Podcast appearances and mentions of dave young

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...

On today's newscast: Funding and staff cuts at a federal agency that provides grants to libraries across the country has raised concerns for local libraries; Colorado's state treasurer Dave Young, a Democrat, is speaking out against potential deep Medicaid cuts from the Republican Congress; and The Bureau of Land Management plans to remove all wild horses from a large section of southwest Wyoming. Tune in for these stories and more.

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?

Message from Dave Young on February 9, 2025

RAVI COLTRANE “SPIRIT FICTION” New York, December 20-22, 2011Klepto (4), Check out time (4,6), Fantasm (jg,eh,ra out,4,6)Ralph Alessi (tp-4) Ravi Coltrane (ts) Joe Lovano (ts-6) Geri Allen (p-4) James Genus (b-4) Eric Harland (d-4) OLIVER JONES TRIO “COOKIN' AT SWEET BASIL” New York, September 3, 1987My funny Valentine, Jitterbug waltzOliver Jones (p) Dave Young (b) Terry Clarke (d) LAUREN SEVIAN “BLISS” Brooklyn, NY, September 19, 2017Square one, Bliss, Bluesishness, Lamb and bunnyLauren Sevian (bar) Alexa Tarantino (as) Robert Rodriguez (p) Christian McBride (b) E.J. Continue reading Puro Jazz 05 de febrero, 2025 at PuroJazz.

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,

Amy Schumacher is the chief executive officer of The Heritage Group, overseeing the company's portfolio of more than 30 businesses and 5,000 employees. Amy has been part of The Heritage Group family of businesses for over 13 years. In 2008, she founded Monument Chemical, the group's specialty chemicals business, and served as president and CEO for eight years, marking the fourth generation of Fehsenfeld family leadership.She graduated from Purdue University with a BA in Education and BS in Civil Engineering and received her MBA from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She serves on the boards of the Indiana Economic Development Corporation, the Women's Fund of Central Indiana, and Calumet Specialty Products, and is a member of the Young Presidents' Organization.In this conversation with Dave Young, the Global Leader of the BCG Henderson Institute's Center for Climate & Sustainability, Amy shares how this fourth-generation family business blends innovation, sustainability, and values-driven leadership to build enduring success. She describes the company's journey from its beginnings during the Great Depression to becoming a diversified enterprise with over 50 companies, emphasizing the power of sustainability as a competitive advantage. They delve into transformative projects like building North America's largest lithium-ion battery recycling operation and a runway project that showcases groundbreaking sustainable practices. Amy's insights on fostering collaboration, empowering people, and maintaining a long-term perspective highlight The Heritage Group's unique approach to creating businesses that tackle hard problems and leave a lasting legacy.

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.

Highs and lows of balancing a career with running a city.

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.

Message from Dave Young on January 19, 2025

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,

Message from Dave Young on January 12, 2025

Dr. Chris Killian is Senior Vice President, Chief Technology and Sustainability Officer for Eastman's global technology, innovation, and sustainability organizations. Chris leads Eastman's innovation-driven growth strategy to deliver sustainable material solutions to customer and societal needs. Prior to his current position, Chris served as senior vice president and chief technology officer.Chris holds a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG) and a doctorate in organic chemistry from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He joined Eastman in 1996 as a research chemist. During his career at Eastman, he has held various technology and business leadership positions, including director of polymers technology, director of the Tritan™ growth platform, and vice president of Advanced Materials technology.In this conversation with Dave Young, the Global Leader of the BCG Henderson Institute's Center for Climate & Sustainability, Chris shares Eastman's journey in pioneering technologies like molecular recycling and bio-based polymers, offering insights into how the company has built a “better circle” by integrating circular economy principles into its core operations. The discussion highlights Eastman's principles-based approach to innovation, where high environmental and societal standards are seamlessly aligned with business performance. From creating sustainable supply chains to addressing global challenges in material science, Chris provides an inspiring blueprint for how businesses can leverage innovation to drive growth, deliver value, and create a more sustainable future.

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,

The Wizard Academy tower sits on a plateau 900 feet above the city of Austin. The view from the stardeck is stunning.When you attend our free public seminar on the afternoon of March 17, you will be in Tuscan Hall just 500 feet from the tower. If you have some extra time on campus, perhaps Dave Young will be willing to press the button that lifts you from the underground art gallery up to the stardeck so that you can look around.This is what I will teach you in Tuscan Hall:How to create a magnetic personality for your brand. It's easier than you think.How to use personification to breathe life into all your corporate communications, beginning with your advertising.How to use character banter and magical thinking to help customers understand that your company has beliefs, values, motives, can make choices, and that it has life.How to gather these techniques into an operating plan that will integrate this magnetic new personality into every touchpoint of your business.How to measure the trajectory and momentum of your rejuvenated brand.You're going to have a good time. I will include lots of examples of PowerSelling ads that have lifted people to new heights.Q: PowerSelling. What is it?A: PowerSelling is an advertising technique that makes your name the one people think of first – and feel the best about – when they need what you sell.Q: Does it work for B2B? (Business to Business)A: Not really. B2B requires tight targeting and significantly more logic than is required to win the hearts of the public. [NOTE: If today's memo feels different than the typical Monday Morning Memo, it is because this is probably the first example of B2B writing that you have ever seen me write. Are you noticing the additional logic? – RHW]Q: Does it work for Direct Response offers?A: No. Direct Response offers are built almost entirely on features and benefits, the so-called “value proposition,” enhanced by an urgent call-to-action, usually with a final bit of “added value” if you “act now.”Q: So what's it good for?A: PowerSelling is for products and services that have a long purchase cycle and a relatively high price tag; things like diamond engagement rings, legal services, medical services, and home services like plumbing, air conditioning, roofing, and electrical. PowerSelling is strictly B2C (Business to Consumer) and it almost always employs mass media; television or radio, sometimes with billboards added.Q: Will there be recordings made, or perhaps a livestream?A: Sorry, but no. The Wizards of Ads® have little desire to debate – or educate – a world full of traditional ad writers that have been trained on the tripe that is taught in college.*You are going to learn the explosive techniques that will make your advertising leap off the launchpad with fire and smoke as you begin your journey to the stars. You will feel your acceleration grow to the point where your cheeks are pulled back and your eyes become slits as the corners of your mouth touch your earlobes.Or maybe you are just smiling.If you are ready for the ride of your life, be in Austin on March 17th.Roy H. Williams|“Running a big company is like...

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.

Message from Dave Young on December 22, 2024

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.

Message from Dave Young on December 15, 2024

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,

Message from Dave Young on December 1, 2024

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.

Message from Dave Young on November 17, 2024

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,

One hundred and two years ago, Benito organized a March on Rome with the intention of forcing the king of Italy to yield the government to him. It worked, and Benito was appointed prime minister.Thirty-two-year-old Antonio had a problem with that, and spoke out against Benito.Benito got tired of Antonio's criticism and had him thrown into prison, where he died 11 years later.But while he was still with us, he wrote 30 notebooks containing more than 3,000 pages of history and analysis. The prison notebooks of Antonio Gramsci are considered by historians to be highly original contributions to 20th-century political theory.Wizard Academy vice-chancellor Dave Young brought Antonio to my attention last week when he forwarded to me a glistening quote written by this shackled young writer:“The old world is dying. And the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters.”Those words of Antonio Gramsci dance and sting like honeybees, don't they?In return for his gift of Antonio Gramsci, I sent Dave a couple of the enthusiastic ramblings of American scientist Neil deGrasse Tyson:“I will defend AD and BC, year of the Lord, AD, ‘Ano Domini,' and BC, ‘Before Christ.' I'll defend the use of those because a lot of hard work went into creating that calendar – the Gregorian calendar – which is now used worldwide. It's based on a Christian construct, but it had a lot of very interesting science that went in behind it.I'm not just going to ‘swap out' the words to dereligify it. I don't mind leaving credit where it's due.I don't know any atheist that still uses AD and BC. They use ‘Common Era,' CE, and BCE, ‘Before Common Era.'But who are they fooling? It's the same numbers of years. They're just trying to ‘paint over' a religious reference.I don't have that much objection to the religious participation in civilization.”But this next comment of Neil deGrasse Tyson serves as a sort of counterbalance to that first one:“Ben Franklin was the world's most famous scientist in his day. But he's not remembered in America as that; he's remembered as a founding father.He invented the lightning rod.What's the tallest structure back then? The steeple makes the church the tallest structure in any city. What is the most susceptible to a lightning strike? The tallest structure. So lightning was taking out churches left and right, and if you were the other church that wasn't taken out, you had good argument for saying the people in the church that burned down were worshiping in the wrong way.Ben Franklin then invents the lightning rod, which does two things: It dissipates charges that build up under your structure that would otherwise be part of the lightning strike, and it sends them back into the air without the benefit of lightning. So that makes you less susceptible to begin with. And if the lightning strikes it, then it directs all of the charge through the metal and not through your house.So Ben Franklin does this, and churches are no longer destroyed by lightning, even if they're hit, and he's accused of heresy for thwarting the will of God.”Neil deGrasse Tyson is famous for his atheism but he vigorously defends the use of the Christian system of dating the history of the world in years that count backward and forward from the day that Jesus was born.Benjamin Franklin doubted the divinity of Jesus, but he invented the lightning rod to make sure that churches did not burn down. And they accused him of heresy for it.*As I consider articulate Antonio and bumbling Benito of Italy, I recall the words of a delightful American writer who was born in the same year Antonio was born. When she was accused of being too critical, the delightful Dorothy Parker responded:“How could I possibly overthrow the government when I can't even keep my dog down?”Me...

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:

Message from Dave Young on October 27, 2024

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.

Message from Dave Young on October 20, 2024

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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,

Bethlie Young is the wife of evangelist Dave Young and mother of five children. She was originally from Newark, Ohio, but now lives in Milton, Florida when she is not traveling around the country assisting her husband as he has opportunities to preach. We were privileged to have Bethlie speak at our first ladies' retreat of 2024. Her theme for the weekend was Abiding in Christ from John 15. Over the next few episodes, she will discuss abiding in God's Word, abiding in prayer, abiding in trials, and abiding in joy. Our prayer is that your heart will be encouraged, and that you might learn to abide in Christ no matter your circumstances.

Bethlie Young is the wife of evangelist Dave Young and mother of five children. She was originally from Newark, Ohio, but now lives in Milton, Florida when she is not traveling around the country assisting her husband as he has opportunities to preach. We were privileged to have Bethlie speak at our first ladies' retreat of 2024. Her theme for the weekend was Abiding in Christ from John 15. Over the next few episodes, she will discuss abiding in God's Word, abiding in prayer, abiding in trials, and abiding in joy. Our prayer is that your heart will be encouraged, and that you might learn to abide in Christ no matter your circumstances.

Bethlie Young is the wife of evangelist Dave Young and mother of five children. She was originally from Newark, Ohio, but now lives in Milton, Florida when she is not traveling around the country assisting her husband as he has opportunities to preach. We were privileged to have Bethlie speak at our first ladies' retreat of 2024. Her theme for the weekend was Abiding in Christ from John 15. Over the next few episodes, she will discuss abiding in God's Word, abiding in prayer, abiding in trials, and abiding in joy. Our prayer is that your heart will be encouraged, and that you might learn to abide in Christ no matter your circumstances.

Bethlie Young is the wife of evangelist Dave Young and mother of five children. She was originally from Newark, Ohio, but now lives in Milton, Florida when she is not traveling around the country assisting her husband as he has opportunities to preach. We were privileged to have Bethlie speak at our First Ladies' retreat of 2024. Her theme for the weekend was Abiding in Christ from John 15. Over the next few episodes, she will discuss abiding in God's Word, abiding in prayer, abiding in trials, and abiding in joy. Our prayer is that your heart will be encouraged, and that you might learn to abide in Christ no matter your circumstances.