcast, teaching business owners the not-so-secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom-and-pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector, and storyteller. I'm Stephen's sidekick and business partner, Dave Young. Before we get into today's episode, a word from our sponsor, which is, well, it's us, but we're highlighting ads we've written and produced for our clients, so here's one of those. [No Bull RV Ad] Dave Young: Welcome back to The Empire Builders Podcast. Dave Young here, with Stephen Semple. And Stephen told me that today he wanted to talk about AI, and I'm just assuming that the hammer's about to drop and that this podcast is now just going to be replaced by some kind of chatbot. Is that what you had in mind? Stephen Semple: How do we know it hasn't already been [inaudible 00:01:52]? Dave Young: Well, gosh. Good point. Stephen Semple: At the core of this podcast is this idea that we need to be looking outside our space and looking for opportunities and kind of being open to things. Dave Young: Mm-hmm. Stephen Semple: And I wanted to put a little bit different look on what I think the AI opportunity is and bring a little bit of historic perspective to a couple of things. So that's kind I wanted to do here. So here's the interesting part. Let's go back a hundred years. Dave Young: Okay. Stephen Semple: We're in the 1920s. We're in that period leading up to World War II. The Industrial Revolution is really getting going at this point. And if there was an economist out there looking forward and looking at the Industrial Revolution, here's one way that they could look at it. At the time, one out of three people worked directly in agriculture. A third of the people were farmers, and not support the agriculture, farmers. And today, it's like 1.5%. It's like out of a hundred people, there's a couple people who are farmers. None of us even meet farmers anymore. So if you were an economist and you called that correctly, you would say, "Wait a minute, the Industrial Revolution is going to wipe out one of the largest employers in the economy," it would be really easy to make the call, the economy is going to be a disaster. Our biggest employer is going to go from 30% to 1.5% of the workforce. So it'd be an easy way to call the Industrial Revolution. And it did work out that way, except, it didn't. Because here's the other part that's interesting is according to a study by MIT, now, this one doesn't go back to 1920, it goes back to 1940, 60% of the jobs that we do today did not exist in the 1940s. The vast majority of the work that we do today, almost 2/3 did not exist. So the economy created a whole pile of new jobs. But here's the interesting thing, it's not just high-tech jobs, it's ancillary jobs to that. So for example, heating and air conditioning repairman did not exist in the 1940s. Dave Young: Sure. Stephen Semple: While there was plumbing, a lot of homes did not have indoor plumbing. Being a plumber was not a huge thing in the 1940s. So it's not just these changes bring, you got to look at, "Oh, well, what are the jobs in AI?" there's going to be all sorts of opportunities that are going to present itself that we haven't even dreamt of or thought of that we got to keep our eye open to. Dave Young: I agree with that. I agree. I've not dived in headfirst into ChatGPT and all of the other AI things like so many of us, many our Wizard of Ads partners have done. And I'm not sure what it is about it that when I have dabbled, it's been a pretty good experience, pretty eye-opening. I've gotten some ideas, things like that. I'm not going to ask it to write anything for me, but I am asking it for some ideas,

Dave Young: Welcome to the Empire Builders podcast, teaching business owners the not-so-secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom and pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector, and storyteller. I'm Stephen's sidekick and business partner Dave Young. Before we get into today's episode, a word from our sponsor, which is... Well, it's us, but we're highlighting ads we've written and produced for our clients, so here's one of those. [Out Of This World Plumbing Ad] Dave Young: Welcome back to the Empire Builders podcast. Dave Young here along with Stephen Semple. And as we record this, it is the morning. Stephen Semple: You're not excited on this one! Dave Young: Dude, come on. Come on. It's the morning of November 4th. Stephen Semple: And what happens tomorrow? Dave Young: Tomorrow we have a little election in the United States. The topic that Stephen whispered into my ear just as we started was Twitter. Let's talk about Twitter. Stephen Semple: Twitter. Dave Young: And I go to Elon Musk. I'm like, oh God. So please, let's do talk about Twitter and let's talk about their origins and not their demise. Stephen Semple: See, I thought you would be more excited. Because the real driver behind Twitter is a guy by the name of Evan Williams, and he grew up in Nebraska. Dave Young: Did he really? Stephen Semple: Yes! You didn't know about that. Dave Young: I thought he was a New York City guy. Because he started it with... It was like an emergency alert thing. Stephen Semple: Well, that's one of the things that kicked it in the high gear. But no, he grew up in a farm in Nebraska. Dave Young: Where? What town? Stephen Semple: Oh God, of course you're going to ask me that. I don't know what town. Dave Young: Because I know people everywhere. Stephen Semple: I automatically assume that you would know this part. Dave Young: I didn't know that. Every Nebraskan knows someone who knows every other Nebraskan. That's just like, it's a third degree of separation. Stephen Semple: But I figured in a place like Nebraska, everyone would know where this dude was from because of how big Twitter is. Dave Young: No, I don't. Please do tell. Stephen Semple: Okay. So the primary driver was Evan Williams, but also Jack Dorsey and Noah Glass and Stone played very, very big roles in the starting of Twitter. But Evan grew up, as I said on a farm in Nebraska, and he wasn't into sports, but he always knew he kind of wanted to do a business. And because of that, he read a lot of business books. And in particular, he read some marketing books, and he decided he wanted to learn more as he read a book by pretty famous marketing guy named Gary Halbert. And he said, "You know what? I want to learn more." So he literally drove to Key West Florida and basically walked into Gary's office and said, "I want a job working for you." Dave Young: I'm telling you, that's a bit of a drive from Nebraska. Stephen Semple: Yeah, it is. It is. So here's this farm boy from Nebraska showing up at Gary Halbert's office. And Gary basically gave him a writing assignment, said, "Fine, here, do this writing assignment. See how you do." And it was so good, Gary actually thought he had someone write it for him. He's like, no, no, no. Dave Young: This is before AI. Stephen Semple: Yeah, exactly. Actually, if it was written by AI, he wouldn't have accepted it. But anyway, that's a whole different issue. So Gary hires him, and he works there for about seven months. Learns a whole bunch of stuff and returns to Nebraska. And he returns Nebraska, it's the early nineties, and he decides he wants to start a website business. So he's trying to sell websites to local businesses. Now, at this point, he's in Lincoln, Nebraska. I don't know whether that's where he's from,

Rebecca and Lon build out a coaching empire that takes full use of the manuals and techniques they developed building successful home service companies. Dave Young: Welcome to the Empire Builders Podcast, teaching business owners the not-so-secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom and pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector and storyteller. I'm Stephen's sidekick and business partner Dave Young. Before we get into today's episode, a word from our sponsor, which is, well, it's us, but we're highlighting ads we've written and produced for our clients. So here's one of those. [Seaside Plumbing Ad] Rick: Told you, Brian. Brian: Told me what? Rick: This is part two of last week's episode. Brian: Oh, yeah. And it was getting good. Rick: If you missed it, go back and listen to part one first. Take it away, fellas. Rebecca Cassel: Yeah, so, Lon, as I said, he was my business partner, and it was funny. I would say, "That sometimes you really like your business partners and sometimes you don't." And I think Lon and I went through the, hey, I don't like you very much, but we really respect each other. We had very different strengths and weaknesses. I am very operational, strategic, and accounting. He was sales and marketing and relational. And so the combination was pretty fierce. And he called me one day and said, "Hey, we're going to start an organization. I just got invited to join a group of investors in St. Louis to start an organization that will help more contractors." And he said, "We're going to actually branch out of just doing HVAC. I think we're going to do plumbing and maybe eventually electrical." I go, "Wow, that's really exciting." He goes, "I'm moving to St. Louis, so I'll keep in touch with what's going on." I was living in North Carolina, and he was living in Illinois at the time. And I thought, wow, what a cool thing. I go, "Well, if I can be of help, obviously I'm here doing it, writing operations manuals or procedures, or obviously I'd love to be a client. So when you get this all up and going, that'll be exciting." About three months later, he called me, and he said, "Hey, I think you should be a part of this." And I was like, "What do you mean? I'm running an HVAC business in a completely different state." And again, before all the technology where you could do everything remote, he goes, "I think what we're going to do is going to really change the industry dramatically, and I know you would want to be a part of that." And he said, "Why don't you find a way to develop our comfort advisor into the general manager, and let's get this going to where maybe you could come be a part of this operationally." Stephen Semple: And which business was this, Rebecca? Rebecca Cassel: This was Success Group International. Stephen Semple: This was Success Group, okay. Rebecca Cassel: Yes. At the time we had an umbrella name called BenVest, but it's what became, we started Plumber Success first, but it was Success Group International. And so I went in and talked with some of the other founders about what we're going to do, the CEO, Jim Abrams and Lon was already employed, and I got to meet Patty Myers, who is their VP of Finance, and I ended up being the fourth employee. We started in St. Louis and said, "Hey, we're going to build an organization that helps home services be successful. We're going to impact lives by helping these business owners become more successful." Stephen Semple: So I want to step back and cover just a couple of other things. It's amazing you had the opportunity to work with Jim so closely, with Jim Abrams. And anybody in the home services or the marketing space knows that name, like a famous, famous guy. So you had a chance to learn a lot from him, but you also had a chance to learn a lot from another marketing person who has a lot of fame in the home services space...

Rebecca meets Lon and they build an empire of home services companies that lead to the best Contractor Coaching Program. Dave Young: Welcome to the Empire Builders Podcast, teaching business owners the not-so-secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom and pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector, and storyteller. I'm Stephen's sidekick in business partner, Dave Young. Before we get into today's episode, a word from our sponsor, which is, well, it's us, but we're highlighting ads we've written and produced for our clients. So, here's one of those. [ASAP Commercial Doors Ad] Stephen Semple: Hey, it's Stephen Semple here with the Empire Builders Podcast. And we've given Dave Young the week off. So, he's sitting back and chilling and relaxing and drinking drinks by some pool somewhere, I'm hoping. I'm really excited. I have Rebecca Cassel with me. And her story, when I first heard it was just one of these ones where I'm, "How is Rebecca, especially in the home services space for what she's accomplished, not a household name?" And for full disclosure of the business that Rebecca has now, which is certain path that does this amazing training for people in the home services space is a customer of ours. I've got a team of people working with Rebecca and their group to promote their business more. But one of the things that was exciting is when we got together for the day and you started sharing some of these stories, I was like, "This is an incredible journey that you've gone on, let's face it, especially as a woman in the home services space." So, I guess what I want to do is go right back to that beginning when you first got exposed to the home services space. And please, don't forget to tell the story about the wearing of the booties. That's one of my favorite ones. Rebecca Cassel: Great. Thank you. Stephen. I'm excited to be here. I can't believe it's been 25 years of CertainPath. And obviously, we used to be Success Group International. And my story is unique. I graduated with an accounting degree, SAT for the CPA exam, thought I was going to go into public accounting and realized really quickly that I didn't like it and was looking for opportunity to use my financial degree to help small businesses. And I actually answered an ad. And this is okay, so '90s, this is how you found a job back in the '90s is a newspaper and there's this amazing newspaper ad. And it did tell me exactly what the company was. But it said, "If you want to use your accounting degree or your financial experience, if you want to help implement systems and processes in a small business and help them operationally expand, this is the job for you." Such a cool written ad. I decided to pick up the phone and schedule an interview. And at the end of the phone call, of course, they give you an address and there was no way to Google it back then. And so, she's like, "Turn here by the McDonald's and then go down." So, I was like, "Okay. Great." And I really don't remember if in that call I heard the name of the company because I was so excited that I got the interview. So, I pull up for the interview and I quickly realized maybe I'm not in the right spot because on the sign it had a name of a heating and air conditioning company. I was like, "Well, surely, this is not the company that put the ad in the paper." Because I just thought appearance of the building, the sign that was cracked, the weeds in the parking lot, did not screen professional, professional. But I kind of thought, "Well, I got to go find out if I'm in the right place or not. And if I'm here, so it is." So, I walked in. And you got to remember back then, this is when women were pantyhose and I was in my black patent heels and my gray suit, totally looking super corporate. And I walk into this little ... Stephen Semple: Did you have shoulder pads in the ... Rebecca Cassel: Yes.

The Banana's asked one fundamental question to revive a defunct minor ball team. What do fans hate about going to a game? Dave Young: Welcome to the Empire Builders podcast, teaching business owners the not-so-secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom and pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector, and storyteller. I'm Stephen's sidekick in business partner Dave Young. Before we get into today's episode, a word from our sponsor, which is, well, it's us, but we're highlighting ads we've written and produced for our clients, so here's one of those. [ASAP Commercial Doors Ad] Dave Young: Welcome back to the Empire Builders podcast. Dave Young here alongside Stephen Semple, and as you know, this is the time when we usually have Stephen whisper the topic of the podcast into my ear. But today I'm turning the table, Stephen. Stephen Semple: You are? Dave Young: Uh-huh. We're going to talk about one that I'm sort of interested in right now. Stephen Semple: Yeah, and I'm excited. Dave Young: I did tell you what it was. I mean, honestly, I will admit I told you what it was before. Stephen Semple: Well, we had a conversation last time I was in Austin and you mentioned this business, and I started doing a little bit of looking into it and I thought, "Wow, we should talk about this." But since you had already had a lot of knowledge on it, I was like, "Dave, we should talk about this." Dave Young: I mean, cool, huh? Stephen Semple: Yeah, Dave Young: It's really kind of interesting. Stephen Semple: So let everybody know what we're talking about. Dave Young: We're talking about baseball, sort of. Sort of baseball. It's a new form of baseball called Banana Ball. Stephen Semple: Just before you had told me about it, I'd heard about someone else had mentioned it to me and I thought it was pretty fascinating. But give us a background on Banana Ball. Dave Young: So this guy named Jesse Cole and his wife buy this summer baseball league team in Savannah, Georgia that had gone belly up, I think before maybe they were called the Sand Gnats or something like that. Stephen Semple: Okay, so basically it was a defunct, bankrupt out of business junior baseball team. Dave Young: I think the kind of league that plays summer times with college kids. Stephen Semple: Right. Dave Young: So it came with the stadium, right? Stephen Semple: Okay. Dave Young: Whoever owns the franchise gets use of the stadium. So they spent a couple of years just trying to figure out how to make baseball more interesting. Stephen Semple: Right. Dave Young: Here you've got this weird little baseball team that nobody's been able to make succeed. Stephen Semple: Okay, before you go any deeper, Dave, how sold out are they? Dave Young: Dude for the 2025 season, they've got more than a million people on their waiting list. Stephen Semple: On their waiting list. Dave Young: These are people that are saying, "Please, please let me buy a ticket." Stephen Semple: Right, right. Think about this. Wouldn't you love to have a baseball team that not only is sold out, you have a million people on the waiting list hoping for tickets. And this is not a major league team. Dave Young: This is in Savannah, Georgia in a stadium that's just basically, it is not even fully surrounding the field. Stephen Semple: I just wanted people to understand the success this team is having. Dave Young: Here's the really cool thing. Their success is not based on wins and losses. Stephen Semple: Right. Dave Young: It's based on entertaining people. This guy understands customer experience to a deep, deep level. And what he was looking at, and he's a baseball player, he coached. Baseball flows in his blood, but he looked at it and he is like,

Going from public domain toys to Spin Master Originals was a must. How did Harari, Rabi and Verity do it? It wasn't with the devil sticks. Dave Young: Welcome to the Empire Builders podcast, teaching business owners the not-so-secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom and pop to major brands. Stephen Simple is a marketing consultant, story collector, and storyteller. I'm Stephen's sidekick and business partner, Dave Young. Before we get into today's episode, a word from our sponsor, which is, well, it's us, but we're highlighting ads we've written and produced for our clients. Here's one of those. [Seaside Plumbing Ad] Dave Young: Welcome back to the Empire Builders podcast recording live this morning from the North Patio at the Wizard Academy classroom tower. Stephen Semple: I always get turned around. So this is north, is it? Dave Young: That's north. Stephen Semple: Okay. All right. I always get turned around here. Dave Young: The causeway, the ditch thing that runs- Stephen Semple: Oh, right. Of course. That's east-west, of course. Dave Young: No, that's north-south. Stephen Semple: Oh, right. Dave Young: North-South. Stephen Semple: Right. Dave Young: If you stand in the middle of it and look up, you can see the North Star over the, and so we're on the other side. Stephen Semple: Right. Of course we are. Okay. Dave Young: Yeah. Stephen Semple: I always get turned around. Dave Young: Yeah, that's okay. Stephen Semple: Okay. Dave Young: It has taken me a while. Anyway, we're recording a podcast. Stephen Semple: Yes. We talk. Dave Young: And we're sitting outdoors. And just as I was hitting the record button, you said Spin Master. Stephen Semple: Spin Master. Dave Young: This is an exercise bike. Stephen Semple: Toy company. Dave Young: Toy company. What am I thinking, spin cycle? First of all, I don't play with toys and I don't ride exercise bikes, so I'm at a loss. Stephen Semple: They're best known for Paw Patrol. And you wouldn't know about that either 'cause you don't have any little kids in your life. Dave Young: No, my little- Stephen Semple: Anybody who's got little kids in their life know Paw Patrol. Dave Young: All right. Well, I am all ears. Stephen Semple: Give you an idea how big the Paw Patrol franchise is, 14 billion. Dave Young: Wait. 14 billion? Stephen Semple: Billion in sales when you add all their stuff up. Dave Young: Wow. Okay. Stephen Semple: Yeah. Dave Young: And these are toys? Stephen Semple: Yes. Dave Young: Okay. Stephen Semple: They are toys and they are a Canadian company, and my niece used to work for them. Dave Young: Really? Stephen Semple: Yes. Dave Young: Okay. Stephen Semple: This was actually a little extra fun to do. Dave Young: Some insider info. Stephen Semple: Yeah. Well, not really, but yeah, they're a Canadian company in quite a little success store. Dave Young: Little, yeah. Stephen Semple: Then we'll talk about later, they also went on to have bought some other brands such as Rubik's Cube. They now own Rubik's Cube. Dave Young: All right. Stephen Semple: Yeah. It was founded by Ronan Harari, Antoine Rabi and Ben Verity. They started the business in the late 1990s. And around that time, patterns of play does not change. Dave Young: Okay. Stephen Semple: Toys may change, way kids play with things, the way even adults play with things don't change. And so the key is to find things that fit into those play patterns. That idea has basically led this company to be one of the greatest success stories in the toy space in the last 20 years. Yeah. And this whole idea, the key to find things that fit in those play patterns basically led to the creation of Paw Patrol,

This is how you go from not wanting to be unhappy to working your passion to Shark Tank to Lipstick Empire. Way to go, Melissa Butler. Dave Young: Welcome to the Empire Builders Podcast, teaching business owners the not-so-secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom-and-pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector, and storyteller. I'm Stephen's sidekick and business partner, Dave Young. Before we get into today's episode, a word from our sponsor, which is ... well, it's us. But we're highlighting ads we've written and produced for our clients. So here's one of those. [No Bull RV Ad] Dave Young: Welcome to the Empire Builders Podcast. Dave Young here along with Stephen Semple. And today you may say, gosh, they sound a little different. And maybe I hear birds or- Stephen Semple: We have no idea what these mics are picking up. Dave Young: We don't know what you're going to hear, but we're sitting outdoors. We're sitting on the north patio of the dining hall in the tower at Wizard Academy in Austin, Texas. And for the first time in, I don't know if we've done this before or we've recorded a podcast face-to-face in the same room. Stephen Semple: I don't think we have. Dave Young: We're always on some either Zoom or Riverside FM or some magical internet based thing. Stephen Semple: Yeah, no, I don't think we've done in person. I don't think so. Dave Young: Well, welcome to my world here. We're at Wizard Academy. I'm the vice chancellor, by the way, and also one of Stephen's business partners with Wizard of Ads. And you're here to teach a class this week. Stephen Semple: Yes. Dave Young: Which is exciting. Stephen Semple: Very exciting. Dave Young: I don't know if people are going to hear this long after the fact. Stephen Semple: Yes. But we're going to do it again. Dave Young: We're glad that you're here and excited about the class. Stephen Semple: Yes, yes. It's going to be very exciting. How to market professional services, so it's going to be awesome. Dave Young: It's going to be fun. I didn't even ask you as I started the countdown, what the topic is. Stephen Semple: I know. Because we're used to the countdown thing being on the screen. Dave Young: My countdown was, I'm just going to hit the go button and see if this is sticking to the tape. I think it is. Stephen Semple: We're going to lean into a category you know really well. Lipstick. Dave Young: Lipstick? Is there a particular brand? Stephen Semple: Yes. Lip Bar. Dave Young: Lip Bar? I'm a total blank. Stephen Semple: Well, they've done pretty well. Lipstick's a huge market. Lipstick itself is a $9 billion business. Dave Young: Trust me, we wash a lot of it off of wine glasses here. Stephen Semple: But Lip Bar was founded by Melissa Butler, and today they're in like 500 stores, Target and things along that line. They're a private company, so I had a really hard time finding actual sales figures for them. But when you're in 500 stores and growing, you're making things happen. Dave Young: Mm-hmm. Stephen Semple: Yeah. Dave Young: 500 stores. Stephen Semple: But what was really cool about learning this story is Melissa Butler started making her own lipstick in her apartment. Dave Young: Really? Stephen Semple: That's how this all started. Dave Young: I'm trying to think of how, if I set out ... First of all, I'm not going to, but if I set out to make lipstick, what would I even .... like what's on my shopping list? Stephen Semple: Oh, you're melting waxes and you're getting color agents and you're pouring it into tins and you're having to cure the tins and then you're having to get it out of the tins and into the packaging. It's quite a process. Dave Young: Do I have to go kill a whale? Stephen Semple:

When you need the chocolate you find creative ways to make the deal work. See the best of both worlds. Dave Young: Welcome to the Empire Builders podcast, teaching business owners the not-so-secret techniques that took famous businesses from Mom and Pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector and storyteller. I'm Stephen's sidekick and business partner Dave Young. Before we get into today's episode, a word from our sponsor, which is, well, it's us, but we're highlighting ads we've written and produced for our clients. So here's one of those. [ASAP Commercial Doors Ad] Stephen Semple: Welcome to part two of the Mars episode. If you haven't listened to the first part, I suggest you go back and give it a listen because those are really the early days of Mars. But the Mars story was so interesting we had to break it into two parts, and there's some really fun and surprising things that are going to happen in Phase 2 of this story. The Mars Bar was this big success. He's now had a couple failures. He needs a success. It's 1934. His father, Franklyn, passes away. Dave Young: Okay. Stephen Semple: At the age of 50, and the future of the company in the U.S. is now in doubt, and there's a small number of shares go to Forrest. But most of the shares go to his stepmother who does not like Forrest. Dave Young: Ouch. Okay. Stephen Semple: Forrest is pissed. And basically he decides that what he needs to do is just go on a vacation and cool off. So he takes a vacation to Spain, and he saw these chocolate candies made by Rowntree that are called Smarties. Dave Young: Um, okay. Stephen Semple: That don't melt, and he had never saw a candy coating on chocolate. So he decides to take Smarties to America. He returns to the U.S., leaves the UK company in the hands of the number two, but he needs a supply of milk chocolate. And where does he need to get that is Hershey's. Dave Young: Okay. Stephen Semple: But he's brand new. Hershey's is not super interested in doing it. So what he does is he knows the president of Hershey's. His son Murray, is never going to make it in the Hershey's business. So he offers Murray. He says, "Hey, you guys, sell me this chocolate. I'll make Murray, I'll give him an executive position plus 20% of the company." Dave Young: Wow. Okay. Stephen Semple: So they go, done. Murray's now set up. Dave Young: Murray's out of our hair. Stephen Semple: Murray's out of our hair. Dave Young: Not our problem anymore. Stephen Semple: What they do is they create this candy based upon Smarties. Dave Young: Wait a minute, wait a minute. Murray? Stephen Semple: Murray. Dave Young: Mars. Stephen Semple: Mars. Dave Young: MM. And the candy-coated chocolate? Stephen Semple: Is M&M's. Dave Young: M&M's, yeah. Oh, wow. So it was the son of Mars and the son of Hershey's. Stephen Semple: Yes. Dave Young: Who knew? Stephen Semple: Right. Dave Young: That's amazing. Stephen Semple: So they need to build a factory and they want to make it stand out. So how they first package M&M's is instead of in a little bag, remember where they used to always come in a tube? Dave Young: Oh, I remember them coming in a tube, but not in my childhood. That was sort of a theater thing later on. Stephen Semple: But that's how they first came was in a cardboard tube. That was how they first came. Dave Young: Oh. You know, I kind of do remember that with like a folded wadded piece of paper at the end to hold it shut, yeah. Okay. Stephen Semple: Yeah, it was first in this... In Canada I remember them with a little plastic thing on the end, but yeah, they're originally in the tube. So it's 1941. War breaks out in the United States. Factories all across, all industries are dedicated to the war effort.

Franklyn Mars bails his son Forrest out of jail. Then Forrest decides to build a bigger company. Mars is an absolute empire. Dave Young: Welcome to The Empire Builders Podcast, teaching business owners the not-so-secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom-and-pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector, and storyteller. I'm Stephen's sidekick and business partner, Dave Young. Before we get into today's episode, a word from our sponsor, which is ... Well, it's us, but we're highlighting ads we've written and produced for our clients. So here's one of those. [Travis Crawford HVAC Ad] Dave Young: Welcome back to The Empire Builders Podcast. Dave Young here talking to Stephen Semple, and we're going to talk about business empires that went from nothing and turned into, as we say, empires. Stephen Semple: Yes, sir. Dave Young: Right? That's the premise. Now people know the underlying premise of the podcast. Let's get on with it. You whispered in my ear, as you hit the countdown button, that today we're going to talk about the Mars Corporation. The Mars Corporation. Stephen Semple: Yeah. Dave Young: But we're not talking about Percival Lowell and his telescope thinking that there were canals on Mars. Stephen Semple: No, no we're not. Dave Young: We're talking about candy bars. Is that right? Stephen Semple: Yeah, we're talking about a lot of candy bars. Dave Young: So I at least got that going for me. I figured out that this is not the Bugs Bunny villain. This is ... Stephen Semple: Dave, you're not feeling well, but you still bring it. I like it. Dave Young: Yeah. Just in this day and age, full transparency, I'm doing this with COVID. Stephen Semple: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Dave Young: But fortunately, we record over the internet. Stephen Semple: That's it. Got our virus protection on. Dave Young: I've got a mask sitting right next to my microphone. Stephen Semple: Yeah. Mars is massive. One half of the top candy bar names on the planet are part of Mars: Mars, Snickers, Skittles, Milky Way, 3 Musketeers, and M&M's. Dave Young: All right, so how far back does this go? Stephen Semple: Well, we're actually going to do two sections of this. We're going to go right back to the beginning, and also we're going to do something around the time that they added some of these extra names that was really kind of interesting. Dave Young: So how many years back? Is there a Mr. Mars or a Mrs. Mars? Stephen Semple: Oh, yes. It was Franklin Mars. Dave Young: All right, all right. Stephen Semple: 1911, Franklin Mars. Dave Young: 1911. Stephen Semple: Yeah. Dave Young: Because what I picture the Mars Corporation full of now is a bunch of suits that are like Slugsworth in Willy Wonka. Stephen Semple: Well, they are $45 billion in revenues. Dave Young: Yeah. Yeah. Stephen Semple: They are 130,000 employees. Dave Young: Dang. Stephen Semple: And they're still owned by the Mars family. Dave Young: Oh. Well, that makes me feel good. Stephen Semple: There you go. Dave Young: That actually does because I just picture that big of a company, nobody in the boardroom actually cares about chocolate, but I'm glad to ... So let's dive in. I'm all ears now. Stephen Semple: And they're literally one of the top five privately-owned companies in the world. But yes ... Dave Young: Amazing. Stephen Semple: It's really remarkable that they're still family-owned. So as we were talking about earlier, founded in 1911 by Franklin Mars in Tacoma, Washington. And the reason why we're sort of taking two looks at this company, there's kind of what Franklin Mars did to start the company, but it was really his son, Forrest Mars, who made it huge. Dave Young: Okay. Stephen Semple:

Daniel Whittington spent 7 months crafting the perfect message and a mere 10 minutes on the the plan of attack. How did it turn out? Dave Young: Welcome to the Empire Builders Podcast, teaching business owners the not-so-secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom-and-pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector and storyteller. I'm Stephen's sidekick and business partner, Dave Young. Before we get into today's episode, a word from our sponsor, which is, well, it's us, but we're highlighting ads we've written and produced for our clients. So here's one of those. [Seaside Plumbing Ad] Stephen Semple: Hey, everyone. So we have a special surprise today. We've given Dave Young the day off because Dave works really hard. Actually, Dave works for this guy, so we know why Dave works so hard. So I'm here with Daniel Whittington, and Daniel is the Chancellor of the Wizard Academy and basically created the Whiskey Marketing School at the academy. Last time I was down in Austin, Daniel and I were sitting in the vault. We are doing a tasting, and Daniel shared a thought that just like rocked me back on my heels, which doesn't happen that often. What I loved about it is he compared the marketing of whiskey to the promotion of a band. And the more he talked about it, I said we need to share this idea on the podcast because I'm constantly going down this idea of looking elsewhere. So Daniel, tell us more about this revelation and the journey you've been on. And at the end, let's make sure we talk about why everyone should actually take a course at the academy and learn about whiskey. Daniel Whittington: My explanation of it now sounds just as good as it felt like it did when we were drinking whiskey in the vault together because those two don't always line up. So thanks for having me on, Steve. The origin of this whole idea was I've got a background in music industry. I spent 20 years as a full-time studio and touring musician and, during that time, did a lot of booking, did a lot of traveling, did a lot of promotion of bands, actually worked with bands, promoting and touring and growing their fan base. Then I got out of that and stumbled backwards into Wizard Academy where I've spent the last years, 11 years, actually. Stephen Semple: Wow. Has it been 11 years? Daniel Whittington: Been 11 years. Stephen Semple: Holy smokes. Daniel Whittington: Basically getting a graduate-level super masters in actual marketing and communications and, during that time, started the Whiskey Marketing School and have now started working with my own clients that are whiskey-related right now. One of them, they are poised for explosion and growth. They're well set up. They've been winning awards. They've already got a huge fan base that's kind of localized to where they tend to travel to most, not just their town, but in their region. But we're ready to grow them. They've got some investment, they've got some money, they've hiring, they're ready to explode. So we spent seven months building the marketing strategy, the ethos, the brand voice, the architecture of the personality of the brand and who they are and what they're trying to accomplish. During that time I was thinking, I don't know how to grow these guys because... In other words- Stephen Semple: I'm glad this is taking so long because I need more time. Daniel Whittington: Yeah. Yeah. Because so much of the way that I've helped grow people has been very particular to my skill set, or it has been brands that could use traditional media. And this distillery, there's no need for... like I'm looking at it, I'm thinking the worst thing we could do is use traditional media because you've already owned your localized areas. And a whiskey bottle isn't just a local business, isn't HVAC where they can only service customers in a certain mileage, right?

Alfred Butts worked on this game from 1938 until 1949 and then gave up the rights to James Brunot for royalties. Dave Young: Welcome to The Empire Builders podcast, teaching business owners the not-so-secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom-and-pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector, and storyteller. I'm Stephen's sidekick and business partner, Dave Young. Before we get into today's episode, a word from our sponsor, which is, well, it's us, but we're highlighting ads we've written and produced for our clients. So here's one of those. [JS Pest Control Ad] Dave Young: Welcome to Empire Builders podcast. I'm Dave Young. I'm sitting here with Stephen Semple. Well, I'm not sitting here. We're recording this. He's in wherever he is, and I'm wherever I am. You know this world, you know how it all works, the Zoomee River. Anyway, boy, I've led us right off into the weeds right from the start. Stephen Semple: Well done. Dave Young: Stephen told me the topic for today. It's another game. Stephen Semple: Yes, another game. Dave Young: A lot of empires in the game world. Stephen Semple: Completely. Dave Young: This one, I'm interested in the story. I'm not a very good player of it because I don't have very much experience with it. This is another one of those that we just didn't play that much, but I was aware of, and there are people that are just fanatics for Scrabble. They play all kinds of word games, and I probably got into word games a little late in life. I don't know if my family was ... I don't know what it is, Stephen. Maybe we were just Chinese Checkers people. Stephen Semple: And I'm with you. Now it's interesting how you started this podcast because as soon as I said Scrabble, your brain got a little bit scrabbled. Dave Young: Sure. Stephen Semple: But I didn't play Scrabble much. It's not a game that I enjoyed and I found actually almost frustrating. Dave Young: Kind of stressful, right? Yeah. Stephen Semple: Yes. But it's surprising how big a game it is. As of 2008, which was the most recent information I could find on this, it was sold in 121 countries, 30 languages. Although how do you do 30 languages? It's like, yeah, but 150 million sets have been sold worldwide. But here's the one that surprised me. It's roughly one third of American homes and half of British homes have a Scrabble set. Dave Young: Really? Stephen Semple: Yes. And there's 4,000 Scrabble clubs around the world. It is everywhere. It is literally everywhere. Dave Young: It really is a game of skill, at least when it comes to having a vocabulary and keeping an eye out for possibilities and the different points on letters and things like that. And just I'm looking for reasons that maybe I didn't play it very much. Stephen Semple: And I'm with you. I didn't play it much either. Dave Young: I've enjoyed it when I've played it. It's always been somebody else's Scrabble set. I've never owned a set. So tell us how it started. Stephen Semple: It's quite an old game, actually. I was surprised when I came across it. It was invented by Alfred Mosher Butts in 1938. Dave Young: 1938. Stephen Semple: So it's actually a very old game. I was quite surprised by that. And he was an architect, and he lost his job because think about 1938, late '20s, early '30s, Great Depression, how many architects, how many buildings are being built? Dave Young: By '38, we started thinking about how we're going to have to be building tanks soon. Stephen Semple: Yeah. Well, it would have been a very, very tough time. And so he's struggling to make ends meet, and he starts to notice the increased popularity in board games. But he doesn't have money to go out and do things or money to buy games, so he's trying to find ways to pass time, but he also then starts thinking about,

J.W. Marriott had a gift for seeing what the public needed and made sure to give it to them. Marriott is the epitome of Entrepreneur to Empire. Dave Young: Welcome to The Empire Builders Podcast, teaching business owners the not-so-secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom and pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector, and storyteller. I'm Stephen's sidekick and business partner, Dave Young. Before we get into today's episode, a word from our sponsor, which is, it's us, but we're highlighting ads we've written and produced for our clients. Here's one of those. [ASAP Commercial Doors Ad] Dave Young: Welcome to The Empire Builders Podcast. I'm Dave Young, sitting here with Stephen Semple, and we're talking about people that built empires. Empires, sir. Not just a little business, an empire. As usual, Stephen whispered the topic into my ear just as we were counting down to start recording. And the word is Marriott. I guess that's a name, the Marriott, I don't know if it was one guy or a family. I know that it ended up being a bunch of Marriott's involved, but the Marriott hotel chain. Stephen Semple: The Marriott Hotel chain. Marriott Corporation. Dave Young: I'll tell you what I know about them. And this is weird. A Mormon family? Stephen Semple: Yes. Dave Young: And most of the brothers that were involved, maybe in the beginning, but anyway, they were all members of the same college fraternity that I was in. Stephen Semple: Is that right? Dave Young: I didn't know them, but that was the talk about them, "They're these BYU Sigma Chi's from Utah." Stephen Semple: And John Willard Marriott and his wife Alice, very devout Mormons and part of the origin of the Marriott chain actually starts with them doing a mission in New England. Dave Young: Cool. Anxious to hear the story. Stephen Semple: It started in March 5th, 1927 by John Willard Marriott, which is part of the reason why one of the Marriott's is the JW. Dave Young: Sure. This goes back way farther than I knew. I think by the time I was aware of them, this was the eighties. Wow. Big history. Stephen Semple: And today they have over 9,000 properties. There's a whole pile of different badges under it. Dave Young: Brands. Stephen Semple: And million and a half rooms, 400,000 employees. They do like 23 billion in revenue. And look, everyone knows the name Marriott. Dave Young: I think it qualifies as an empire. Stephen Semple: I think it does. And it starts with JW traveling to D.C, Washington, D.C after doing a mission in New England. And he experiences this really hot, humid summer, and he thinks to himself, "This city needs more places to buy cool drinks." He returns home to Utah. He finishes his degree at the University of Utah and returns to Washington where he buys an A&W franchise in Columbia Heights. Dave Young: Good idea. He should have invented air conditioning. I think we've talked about. Stephen Semple: That would've been a better idea. Dave Young: I always have to slide in some little weird bit of trivia that I know, but back in the days before air conditioning, the British Foreign Service actually paid people tropical pay when they were stationed in Washington, D.C. Stephen Semple: Wow, because it is so ugly in the summertime. Dave Young: It was dank and humid. Basically it's a city built on a swamp. Stephen Semple: It pretty much is. Dave Young: He buys an A&W franchise in? Stephen Semple: Columbia Heights. It's a suburb of D.C. It's great in the summer. Business is great in summer. Really slow in the winter. Because at the time, A&W did not sell food. They started off, first of all, it's just root beer. Now he gets permission to sell food, but does it under a different name called Hot Shop. Dave Young: Hot Shop. Shop or Shot? Stephen Semple:

A one point more TMNT action figures where sold than Snickers chocolate bars. Instantly qualifies as an Empire. Dave Young: Welcome to the Empire Builders podcast, teaching business owners the not so secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom and pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector, and storyteller. I'm Stephen's sidekick and business partner, Dave Young. Before we get into today's episode, word from our sponsor, which is, well, it's us, but we're highlighting ads we've written and produced for our clients, so here's one of those. [Tapper's Jewelry Ad] Stephen Semple: Dave, if I say to you the names Leonardo, Michelangelo, Donatello, and Raphael, what do you think of? Dave Young: I'm guessing that we're not talking about Renaissance artists. Stephen Semple: Not really. Dave Young: We're heading off into Turtleland. Stephen Semple: We're heading off into Turtleland, exactly. But isn't it interesting? That speaks to how big Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are. Where you can say to pretty much anybody those names and yeah, you don't go to Renaissance artists. You go, oh, we're talking about the turtles, right? Dave Young: Yeah, for sure. Especially people a little bit younger than us, but absolutely. Stephen Semple: Yeah. Well, and they went through a revival just recently. There was another one of the movies out, and it's really interesting. That movie was an illustrated movie, and I went and saw that with my oldest daughter, Crystal, who's an illustrator. Man, the illustration style in it was amazing. When you talk about emotions, they really captured that teenage boy chaotic energy. You could really feel it, but that's what it's supposed to be. It was actually really, really well done. Really well done. Dave Young: Well, cool. Now, I have to confess, I don't know, other than I recognize the names and there's the cowabunga thing, the big catchphrase, but honestly, I raised four daughters that weren't into it, and it's after my childhood, so I didn't get into it either so I'm excited to hear the story. I've watched these turtles from afar. Stephen Semple: That's even interesting. When you think about that, and yet you still instantaneously knew what I was referring to, which tells you how strong a presence it had in culture given the fact that you've never seen the comics, you've never seen the movie. It didn't hit you at the right time, didn't hit your kids, and yet you were like zero hesitation. Dave Young: You couldn't hide from it. Stephen Semple: Correct, yes. Dave Young: It was so big. You couldn't hide from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Stephen Semple: But that just in itself captures how big it was. Dave Young: I'm trying to think of what else. Oh, they ate pizza. They eat a lot of pizza. Stephen Semple: That's it. The first comic was published by Mirage Studios, and Mirage Studios was started by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird. The first comic was published in 1984. Today, Mirage Studios is like a $17 billion multimedia franchise. In 1990, just give you an idea, at the peak, Target sold more Turtle action figures than Snickers bars. Yeah, isn't that crazy? Dave Young: More than Snickers bars. Stephen Semple: More than Snickers bars. Dave Young: These weren't even chocolate turtles. Stephen Semple: No, these were the action figures. No, not the chocolate turtles. Very good. Dave Young: See what I did there? Stephen Semple: Yeah, yeah, I did. In 2009, it was sold to Viacom for $60 million bucks. Dave Young: Man. All right. Stephen Semple: Yeah, so Peter Laird and Kevin Eastman, they did well. They were artists, and they wanted to create this comic and it sort of started as a joke. In the eighties, if you think in the eighties, there was these tacky martial arts movies that ran overnight.

Dave Dave Young had no recollection of this game. Really, he didn't know. But after hearing this story he applauds Howard Wexler for knowing himself. Dave Young: Welcome to the Empire Builders podcast, teaching business owners the not-so-secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom and pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector and storyteller. I'm Stephen's sidekick and business partner, Dave Young. Before we get into today's episode, word from our sponsor, which is, well, it's us, but we're highlighting ads we've written and produced for our clients. So here's one of those. [JS Pest Control Ad] Dave Young: Welcome to the Empire Builders podcast. Dave Young here with Stephen Semple. And we're telling the stories of empires that were built up by people with an idea, business people. And Stephen just whispered today's topic into my ear and I don't know. Stephen Semple: You know the game. Connect Four. Dave Young: Connect Four. I don't think I've ever played Connect Four. It's a game? Stephen Semple: You've never played. Dave Young: You're telling me it's a game. Stephen Semple: It's a game. I'm telling you it's a game. Dave Young: Is it a computer game? Stephen Semple: No. Dave Young: It's a board game. Stephen Semple: No, no, it's not a board game either. And that's what makes it interesting. It's the one which is a vertical game and you connect four, you drop them in the top and you connect ... Dave Young: Oh, you drop those little things. Yeah. No, I've never played that. Stephen Semple: You've never played it? Okay. Dave Young: No, I never have. I've seen people doing it and I thought it was, well, it's just sort like cornhole or some stupid thing. Stephen Semple: But now you the game ... Dave Young: I've seen people playing it with a giant set and beers in their hands. Stephen Semple: Yeah. Okay. Dave Young: Okay. Stephen Semple: All right. Dave Young: It's that game. Stephen Semple: It's that game. Well, despite the fact you've never played ... Dave Young: Let me guess, let me guess. Stephen Semple: It's done pretty well. Dave Young: Let me guess. You have to have four colors in a row. Stephen Semple: You have to have four colors in a row. That's it. That's it. Connect Four. Dave Young: All right. Stephen Semple: Despite the fact that you've never played the game, it has done pretty well. Sorry. Dave Young: How many do they sell? Let's get that in. Stephen Semple: About 10 million a year. Dave Young: All right. That's it. Thanks for joining us on the Empire Builders. Stephen Semple: Wow. It's amazing how many times we do this stuff and you know something about the company. I would never have guessed that this is the one that you would not know it. Dave Young: Look, I don't even know if I want to admit this, but yeah, I don't have friends that invite me to play games. Stephen Semple: But I would've thought you would've at least remembered the advertisement. It's a pretty iconic ad that has been done. It was back in the late seventies and it was two kids playing. Dave Young: This was around in the 70s? Stephen Semple: Yes. Dave Young: Did I just wake up from a coma? Stephen Semple: You must have. There was a really iconic advertisement where the two little kids would be playing and the girl would say, "I won." And the boy would go, "I can't see it. Where?" And then she would point out the four in a row and he'd be like, "Pretty sneaky sis," and then pull a little thing and all the pieces would fall. Dave Young: Yeah. I have no memory of this. Stephen Semple: Where were you from? Nebraska. Dave Young: That's basically it. We were too busy working on cornhole technology. Stephen Semple: I guess. Anyway,

Conrad Hilton, despite being unlucky, created what we now know to be the hotel experience. Always improving customer experience. Dave Young: Welcome to The Empire Builders Podcast, teaching business owners the not-so-secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom and pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector, and storyteller. I'm Stephen's sidekick and business partner Dave Young. Before we get into today's episode, a word from our sponsor, which is, well, it's us, but we're highlighting ads we've written and produced for our clients. So here's one of those. [Tommy Cool HVAC Ad] Dave Young: Welcome back To the Empire Builders podcast. Dave Young here with Stephen Semple, and we're telling the stories of empires, people that started with a little idea that ended up being huge. And as we got started here, Stephen whispered in my ear that we're going to talk about Hilton. Stephen Semple: Yeah. Dave Young: And we're not talking about Conrad's granddaughter Paris Hilton who made a big name what in the '90s? Stephen Semple: I was wondering if you were going to go there. Dave Young: She's like chapter three of this story, I think. Stephen Semple: We don't have time for that story. Dave Young: For her to have that lifestyle, grandpa's got to make a lot of money. Stephen Semple: Yeah. Well, Conrad Hilton, I mean, Hilton is huge. Dave Young: Yeah. Stephen Semple: They now have over a million rooms. They have like 7,500 locations in 124 countries. But the interesting thing is Conrad Hilton really invented how we look at hotels today. Dave Young: Okay. Stephen Semple: He really is the founder of that idea. And as we go through this story, one of the things that really captivated me about this story, a lot of times when we're covering these things, yes, people have an observation, and yes, they're brilliant. But there's always this bit of element of luck. There's a little bit of this catching lightning in a bottle. Conrad Hilton was terribly unlucky and it's amazing the things that he had to overcome. Dave Young: Oh wow. Stephen Semple: This guy did not have luck on his side. So I want you to keep that in mind as we go through this story, which makes me admire him more actually. Dave Young: Sure. And as I think about what that brand means to me, before I know the story. I don't think in my youth I had a whole lot of experience staying at a Hilton hotel, but there were certain hotel brands that meant something, that people understood. Stephen Semple: Yeah. Dave Young: If you knew if you were staying at a Holiday Inn on an interstate highway, if it had the word Holidome on it, you're in for a nice swim and a good time in an air-conditioned big space. Stephen Semple: Yes. Dave Young: And if you had the money and you were traveling for business or something, you knew that the Hilton brand- Stephen Semple: Yes. Dave Young: Would be a consistently better experience than most one-off hotels. Most. But there was always, every downtown always had one grand hotel. Stephen Semple: Yes. Dave Young: But then if they had a Hilton too, you'd say, "Oh, well the Hilton, right?" Because the other ones have their quirks. Stephen Semple: Yeah. And I think- Dave Young: The Hilton was always going to be a traveler, a business traveler's hotel. Stephen Semple: I travel a fair bit and I like staying in Hiltons, but I think before we go into the story, I think there's one mistake though that the, and hopefully somebody from Hilton listens to this and calls us and we can help them clean this up for them. They have one mistake that I think they've all done because they all now have all sorts of different brands. Hilton's got like 24 different labels or whatever. Here's the thing that they need to do. They need to look at each one of them and make them ...

Would you remortgaging the house, driving around the country and put your home address in the public for Millions? Dave Young: Welcome to the Empire Builders Podcast, teaching business owners the not-so-secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom and pop to major brands. Stephen Sample is a marketing consultant, story collector, and storyteller. I'm Stephen's sidekick and business partner, Dave Young. Before we get into today's episode, a word from our sponsor, which is, well it's us, but we're highlighting ads we've written and produced for our clients. So here's one of those. [JS Pest Control Ad] Dave Young: Welcome back to the Empire Builders Podcast. Dave Young here alongside Stephen Sample and we're talking about empires and ideas that people had that turned into something big. And as Steve started the countdown for the recording, he told me that today we're going to talk about UNO, the card game UNO. And I got to admit that I didn't play UNO as a kid. Stephen Sample: Oh, you didn't? Okay. Dave Young: I didn't know anything about UNO until I got married and my wife liked UNO and we taught it to our kids. Stephen Sample: Yeah. Dave Young: And I learned- Stephen Sample: So you played it with your daughters then, did you? Dave Young: Yeah. Yeah. Stephen Sample: Yeah. My nephew- Dave Young: It's a vicious game. Stephen Sample: It is a vicious game. My nephew used to love playing UNO, so I'd play it with my niece and nephew, but what would be funny is, for whatever reason, he would end up being the one getting all the cards and you have these little hands and he'd be holding- Dave Young: Oh yeah. Yeah. Stephen Sample: Now the funny thing is he would think it was hilarious that he would have all these. So it was kind of fun because he would find it funny that he'd have, "Well I clearly had the advantage because I've got all the great cards because I have half the deck in my hand." Dave Young: Yeah. How can I lose? Stephen Sample: How can- Dave Young: How could I lose? That's like me on a golf course. I've got way more golf experience than you do because I hit the ball a lot more than you do. Stephen Sample: So as soon as I got looking into UNO, I couldn't help but have all these really great memories of Jeffrey and Robin and playing UNO with them because it really is a great game to play with kids. Dave Young: Yeah. It's fun and, like I said, I always feel bad giving somebody a card that loads their hand up. I don't know why. That's just- Stephen Sample: The way you are. Dave Young: I don't have that killer instinct. Stephen Sample: So just to put in perspective how big UNO is, UNO is the best-selling card game in history. Dave Young: Really? Stephen Sample: Yes. Number one. Dave Young: Okay. By defined as a game specifically with those like that? Stephen Sample: With cards, like a card game. Dave Young: Yeah, but not- Stephen Sample: Selling card game. Dave Young: They haven't sold more cards than Bicycle playing card company. Stephen Sample: No. No because- Dave Young: But just a specific game. Stephen Sample: Yes. They've sold 150 million packs in 80 countries. Dave Young: That's a lot of UNO cards. Stephen Sample: That's a lot of UNO cards. It sure is. Dave Young: And 80 countries? Stephen Sample: Yes. Dave Young: See, that makes sense because you don't need to speak English to play UNO. Stephen Sample: Right. It's very simple. Right. You don't need instructions for it. Dave Young: It's numbers and colors. Yeah. Stephen Sample: Yeah. So it was invented by Merle Robbins in 1971 in Cincinnati. So the 1970s- Dave Young: '71. Okay. Stephen Sample: Yeah. It was 1970s. Lots of tension. Gas prices are crazy. Gas rationing, Vietnam, the stuff going on with Nixon,

Anthony Pratt wanted to elevate playing board games from games of chance to thinking games. His wife was responsible for keeping it random. Dave Young: Welcome to the Empire Builders Podcast, teaching business owners the not-so-secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom and pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector and storyteller. I'm Stephen's sidekick and business partner, Dave Young. Before we get into today's episode, a word from our sponsor, which is, well, it's us, but we're highlighting ads we've written and produced for our clients. So here's one of those. [JS Pest Control Ad] Dave Young: Welcome back to the Empire Builders Podcast. Dave Young here with Stephen Semple. Today, Stephen told me we're going to talk about the board game Clue, Colonel Mustard in the library with the candlestick. Something like that. Stephen Semple: There you go. Dave Young: It's been a long time. It's been a long time since I've played Clue. Stephen Semple: Did you play Clue much as a kid? Dave Young: Not really. Stephen Semple: No? Okay. Dave Young: It was never my type of game, and I'm not sure why. Stephen Semple: Okay. Well, because you would've had to play it with your sisters. That's probably the problem. Dave Young: Yeah, that's probably it. Stephen Semple: More therapy for Dave about to [inaudible 00:02:01] right now. Dave Young: Yeah, you had to think. There was that thinking involved and eliminating things and... Stephen Semple: Well, it's interesting that you bring up the whole concept of thinking because when Clue came out, so it was created in 1949, when Clue came out, pre-World War II games, especially for kids, were like these mindless games of chance or things that required a little bit of a degree of skill. That was sort of all the games. There were not really any games that were thinking games. And Clue was sort of one of the first ones to come along to break into that whole genre of how do we make a game that's more of a thinking game and, frankly, it's not just a kid game as an adult game. Dave Young: Sure, yeah. And then it became a movie and all kinds of things. Stephen Semple: Oh, all kinds of things. And the original name was not Clue. The original name was Cluedo, so C-L-U-E-D-O, Cluedo. Dave Young: Cluedo. Stephen Semple: And it was created by Andrew Pratt. Today it's owned by Hasbro, and they sold like 150 million games. So it's gone on to become like a really big deal and, look, if you ask most people about Clue, they know what it is. Dave Young: Surely. Yeah. We all played it. Stephen Semple: So it's pre-World War II and games were mindless games of chance and whatnot, and there's nothing in between, and Anthony Pratt decides he wants to develop a game. Now, he was a pianist before the war, and he often did entertainment at murder mystery parties, and he remembers people love the murder mystery parties. Dave Young: Murder mystery parties have been going on that long? Stephen Semple: Yes. Yeah. Dave Young: See, I had no idea about that. Stephen Semple: Yeah. Dave Young: Okay. Stephen Semple: And they were really hugely popular. It was driven by, remember there's Agatha Christie, when she was writing in her prime, was just huge. There was a whole Agatha Christie thing, and so that fueled a lot of these murder mystery parties. So here he is, it's World War II, they're in bunkers, killing time, trying to figure out how to create things that are fun. He starts thinking about, like, how could you build a murder mystery game that you could play. He's reading Agatha Christie books and discovers there's all these archetypes and whatnot. That's how he came up with the idea about, well, how about a colonel and a professor and a femme fatale and an entitled rich and a servant?

Sylvester Stallone was not making it, trying to be an actor. So, instead of giving up, he tried a different path. Dave Young: Welcome to the Empire Builders Podcast, teaching business owners the not so secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom and pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector, and storyteller. I'm Stephen's sidekick and business partner, Dave Young. Before we get into today's episode, a word from our sponsor, which is, well, it's us, but we're highlighting ads we've written and produced for our clients. So here's one of those. [ASAP Commercial Doors Ad] Dave Young: Welcome to the Empire Builders Podcast. I'm Dave Young. That's Stephen Semple sitting to your right, however you're facing your podcast listening device. As we normally do, Stephen whispered the topic into my ear just as the countdown thing was going, and I'm a little flustered and confused because I'm not sure what we're talking about. He said, "We're going to talk about the Rocky franchise." And literally, the first thing that came to my mind was Rocky and Bullwinkle. Stephen Semple: Oh, no, no, no. Not Rocky and Bullwinkle. Dave Young: And I'm like, really? That's an empire? Really? Stephen Semple: No, no, no, no, no. Dave Young: No, you're talking about Sylvester Stallone. Stephen Semple: I'm talking about Sylvester Stallone. Dave Young: Yo, Adrian, and all of that. Stephen Semple: All that stuff. All that stuff, yeah. That movie is almost 50 years old. Dave Young: Yeah. Stephen Semple: Came out in 1976. There's been five Rockys. There was, then, Rocky Balboa, there's been three Creeds, there's another Creed coming out. Dave Young: Really? Stephen Semple: There's plans for a prequel to be done on one of the streaming ones. There's a spinoff that's being talked about to be done on Drago. Remember the Russian, the Russian fighter? Dave Young: Oh, sure, yeah. Stephen Semple: When you go to Philadelphia, there's the Rocky statue in Philadelphia of him holding his hands up near the stairs that he ran up. Dave Young: Sure. Stephen Semple: And today, there is a lineup. There's a lineup of people to take their picture with that statue. And it's 50 years ago. 50 years ago. Amazing. Dave Young: Well, Sylvester Stallone, he's got to fund his retirement somehow. Stephen Semple: The story was first shared with me by Tony Robbins, and it blew me away. And I did a little bit of additional look into it like, is this an urban legend? And it turns out much of this is true, although some of the details, I don't know the exact numbers, but it is actually really speaks to Sylvester Stallone's determination and understanding and ability to get things done that I believe every entrepreneur needs to embrace and understand. Dave Young: Awesome. Stephen Semple: And that's why I wanted to talk about Rocky. One of the other things I want to talk about when it comes to Rocky, it won best picture, best director, best film editing. It's considered, by many, one of the greatest sports films of all time. Stallone was nominated for best actor, and also was nominated for best supporting actor in Creed. And is wild today that when you're at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, you still see people who run up the stairs and do the whole thing. Dave Young: Sure. Stephen Semple: And it's that, the statue is there, and there's a lineup. There's a lineup to take your picture with the Rocky statue. And yes, I have a picture of myself with the Rocky statue. I had to do it. Dave Young: How long was the line? Stephen Semple: Actually, I was there during the week on a weekday, so it was not too bad. It was probably about 15 minutes. But here's the story behind Rocky that I find remarkable. So Sylvester Stallone found himself, like many in Hollywood, wanting to be an actor,

Sol Price had and idea that he was not going to let go of. No matter how many times others tried to take it away. Dave Young: Welcome to The Empire Builders podcast, teaching business owners the not-so-secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom and pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector and storyteller. I'm Stephen's sidekick and business partner Dave Young. Before we get into today's episode, a word from our sponsor, which is, well, it's us, but we're highlighting ads we've written and produced for our clients. So here's one of those. [ASAP Commercial Doors Ad] Dave Young: Welcome to The Empire Builders podcast. Dave Young here with Stephen Semple. And Stephen, shoot, just as you hit the button, I was compiling a list because Julie and I, we've got to go pick some stuff up and you reminded me about it. Stephen Semple: Glad I can help. Dave Young: Right? We have a Google Keep list. I don't know if you use Google Keep. It's just sort of a list software that you can share with other people. And so that's where we keep our Costco list. Stephen Semple: Right. Dave Young: And it's actually a Costco/Sam's list, but we hardly ever pick up anything from Sam's. Sam's has some things that Costco doesn't and vice versa. Anyway, we're going to talk about Costco, to try to make a short story long. Stephen Semple: I hope we still have some listeners at this point. Dave Young: Right? Come on, we're only a minute in, so I think we're okay. Stephen Semple: Here's the thing I find it's really interesting about Costco. Today, they have basically almost 900 locations. They do like 243 billion in revenue. They have over 130 million members, and they have over 300,000 employees. They have a reputation of paying and treating employees very, very well, especially for a discount outlet. But to put in perspective, they do a little bit more than half the revenue of Walmart. But Walmart has like 10,000 locations. Costco is like 900. Dave Young: Yeah. Stephen Semple: Think about that volume that they do. Dave Young: Do. The product turn has to be amazing. Yeah. Stephen Semple: Unbelievable. It's just mind-boggling. It's just mind-boggling. And it's really interesting to stand outside of Costco and just look at carts full of stuff. Nobody goes to Costco and buys two things, right? It's just incredible. There's some legal things that we need to talk about to really understand the history of Costco, because back in 1936, there was this Robinson-Patman Act that was passed and it prevented the discounting of goods below the manufactured list price. So when we see manufacturers list price, it used to mean something. And what it used to mean is you could not go below that price. And this was to protect manufacturers and small retailers, and you could not do large purchases at discounts. It didn't matter how much you were buying, couldn't go below that price. And in the 1960s, these laws started to change, but large retailers still resisted this idea of lowering prices, because they'd sort of gotten very used to that. Along comes Sol Price, and it's the early 1950s and he's working as a lawyer in San Diego, and he has a client in a jewelry business that's selling watches to non-profit member owned retail operation in LA called Fedco. And Fedco was a non-profit, like basically it was founded by 800 postal workers in LA, and they were leveraging the buying power to negotiate with distributors and eliminate store markups. And there was a membership fee. It was $5 for a lifetime membership for federal employees. And Sol visited Fedco and he noticed that the property was really similar to one that his mother-in-law had inherited in San Diego that sat empty. So he suggested the location to the client of his and his mother-in-law, and they agreed, and they opened under a different name instead of Fedco.

Seeing that the world was getting faster and smaller, Howard Johnson started a hospitality empire. The first restaurant franchise. Dave Young: Welcome to the Empire Builders Podcast, teaching business owners the not-so-secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom-and-pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector, and storyteller. I'm Stephen's sidekick and business partner, Dave Young. Before we get into today's episode, a word from our sponsor, which is, well, it's us, but we're highlighting ads we've written and produced for our clients. So, here's one of those. [Out of This World Plumbing Ad] Dave Young: So, are you going to actually tell me the topic, because the countdown is done? Stephen Semple: Oh, right. Howard Johnson. Dave Young: Howard Johnson, HoJo's. Right on. Stephen Semple: Yeah. Dave Young: Right on. The aqua building with the orange roof. We stayed at some when I was a little kid. Stephen Semple: Oh, is that right? Dave Young: Howard Johnson's, all right. Stephen Semple: Yeah. Dave Young: Hey, let me do something real quick. Hey, welcome to the Empire Builders Podcast, it's Dave Young here with Stephen Semple, and today we're going to talk about Howard Johnson's as seen in Mad Men. Stephen Semple: Yes. Dave Young: It was a monster. It sort of preceded the Holidome trend that Holiday Inn... I think Holiday Inn kind of kicked their ass with the Holidome concept. Stephen Semple: Oh, yeah. Dave Young: That's my guess. Stephen Semple: Here's the thing, in 1965 sales of Howard Johnson's exceeded that of McDonald's, Burger King, and KFC combined. Dave Young: Wow, that's many exceeds. Stephen Semple: Yes. When we talk about how it used to be a powerhouse, it was a monster that just seems to have disappeared. You see the odd one here and there. Dave Young: Yeah. If I had to guess the trend of, as I mentioned, Holiday Inn, Holidome sort of things, but my guess is that HoJo's, Howard Johnson's big rise was before the Interstate Highway system was built or right along with it- Stephen Semple: Right along with it. Dave Young: ... in some places. Stephen Semple: Yes. Dave Young: But in the East probably predates it. Stephen Semple: Yeah, because there's a couple of really interesting things. As we mentioned, it's not a big powerhouse today. There may even be people that we're talking to that might not even know what the heck Howard Johnson is. At its peak, it was massive, and basically it was a motor hotel along with a restaurant. They would have both. They had the restaurant, they had the motor hotel along with it. Dave Young: Right. Stephen Semple: Now, it started on the restaurant side. That's where it started. In fact, it was the first ever restaurant franchise. They were the first ones to do franchising for a restaurant. Dave Young: So it was the prototype for Denny's and all of those. Stephen Semple: All of those, yeah. Dave Young: Howard Johnson's was there. Stephen Semple: Yeah, and the type of restaurant it was was that fast casual dining. Yeah, really. It was kind of like a diner. It was the first ever franchise and the first location, this wasn't the franchise location, but the first location was Arlene Cape Cod, right at the intersection of Route 28 and Route 6A. Howard Dearing Johnson grew up outside of Boston in Quincy, and his first business was a drug store that he inherited from his father in 1925, along with a whole pile of debt. The business was a money-loser. It had a soda fountain, a newsstand, and sold ice cream. Again, very much like those 1920s drugstores. We think about a drugstore today, and it's not a place that you hung out. In the 1920s, it was a place that you hung out, and I said there was soda fountain, all that other stuff. They sold three flavors of ice cream,

Even if you make an awesome product, if you don't help your perfect customer identify with your brand, it won't sell. Dave Young: Welcome to the Empire Builders Podcast, teaching business owners the not so secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom-and-pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector, and storyteller. I'm Stephen's sidekick and business partner, Dave Young. Before we get into today's episode, a word from our sponsor, which is, well, it's us, but we're highlighting ads we've written and produced for our clients, so here's one of those. [Tapper's Jewelry Ad] Dave Young: Welcome to the Empire Builders Podcast. Dave Young here, along with Stephen Semple, and we talk about brands, building big brands, big, exciting, profitable brands, and yet, during the countdown, Stephen didn't mention which brand we're going to be talking about, but he did mention a category. Somebody built an empire so big that their product actually created the category of light beer. Stephen Semple: Yes, and the reason why I have to look at it that way is it's a big company that made it happen, but it's still a pretty interesting story, because light beer, look, it's a huge category in the beer business, and it was not always that way. In fact, when light beer was first launched, it was a huge failure. It bombed, and it was Miller that created the first success in this space and really created this as a category. At its peak in 1977, Miller Lite was the number two beer in America. Dave Young: We've talked about Miller Lite and their campaign, and they had the world by the tail with Miller Lite. Stephen Semple: They really did, yeah. Dave Young: Then somebody talked him into changing the campaign. Stephen Semple: Yeah. Yep. Dave Young: Because it was at their peak, when it was the Less Filling, Tastes Great. Stephen Semple: Yes. That's what made it, and we're going to talk about how that came about, because it's a really interesting story. Because calorie-reduced beer was introduced in the market in New York by Rheingold Brewery as Gablister's Diet Beer. Dave Young: Yum. Stephen Semple: Sorry. Gablinger's Diet. It was introduced as a diet beer, and it was made using a process developed by chemist Herscher Gablinger of Basel, Switzerland, so it's this Swiss chemist created the process. The version used by Rheingold was developed by Joseph Owades. Now, Joseph then offered the recipe to Peter Hand Brewery, which created Meister Brau Light, so the second one that came out was Meister Brau Light. Now Peter Hand Brewery got into financial trouble in 1972 and sold several of their labels to Miller, and Miller relaunched the light beer as Lite Beer from Miller, not Miller Lite at first, it was Lite Beer from Miller, and Lite being L-I-T-E. It didn't do well. In fact, it was a dud. Around the same time, another brewery was struggling with a light calorie-reduced beer, and the category was simply not working. The problem was the ads were aimed at dieters. Dave Young: This was the era of Tab soft drink. There were diet things. Everything was diet, diet. My guess is they steered the diet industry in a different direction. Stephen Semple: The whole diet thing, just for the beer category, didn't work, but here's when things get strange. When they were doing market research on it, because Miller really believed there was an opportunity here, and when they did market research on it, it showed that 90% of Miller drinkers had tried the light beer once, they had tried it. They didn't say they disliked it, but they didn't buy it again. On one hand, you can go, "Well, the advertising's working, the promotion's working, our drinkers are trying it. They're not saying they dislike it, but they're not buying it again." Here's basically where they landed. The Miller beer drinker at that time was really described as the two-fisted drinker,

David McConnell ditched his door to door book selling gig to pursue the bribe that he we giving for attention. Dave Young: Welcome to the Empire Builders podcast, teaching business owners the Not-So-secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom and pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector, and storyteller. I'm Stephen's sidekick and business partner Dave Young. Before we get into today's episode, a word from our sponsor, which is, well, it's us, but we're highlighting ads we've written and produced for our clients. So here's one of those. [Travis Crawford HVAC Ad] Stephen Semple: Ding dong. What makes you think of when the doorbell rings, what ad? Ding dong. Dave Young: Ding dong. Well, I was expecting a topic, first of all. Stephen Semple: Okay, well work with me here. What do you recall? Dave Young: Shoot, in the last five years, just chasing people away from my front porch. Stephen Semple: Oh, okay. Dave Young: Avon calling. Stephen Semple: There you go. Avon calling. That's who we're going to talk about. Dave Young: Yeah, I don't think they're doing that anymore. Stephen Semple: No, they aren't. But that recall is really, really interesting from the fact that you were able to remember those ads. Because those ads have not run, they stopped running in the late sixties. We were like... Dave Young: Oh my gosh. Stephen Semple: We were really young when those ads stopped, and yet you were still able to recall it. Dave Young: And I'm probably recalling it as a persistent meme in our culture that Avon calling, it became, not, it was woven into probably movies and TV and mass culture, so that for the next decade or decade and a half, it was still echoing, right? Stephen Semple: Correct. Dave Young: Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Stephen Semple: So think about how powerful that was. We're going to talk about Origin, a little bit about Avon. Dave Young: I think that's a fascinating phenomenon. I'm anxious to hear the Avon story. It reminds me of cigarette jingles as well that ended when they banned cigarette advertising in the mid-seventies. Yet for the next 20, 30 years, I mean, anybody that was alive then could still tell you Winston tastes good like a cigarette should, right? There's so many of those. So yeah, they just become a part of us. Stephen Semple: And they're powerful enough that they're, as you said, spoofing them on Simpsons and things along that lines. But back to Avon. So Avon's a really old company. It was founded in 1886 by David McConnell, and today, it's still around today. They do 9 billion in sales, they have 23,000 employees. There's over 6 million representatives of Avon, and it's still privately held by Natura Holdings out of Brazil. And they're giving you an idea, there are four Avon lipsticks sold every second. Dave Young: Dang, that's a lot of lipstick. Stephen Semple: Boom four, boom four, boom four. Isn't that incredible? Isn't that amazing? Avon's founder, David McConnell, started in sales back in the 1880s as a door to door book salesman. And so we've heard this happen with other businesses because he then used a popular gimmick. Remember Wrigley's? Remember how Wrigley's didn't start by selling gum? The gum was the free giveaway? McConnell offered a free gift in exchange for a moment of the customer's time. So it was a gift with appointment. And guess what he gave away? Perfume. Dave Young: Oh, okay. Stephen Semple: Most of the customers McConnell dealt with were housewives who were home in the afternoon hours while their husband was away at work. And so he decided to work with a local pharmacy to create a fragrance that he could give away, little quantities for anybody who was willing to listen to the book pitch. But a funny thing happened, they were way more interested in the perfume than the books. So just like Wrigley,

Do not confuse Strategy with Best Practices. Creating a great strategy will allow you to stand out, not fit in. Dave Young: Welcome to The Empire Builders Podcast, teaching business owners the not-so-secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom and pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector, and storyteller. I'm Stephen's sidekick and business partner, Dave Young. Before we get into today's episode, a word from our sponsor, which is, well it's us. But we're highlighting ads we've written and produced for our clients. Here's one of those. [Colair Cooling & Heating Ad] Dave Young: Welcome back to The Empire Builders Podcast. Dave Young here, with Stephen Semple. The topic you whispered in my ear today is not a brand name, it's not a service, it's not an invention. My favorite word to describe this is President Bush, the young one, the W. Stephen Semple: Okay. Dave Young: He called it strategery. Stephen Semple: Strategery. Dave Young: You want to talk about strategy today. Stephen Semple: I do. Dave Young: Or strategery. Stephen Semple: Strategery. Well if you think about it, this whole podcast, every episode is really about looking at a business and strategically, what did it do that made itself really successful. I get a bit frustrated because, a lot of times, businesses don't invest in strategy. They don't want to have a strategic session and invest in that. We all know that strategy ends up becoming really important. Then there's lots of things that are being paraded around as strategy, that frankly, aren't strategy, they're other things. What I wanted to do is talk a little bit about what strategy is, isn't, and how you create it, and why it's important. Basically, I think it distills down to this. When people sit around in a group and go, "Hey, let's think about this thing that we can then parade out to people in an industry, we have this idea." That's not strategy. That's best practices. Dave Young: Okay, yeah. Stephen Semple: They're best practices because they're looking at, "Oh, here's the best things that have gone on in the industry." Those are best practices. If it's something that's really common, it's a tactic. It's not a strategy because a strategy can't be repurposed. What a strategy is, is a business looks at its problem, "I've got this problem. I have these assets that I can leverage. Here's a creative way in which I can use these assets to solve this problem." Now what often ends up happening is it solves the problem so well, that they then systematize the solution, and now it becomes a best practice. Then that best practice gets so adopted in the industry, it becomes a common tactic that everyone does. That's what happens. But for it to be a strategy, it can really only be used in that situation. Dave Young: Okay. Can you give me some examples? Stephen Semple: Great examples. M.M. LaFleur. They invented this whole idea of mailing out clothing to people on this subscription basis, where they then try it on and send it back. They didn't start off going, "Hey, let's do this." They had a problem. They had clothing and they couldn't find a place to store it. But because they had been doing these private fittings, they had an asset. The asset was, "We have the contact information of all these customers, along with their sizes, and their preferences. We can actually send clothing out to them that we think they would like." They did it to solve a problem, and in the process, made more sales in a month than they had done in the entire history of the company. They then went, "Huh, let's turn this into a thing. Let's systemize it and make it actually our business.?" Dave Young: Yeah. I looked it up, it's episode 54. Stephen Semple: Thank you. That was looking at their problem, looking at these unleveraged assets, and solving it in a way in which it had not been solv...