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Speaker 1: Welcome back everyone.
Speaker 2: This is Mine the Business Small Business success Stories, a
Speaker 2: podcast brought to you by Into It QuickBooks and Ruby
Speaker 2: Studio from iHeartMedia.
Speaker 1: I'm Jenny's Torres.
Speaker 3: And I'm Austin Hankwitz.
Speaker 2: And we are on the road again, this time in Nashville, Tennessee,
Speaker 2: to talk to another entrepreneur. But in this episode, we're
Speaker 2: actually live in a restaurant called bag Ladies.
Speaker 1: I joined in Nashville and.
Speaker 2: I am surrounded by the delicious smells of French fries.
Speaker 4: Not just the delicious smells of French fries, but also
Speaker 4: beverage machines, French fry seasoning going all over the place here.
Speaker 4: We've got some really cool memorabilia all over the walls,
Speaker 4: and we're getting ready now for the lunch rush that's
Speaker 4: going to happen here in the next call it fifteen
Speaker 4: to twenty minutes.
Speaker 3: I can feel the vibes.
Speaker 2: The vibes are hot, the vibes are high, and the
Speaker 2: French fries are hot.
Speaker 4: New Year, New business challenges, new business goals. Were getting
Speaker 4: excited about everything that twenty twenty five is going to
Speaker 4: offer us. What are some data points and metrics that
Speaker 4: you are now saying, okay, I need to keep tracking these.
Speaker 4: These are the most important and all right time to
Speaker 4: leave these in the past.
Speaker 2: I always love doing kind of an end of year
Speaker 2: recap on the business, seeing where income streams came from,
Speaker 2: what was flourishing, what needs more attention. I think there's
Speaker 2: no such thing as too much information. As a business owner.
Speaker 4: I would totally agree with that. All the information that
Speaker 4: can absolutely be overwhelming unless you have an awesome tool
Speaker 4: like into it QuickBooks to help you decipher it and
Speaker 4: take these row numbers and put them to work.
Speaker 2: Absolutely all the data is super important and it really
Speaker 2: shows you where your strengths are what is working for
Speaker 2: you and also what you need to improve, and all
Speaker 2: that feeds into how I make decisions about where I'm
Speaker 2: going to focus my energy as a business owner as
Speaker 2: well as where I'm going to focus from a profitability perspective.
Speaker 1: How about you?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm right there with you, right.
Speaker 4: I think every year something that we like to do
Speaker 4: as we sit down for several hours, my team and
Speaker 4: I and we say, Okay, what really really worked over
Speaker 4: the last three, six, nine, twelve months? How did that
Speaker 4: move the bottom line? How much time did we spend
Speaker 4: building this? Was it something that actually moved the needle
Speaker 4: for us? And then we say, what is something we
Speaker 4: just don't like doing? Is it a process of the business,
Speaker 4: is it a product we're selling? Is it a service?
Speaker 4: Where what is going on that does not move the needle?
Speaker 4: And just being able to have that wherewithal and the
Speaker 4: self awareness to reflect on some of that, but more importantly,
Speaker 4: have the real data in front of you to be
Speaker 4: able to make those decisions is incredibly important.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, But enough about us, Let's introduce our guest. French
Speaker 2: fries are known as a side dish, but in Brandon
Speaker 2: and James Lyttleton's family. It was the main event. Their grandmothers,
Speaker 2: Vessa and Irene, expertly prepared handcut fries, stored in brown
Speaker 2: paper bags, and seasoned with love and culinary wisdom. So
Speaker 2: when the brothers decided to go into the restaurant business together,
Speaker 2: they knew the exact dish they were going to build
Speaker 2: their business around. But it was a rocky start. Unable
Speaker 2: to find a bank willing to take a chance on
Speaker 2: their unconventional idea, and with the COVID nineteen pandemic in
Speaker 2: full swing, opening an actual storefront location was looking nearly impossible,
Speaker 2: but Brandon and James refused to give up and instead
Speaker 2: saved what money they could and.
Speaker 1: Started a food truck.
Speaker 2: That food truck, powered by their grandmother's fry recipe, took
Speaker 2: off into such a success that they were finally able
Speaker 2: to open the brick and mortar restaurant they originally dreamed of. Today,
Speaker 2: Brandon and James run Bag Ladies, a fry centric restaurant
Speaker 2: affectionately named after the woman who inspired it, and one
Speaker 2: that is quickly sizzling its way into the very fabric
Speaker 2: of Nashville's vibrant restaurant community.
Speaker 1: Brandon Littleton. Welcome to the show.
Speaker 5: It's a honor to be here. Welcome to the Home
Speaker 5: of bag Ladies.
Speaker 3: This is amazing.
Speaker 4: I mean, you've really ducked this place out with some
Speaker 4: really cool memorabilia, which we'll get into, but let's kick
Speaker 4: things off with this whole idea of going from recipe
Speaker 4: from grandmother to now established brick and mortar in Nashville, Tennessee.
Speaker 3: Walk me through the entire story.
Speaker 5: Absolutely, So the foundation came from our two grannies, So
Speaker 5: we spent a lot of time with them during the summertimes.
Speaker 5: And me and my brother have two vastly different taste buds.
Speaker 5: Like he likes spicy stuff, I don't. I like peanut
Speaker 5: butter and jelly he doesn't. But one thing that we
Speaker 5: always landed on was fries. So our granny has had
Speaker 5: this special process of making fries. They would kind of
Speaker 5: chop them up, have them brind and then put them
Speaker 5: in these brown paper bags and then put them in
Speaker 5: deep freezers. So in the garage there would be brown
Speaker 5: paper bags everywhere and as where we kind of got
Speaker 5: the nickname bad Ladies. So fast forward twenty years. We
Speaker 5: wanted to start a restaurant and Basically what happened was
Speaker 5: we just kept getting rejected by banks, so it was
Speaker 5: a little hard to kind of get funding. But it
Speaker 5: ended up being a blessing in disguise simply because COVID happened.
Speaker 5: So one thing that happened during COVID, we saw that
Speaker 5: food trucks kept coming up, so we you know, turned
Speaker 5: over every cushion in a couch. We scratched up any
Speaker 5: money that we could purchased a food truck. And you know,
Speaker 5: on the first day, didn't no one to come. The
Speaker 5: second day, didn't no one come. The third day was
Speaker 5: like two people game, and it was like our mom
Speaker 5: and dad. But then the fourth time, we started to
Speaker 5: get lines, we started to get awards, we started to
Speaker 5: be you know, invited to festivals and everything, and then
Speaker 5: that created the opportunity for our first brick and mortar,
Speaker 5: which we call our first neighborhood frau joints. So we
Speaker 5: wanted to be tucked in neighborhoods. We didn't want to
Speaker 5: be like centralized downtown. We wanted to be like deep
Speaker 5: in a neighborhood that we grew up in.
Speaker 4: That's amazing, And you mentioned you started getting in festivals,
Speaker 4: and one Awards. What was the process of that? I mean,
Speaker 4: were people reaching out to you? Were you kind of
Speaker 4: working maybe with a PR team to try and get
Speaker 4: your guys on the front cover of Nashville Today?
Speaker 5: Right, great question. So a lot of it has been organic.
Speaker 5: So what we did We started on Gallatin Pike. There
Speaker 5: was just an area that was just open, So we
Speaker 5: didn't know the regulations, we didn't know anything like that. Again,
Speaker 5: we're just two brothers just trying to figure it out,
Speaker 5: and customers started to come back, customers start to talk.
Speaker 5: We would run into you know, media outlets that would
Speaker 5: come and taste the food, and all of that kind
Speaker 5: of transpired and just created opportunities. So then when we
Speaker 5: would go to vestivals or have events, that would create
Speaker 5: opportunities for something else. So it's just kind of just
Speaker 5: being in the field being active is what created all
Speaker 5: the noise for us.
Speaker 2: What kind of information were you looking at from like
Speaker 2: a budget perspective as far as like how are we
Speaker 2: going to set aside money for marketing and how much
Speaker 2: are we going to set aside for inventory costs?
Speaker 1: Like where did that information come from?
Speaker 5: So all of that comes from quick books, To be honest,
Speaker 5: with you. So we look at our p and L
Speaker 5: every day. We have this just saying that, you know,
Speaker 5: if we have good days, we're going to have good weeks.
Speaker 5: We have good weeks, we're gonna have good months. We
Speaker 5: have good months, were gonna have good quarters. And so
Speaker 5: we look at our p ANDOL every day to just
Speaker 5: make sure this aligned with the benchmarks of restaurants that
Speaker 5: are in our area.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I love that, you know, I don't think it's
Speaker 2: like such a thing as being too involved with your
Speaker 2: numbers as a business owner, because you kind of got
Speaker 2: to know what's happening so that you can be reactive
Speaker 2: instead of, you know, just kind of waiting for things
Speaker 2: to happen and then figuring out what that solutionship.
Speaker 5: Is going to be. Absolutely, in those first couple of months,
Speaker 5: really first year, we are deering the hairlights. I mean,
Speaker 5: we didn't really know because we were working in the
Speaker 5: business every day. We did not have the time. So
Speaker 5: just having a resource that we can just pull up
Speaker 5: on our app, pull up on a website and online
Speaker 5: and just be able to see, Okay, we spending too
Speaker 5: much on food, so let's dial it back, you know.
Speaker 5: So just having that information in front of us helped
Speaker 5: us make more informed decisions.
Speaker 4: So looking at your P and L statement every day
Speaker 4: super important. Some of that does that as well, but
Speaker 4: I'm curious. Being able to see this information in real
Speaker 4: time allows you to react quickly, right, So talk to
Speaker 4: me about sort of the process of you see this information.
Speaker 3: Are you someone who's diving deep in the.
Speaker 4: Numbers on a daily and weekly basis to try and
Speaker 4: figure out where, you know, what's causing some of these
Speaker 4: spikes or maybe trops in revenue.
Speaker 5: So that's a great question. And we all know the
Speaker 5: survival statistics of restaurants and so if you're not on
Speaker 5: top of your numbers, it's very hard to maintain because
Speaker 5: we're hear in the news all the time, you know,
Speaker 5: it's restaurants closing down. So one thing that we do
Speaker 5: is we, you know, looking at the P and L
Speaker 5: every day, we do turn those into actable insights. And
Speaker 5: what we mean by that is, for example, when we
Speaker 5: first opened, our labor was extremely high and that's just
Speaker 5: something that we didn't look at at first. So being
Speaker 5: able to know that you can do more with less
Speaker 5: individuals helped us, you know, keep our prom costs down
Speaker 5: and as an actually again, it's just we can have
Speaker 5: a feeling that is a lot of people in our restaurant,
Speaker 5: but having just hard data numbers, you just can't refute that.
Speaker 3: So that makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 4: Do you have any advice for small business owners that
Speaker 4: doing a restaurant that are listening right now as it
Speaker 4: relates to analyzing their own data?
Speaker 5: So the most common is just prom casts. I mean,
Speaker 5: so it's labor, it's food, if you manage your prom
Speaker 5: costs well, if you are always looking at your margins,
Speaker 5: and if it's going to be a healthy So like
Speaker 5: you always want to look at what are the benchmarks
Speaker 5: of similar restaurants in your area, And that's exactly what
Speaker 5: we did. But also coming from my finance background, I'm
Speaker 5: benching off of companies that are publicly traded because that
Speaker 5: information is readily available. So I'm using that information to
Speaker 5: kind of gauge where we're at. So again, we don't
Speaker 5: want to just be at one location. Of course, we
Speaker 5: want to expand, so we want to make sure that
Speaker 5: our you know, our key performance indicators are performing two
Speaker 5: publicly traded companies.
Speaker 2: To be honest with yeah, I think he has a
Speaker 2: strategic advantage having that finance background.
Speaker 3: I think he does. I think it's the IPO himself.
Speaker 2: That's great, Okay, So I think when I, you know,
Speaker 2: kind of try to balance data with my instincts as
Speaker 2: an entrepreneur, sometimes there's not a match with the information
Speaker 2: that you know. You might have data that's saying one thing,
Speaker 2: but your gut instinct is telling you maybe I should
Speaker 2: pay attention to something else. So can you talk about
Speaker 2: a scenario where maybe the numbers were telling you one thing,
Speaker 2: but you're thinking, I don't know if I'm going to
Speaker 2: follow this. I'm going to try and see what's on
Speaker 2: the other side. And maybe you turned out to be
Speaker 2: right by not just like strictly following the numbers.
Speaker 5: Right, So, our relationship with the prime costs and so
Speaker 5: labor costs and food costs, there was a quarter where
Speaker 5: our food cost was extremely low, and if you were
Speaker 5: just looking at that at first impression, you would be
Speaker 5: able to realize that, Okay, that's very good, keep that
Speaker 5: going on. But what we found out is that when
Speaker 5: we worked with a certain food distributor, the quality of
Speaker 5: the food wasn't as good, and we completely switched that.
Speaker 5: So just because you are driving costs down, just know
Speaker 5: that you're sacrificing on a whole other side that you
Speaker 5: have to be reminded of.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that can have real long term consequences. So
Speaker 2: just being able to see where that trade off is
Speaker 2: where it's like, if we're going to serve lower quality food,
Speaker 2: that's probably going to lead to bad reviews and then
Speaker 2: we're going to lose our customer base. It's not always
Speaker 2: a good thing to go with the cheapest option.
Speaker 3: You mentioned you're here in a neighborhood in Nashville.
Speaker 4: Neighborhoods come with school districts, they come with sports teams,
Speaker 4: they come with a lot of moving parts. I mean,
Speaker 4: this is a thriving city. Talk to me more about
Speaker 4: the information gathering process of foot traffic people coming in
Speaker 4: and out around the town. How are you guys dissecting
Speaker 4: this foot traffic, you know, this sort of intangible information
Speaker 4: to make forecasts for the next call it week, month,
Speaker 4: or quarter.
Speaker 5: Absolutely so. One thing that helps is that we're from
Speaker 5: the area. The customer frequency of the individuals that are
Speaker 5: in the actual neighborhood are extremely high and above just
Speaker 5: the normal benchmarks, and and that's something that we do
Speaker 5: want to replicate as we grow and as we go forward,
Speaker 5: that's one of our key performance indicators. That is, when
Speaker 5: somebody comes in, when's the next time do they come in?
Speaker 5: That's something that that's in the business model that we
Speaker 5: kind of accidentally stumbled upon, but it has actually been
Speaker 5: one of the biggest advantages that we've had.
Speaker 4: How are you guys tracking that? Do you have some
Speaker 4: sort of rewards app or a punch card or something
Speaker 4: that says, hey, you come back and we'll reward you
Speaker 4: for it.
Speaker 5: Absolutely, so we have a loyalty program. So a lot
Speaker 5: of that is associated with our POS system. So we
Speaker 5: have a loyalty program which gives us reporting as well
Speaker 5: in regards to you know, when they come in, it
Speaker 5: automatically pulls up their profile, It shows how many times
Speaker 5: they came in, what they ordered. So all of that
Speaker 5: information allows us to make more informed decisions when it
Speaker 5: comes to what needs to be on the mean versus
Speaker 5: what doesn't need to be on the mean.
Speaker 3: That's so fascinating.
Speaker 4: I ever thought about it like that, but yeah, I mean,
Speaker 4: if you have evidence that shows that you know, people
Speaker 4: come in eighty percent of the time for three specific things, like,
Speaker 4: let's figure out how to make sure that those specific
Speaker 4: things are made very well. So these eighty percent of
Speaker 4: customers want to come back.
Speaker 5: And keep it in. Yeah. Yeah, And so that's a
Speaker 5: mistake that we stumbled upon because if you looked at
Speaker 5: our menu day one, it look like an Encyclopedia book.
Speaker 5: It was huge, it was huge. But now if you
Speaker 5: go to our menu now, I mean it's eight things.
Speaker 5: So we are definitely streamlined. We condensed it, We limited
Speaker 5: the choices that consumers can make, and it's just and
Speaker 5: it's benefited us financially.
Speaker 2: Yeah, sometimes less is more, I think, especially when you're
Speaker 2: thinking about scaling. Absolutely coming up on Mind the Business
Speaker 2: small business success stories.
Speaker 5: Having that information in regards to the customer's email, their
Speaker 5: phone number, how many times do they come in, and
Speaker 5: kind of understanding who is your customer. It just helps
Speaker 5: you build your customer experience, build your experience of your restaurant,
Speaker 5: and just align with what they actually want versus you
Speaker 5: just guessing.
Speaker 2: We'll be right back, Welcome back to Mind the Business.
Speaker 1: Brandon.
Speaker 2: So you've mentioned KPIs and a little bit about your
Speaker 2: finance background, but that tells me that this was not
Speaker 2: the original plan. So can you talk about how you
Speaker 2: go from finance to French fries.
Speaker 5: Absolutely, I like that. I liked how you said that.
Speaker 5: So when it came to leaving my cushy finance job,
Speaker 5: one thing that I looked at there was actually a
Speaker 5: story that resonated with me. So I have three children,
Speaker 5: and being in the finance background is very time consuming.
Speaker 5: And remember that in Nashville there was an eclipse that
Speaker 5: was happening, and this was not the most recent one,
Speaker 5: but it was one a little further back, and my
Speaker 5: wife and her kids, they were at the Nashville Zoo
Speaker 5: and I was, you know, behind a computer screen, just
Speaker 5: kind of working and working real late, and my wife
Speaker 5: sent me pictures and they were just really you know, happy,
Speaker 5: They really enjoyed it. And I was an opportunity that
Speaker 5: I was just not there. I wasn't present. And one
Speaker 5: thing that I always knew, because me and my brother
Speaker 5: we've always started businesses, we kind of knew that we
Speaker 5: always wanted to do that, but I just didn't want
Speaker 5: to be confined in four walls anymore. I love the
Speaker 5: opportunity to create something and push something out in the
Speaker 5: world and to see how the world reacts to it.
Speaker 5: I mean, so again, I've always been kind of that
Speaker 5: entrepreneurial type of person, and that was kind of the light.
Speaker 5: It's like, yeah, we gotta change some things.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I love it. I think that's called, you know,
Speaker 1: following your dreams. Right.
Speaker 2: And I know we mentioned off camera when we were
Speaker 2: talking you traded a four hour work week for were
Speaker 2: working twenty four Stevens.
Speaker 3: Yes.
Speaker 5: Yes, That's one thing that I will say to any
Speaker 5: entrepreneur that is out there, especially if you have a spouse,
Speaker 5: just talk with them about it, because they are experiencing
Speaker 5: it just like how you're experiencing it, and it weighs
Speaker 5: on you financially, spiritually, psychologically, everything. So just just be
Speaker 5: aware of what that journey looks like and just have
Speaker 5: a conversation with to spouse.
Speaker 4: I remember when I quit my job, I had all
Speaker 4: these people saying, don't do it, don't do it, it's
Speaker 4: gonna be a mistake, right. I took some very specific
Speaker 4: steps to make sure. You know, I had sort of
Speaker 4: an emergency fund figured out, and I had, you know,
Speaker 4: a business that was thriving and doing well before I
Speaker 4: just jumped into it. What's sort over those first three
Speaker 4: or four steps you took to begin to work toward
Speaker 4: that and achieve that dream.
Speaker 5: Good question. So I would love to say that it
Speaker 5: was very structured. Really, COVID was the kind of the
Speaker 5: nudge to go ahead and jump. I didn't have a
Speaker 5: business plan written out. I did have savings just being
Speaker 5: in a finance background, I did have that, but I
Speaker 5: got the opportunity need to work with my brother. We
Speaker 5: just happened to be like, let's just do this together
Speaker 5: at the same time, at the same moment. So kind
Speaker 5: of the star is a ligne. So it wasn't like
Speaker 5: this well thought out strategic plan to jump from the
Speaker 5: nine to five to the entrepreneurial world, but it just
Speaker 5: there was an opportunity to work with my brother. So
Speaker 5: it's cool.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right. So it's not just enough to know
Speaker 2: your numbers as a small business owner for your day
Speaker 2: to day operations, but it's important from a tax perspective
Speaker 2: if you want to get loans and so into it.
Speaker 2: Quick books is a great tool obviously that you're using
Speaker 2: for that. Can you talk about what methods you use
Speaker 2: to track the numbers.
Speaker 5: So at the beginning, we were dying it and it
Speaker 5: just became so overwhelming with managing a food truck and
Speaker 5: also a restaurant. But actually in quick Books, they have
Speaker 5: a marketplace where you can find a CPA final bookkeeper.
Speaker 5: We found one and we've been rocking with them since.
Speaker 5: So they're the ones that are updating our data in
Speaker 5: real time, so they're able to foul our taxes, they're
Speaker 5: able to, you know, just make sure that we're on
Speaker 5: the up and up when it comes to bookkeeping.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you can reach out to them virtually do
Speaker 2: consultations and things like that. If you guys have any questions, right,
Speaker 2: is there something that you wish you'd started earlier knowing
Speaker 2: what you know now, or what advice would you give
Speaker 2: to small business owners who are still kind of trying
Speaker 2: to figure out how to best optimize how they're gathering data.
Speaker 5: So it would be customer data. So it's one thing
Speaker 5: to have your financial statements, and that's great because it
Speaker 5: gives you just that information that you need. But having
Speaker 5: that information in regards to the customer's email, their phone number,
Speaker 5: how many times do they come in, and kind of
Speaker 5: understanding who is your customer. It just helps you build
Speaker 5: your customer experience, built your experience of your restaurant, and
Speaker 5: just align with what they actually want versus you just guessing.
Speaker 3: So, yeah, looking.
Speaker 4: Back at it over the last couple of years that
Speaker 4: you guys have experienced this amazing success, what are you
Speaker 4: really proud of?
Speaker 5: So one thing that we were not expecting were the
Speaker 5: awards we've opened businesses in the past, we've kind of
Speaker 5: just been on an island and just working every day.
Speaker 5: But you know, being recognized by our community, being recognized
Speaker 5: by you know, greater Nashville, it's just something that we
Speaker 5: just were not expecting. So just having that validation from
Speaker 5: other people to say, hey, I like your food, it's
Speaker 5: something that is extremely valuable. Because again that's why I
Speaker 5: commend anybody that any entrepreneur, when you're putting something out
Speaker 5: into the world and you're having the world critique it,
Speaker 5: I commend you because that's very it could be embarrassing,
Speaker 5: you know, and I mean, but having that opportunity to
Speaker 5: get feedback from our community, from the market, it's just
Speaker 5: something that we just weren't expecting, but just didn't know
Speaker 5: that it was extremely valuable for us.
Speaker 3: You mentioned this like growth phase to find that for me.
Speaker 5: Yeah, So we just launched our franchise program. So again
Speaker 5: now we are actively recruiting franchisees right now to expand
Speaker 5: into the southeast territory, so we want to really be
Speaker 5: based in Tennessee. We want more locations in Tennessee. But
Speaker 5: now we're focused on actively recruiting because we knew even
Speaker 5: when we started the food truck that one unit is
Speaker 5: not going to let us retire, so so now we
Speaker 5: wanted to be able to expand it. We've proven that
Speaker 5: the model works. People love French fries apparently, so that
Speaker 5: allows us to continue to open up more units.
Speaker 3: So it's amazing.
Speaker 1: Ken.
Speaker 2: We talk about it time where you thought something was
Speaker 2: going to be like a raging success and you launched
Speaker 2: it and you're like it was crickets and people were just.
Speaker 5: Like ill, oh yeah. So we have many flavors of
Speaker 5: loaded fries, and we did one that was like a
Speaker 5: jerk chicken when and we thought it was just going
Speaker 5: to be a massive success. We spent a lot on marketing,
Speaker 5: We spent a lot on just plastering things on the windows,
Speaker 5: and it just was dead on arrival. It didn't do anything.
Speaker 5: Me and my brother we laughed about it. We would
Speaker 5: do it again. We would do a new flavor. We
Speaker 5: like trying flavors out so I mean we were just
Speaker 5: kind of integrated and to see if people buy it.
Speaker 4: Now, Yeah, when did the data tell you that it's
Speaker 4: not a menu item anymore?
Speaker 3: Was it after four weeks? Six weeks? Like? What was it?
Speaker 4: Okay, people aren't buying this, we're sitting on this inventory.
Speaker 4: Was there a specific number that you realized that if
Speaker 4: we hit this number, it's time to go.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so I needed at lest a large enough sample
Speaker 5: size just to make sure that it's just not a
Speaker 5: bad day. So what I do is I do it
Speaker 5: like a two week average. I look at how much
Speaker 5: we spent on those ingredients. Then I can to how
Speaker 5: much was sold. That was something again having access to
Speaker 5: the data. So it's one thing to kind of go
Speaker 5: with your gut feeling, but if you have the data,
Speaker 5: it's just like, hey, you know, because my brother he's
Speaker 5: more of like a gut filling type and I'm more
Speaker 5: of like an analytical type. So like saying or talking
Speaker 5: to him about that, he may be like, well, you know,
Speaker 5: I still like it, but that but you know, if
Speaker 5: you just kind of give the data there, you know,
Speaker 5: you can't refute that.
Speaker 4: Talk more about that relationship with your brother. I have
Speaker 4: a co founder as well, And I think that what's
Speaker 4: really cool about that is I'm not great at being analytical.
Speaker 4: He is right, and so it seems like you guys
Speaker 4: have that really cool relationship where you are analytical. He's
Speaker 4: more gut feelings. To talk about that relationship a little
Speaker 4: bit more.
Speaker 5: We balance each other out. I'm highly analytical, I'm somewhat introverted.
Speaker 5: My brother is very extroverted. So when it comes to
Speaker 5: just the design of this whole restaurant, a lot of
Speaker 5: that is him, because I'm going to just kind of
Speaker 5: go and just kind of replicate with a large brand
Speaker 5: is doing so a lot of the core in our
Speaker 5: brick and mortar restaurant is really going back to the
Speaker 5: nineties where we grew up, and I think that is
Speaker 5: one of the best errors when it comes to movies,
Speaker 5: when it comes to video games, and we wanted to
Speaker 5: replicate that feeling when you walked into the restaurant. So,
Speaker 5: for example, we have an area that has afrigerator door
Speaker 5: and a lot of people don't know what that came from,
Speaker 5: but that's the first refrigerator door from our food truck,
Speaker 5: and that's something that again that is his idea. I
Speaker 5: never would have thought of that, but it also has
Speaker 5: it surrounded by movies and video games of the nineties,
Speaker 5: and every single customer that comes in they go directly
Speaker 5: to that because we've all had, you know, our grandmama's
Speaker 5: house where you have those little magnets and you kind
Speaker 5: of type in, you know, you put your name, you
Speaker 5: rearrange the letters. That's all My brother and I just
Speaker 5: think it kind of pairs well together to have that
Speaker 5: creative mind but then also have it backed by the
Speaker 5: strategic mind as well. It just I think cover all
Speaker 5: bases when it comes to growing a scalable brand.
Speaker 1: I love it. What keeps you going?
Speaker 5: It's the why you know, we see that the clearest
Speaker 5: path to wealth is, in my opinion, business ownership. I
Speaker 5: knew that a lot of the clients that I came
Speaker 5: in contact with during my career, they were business owners
Speaker 5: and they're playing tennis at ten o'clock in the morning.
Speaker 5: So is that these are things that I wanted to replicate.
Speaker 5: I saw it, and so I knew that that was
Speaker 5: the route that I wanted to take.
Speaker 2: So I love it all right, This is probably going
Speaker 2: to be the hardest question, oh to answer.
Speaker 1: What is your favorite menu item?
Speaker 5: So mine is the classic. It's the chicken bacon rant.
Speaker 5: So that's something that I like the most. It's kind
Speaker 5: of the chocolate chip cookie of loaded fries. So individuals
Speaker 5: that are coming in, they're new to the concept, that's
Speaker 5: what I always gear them towards. But what pays the
Speaker 5: bills around here is something called it's a Tennessee thing, okay,
Speaker 5: and it is a spoke brisket that takes a long
Speaker 5: time to make, and that is our most popular item.
Speaker 5: My brother likes a bunch of spicy stuff. I'm very
Speaker 5: just like, hey, can take some fries. Yeah, so that
Speaker 5: sounds good. We're going to try that. I think we're
Speaker 5: gonna to try one of everything.
Speaker 4: I want one of everything on the twenty item menu.
Speaker 4: Oh wow, oh wow, Brendan, thank you so much for
Speaker 4: hanging out with us on this episode of Mind the
Speaker 4: Business Small Business success Stories. I can't wait to come
Speaker 4: back here and just devour these French fries.
Speaker 5: Wells and honor. I really appreciate you all taking out
Speaker 5: the time to learn a lot about bag Ladies. And
Speaker 5: shout out to my brother James, big brother. He's actively
Speaker 5: at an event right now, but hey, I love it.
Speaker 5: I'm sorry you couldn't be.
Speaker 2: Here, man, This just gives us a reason to come
Speaker 2: back and ask absolutely.
Speaker 3: Thanks so much. Present.
Speaker 4: What an awesome conversation with Brandon. I feel like I
Speaker 4: learned a ton. But before I share my biggest takeaways, genius,
Speaker 4: I got to hear yours.
Speaker 1: I love how involved he is in the numbers.
Speaker 2: You know, I think a lot of business owners can
Speaker 2: tend to let that kind of fall by the wayside
Speaker 2: and then be surprised when it's been a while since
Speaker 2: you checked in with your business. I know I've had
Speaker 2: that experience multiple times where I'm not really looking at
Speaker 2: profits and just my P and L statement and then
Speaker 2: I have a surprise tax bill, for example, because I
Speaker 2: had no idea what was going on the business. So
Speaker 2: I think he really emphasized the importance of being involved
Speaker 2: with the data with the numbers, not just from like
Speaker 2: a day to day perspective, but just overall. It helps
Speaker 2: you really make good decisions in your business. How about you, Austin?
Speaker 4: He definitely did, And I think it's not just knowing
Speaker 4: your numbers, but knowing what actions to take depending on
Speaker 4: what the numbers are telling you. Right, So he mentioned
Speaker 4: this example of this jerk chicken loaded French fry basket
Speaker 4: that he introduced. And you know, he said, okay, like
Speaker 4: the demand is not here, what are the numbers telling us?
Speaker 4: And what does the numbers say about how long we
Speaker 4: can keep this on the menu before we begin to
Speaker 4: lose money in a meaningful way. I think it's not
Speaker 4: just important to know your numbers, but know when to
Speaker 4: take action as to what your numbers are telling you
Speaker 4: when it comes to your business. And Brandon has done
Speaker 4: that marvelously when it comes to not just opening this
Speaker 4: brick and mortar, but also keeping this food truck. I
Speaker 4: mean he looked at the numbers and said, wait a second.
Speaker 4: We have the opportunity to make a little bit more
Speaker 4: margin with this food truck. We can do events, We
Speaker 4: can you know, mark up a little bit more over here.
Speaker 4: That'llow tell us to now take that margin and maybe
Speaker 4: reinvest it into a new idea. We can introduce a
Speaker 4: new product or a new menu item, allowing us to experiment.
Speaker 4: But then always keep in mind now that if the
Speaker 4: numbers are telling us we have to go try something
Speaker 4: or we got to take something away, we need to
Speaker 4: go act on that information.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 2: And it sounds like he's using Into It QuickBooks to
Speaker 2: make sure that he's got all the information that he needs.
Speaker 2: So fantastic love this episode. Thank you so much for listening.
Speaker 2: I'm Jennie's Torres and you can find me on social
Speaker 2: media at jokhiro Dineto podcast.
Speaker 4: And you can find me at Austin Hankwitz and you
Speaker 4: can follow into It QuickBooks on all social media at QuickBooks.
Speaker 4: To get the tools you need to start, run and
Speaker 4: grow your business, head to QuickBooks dot com today.
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