Live with Rialand Jones

like a Virginia, you know, employment poster in the back.

So Ryland was told by Larry— Larry, really?— that, um, that it was a pre-interview, which is hilarious because I don't do pre— I don't do any prep. So a pre-interview would be really against my name. But I'm so excited. So I have a little saying that you're brave, beautiful, and bold because only a certain amount of people can go live. There's many people that can't. I started this during COVID and did about 200 episodes. And not to brag, but Steve Madden from Transmedia, the owner of Transmedia, said to me that I am like the HLN of podcasts.

Yeah.

Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Am I like spouting things or selling shoes today? Anyways, so who is Ryland Jones? So I need you to introduce yourself and tell us who you are.

What's up? Ryland Jones, uh, business coach. Consultant, uh, for small business. I call it early stage, uh, $100K, $500K. It's kind of our wheelhouse, you know. Anybody else is welcome to, but sometimes you need that range to know what's going on. Um, that's me, Air Force veteran. I got a few businesses in Virginia, uh, that we operate that are brick and mortars, and then, uh, and then the coaching thing. And, and that's kind of where it— Mary got a couple kids, actually 4, and, uh, Here we are, we're, we're going live, no prep. I, I'm down for this, actually. I don't mind it at all. I'm, I, I'm not intimidated in the least.

No, I wouldn't think so. It's really like having a cup of coffee with a fly on the wall, which I've always wanted to be the fly on the wall. So, okay, so what came first, the business coaching or the brick and mortar stores?

Uh, well, the brick and mortar kind of— yeah, it's, it's interesting. I've done a couple things like simultaneously, so some things happened all at once. So I used to coach a long time ago when I was in the DJ space for wedding DJ. I used to coach other wedding DJs. How do we get more money? Like, we do it like this. How do we get more bookings? Just people that I knew, not in a real structured way. Um, and then I left the wedding DJ, uh, industry to start one of the brick and mortars, which is a popcorn shop. Uh, operated out of a little west of Richmond, Virginia. Gourmet popcorn, it's called Lamar Marie's Gourmet Popcorn. It's LamarMarie.com, two M's in Lamar if you want to look it up. Uh, we've been doing that for 7— we hit our 7 years over the summer. Um, yeah, and this year was just— I decided to get to move back into the coaching space a little bit, uh, because, you know, probably you get these questions too. You just get enough questions over time, like, you might as well just start doing that too, but put a little more structure on it, you know what I mean?

So I love— so wait, I want to go back. I want to go to your popcorn story first. Um, so, so this is really interesting to me because I think when I think of a popcorn store, I think that someone has to have some samples because people really need to taste it. That's what I'm used to. And is that true, that tasting? 100%. 100%. What is the most popular flavor?

Uh, this time of year, most popular, we roll out like we have a s'mores popcorn, um, that we make with actual the things that you still have in s'mores, right? So not just like a s'mores flavoring. That's kind of what our pride is, that we just use the actual ingredients as much as we can, not just a flavoring. So our caramel sauce is made from scratch, has real butter in it still. It's not a caramel flavoring. Um, every, you know, our snickerdoodle is what it is because it has actual cinnamon in it. Not just like a flavoring of cinnamon, you know what I mean? So we— and we lean heavy on samples, got to. So snickerdoodle is one of our top flavors. Loaded baked potatoes also, uh, loaded baked potato. Yeah, that's one of them. Yeah, it is. We do savory and sweet. Wow, wow.

So when people walk— so are you in a like tourist area?

No, we're actually not in a tourist area for this shop. We're in like just a little strip center with a few other stores, you know, grocery store on one side, restaurant, drugstore, stuff like that.

Makes me want to go out now and get— so like, you're staying home, you're gonna have a movie night at home, and you want something delicious, you go to the popcorn store. So you go to your store, but then how long does popcorn actually last?

Um, ours, we last about like 6 to 8 weeks. Um, when we prep it for it to be a little bit longer, can go out to 12 weeks if it's the candy one. Yeah, we don't do any preservatives or additives in it so that it doesn't last as long. We don't want it to last 6 months, 8 months. That's why we don't really wholesale. So people like, oh, you want to get into that business? No, I don't, because it has to last. If you want to sell wholesale, you got to have a 6-month shelf life minimum, and we just don't really— we don't really want to dive into that, and it's just not our brand, you know what I mean? So that's kind of where we are, and we're not really set up—

the integrity of your company and your brand, that's smart. Yeah, I do want to ask you a couple of questions before, before we continue. First of all, I bet you the smell, I would be the one that would open the door and just say, sorry, I'm here for a little sniff. I'll come back.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's why our neighbors in the Strip, they, especially this time of year, you know, we're going into Q4 holiday season. We're just all day long. The smell is just wafting throughout, even outside.

I love that. All right. Tell me about your employees. How's it been like hiring employees, keeping employees in this day and age when that seems to be the number one complaint a lot of brick-and-mortar stores have.

Yeah, I think it is, it is among the, you know, owner-operators that I speak to, and even ones that aren't maybe operating anymore, they— we all still have the same challenge, that the employee challenge, depending on what size you are, that is a pretty big challenge to overcome. I've been fortunate, uh, at this location that we're set up to be lean. We're set up to be able to do a lot with a few people. So I've been fortunate enough to have the same grouping of employees for a longer period of time. You know, they rotated out, and then we got in another set of 3 or 4, and then we hold them. You know, the one— the team that we have now, we have one brand new girl that just started, but the other handful have been here for 3 years already. So wow.

So they like, so are they not going back to school? Are they like, what kind of demographics are you, are you hiring?

They're there? Now, these ones came, one came right out of high school, first job. One, I think we were their second job out of high school, but they're in college. So one goes to college locally, the other one goes away, but he, when he comes back summers, he's here, holidays, he's here. Um, and then some weekends if he's home and he just wants hours, you know, I'll give him hours. Um, and then a new person is also local, but there is a challenge. And that's where the— that's for us where the cycle comes from. The last group, it was the same thing. I had them through college, they were local, they, they graduated and want to do, you know, what they went to college for. They go off and do that. So then we had another set come in, but it is a challenge, I think. Depending on where you fall. There's another reason why we're set up to run as lean as possible, so that we don't have to have— because I can't— I hate hiring and training. Like, it's not one of the things— we all have things we like and good at. I neither like nor am good at hiring, like writing all these things, interviewing. I can't stand it. But it's, it's a challenge. How much can you afford to pay? Can you attract the right people? And then can you hold them long enough to make it worth it? Or do you have a lot of churn? At our other location, that's the challenge we're having right now. The churn is just a little higher than I want it to be. And it's expensive. You have to train people, which eats up a lot of money.

Yeah, you know, I— so now I love coaching. I coached too, was a SCORE mentor. I coach in the promotional products, logo merchandise industry because that's my specialty. But I love like talking about the risks, right? Like someone starts a business and I don't have any risk. Everyone's going to come in the store and everyone's going to eat. But there's so many risks and I'm kind of really curious about the sourcing of popcorn. Like I don't even know what that looks like. I would, if you was coffee, I would be asking you like where do you source? Where, how do you source popcorn or does it even matter? Is One pack coming from— I'm kind of all ears on this one. I'm curious.

Yeah, let me mute myself for a second so I can hear. Okay. Yeah, we get, we get from a farm in Nebraska. Like, we buy, we buy straight from this farm. Um, I mean, there's a couple, and I buy straight from them two reasons. Generally, little factoid about me, I'm not really that petty on a personal side, but when it comes to business, I'm I'm super petty, right? And I'm super competitive, and I'll do things for spite for no reason, right? Just, just because. So there's, there's a big, there's a big conglomerate that does, um, you know, they do that grow popcorn seed, all these hybrids and all this, millions and billions of dollars and all this. And it's just their prices kept going up. The product was okay. Uh, and to be honest, the distributor we were getting it from, I just didn't like them very much. Um, I tried to get a better deal, they didn't want to work with me, so we just started looking. They reached out to us and sent me some samples. I said, this is great, the price is a little bit better, but also they look like me. So it's a family farm, it's a husband, wife, 3 kids, they run the whole thing. The dad's the farmer, his parents were the farmers. The wife, she's— when you call, she's on, she answers the phone. Right? Like, so, so they look more like me. So for— that's what— that's another reason why I buy from them. And over time, you know, they're— the, the big conglomerate has noticed whatever they've noticed. Their prices start to come down where we get it from. They're adjusting a little bit, which you gotta— you know, it is what it is. We— everybody's got to adjust pricing. But as long as they're close, I'll continue to buy from them. And it does matter where it comes from because there are farmers in Virginia where we are that grow popcorn seed. It's just not good. The conditions aren't the best in Virginia for, for growing the best popcorn seed.

Okay. So first of all, this is so fascinating to me. I think there's a big lesson in this though, is that— so I want to ask you a question. So the first one, the one that like was calling you, didn't like— was he a little cocky? Did he think like, oh, I have your business already? Or was he willing to work for your business? What was it that you just— can you pinpoint it?

Just to me, so it's a distributor that buys from the conglomerate, and the combination of the two, when I knew that they could give me a better deal because I know other popcorn people, we talk about where we get— see, you know what I mean? It's not a secret. So, and I say, can you just match? I'm not asking for better, we do the same volume. Can you just match this? And they were like, no. I said, okay. So when they said that, we found this other— and then I started selling as a distributor for this other people.

Oh, brilliant.

Yeah, yeah. Because other, you know, again, if that's how you want to be, I can be like that too.

I had to tell Alexa to stop. So my parents— I grew up in a family business, logo merchandise. My parents were incredible. One of the things that they taught me, which I think is a good lesson, is never assume that you've got that client in your pocket. You don't. Always assume that the client could possibly be working with someone else, and you've got to continue to make them happy because it was so easy to be like, they've been my client for 5 years and I'm always going to have them. They're not going anywhere. And like, yeah, no. So they taught me like, Adrian, you're replaceable. I learned that at an early age. We can get rid of you. And, and but we can also, you know, get rid of everyone. Like, so you have to like, you have to know and always work in that kind of fashion. So that sounds like, like that you respect that and you want people that are willing to work with you, and then you're teaching this to your clients.

Yeah, 100%. I mean, if you can find it— and it's really the same on, uh, for all of our print materials, there's, there's a bunch of different options. And I'll say for, for us, the printer we use, same, same principle, right? It's a guy that I know, family like mine. It's a franchise but it's locally owned, right? And I mean, for print, for print stuff, there's tons of options these days. Like, you got Staples, Office Max, you can go online, Google, whatever, you know. There's, you know, but for him, when we go— and it's not like we're his biggest customer, we're not, you know, we order a high volume because they print all of our labels, but labels don't cost that much, you know what I mean? So we are frequent flyers, even though that doesn't necessarily translate into this grandiose amount of revenue directly from us. But one of the reasons why I go to them is because they look like me, and I'm actually willing to pay slightly more if they look like me than I am to go to a Staples or Office Depot to save, you know, $3. I'll pay— there's a threshold of more than I'm willing to, to spend, depending on what it is. But as long as it's close, I'm going to that guy, as long as their service stays high quality and the product stays high quality. I'm not talking about I'm just going to them and they suck because they look like me, you know what I mean? Right, right, right. Totally. It's not gonna happen.

Totally. That's—

but they're great. Yeah, yeah, yeah, they're great. So I go to them and I'm willing to pay a little bit more in some instances because of that.

So you said something that I think, and it does annoy me a little bit, to be honest with you, that people think like, oh, we got a new Starbucks in town and I only support my local businesses. And I'm like, okay, Starbucks, do you know who the franchise owner is? Are they in town? Maybe not. Are they hiring local people or are people coming from corporate every day and coming to our town and then they leave every night? Like, so can you please explain to people and so they can understand that even if it's a franchise, it's still gonna have, it's still still— you explain it. I want you to explain it.

So, well, you, you nailed it already. You know, there, there are some models where they're cool. And I don't know all ins and outs of like Starbucks, as you use that example. Um, I don't even know if they have the franchise model or if all of them are all corporate owned. But you can have a lot of Subways. Um, I know those are coming to mind. Um, there's a lot of franchises that they're still locally owned. Someone wanted to get in the business, franchise is a good way to go. Right? It's a business in the box, so to speak. So it's still supporting the local economy, um, to a certain degree. They're not just a big corporate giant coming in to squash everybody and all the money spent there gets shuffled somewhere else, you know what I mean? So, but they— the thing that I think for me too, I don't have a problem with it, but the challenge is that depending on the size of the company if they do come in like a Starbucks, uh, and like some of these gas station, you know, hot food hybrid places that are bigger, some of which are franchise and/or all corporate owned, their pockets are deeper, so they can afford to pay more and absorb that churn because it's within their, you know, their operational limits. It's already built in. That's when we start to have a little bit of, of the challenge that we face. So can I go work? I can go work over here, they want to start me $18, $19 an hour, and all I'm doing is making sandwiches, right? Then I go to a more, more local small business type, uh, business, and I go over there and they say, well, we, we can start you at $13, $14, let's kind of see how you do, and then we'll try to walk you up. Well, the more quality people, in my opinion, you go towards. I know I'm good. I'm not going to go over here unless it specifically fits what I'm— what I want to do now or sets me up for something in the future. So that's a challenge for us from an employee. And for almost everyone that I talk to, I say that I know personally, sub— let's say definitely sub 2 million a year in revenue. But there's a few people that are around $8 to $10 million a year in revenue, and they still have the same problem. They still have an employee problem. And they're just like, that's interesting.

How do you handle donation requests?

We field them, and some of them we do and some of them we don't. It depends on what it is. And I mean, that's all I can say. It's kind of case by case.

I love that though. That's great advice too. A lot of people will say, I said no, no, say no to everyone, but you're fielding them, you're looking at them, you're saying what, what it would look like for you and how that could help your business too. I'm sure some requests can make a difference. And what, um, oh, what are you getting out?

I'm plugging my laptop up.

Oh, so, so, okay, so wait, I have a question for you now too. So what, besides money, what, what are some of the challenges when you're coaching your clients, what are they facing in today's market?

The most— the mostly the people I've been talking to more recently is how do we— they don't say efficiency, but it boils down to efficiency. How do we get more money? How do we better use the assets we already have? And then how do we get better just overall, right? With some of these play off each other. So I'm a big efficiency person. So I, number one, are going to look at what can we do better or faster. We have too many steps already. We're doing the same 2, 3, 4 things. Like, we already do it over here, what's going on over here? Like, let's look at this whole picture, this whole process of each thing, not just— we look at the whole, the overall thing But then we have all these sub-things that we do, right? We're, we're— example, we're a popcorn shop, we have a chocolate shop in Virginia Beach, and we have a gift box business also in Richmond, right? So we look and see what are the things we have to do. And one of the things that we just came up with today, because we're training a new person, is you're doing the thing, you got to put the label on the package. Well, I think people overlook a lot the nuance of even something that minute that doesn't seem like it wastes time, but it does because every second counts. So just as an example, she has the, the sheet of stickers in her hand and she peels a sticker off, puts the page down, takes two hands and put the sticker on the package, release it, pick the paper back up again, take the sticker back, right? That— how much time did that take versus you didn't have the packaging all lined up, and then once you pick up that sheet of stickers, never put it back down. I'mma peel, stick, peel, stick, right? Every time you set that paper down, let's say you lose 2 to 4 seconds. Well, how many times do you do that in one day? And then multiply that across the entire year. So how many hours of wasted time was that? It could be 50, 80 hours for the year. And, and I've had to say, oh, 50, 80 hours, that's not that much. That's one task for one year.

Crazy.

How many other tasks you do where you waste 2 to 5 seconds per time you do it? And multiply that. Now we're talking about possibly 400 or 500 hours a year.

Right, right, right.

And that's probably the most simple you could do it.

I love this because you are— are you— first of all, because if you're business owners out there, I hope you're listening, and you may think, well, label story, label store. Actually, I love that analogy. I grew up with the logo merchandise business and labels, and even how the labels come in, because sometimes if they come in a roll, you could actually kind of like start peeling it off and you could do that. My dad made up like— well, they like— when I opened up his, uh, 5th Art Gallery in Daytona Beach You know, he was very particular, even just the label on the bags and what it would look like. He never wanted a bag to be crooked or look kind of sloppy or anything like that. But, and I think for business owners, it's so easy to think to themselves, this is how we've been doing it. No, we don't know. This is how we do it. But I always say like, track your time, look at it. So I love, I love your process-driven. Is that kind of your strategy? Is that like working with you? You're going to look at, like, that to me is so important. Yeah, and I love— so you're really working with businesses that are already in business. You already mentioned the dollar amount. Now they need to look at the process, and business owners can't really take themselves out of that picture and look with like fresh eyes, right? Really need to hire someone like Ryland who actually can take a look. So in essence, you're— how I look at it is like this: they're going to pay you money, and then you're going to help them by saving money and saving time. And so at the end of the day, they may end up with more money than they started working with you, even though they're paying you, because you're getting them to be efficient, which is one of the most important parts.

Yeah. And that's just, that's just a piece. That's just one piece of it. Yeah, that's just one, one little piece of the pie is looking at the efficiency to see where that is. And then we start looking at customer experience, user experience, customer journey, then we said employee journey, How do you multiply your team? Are they— do you train them to do stuff that you do so that you can multiply your efforts? I'll tell you this quick story too. I just posted this. I went live outside of a Home Depot, uh, a few days ago on Facebook because I was in there to get some supplies for the other location. And I said, let me— I'm just in— I'm just looking for floor cleaner. Right? I'm making this run. I'm at this location a couple days a week, uh, and the GM was like, you know, we need this. I said, I'll just do the run today, you stay in the store. So I go out Home Depot, I'm in the aisle, and I overhear a guy behind me— I don't see him yet— talking about toilet paper. This aisle has toilet paper and stuff like that on one side, like floor cleaner on the other side. And is it— there's an older guy and a younger guy. I say older, like my age-ish, and then a younger person that looks, you know, 20-ish, right? So he just grabs one, and I hear the older guy say, uh, did you check to see how much toilet paper you getting with that? The guy's like, no, this one's cheaper, it's fine. He's like, no, we need to check the square footage of this toilet paper that comes in this bundle. And I, and I like laugh because I'm like, that's how I shop. And I turn around and go, I do the same thing, right? That's how you're supposed to shop. It's not just with that $20 for this pack. This one says $30, but how much am I getting? Or two that say $20 and one really is less toilet paper than the other one, you know what I mean? So we were talking about that, uh, he laughed, I laughed. I saw he had a logo on his shirt, but I didn't see what it was, you know what I mean? And then they went about their business, and I went back to looking for what I was looking for. Well, the older gentleman comes back for whatever reason. And this time when he comes back, I hear him say— now keep in mind, in the time it took him to leave and come back, someone else was looking for toilet paper. We had this same discussion, and I was like, no, don't get the 25, get this one, because the square footage of this one is more than this one, right? And it was like the exact same scenario. So the guy comes back over and I hear him say, oh, uh, I gotta get this because our employees You know, I just heard employees. I really didn't even hear anything after that. I heard employees. Oh, so this guy said— the way he said it made it seem like he was in charge of them, not that he was just a guy running errands for them. So I'm still looking for my thing. He turns and walks off, and I go, oh, I need to find this guy. I come out the aisle to look for him. He's already in the checkout, him and the younger guy. So I just go up to him, introduce myself, and his, his, uh, thing on the shirt actually was an electrician company. So we start having a quick chat and he's in, um, he's like, yeah, I got this electrician's coming. This is actually my son, he handles a lot of client calls and all this, it's our company, blah blah blah. I said, oh, you guys ever give client gifts? And he's like, oh yeah, we do sometimes. He told me where they typically go. I said, well, look, I had my shirt on too. I said, well, this is me, I'm at the Royal Chocolate, you know, we, we do this and we do client gifting, you know, maybe we can have a discussion later. I don't want to hold you up in the middle of Home Depot. 'But maybe we could talk later about— in the places he mentioned, I know we do the same thing, and I also know our quality is a little bit better, right?' Um, and I said, 'Let's have a talk. Maybe we could do—' He's like, 'You know what, absolutely, because actually they were getting on my nerves. I just go there because I'm familiar.' And I'm like, 'Sweet.' So we exchange phone numbers. I get his, I send it to our GM immediately. And that was just an opportunity to be able to sell something later. Right? This could be a corporate, a corporate client that we just continually do gifting for. But a lot of employees, in my opinion, aren't trained to start to actively listen to what customers are saying so they can learn more and multiply the effort to try to get more business. And that's like, that's a big thing. That's a big thing for us. We, we We— that's one of my big things that I teach and I train and I hammer on it, because there's always opportunity if you know how to see it, if you know how to hear it, right? Someone will always tell you how you can sell more or get more or give more or help more if you have your eyes and ears open.

You can 100%. I love that story. You know, another thing, another reason why to buy your popcorn local is because if you were to go with— I'm going to just say the name, don't use them. Oh wait, I don't want to get sued either though, so shoot. H&D, an online catalog. And guess what's going to happen? You're going to buy, it's not going to come in that fresh, and then you're going to start to get all kinds of like— they just sold your name like 150 times. Yeah, like, why am I getting all this mail and stuff like that? And, and if you ended up asking them to drop ship Well, you're— everyone that's going to get the dropship is also going to have their emails and their addresses. Like, avoid them, right? Yeah. And it's just so nice to, to, um, to support your local business. I have a burning question. Okay, so you said you have the popcorn and then you have the chocolate shop. Do you have the chocolate in the popcorn shop?

Sometimes seasonally we, we will. Seasonally? Yeah, yeah. And some— and one of the things with the popcorn shop too that helped shape some of my perspective and then also helped a great deal with coaching others is that you got to work with what you have. So, and you make decisions based off of the knowledge you had at the time of decision, right? Not, not later. And a lot of people get hung up on, oh, I made that decision. Well, most of us make what we think is the best decision in the moment. You can overanalyze this 3 years later, 1 year later, 7 years later, all you want, but it's not going to change anything about the original decision. So we thought this would be a good location. It actually is not a good location, right? But we didn't know that at the time, um, with the knowledge we have. First, this is my first— I've been kind of in the entrepreneurial business space for 20-some years. This is my first brick-and-mortar product-based business. Right? Everything else was service.

Okay, can you tell us why it's not a good location?

Yeah, just, they sold us on all the, you know, you got this many cars going by, this much foot traffic, blah blah blah. But that's what they're supposed to do because they're commercial realtors. They're supposed to sell you on this. And we just, we thought we did due diligence when in reality we did, just not enough, right? And not the right amount of due diligence. So you have to pivot— excuse me, um, which part of— that's what I coach, the pivot process is what it's called. So you got to figure out where's the money going to come from. Can we do it? This is pre— we didn't have a lot of e-com. So what we decided to do was, um, we do a lot of off-site. So we do more off-site to bring people in, uh, and create our own foot traffic. We try to partner with people in the shopping center Like, there's other things. You got to get creative sometimes, and sometimes you got to take a step back. You might have thought, oh, I can just leave, I'll let the staff run it. Well, maybe your staff shouldn't. Maybe you got to come back for a little bit, year, you know what I mean?

I love that. So my dad taught me a couple things. He taught me when we're looking for like art, uh, so where to open up the art gallery, and he told me, first of all, you, you go like almost the most— you have to drive there. So these are like, if you're looking, you tell me if you agree, constantly go, go in the morning, go in the midday, go in the afternoon, go in the evening. What is their garbage? Is the garbage picked up? Talk to every single other store and find out what business looks like for them. When he chose to go to have the store here in Daytona, Tanger Outlets, he would come up. He was like 90, came up for the big drive, and then he would strictly just park in different locations. Are people walking around with bags? What kind of bags are they having? Are they making big purchases? Or small purchases? Are they just walking around with ice cream, just enjoying the day and like some of the outdoor features of an outdoor mall? And so I really learned a lot. Also to talk to your executive development director of your town. Is there any construction coming in? Because I really always feel bad for a place that opens up a store and then like 2 months later, all of a sudden a new highway is coming in and people have to go around and it's really difficult, right? What is the parking lot like? You know, call, call your landlord at an odd hour of the day. Are they answering the phone? How do they get back to you? Like every little thing, which is so important. And I would share that with a lot of people when I was doing SCORE mentoring, and because they would be like, oh my God, I never thought of this. And I'm like, the only thing I could think of is you open up a store and now you've got all these issues. So I do want to share with you though, in 1978, okay, my first job was working at a popcorn chocolate shop. But it was like the boring popcorn because back then there was no flavors, just the butter. So it's like the one machine with the butter and then these like chocolates. And I got fired because I, I, I like, I'm sorry, but like the cute guy who owns a florist shop said, Adrian, I'll give you flowers for a little popcorn. I'm thinking, yeah, we can't go wrong here. I like, honestly, at 16, what do you know? You know, or at the end of the day, I would be like, wait, you mean I could take the popcorn home at the end of the day? Oh yeah, you can. Oh, but shouldn't I make a big batch like an hour before I go home?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I thought they were coming in after the movies.

Oh my God.

That was like the best time of my life.

I think that, uh, I think that what you're doing is great, but we only talked a little bit. I don't want to keep you too long. Very— this is a pre-interview, by the way. What's the name of your, um, what's the name of your coaching business?

Uh, so under the coaching business, it's just called the, the Pivot Process, and it's under my name, right? And you can go to, uh, workwithryland.com. Uh, oh, I love that. It has a— it's just a— and this is the other— what's so funny is people like, oh, and there's all this technology, and I'm not like— I know, I'm aware of it, I just don't want to learn it, some of it, right? So when you go to— it's just a very simple page of a Calendly thing with us, you know, a little just discovery call if you want to talk about the business, kind of see it. And it does have a little fee on there, um, and that's part of just how we pre-qualify people, because how much money do you want to make? And sometimes there's— that's just my philosophy. Some people do discovery calls, there's no fee, but we put one and we just made it super low because I just want to see how much are you investing, you know what I mean? Do you really want you know, and if you, if you don't get it, it's kind of, it rolls into your thing. It's not an extra thing, right? And that way we don't have time wasters on, you know, people that want to ask a million questions with no intent of anything, right? We all still, it's all still business. I like people, you know what I mean? But let's, let's not get carried away. I agree with you.

You know, you can't judge a coach by like what website they have. Websites are words on the internet paper, but really being able to speak and talk and see if you're aligned and making sure that coach is going to understand. And I think how you are, the pivot process is so huge. And I, you know, I can't think of a company that really couldn't, couldn't lose by having someone come in that is going to look at things differently than you are. Like I always say, I cannot I can't— I can catch other people's mistakes, but like my own— so like if something I'm looking and I'm like, oh, there's a mistake right there, like they'll be like, oh, it went through like 8 people and you caught it. I'm like, I know, but I can't catch my own. It's how we are wired. So like really, you really— if you feel that you want to work with Ryland, I definitely would like sign up and see if you're a match, because Ryland's smart. He can't work with everyone. He probably only has a certain amount of time. He's got a family and he wants to make you successful. But you got to do the work too. It's another thing too. A lot of people, they, you know, they got in that 2020, the whole like, you know, I can make money in like, you know, 2 minutes. I'm just gonna sell popcorn online and now look at me and have all these affiliates. I'm like, no, I never got caught into any of that either. Like that, you know, I just, you just work hard. But I love that you have a mixture of actually doing it. And then I do think that it's important for those, you know, being with SCORE, one of the things that was important is, you know, reaching out to someone who actually, so if you are, have a popcorn store, I would reach out to Ryland just to have his eyes on it to see, Am I doing everything correctly? There's nothing like having a coach and a consultant that's actually in your industry. And I love that you do the gifts because that like made me tingle because that's like the logo merchandise. People love gifts. Chocolate makes a great gift and popcorn because you can share with the whole office. So now you're not like, well, I have to get them for the secretary. No, get it for the office. It stays in the kitchen.

Do you tin them too? Yeah, yeah, we do tins. All different sizes, you know. And I tell people when I talk— I know I like talking to other popcorn people as well, a lot, because especially in different regions of the US. So some of the stuff we've done, you know, I've been— I haven't made my way to the West Coast, but all the way out, out to Nebraska, that area apart, up to New York, Connecticut, all the way down to Florida, and just seeing different people And then with some of the other stuff I do, if I'm going to a place, I'll look up and see if there's a popcorn place, and then I'll go, right, just to see what they're doing. Because regionally you have some nuance too, that— and this was something that I learned when I was a DJ, when I was a wedding DJ. It wasn't until I had a mentor that was from New Jersey, and I'm in Virginia, that I didn't even think about the fact that weddings were done differently in different regions. I just thought it was all the same, basically, you know, framework was basically the same. And then this guy won DJ of the Year, and I saw him at a conference, and I just walked up to him, was like, hey man, congratulations. I don't even know this guy. I said, congratulations on getting DJ of the Year this year, like, that's awesome. I'm kind of new, what do you think about a mentor kind of thing going? And he was like, sounds good to me. I love it. We exchanged information. I thought it was just BS. He said call me next week. I called him the next week. We had a great conversation. And this is the guy that really helped jumpstart that, my DJ business, but helped me learn that all these different things can be the same and different simultaneously depending on where you are in the region. So that kind of translates to everything else. It's not— it can be everything else. So if I do popcorn here and all the popcorn places in Virginia kind of operate the same because we all talk to each other, right, where we get there, we do this. But then if you go to freaking Michigan, they do it a little bit different. Oh, I didn't even think about doing it this way. They do it at Michigan. Oh cool, in Florida they do this. And then I bring those back to where I'm at and they'll go, oh, this guy's real innovative. I appear innovative, but really it's just being open to seeing how it's done over here, done over here, and then adapting it to, to what I'm doing so that we can be better. And that's— that makes sense. Yeah, that, that's the, that's the part of the pivot thing. We want to take this from over here, this one over here, this one over here. I think as business owners, a lot, we get caught up in doing the specific thing we do the way that we were taught and not thinking about who taught the person that taught us and then who taught the person before that person that taught us. And we just go with it and we don't even really know why. So I'm a big why person. Me too, right? Like, I want to make sure it makes sense and I want to understand. It's cool if we're doing it this way, I just want to understand why we're doing it this way because I also want to know, is that the best way to— is that the best way that we possibly doing it right now in the moment with the assets that we have, time that we have, knowledge that we have. If not, then we should start exploring something different.

I feel like taking a popcorn tour around the United States. Last year I did 4 months with my daughter. So now— and I can understand that, for like, if you're in South Florida, there's probably key lime popcorn, the flavor. I was in Buffalo this summer, beef on weck. I didn't even know that existed or was even A food, but I can see that being a popcorn flavor. Yeah, right.

Exactly. And we do key lime here.

Oh, you do? See, I love that. All right, I'm gonna say this, Rylan, because— so you don't— you do not have to say this, it's going to come from me. Okay, listen, I'm going to talk to the people out there, the 2 people that are watching. Listen, the 2 people that are watching this right now, do not think that you're like, oh, I'm going to go to SoMar or whatever these stores are and I'm gonna buy myself a tin And it's okay, it's cheese, butter, and salt and pepper. And it's gonna have a little thing. And it's the tin is so pretty. It's, it's the, the reindeers all around it. And that's gonna be my holiday gift. Can you do me a favor? Buy one for yourself. Sit down and see if you like it. Yeah, if you like stale popcorn that doesn't taste fresh and is a boring flavor, then go ahead and buy the tin. Like, that's like, do it because that's what you want. But if you're creative and cool, and you want to give your clients something that's absolutely like incredibly delicious, where they're gonna be like, 'What the heck is— I— wait, where did I get this from?' And they're gonna send thank yous to you for giving it to them. Then you go to Ryland Jones Popcorn Store. Yeah, I said it, you did not, so you can't get in trouble. I like it.

LamarMarie.com. That's what I like.

And one more thing I want to talk about competition. I thought— I always thought this was an interesting story. When I was at Tanger Outlets, there was a perfume outlet and like discount perfume, and they were across across from each other, literally. And so I went into the store and I said to Discount, I'm like, I don't understand what— what, like, you're selling cologne here and perfume and so is the store across. Is that weird? Like, why don't you guys ask for an exclusive area so that you don't have your competition next door? And she said to me, because we don't have the same items. She said, what is your favorite cologne? And I said Pitbull's cologne. It really is a great smell. I'm just gonna say, okay, it's delicious. So Pitbull perfume. And so I said Pitbull, and she said, oh, actually we don't carry that, but they have it across the street. Amazing, right? So sometimes when we think about competition, or Walmart and CVS on every corner, what? But we get— there's certain products. So that's like a beautiful thing. Like, you wouldn't want to have two popcorn stores, it seems like, but sometimes there's a reason when you have different flavors. So Yeah, you know, you have to know your competition, but don't be so worried about your competition. You're better off, like what you said a little earlier, going across, shaking hands and collaborating, because they may just have it at a point that they don't have any more key lime and you do. And the most important thing is making, at the end of the day, the client happy, getting the client what they want. By no measure, if I was at a store and I said, oh, I don't have key lime, but you know, Rylan has key lime over on Broadway, whatever your street is, and they go over there, that doesn't mean that they're going to forget about me. They're going to remember me because I'm the one that directed them. So this whole, like, you know, I can't work with you and we all collaborate together. That's why there's industry groups, right? You probably have a popcorn trade show and everyone, you meet each other and then distributor, you know, all the distributors get together and talk and how can you make things better? We need that collaboration. Yeah.

I just wanted to share that too. Yeah. Collaboration over competition. You know, to a certain degree, you gotta be really open-minded for it. A lot of people, don't get me wrong, you don't give away like your trade secrets for your specific a specific thing, but you can still talk about general stuff. And, you know, I don't really gatekeep too much. I keep maybe 5%, right? But other than that, who cares? I don't— you know what I mean? We all see from this basic type of seeds that you might get it from a different place, same type, same at the, you know, chocolate. We do things a little different. Maybe you do like it over there, but your examples is perfect. Walgreens and CVS don't care. They'll open up across the street from each other. They're literally the exact same store. Like no one, you know what I mean? Get over it.

I usually stop when I, um, just like whatever's on the right side of the road, I don't have to cross the street. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, my last birdie question, my last birdie question. Okay, okay, so it's towards the end of the day. Who out of your family reaches out to you with a little text that says, hey Dad, or hey hubby, can you bring home the s'mores for me? Like, like, are you like, tonight I'm gonna bring home a special popcorn flavor, be ready, guys? What does that look like?

Um, at this point, for popcorn, I don't get that much anymore. They're there. They're— I mean, 7 years in, it's a— it just depends. If we are having a family movie thing over the weekend, you know, my wife might text me to bring something. I get more requests from my 3-year-old to bring chocolate back. If I leave that shop and do not bring her a piece of chocolate, it is a problem. And she knows where— I will FaceTime, she do this look, she's looking at the background to see what store I'm at. She's like, are you at the chocolate shop, Dad? I'm like, yes, I am. And she goes, bring me my square chocolate. I go, okay, yes, she is. Yeah, her, her, the, my two daughters are young. They, they're 100% like, bring us— because we have some that are just squares and they just, they don't even know what it is.

They just know it's square and it's chocolate and they say, oh my God, that reminds me of my favorite chocolate growing up. We didn't have much choices. They were like the ice cube ones, remember? They look like little ice cubes and I think they were called like Ice— oh my God. I now, if I go to try, like, it's fun going to those like nostalgia shops I have. I'm like, I want my ice. I love it. And you're so lucky to have a 3-year-old in the house.

I love all ages. Yeah, lucky, that's a stretch. But yeah, they're there.

How old are the other girls?

Uh, 5, and then I have a 13-year-old and a 19-year-old.

Yeah, amazing, amazing. Oh well, this has been— so give me a little feedback on the interview, please, so we can let Larry Oh, Larry's going to know.

Yeah, but it was good. Luckily I'm light on my feet. I'm good. I'm nimble, quick. I can flow with it. So it's, uh, we're all good. It was great. I'm glad that, uh, that it happened. I'm not mad. You're so likable.

Thank you. Thank you.

What was your birthday month? A September person, early.

Some people are just so likable. It could ooze out even on a StreamYard video. It's like It's like amazing how that could be. All right, so you and I are going to stay in touch. I'm going to produce this and it'll be syndicated, and I can't wait to support everything that you have. Oh, one more question. So the reviews— so, um, so you have a Google My Business page, right? And then you're dealing with the reviews, and what happens? Like, so what do you do personally if you had someone that is like, had got a little burnt piece of popcorn and they're like, oh my Like, do you, or do you have any, do you have any, any— I guess I want to want for just the listeners out there, um, any pointers on how to handle a poor review, if you do have any, or if you were to get one?

You know, this would be in the bucket of things that I don't like to deal with, so I don't. So I generally ignore them outside. I might call, you know, one of my friends or my wife or something like, and be like, did you see that review? Because a friend of mine, he runs a lot of our backend system stuff, so he gets the alerts and sees it. I don't even have it turned on. I don't have stuff on my phone. I don't want to see any of this, right? I still try to have some separation. There's still people who think I'm crazy, like, didn't you see that? No, I don't see that. There's no chocolate or popcorn emergency I need to have on my phone. I don't need to see the email until I'm like clocked in to see, right? I don't need to see I don't want alerts and stuff going off, but I generally ignore them, especially if they're— if they're legit, we'll, we'll address it in the thing and then make— take it off of there. You know, what's your email? Well, if it's serious enough, I'll make a phone call. If not, we'll send an email letting them know we appreciate the feedback, here's what we're gonna do to fix it, etc. We're not gonna drag this out. Some people just want to keep going back and forth. We'll do it a couple and we're done. If it's just absolutely ridiculous, we honestly just leave it there because this person is— you know, there are, there are people who are just ridiculous and they just want to say something crazy for no reason. I will— I'm more likely to go on a campaign to get more good reviews. I'll use my energy for that instead of focusing on how to respond to something that's crappy. I'll just send out an email like, hey, you guys were here this week, right? If you have your email thing set up or SMS set up the right way, you can just go in the thing for everybody that bought in the last 7 days, right? And just send them an email, hey, you guys were in the store. If you had a great thing, would you mind dropping us a Google review? Put the link in there and just send to that list. You'll probably get 4 or 5 as soon as you send it out, and it's going to bump that stupid one down anyway, because people aren't dumb. Yeah, for the most part, right? If you look—

that's good advice.

Yeah, like, it's just, if you scroll through reviews and you see 5, 4, 5, 4, 3, 5, 4, 1, and you look at the 1 and you read it, you're like, this is dumb. It's not gonna stop you from going to the place anyway, you know what I mean?

And if it does, you could go— you could look at that person and realize, oh, they give everyone a poor review because they're just negative. Right, like I walk in, my expectation when I walk in the store is that it's already going to be great. And I give good reviews, and I always ask my server, you know, where would you like me to give a review? What's going to work best for you? And, you know, and, and Facebook, Google, most are saying Google because Facebook is scam a lot, and there's just like, it's just like crappy. But I think that, uh, and then that makes them happy. So I do want to say that, you know, if, if places help, or you're not allowed to buy reviews anymore, and there's some there's some new changes in the law on that one. But on the other hand, what a nice thing that we could do is give a good review to help a business out. So do that. But that was a great answer. I just loved it. That was a big golden drop of a gem. All right, Ryland, thank you so much. Have a great weekend. You too. Love talking to you. So the pre-interview is done now, so let's book a time.

Yeah, yeah, send a few days to Larry. We'll have him check it out.

I love you. Thank you so much.

I am going to see you.

I really— I got to do like a tour and meet everyone and eat the popcorn and see. You're— you are fantastic. I hope I could drive some business to you.

Oh, thank you. I appreciate it. Me too. Have a good weekend.