Randy Ornstein - Sr. Director of Beverages at GoPuff Speaks on Getting Promoted

Welcome back to the Casey Adams show. Today I am joined by Randy Ornstein, the senior director of beverages at Gopuff and the author of Grow the Essential Guide to Getting Promoted. Randy, thank you so much for coming to the show.

Thank you Casey. It's a pleasure to be here. Very exciting.

Absolutely. So I am very pumped up not only for you but for the listeners today because you have a book that is just coming out. As mentioned just shortly I said Grow the Essential Guide to Getting Promoted. So for the people that may not know who you are and your experience at GoPuff or as a, as a leader, how long have you been at Gopuff and what led you down this path?

Yeah, I've been at GoPuff three and a half years and it's been a very exciting run. I joined pre Covid and with COVID happening, you know, our business ballooned overnight and it's been an amazing ride. We're basically taken on the leader of the instant needs category. I manage the beverage business so the alcohol and non alcohol drinks which is some of the fastest growing categories there. But I've been in beverages my whole career and I started my career at IRI which is a syndicated data company with my client being Anheuser Busch and based in an Anheuser Busch office and managing sales for them. And then I was employed by anheuser busch for 15 years. So basically worked 18 years at the number one brewer in the world and had an amazing run of getting promoted multiple times. I actually got promoted seven times throughout my career from more of an entry level position managing the category space management team for our Walmart business in Bentonville, Arkansas, drawing plantagrams of where beer goes on the shelf to then running sales for Walmart and Sam's Club, our number one client for all of Anheuser Busch and then taking on four different VP positions leading our non elk business and beyond beer. And so over the years I was asked to to present at the graduation of our sales development training program which was basically roughly 30 to 40 college graduates that just joined Anheuser Busch went on a six month call it training program and then the last day was a graduation and I was asked to give the keynote speech a few times to those graduates. And I always just presented one slide and the slide was like five tips that I use to move up the ladder to Anheuser Busch. And one of those tips would be like data is power and you have to use data effectively to make strategic decisions to get the. Yes. And over the years those individuals Would come up to me later, who I might not have even ever known and say, randy, I still know your. I still remember those five tips that you sent to me five years ago. And it kept sticking and the story kept happening, and I kept growing my tips over the years as I joined a new team or added new people to my team. I would present like, here's how to be successful at Anheuser Busch. And so after a while, I said, you know, we gotta put this pen to paper and start formulating this out and sharing more with the world versus just the employees that I was working with. And so I was able to utilize the experiences that I had at Anheuser Busch. But then as I moved to GoPuff three and a half years ago, able to then take experiences working for a retailer as Gopuff is a retailer that sells goods versus Anheuser Busch, a supplier that actually sells to retailers.

No, that's. That's very, very cool to hear. And I have so many questions about the book, your experience. But before we get there, what led you down the path of getting into beverage? Was that a part of your plan? You know, when you were in school, did you want to get into the beverage bro at alcohol business or, you know, what led you down that path from a career standpoint?

Yeah, actually, it was very random. I grew up in South Florida, and basically my entire high school went to college at uf, FSU or Miami. And I decided I want to go out of state and get out of Florida. I lived there my entire life, and I was really into sports, and I wanted to be an athletic trainer for a professional sports team. And so Indiana University had one of the best programs out there. And so I took a leap of faith and went to iu. I was one of two, two people from my grade at high school to go and went there literally knowing that one individual and no one else. And I. My major was athletic training for my first two years. And as I was. I enjoyed it. But as I was thinking about my future, I didn't see a lot of opportunity. Only 1% of trainers actually make it to the professional level. And I saw that a lot of trainers are working two jobs out of college, probably in a high school or in a training facility. And I just didn't see that path for me. And so I switched to business and was in the Kelly School of Business at iu. And. And I've always been pretty good in math and statistics. And so I interviewed for many companies, and one of those companies happened to be IRI which is a syndicated data company and I ended up joining them and moved to Chicago. And there was a one month training class that they put you in and their ask was where do you want to live after this one month? And most of my friends from IU moved to Chicago. And so IRI happened to be based in Chicago and I wrote I'd like to be based in Chicago. And the only job available in Chicago for my level was an opening at the Anheuser Busch office. And so it was pretty random that if I would have picked Cincinnati, I'd probably be working for Procter and Gamble.

Yeah.

You know, I hadn't certainly I've drinking beer before, but I wasn't an expert. I knew really nothing about it.

Yeah.

But I think that's really what has made me enjoy beverages and really have a passion for beverages. It literally been in and out of my entire career.

Wow. And I'm just curious, as someone that once didn't know anything about the beverage business and now as you just said, being in your entire career, what are the, what are some of the most important things you've learned to become successful and grow a beverage business in the way that you have? Whether that's an anheuser in the GoPuff division and you know, what do you tell someone that is interested about the space that wants to learn more in terms of what to look out for and what determines, you know, success in the business overall?

Yeah, I think what's exciting about beverages and when I say beverages, that's both alcohol and non alcohol. There's been a ton of innovation and trend in this space. I think it's the more innovation in this space than in any other grocery type of product. And what I really like is that especially in the non algal drinks world, you basically have to drink to stay alive. Like every, every person drinks six to eight beverages a day. And so it's up to my job now to make sure that at least one or two of those drinks is coming from Gopuff or previously from Anheuser Busch. And remember, they're also drinking tap water and milk and orange juice. And so it's one of those categories that continues to grow because you basically need the drink in the alcohol business. It's really fun because people drink when they're happy, people drink when they're sad. It's pretty recession proof. It's a, there's a lot of, when you go to the bar, you see your product in this, in the bar. It's like an amazing opportunity to see we have tons of marketing in terms of sports partnerships and billboards and commercials, but I think it's just that what I really enjoy about it is more of how many different types of beverages you could create out of like a base. There's so much blurring going on where if you look at the trends of like sparkling water back in the day with like Lacroix and then Waterloo and then it's ballooned into so many different types of carbonated water with Aptogen based things right now the cbd and then it, and then it carried into alcohol, which now hard seltzer has been like all the craze in the last five years. I was grateful at Anheuser Busch to work on Spike Seltzer, which then changed its name to Bon and Viv, which is technically the first ever hard seltzer in America, even before White Claw. And so to be able to work on one of the most innovative classes of beverages that we've seen really in alcohol has been a fascinating ride. And then to see all the spinoffs that come out of it. People are always trying to find a better way to produce a product.

Yep. Yeah, no, totally.

There's very, a lot of creativity.

Absolutely. And I think for me, as I think about this conversation, I think the alcoholic path and the non alcoholic. And I'll say one thing, like, one of my favorite industries is beverage. As a consumer, right. I go into different grocery stores. I truly enjoy not only tasting the new beverages, but as you said, there's such a plethora of different drinks and brands out there that are, they're speaking differently to consumers. I recently had the founder of Alipop on the show and I love that drink. I'm friends with the founders of Super Coffee and like the way that they've built a brand in that space is incredible. And I want to ask you, like, what in your opinion makes a beverage brand stand out and what makes it successful long term? You've been in this space, you have a unique perspective. And you know, some of the brands that I've just mentioned are the ones that you've worked with. You know, what creates success in that space and longevity.

So number one, taste is king. If the product does not taste good, then people will not buy it. And, and it's, it's my number one rule. You could get anyone to buy your beverage once, it's pretty easy. But to get them to buy it again and again, that repeat rate is very hard. And if the consumer does not like your product, then they will go and find another product. So number one, it needs to taste good. Number two, I think there needs to be a continual focus on innovation. Consumers, tastes change frequently and so it's important that you launch with a few flavors, but then every year you're reintroducing new flavors to continue to build loyalty with their consumer. But then you're also removing flavors that aren't working and just causing dead space on the shelf. And then I think number three is it's more of a focus on health and wellness, but in a good way. I think that certainly back in the old days it was all sugary drinks. You're seeing healthier, but it needs to taste good too, which goes back to number one. So there needs to be health attributes to make you want to drink it again and again and not feel guilty, but not, not that it. You're trying to chug it because it's healthy, but it's just hard to drink because the taste is not there.

Yeah.

I think fourth, I'll add one more like the branding is really key and if you have the right brand, the right message, the right look, that will also do wonders because there's a bunch of beverage brands and grocery brands on the shelf and usually consumers are walking down only for a few seconds. And so what's going to spot their eye? When you're on GoPuff and on your app, you know, we carry 650 beverage SKUs, not elk drinks. So which ones are going to stand out? They can't pick up the can or bottle. So if the image looks cool, it's sharp, it's got a good message then, then maybe that one will help get the.

Yes, totally. And speaking of branding, distribution, I had on John Shahidi from Full Send and you know, Happy dad and we had this whole conversation about alcohol and how, you know, from a creator standpoint, they really capitalized on. Yes, you know, they could have promoted any type of beverage brand, but they launched Happy dad and it's been quite the success based on our conversation. And you know, people I think see it everywhere, especially their, their followers and you know, they've, they've, in my opinion have like recreated the way to launch a beverage brand. I'd love to hear your thoughts on, you know, creators or people like the, the Full Send group launching beverage brands and how you believe that will be either a trend or not in the future for other creators launching brands because you, you see, you know, celebrities all the time launching alcohol brands. But the way that Full Send did it and the conversation I had with John, it was Just so unique and they've done very, very well so far.

Yeah, amazing brand. It's one of our best selling hard seltzer brands. It's one of our strongest partnerships. We actually were the first retailer to sell their product in California a few years ago and we have a weekly meeting with them to talk about how to continue to get better on GoPuff, BevMo and Liquor Barn, which is the companies that we own.

That's awesome.

I feel like I get probably five requests a week of beverages that have a celebrity, influencer, investor, founder or influencer. Like it's, it's pretty overwhelming. We're talking to celebrities left and right and some of them are active where they're on the calls with us, they're in the stores trying to drive traffic, they're on social media trying to push and then others are. They're non existent and you actually don't even know that a celebrity's tag with, with Happy dad and the Nelk Boys, they've been like completely active. They've gone into our BevMo and GoPuff locations and had a. And made sure that their audience consumers knew.

Yeah. That they were doing very well at that.

We have like security guards in the parking lot trying to block traffic and Lamborghinis everywhere, like thousands of crazy fans. And you can't even open the store because it would be chaotic. And they're signing 12 packs left and right. They're giving away anything that they can. But they really focus digitally, which is where their consumer is through their podcast or through their social media and told their consumers where they could find the product. And so they've done a good job of showcasing, you know, our, our portfolio of where we sell. They, we've done different sweepstakes with them to drive excitement. We've, we've done. They have every two months they, they have their, they launched their brand, you know, their T shirts, their, their sweatshirts, everything that they. I know they, I won't. We'll reveal the numbers that they release, but it's a lot of. And so they've given us opportunity to sell Halloween costumes last year, like Happy Dad Halloween costumes and very cool stuff that you only could buy in our platform.

And yeah, that's awesome.

They're just very active and they really want to. Every time they enter a new market, they really want that market to succeed. And so they're. I haven't seen a brand where every time they launch a new market, the founders actually in the market for a whole week trying to push volume Most of the times, you're in your home market and just hoping your team does it for you, but they're out there doing the hard work.

Absolutely. No, I'd love to see it. I mean, you see them everywhere. I think they've done a great job, and it's so cool to know that you guys work so closely. I want to pivot the conversation to your book that just came out. Grow the Essential Guide to Getting Promoted. Number one is what inspired this book. And I'd love to just hear your mindset on putting out this book and what excites you about it when it comes to the readers and listeners of this show and the readers of the book.

Yeah. It's crazy to think because I am not a big reader, and I would never have thought myself as an author. I did average in high school in English, and it was always more of a math student. Analytics. And, you know, I shared my story earlier at Anheuser Busch. I've always prided myself on when an employee of mine gets promoted. It was like, that was like, the biggest win for me. It was like, sure, certainly I like to move up the ladder, but I felt that was even more successful when one of my employees got promoted and moved up the corporate ladder. And for me, that always stuck with me. I always enjoyed mentoring employees at the companies I've worked with. Usually those employees would come up to me and ask, hey, you know, I'd love for you to be my mentor. And we would meet monthly to talk about what. What they could do to improve. I felt that was always like a sounding board for. For other people not on my team. That would just come up to me. I've always been more of a loyal and pretty transparent person where I would say, say what I thought. Say, say it as it is, I didn't sugarcoat things. And I also am lucky enough to have a wife that actually wrote the book with me.

Wow.

Haley. She's a psychologist. She's a. She's done a. She's much better writer than I am. And so she actually wrote the book, but using my experiences.

No way.

Yeah. And she's on the COVID Yep.

Yep.

Randy and Haley Ornstein.

That is so cool. How did that process. Did that. Was that the goal since the inception of the book, or did that naturally come? No, come about.

The goal was strictly for me to write the book. And I did that for about a year, but it was probably garbage back then. This is like four years ago. And my wife just got involved and not, you know, she's Not a business major or psychologist. And so it was a lot of her trying to take all the information out of my head and, and more of simplified a little bit more because I, I tend to, you know, since I know my world very well, I wanted to make sure that the readers could understand everything I was saying. And so I think she did a great job of making it so that you don't even have to be in the beverage industry to understand the book. You could be in any type of industry but still use the tactics in there to get promoted. I think what she also did really well is after we did a first edit of the book, our publisher Greenleaf had said that you need to add more research. There was no validating research to say what I'm actually saying is even true. You know, there's other people that have wrote books or have done research, validate that. And so she was, she read many, many business books to then put footnotes and supporting documents to support a lot of the things that we wrote in the book, which I think has brought it to the next level.

Yep.

I think another really interesting thing is I wrote, we wrote this book pre Covid and post Covid and I was 100% always in the office and now I'm 100% not in the office. And so a lot of the tips that I, that I portray are how to be successful both working in an office, but also virtually through Zoom and through Google Meets.

I would love environment. I would love to stop you there real quick because I think it's, it's a very unique topic. Right. Like thinking about the guide to getting promoted. How, how do you think about, you know, the different tactics which I know the people will learn in the book. But at a high level of working toward getting promoted in office on Zooms is one easier, is one a more laid out blueprint or how do you think about that?

I think there's pros and cons with both. I think if you're in your office with your boss and your team every day, it's a lot easier to have informal conversations in between meetings. You could talk for a few minutes, you could talk in the break room, you could go to lunch, you could build relationships and connections. There's happy hours, there's a lot more informal conversation to build connections and relationships. And that's really one of the keys that I have in the book is you need to build relationships not just within your boss, within your peers, but within cross functional teams as well. Because you might never just stay on your one team. For the rest of your career, you might move teams to teams and if you build strong relationships with other departments, then you might get noticed by them and eventually move into those departments. When you're working virtually, it's very hard to do that. You're literally only talking to your team, your boss, your cross functional departments on zoom and there's not in between. So after a 30 minute zoom, you might be going to another 30 minute zoom. There's no like 3 minute break to go up and down the stairs and go to the next conference room. And so you miss out on that small talk. Also, there's no, there's no lunches, you're not going out and there's no happy hours. And quite frankly, you might not even see some of your employees for months at a time. I mean, right now I'm based in philly. Of my 24 person team, there's only one other person that lives in Philly with me. The rest of the people live all over the country, many in California and Chicago and Dallas and D.C. and so my boss doesn't even live in America, he lives in Europe. And so, you know, it's harder to do that. And so you need to basically manage your meetings and schedule time to meet with these cross functional people, your bosses, on an ongoing basis to develop these partnerships. Because if you don't, you're just going to be like a hidden person working at your office and no one's really going to know who you are and you're going to be more of a ghost. And you really need to get, be proactive and get out there and do your best to make those meetings count.

I love that and I would love to get just some of your key points if you had to bring some golden nuggets out of the book to share with the listeners today about the truest, as you say, the essential guide to getting promoted. There's lots of different entrepreneurs or early employees or young aspiring entrepreneurs that might be working a job that are, you know, looking to get promoted, looking to do better, looking to grow up and go up the food chain of corporate. But do it in a very actionable way with a strategy, not just hope for the best. And you know, in your book you lay that out very, very well. But what are some of the key things to focus on if you are looking to get promoted in a unique way with a strategy?

I think, and the book does it a good way. It's broken into two parts. So one part is like everyday excellence and it's more of the everyday Things you're doing, like how to manage your messages in a better way, like when your boss is emailing you or calling you, you should pick up the phone and respond. Or if he emails you or she emails you, you should respond pretty quickly. You shouldn't wait days. You need to have a sense of urgency there. And I think that you need to use in a collaborative team environment, you're never a person that's doing 100% of the work from your team. It's always a we environment. It's not an I environment. And I always got turned off when I was listening to presentations or the person presenting was always like, I did this, I did that. I, I, I. When you know that there's no way that that person did 100%. Other people helped him, but they're trying to take 100% of the credit. And so I try and do over my career, this has been a tip I've used forever. I changed the I to a we. And I, and I always use the reference we did this, we did that. And I really feel that when you say that, that the perception is much better. I remember meeting with, with a retailer in Michigan that I met with them the first time, the 30 minute meeting. I kept saying we. And a week later that individual emailed me and basically was like, I was very impressed that you said we. Like throughout the presentation, I could tell that you appreciated the team that you're working on, that you didn't want to take the credit. And that stuck with me.

Wow.

And that's one of those things that even when I write an email, I usually after I, before I hit send, I remove the eyes and change it the week because I want to showcase that it's a team environment that we work in and that the team should get credit. So I love that it's those everyday things. And then I think it's like going above and beyond is like the second part of the book. And, and that's where you need to develop best practices. And what I tell my team all the time is you're in your role, you're doing the job that is in the job description. But how do you go above and beyond and make the job description even better? How do you bring more additional value, create better processes that save us time or money, create new initiatives that create a better experience? I enjoy and I promote the individuals that are presenting new ideas, new tactics, new best practices to me versus the ones that are literally just doing their job and nothing else. They're putting in the 40 hours they're doing the job, but they're not adding incremental value to be able to bring us to the next bar. Because at the end of the day, we want to keep getting better and better and we can if everyone's just doing their normal 40 hour job without enhancing the job to the next level. I think I'll add one more. It's really what I've been known for is using data effectively to get the. Yes, I think it's very important that no matter whatever business you're in, that you study your performance, you understand how your sales are, your revenue, your profit, your margin. If you're selling a product, which markets are doing well, which ones are not, how are you going to fix it? What's the action plan? And if you know your numbers, your data, and you're able to analyze data effectively, I have found that people that could understand data, analyze data and present data in an effective manner are also the ones that get promoted.

Very well said. And I want to dive deeper in this idea of presenting data and knowing your numbers throughout your career. Was there any sort of pivoting point for you when you started not only getting better at it, but what was that process of getting better at focusing on that key point of knowing your numbers? Because I think that knowing how you talk about that and the importance of it, I'm sure you've learned a lot of what not to do and what to do when it comes to that. And I'd love to, to dive deeper on, you know, some of the things to maybe not do when it comes to data and the things that could lead you in the wrong direction as you, you know, you make a case of this being a very valid point, an important point.

Yeah, I've had many experiences where a boss would call me on the phone and say, hey, you know, ask me a question about my performance. They're like, hey, I'm about to go into a meeting with my boss, his boss, and they need to understand something very quick like what is the revenue of Bud Light in Texas and what's our growth? And you want to be able to either know it, know that answer right then, or be able to pull up a report within minutes to be able to provide that answer. The worst thing you could do is say, I don't know or let me get back to you. And by the time you like you get back to that person, they've already had that meeting with their superior and it was already too late. And so I think that's happened multiple times with me where Either I knew the number right away and was able to provide it because I was able to study my performance and usually would take at least one day a week to take time to review my performance, memorize the numbers that I had, or being more organized and prepared where I knew. Maybe I didn't know every single number, but I knew how to pull it up on my computer very, very quickly because I had dashboards or Excel files. And in minutes, I would be able to answer probably 90% of the questions that were asked for me. And I think that's. It shows that you know your performance. I mean, bottom line, when you're in sales, like, that's rule number one. You got to know what you're. Where you're selling well, where you're not, which items are doing well, and how to close those gaps if you're working. I was selling to Walmart, Target, Kroger, like Teavana iced tea back in the day. And the data is power, and power is knowledge. And, you know, there's a time I remember I was doing a market visit with Target, I was working for Anheuser Busch, and we were touring different Target stores. And when you do a market visit with the buying team, you're. You're going down every aisle. You're looking at, you know, your. The alcohol assortment, which, Which I was working on. And I was able to provide the. The buyers key stats that they didn't know. Like, did you know that the number one selling item with alcohol is actually bananas? And bananas is actually a. It's the number one selling item in any grocery store because there's many units. You usually buy like five units at a time. Or I was able to provide more metrics on the lift that you get from this bureau display, or just different sales metrics as we go down the aisle. And that actually spoke to the Target team because I remember then later on, a few months later, my boss was in the same meeting that I was in with Target, and Target made the comment, you know, Randy knows every number. We were in this. These Target stores, and he was like, quoting all these different numbers. And in actuality, I didn't know every number. I just knew some of the numbers, but then was able to portray them, portray that in a way that they thought I knew every number, and it just made me look a little bit more knowledgeable and that I knew my performance. And yeah, I've always had the perception that I knew my performance. I get it all the time from different leaders.

That's awesome. I mean, being proactive, being able to efficiently not only portray them, but get to them in a timely manner. Very well said. I want to ask you, when it comes to the book and the listeners here today, they buy your book, they get ready to read it, what do you hope that they gain from the book? Or what is something very important to you that you hope comes across to the reader of your book?

I mean, I think the biggest thing is that they like the book. You know, it is a simple read. It's not going to be complex. But. But that they utilize some of the tips to just improve themselves with the hopes that they get promoted from it. And that's really the end goal. You know, I don't think that. I think every individual is different. And so these are tips that I use to get promoted throughout my career. Nine different promotions throughout the three companies I work for. They're not going to. Every tip is not going to work for every individual because we all have different strengths and weaknesses. But if you utilize some of them, I guarantee you that they'll. They'll make you a better employee, a better teammate, a better individual, a better. A better asset to your company. And it'll give you that extra edge that maybe your peers don't have. Because typically when a job is open, there's many people trying to fight or trying to try and get that next position. Only one could. And do you have what it takes to get there? Do you have that extra edge? And so, you know who I think would be a good reader of this book? I think there's a. A few different ones. I think it's. It's people literally graduating college that have never done the workforce before, and. But they want to start with an edge, and so they could start using these tips immediately. You know, that's one thing I wish. When I was 22, entering the workforce, you know, I didn't know any of this stuff. I was pretty junior, very junior. No, no business acumen. And to have like, some of that right at the beginning, I think could have even propelled my career quicker. I think it's also individuals that have a good job, they enjoy their company, but they've yet to really move up at that pace that they probably wanted to. And again, they need more help to learn and get better. And then I think it's for business leaders like myself that wants their company to get better and their employees to get better. And, you know, I'm working with many suppliers that are buying the book for their employees. It's not just one individual, but it's the. It's the team or the department or the company. Because the goal is you don't just want one person in your company to improve, but you want the entire organization to improve. And if they all improve and get better, then you should hope to see higher revenue, higher profits, better employee satisfaction.

I love hearing that. And I also think too, as you said, right, it's like when you think about not the listener, the reader of the book, whether that's someone that's graduating college or even lots of entrepreneurs listen to this show. And if you want your team to be operating more efficiently, to actually strive to do better within an organization, this is the book you got to pick up. And I see that happening in a very great way. When it comes to these entrepreneurs that listen to the show, I want to ask you. Something just came to my mind, and that is for every time you've gotten promoted along your career, Randy, what has changed in your life? Was there any massive mentality shifts? Do you feel obviously this different sense of responsibility or stress or how have you managed these different promotions emotions, and how have they helped you grow as an individual as well?

Yeah, it's a great question. I think one, getting promoted is an amazing thing. It's a huge accomplishment. It's something you should celebrate with your loved ones, your family, your friends. You know, it doesn't happen every day. And certainly, you know, one great aspect is usually get paid more money, but you also get a lot more responsibility, which I think is, is the big things, like, yes, you want to get promoted, but usually that means that you have to work even harder. There's more responsibility for you. You're meeting with your management a lot more because you're, you're now a more, you become more senior and senior in the organization. And so I think there's more stress and, and I think it's, it's. You have to be able to manage the workload better, but then effectively transition workload to your team and delegate properly and then manage effectively. And so typically, you know, as you, as you get promoted and promoted, you're then going into more managerial roles where, like right now I'm in the employer review process where we're rating every employee and we're about to do employer reviews. And it's a good process, but it's a lot of work to evaluate every one of your employees. You know, you want to say honest things to also get them better. Some of it is criticism, but a lot of it is positive. And you have to make the harder decisions as you move up. So you know, I don't think anyone, very few people would turn down a promotion because it's when you think of like the monetary value you would get and the more responsibility, but with that comes again, more responsibility and more, more time. And typically you're working longer.

Absolutely.

In the end, I think it's a great thing.

Totally. So, Randy, as we wrap up this interview, last question I want to ask you is looking back as you started your career when you didn't know anything about getting promoted in the tips and tr. Tricks and strategies, what would your advice be to yourself and why?

I. I think I lived a. What. It's hard to say. I lived a great life. I think I've had a great career so far. I think I probably wouldn't. My first few years I would, I was, you know, I, I almost lost my job at iri. I remember I didn't. I wasn't performing to the levels that I, that I could have. I probably didn't take it seriously. I think that. I think everything happens for a reason and would I do anything different, you know, maybe had a few smarter techniques to better manage my job. I'm trying to think of a good answer here, though I don't know if I have any. I think I would just keep it the way it is because I love that I'm here for a reason. Like, you know, some of it is luck. Like I, I was able to, by joining the Walmart business at Anheuser Busch propelled me in a way that I don't know if I would have if I was on another retailer because Walmart is the, the creme de creme. It's the, it's the best retailer to work with. It's the biggest retailer to work with. And I was lucky enough to work with them for nine years, mainly living in beautiful Bentonville, Arkansas, which is a great town, by the way, but from South Florida, very different. And to be able to like, get into that and work in that stressful environment, it's awesome. Has done wonders for me that I don't know if I would even be where I'm at today without some of the experience working with, with the, the beast of Walmart.

I love that.

I'm grateful for my career. I'm grateful that the companies I work for and I'll continue to do the best I can for the, for where I work.

I love that. Well, Randy, I want to say thank you so much for coming on the show today. Congratulations on the book and where is the best place for everyone listening or watching today to go buy the book and stay connected with you and your journey.

Yeah Amazon for sure. And then porchlightbooks.com will be the other. That's if you want to make bulk orders that's probably the best site for it. You could contact me directly just through my LinkedIn. Randy Ornstein. Pretty simple. Don't have a website so get a lot of messages there but but Amazon and Porch Light will be the most common places to buy the book. You know we'll, we'll fight to get into some bookstores. Maybe on the shelf in airports would be amazing as a totally as you go fly your next flight.

Awesome. Well I will make sure to link all that down below Randy. And with that being said for everyone listening and watching thank you so much for tuning in today and once again Randy, thank you so much for coming on the show.

It's a pleasure Casey. Have a great day everyone.