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Speaker 1: Struggling. Yeah, they cut their global sales forecast. They cite

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Speaker 1: economic uncertainty, heightened competition, and especially their lower income income consumers.

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Speaker 2: Okay, so this is like the world we live in

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Speaker 2: is fascinating, isn't weird? As Like you get older, the

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Speaker 2: things you remember? Just why do I remember this? Why

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Speaker 2: don't I remember other things?

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Speaker 3: Whatever? I remember?

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Speaker 2: Most people know my radio mentor the guy that I

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Speaker 2: think had the biggest impact on me is legendary j Baker,

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Speaker 2: who is best known from his years with Bob and

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Speaker 2: Tom and Q ninety five and Jay Stilling Unit five.

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Speaker 2: And Jay was very young in this business, saw something

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Speaker 2: in me and took me under his wing and I

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Speaker 2: used to sit for hours on the weekend with him,

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Speaker 2: and he was gracious and he would and we would

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Speaker 2: talk about radio, and you would teach me things about

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Speaker 2: the business, and we would talk about all sorts of

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Speaker 2: things with life. And one of the things my job

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Speaker 2: to do with Jay on the weekends was to go

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Speaker 2: get the lunch. That was my job. And we used

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Speaker 2: to we had the radio stations in Brownsborg, so was

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Speaker 2: right near the interstate, and we used to like laugh

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Speaker 2: about like how fast food restaurants near an interstate, a

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Speaker 2: crowded interstate like the one in Brownsburg should basically be

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Speaker 2: a money printing factory. Like if you're a named chain

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Speaker 2: off a crowded interstate, and this is you know, early

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Speaker 2: two thousands, right, so totally different world. But how could

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Speaker 2: you fail if you're Wendy's or RB's or McDonald's or

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Speaker 2: Burger King like and you're off a crowded interestate of

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Speaker 2: any sort, How could you possibly fail? And yet in

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Speaker 2: the modern climate in which we live that you know,

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Speaker 2: we were saying, like, wouldn't it be great if you

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Speaker 2: could just own the Wendy's off the interstate in Brownsburg

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Speaker 2: that Wendy's is. I think I had all sorts of

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Speaker 2: problems over the past several years, but now it's like

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Speaker 2: the economy is so bizarro, and whether it's getting workers

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Speaker 2: or people to show up, or what you could pay them,

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Speaker 2: or how people's buying habits have changed. We now live

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Speaker 2: in a world where even a megafranchise.

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Speaker 1: Like what Wendys were struggling, well, I think, and you

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Speaker 1: hit on it right there. They say that their sales

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Speaker 1: improved a little in May and June, and that was

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Speaker 1: because they had new frosty something or another, but overall

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Speaker 1: demand hasn't recovered and it's been much slower than what

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Speaker 1: they expected. They said that their breakfast sales have lagged

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Speaker 1: behind other day parts because consumers are choosing to skip

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Speaker 1: or eat breakfast at home because of financial pressure.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, and I.

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Speaker 2: Think it used to be that in a pre inflation,

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Speaker 2: pre COVID world where we still put See, part of

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Speaker 2: the problem with COVID was they devalued work.

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Speaker 3: They told you stay home. You can stay home, it

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Speaker 3: doesn't matter.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, your work doesn't matter, right, And people it got

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Speaker 2: ingrained in a system, especially amongst younger people who saw

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Speaker 2: this and thought, well, staying home as a way of

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Speaker 2: life that they don't feel the onus quality young people

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Speaker 2: to go out and get jobs younger right, like high

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Speaker 2: school kids or whatever who run a lot of these fast.

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Speaker 3: Food restaurants, etc. Help run them, et cetera.

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Speaker 2: And so now you have to pay so much to

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Speaker 2: get quality people in certainly an adult of any sort,

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Speaker 2: that your price point can't match what it pays to

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Speaker 2: get people in there.

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Speaker 3: And so as a result, you're stuck in.

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Speaker 2: This bizarre world where you can't make the you struggle

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Speaker 2: to make it work. We're now off a crowded interstate.

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Speaker 2: Fast food restaurants somehow are managing to struggle.

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Speaker 1: McDonald's has seen a rebound. They expanded their value menu

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Speaker 1: and that has brought some of their lower income customers back.

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Speaker 1: Wendy's also offers a value option, but they're saying maybe

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Speaker 1: they're not marketing it correctly, which costs money. You know,

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Speaker 1: they got to get the word out that they've got it.

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Speaker 2: You know, the history of Wendy's is fascinating too. It

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Speaker 2: was weird my wife and I were just talking about

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Speaker 2: because she went to Wendy's the other day and we

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Speaker 2: were talking about that. She was ignoring me. I was talking,

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Speaker 2: but I was telling her about the history of Wendy's.

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Speaker 2: Is fascinating because obviously Dave Thomas is the face the

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Speaker 2: founder of Wendy's, but the growth of Wendy's came in

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Speaker 2: a post Dave Thomas era. He owned Wendy's. He was

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Speaker 2: the founder of Wendy's. That's his daughter, that's on the billboards.

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Speaker 2: But the explosive growth of Wendy's came in a post

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Speaker 2: Dave Thomas is the guy who owns and runs the

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Speaker 2: show era and Wendy's was in a lot of trouble

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Speaker 2: in the nineteen would have been the early eighties, in

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Speaker 2: the pre where's the Beef commercial, and they came up

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Speaker 2: with this brilliant commercial and it sparked these massive sales

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Speaker 2: and they became a you know, this juggernaut off of that.

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Speaker 3: Added it's so weird, how.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, Whitmer's Rights indie reporter, Wendy's value selection stinks. He's right,

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Speaker 2: that's part of the problem.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, Wendy's used to have that double seven five dollars

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Speaker 1: biggie bag.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, but it's it's not it's not. It's not as

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Speaker 2: good as some of the other places. Right, it's you know,

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Speaker 2: it's got the I think of what it's got, chicken nuggets.

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Speaker 3: The double stack, the fry, and the drink.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's the bacon, cheeseburger, fries, nuggets and drinks.

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Speaker 3: Okay, very good. These have the double stack on the value.

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Speaker 2: Any point on all of this is Wendy's has had

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Speaker 2: a somewhat tumultuous, you know history in terms of highs

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Speaker 2: and lows, peaks and valleys, and it seems like they

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Speaker 2: are really struggling right now.

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Speaker 1: Well, it's when they used the marketing where's the beef?

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Speaker 1: That's when it turned around for him, right, Yeah, And

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Speaker 1: clearly their message right now is it's not good.

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Speaker 2: And I think you're in a world now where it

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Speaker 2: used to be one great ad campaign can could save you.

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Speaker 2: You can come up with something that even if the

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Speaker 2: product is struggling, if your ad campaign is good enough,

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Speaker 2: you can.

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Speaker 3: Make it work.

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Speaker 2: And I think we're so fractured as society and how

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Speaker 2: in terms of how people consume information, where they consume information.

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Speaker 3: That we don't.

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Speaker 2: It's like movies, right there was always moved the blockbuster

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Speaker 2: event in the summer, and there were you know, McDonald's

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Speaker 2: had something whether whether it's Batman or Ghostbusters or whatever.

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Speaker 3: That's all. It's all gone now that doesn't exist any.

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Speaker 1: And you're talking about the where's the beef commercial television commercial?

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Speaker 3: Right that's not going to work today.

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Speaker 1: They'd be better off if they could have something go

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Speaker 1: viral for them.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: And I just think the economy and these are with

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Speaker 2: this thing with Wendy's is a great example. I think

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Speaker 2: the economy is so upside down. And I think it's

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Speaker 2: a great example of politicians will lie and they'll spin,

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Speaker 2: but when Wendy's is struggling.

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Speaker 3: That'll tell you what's going on out there.

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Speaker 1: That's going to do it for us today. Thank you Rob,

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Speaker 1: thank you Kevin, thank you for listening. It's being Kendall

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Speaker 1: and Casey on ninety three WYBC.

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Speaker 3: Have a big dinner, have a light snack and you

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Speaker 3: know bag and you can't send it backt up meaning

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Speaker 3: and need it