Boundaries: The Key to Handling Hyper-Growth with Business Leader Jeanne David

Welcome to this episode of the Million Dollar Mastermind. I'm Larry Weddell. And before we get started, if you want to know exactly how to win again and again, go to Wydell on winning.com webinar now to watch something I've put together for you. Now let's get going into this episode of Million Dollar Mastermind.

I'm talking this afternoon with John David Exciting CEO, founder of Outer Isle Gourmet. 5th ranked fastest growing company in 2020 in California and exciting new expansions and horizons. I think you're going to see her healthy product line everywhere. She started primarily in the cauliflower, pizza crust and sandwich thin business. And welcome, John, and it's just great talking to you. How many products do you have in your product line now?

We currently have five SKUs and we have yet to really have the bandwidth to bring out our innovations because we've had to keep up with demand and because we are a manufacturer. So we are looking forward to next year. We'll bring out this. We brought out our everything sandwich then and that has been a huge hit.

But what was that again?

Other innovations.

What was that? Would you repeat that one again?

Yeah. Everything Sandwich thins. So it's, you know, the hugely popular spice that is everything. Trader Joe's has a ton of everything seasoning. They've got a bunch of products that have that everything seasoning. So it's like the New York bagel that has everything seasoning on it.

Right.

So this is the healthy version of that everything bagel. Customers love it.

And it's called Everything Sandwich Thin. Everything Sandwich Thins. And where can people get them now really?

Just starting to hit the market. You can get them on our website, most readily available. There is one store in New York, Wegmans has it on the East Coast. Whole Foods will be rolling it out throughout the country very soon.

And this is your website is outerisle Gourmet?

Yep. Outeral gourmet dot com.

Okay. And talk about now, you went from your initial R D experience and you started ramping up from there. How did you ramp up to where all of a sudden everything breaks loose and you're the fifth fastest growing company in California. That had to be a what did I get myself into experience for yourself.

Well, it certainly didn't happen overnight. I will say that really it was a very natural progression. Again, since we are a manufacturer, we have, we have to keep those thoughts and constraints in mind when we grow. Right. So we were in four Whole Foods for the year and that was critical to Get. I said we spent time doing demos on the weekend. We got the velocity sell through we needed. And the next year they put us into a region which was 52 Whole Foods. We thought that was an amazing achievement. So. So after that one, we were in one region for one year. We quickly went to three more regions of Whole Foods in the next year rolled out. So that was 2016, 2017, 2018. Then we got Whole Foods National. And so really all of our growth was concentrated through Whole Foods expansion. We had great velocities at shelf. It's a very. It's kind of the gold standard in natural grocers. Right. We were able to do that really well. We sold well in their store. And so it was the point where they said they wanted to take the product nationally because you could only grow beyond four regions. You could only go to national. You couldn't grow more per region at that point. So you had to take the giant leap. And that's when we built out. We realized we run out of capacity at our previous plant and we built out a 37,000 square foot facility to handle the demand.

So you say you do your own manufacturing. Why is that important? I know the answer, but I want.

You to say it is. And it's very interesting as you talk to more and more CPG entrepreneurs. But for us, it was always about product quality and just the sheer volume. Like we bring in £150,000 of fresh cauliflower a week now, you know, no co manufacturer has the ability to handle that kind of volume of a fresh, you know, of a fresh ingredient. So the co mans are, the co manufacturers are all equipped to do the flowers. All the dried flowers are good for them. Things that, you know, are easy to mass manufacture. So we decided early on to go into manufacturing to protect our trade secrets of and, and maintain the high quality standards we wanted our product to always have. So we, we decided, we made that commitment early on. And, and what was your.

How big was your first. You know, all of a sudden now you get an idea. But it gets real when you start committing to a manufacturing facility.

Yeah, our first one was when we got 52 Whole Foods. We had been in a shared kitchen. We then needed our own and we got a 5,000 square foot building, but 3,000 of that was actually production floor. So really 3,000 square feet, basically. And we thought that our projections said that would hold us for three years. Well, in fact, in two years we began again doing the run rate and going. We're going to be at capacity at the End of next year, we got to build out. So we made that leap of faith, which always is a leap of faith. It's kind of like if you build it, they will come. And so we built out this 37,000 square foot facility in Ventura with the ability to expand because at that point in our. In our development, we could not take on any more accounts because we knew that if we took any more on, we would not be able to roll out Whole Foods National. And so we kind of had to keep capacity for Whole Foods national all during 2018. We moved into our new facility in October. November of 2019, rolled out Whole Foods national, was able to begin tracking, and then 2020 hit. So 2020 was our first year to aggressively go pursue accounts and Covid hit. So now I think at the beginning of this year, we were probably in 1250 doors. And at the end of this year, we'll exceed 5,000 easily. But our velocities at shelf are very strong. So we, we move a lot of product within through the doors that we're in.

So how do you keep. How you can keep in your sanity now with, you know. Cause the thing is, success explodes. A lot of businesses, you know, they can't keep up with success.

Hypergrowth. Well, hyper growth can.

Yeah, hyper growth can do it. And so. But the other thing is psychologically, you know. Yeah, yeah, you, you were this person who had this idea and showed it to your son. Hey, let's do it. And now, you know, you know, the lightning bolts are coming in from all and the commitments and your. Your. Your life. Your life now has picked up. Hyper speed.

Yes.

Decisions need to be made. People situate. And how. How are you? How did you navigate all that?

Now, hey, listen, there's a lot of information online, but there aren't a lot of people who have actually done something. In my case, I've actually built a successful business, has accrued over $5 billion in assets under management, and has done well even during trying times. Now, if you want to know exactly how I've done this, go to Whiteellumwinning.com webinar Now, I've compressed a decade of learning into five short weeks. Just for those of you who want to give yourself an incredible advantage and are tired of waiting and watching others.

Move up, I would say it happens. You know, again, this doesn't happen overnight. It's a progression. But I constantly talk to our team about saying every three months, we're basically a different company. And I like to tell new employees as they come on, if you know, understand if you're coming to work for a company to do the same thing you do every day and you like your in a box thing, this is probably not the company for you. And that's really okay. You just need to know if this is what you like. We want you on our team because we're growing, we, we're moving. We've got big thoughts and plans and it is, it takes a lot of resources, it takes a lot of mental and it's demanding. I mean, I was on a call this morning with our executives and it's a great time for you to ask that question because we just signed a lease now. So we're two years, right? We're not even two years into this building. It's 2021 in November of this year. We'll have been in here two years. We're already pushing capacity. So we just signed a lease for our next manufacturing facility in Texas. And that again feels like a huge leap. But we can't wait a year to make that decision when we're at capacity in this facility and we know the innovations we have in the pipeline that will take us there. So you have to take that giant step, step forward before you really have everything you need. So you had talked early on about for entrepreneurs, I mean, I think one of the big things you have to constantly face is fear and shutting that down and not being overwhelmed and overcome with fear because you're basically concepting all the time and it feels a little bit like, okay, am I crazy? Is this going to happen? But back to managing this, we had a call this morning amongst our executive team about communication and beginning to put in parameters for all of us as we expand just to the level we are and beyond. Because we'll expand a great bit this year in Q3 and Q4, just that we put in the parameters for all of us to stay healthy and balanced. And We've agreed at 6pm we turn off business and are with our family and friends. And on weekends it ends Friday at 6pm and we pick it up again on Sunday at 6pm that gives you that little bit of window that you can preempt things for Monday morning as you're doing your planning Sunday night to start your day Monday morning. I'm finding the need for those kind of parameters so that giving us the structure to maintain our health and well being because really this kind of hyper growth would really burn out our team if we didn't turn it off.

Well, let's be honest now, John, the thing is, you're turning off the physical being present at it and you know, new things coming up, you know, you kind of like stop. But the truth of it is you need that processing time away if you can get it because your mind never stops thinking about it. Would that be true?

Right?

I would say that's true. But you need the interactions to stop.

So that you can, you need the interaction to stop. And also you can't tell someone, don't think about it. Just. You know, what I always love is why don't you just relax? You know, it's just like, you know, nothing is more boring than me to me than going laying on the beach or something like that. You know, like they asked Jay Leno, you know, you know, you're always in California, you're always still doing these one night stands around the country. You know, why don't you get, go take a cruise, why don't you go tour, you know, Europe and take some time off. And he looked at him, are you crazy? He said I'd be bored out of my mind. And so you can't, you can't just stop. You got to do something. But when you sin, give people like get out of here, go. You know, like they can get back. They've got their kids, they've got their spouse, they've got their dogs, they've got the things going on and those things and dealing with those things gives, forces them to have a pattern interrupt where otherwise they might blur their minds out thinking about a particular subject.

I mean that reset, it's that reset. And I think our executive teams and high growth companies, they need to be given that permission to not always be on. I mean people, you know, the whole workaholism thing, you know, is not so great. I was reading an article in Inc. Magazine about entrepreneurs and how basically that atmosphere can create the environment for manic depressive. Because there's times when you have to go for a week, you're like on mania, right? And then the down from that because your body needs the down. So what I feel like in talking with my executives is hearing especially our OPS guys go, I need to shut down. Like I need to know that I can have time where I'm not being called and I'm not being. Because ops is really the one on the anvil right now with our hyper growth. They're the one having to keep up with this demand and regulate what sales can sell because of what they can produce. So it's very interesting. But giving them that permission by putting in these boundaries, hey, I Think it's best for our whole team if we live by this. Now. We also said there'll be times, and we know there will, that will be mission critical. And that's what we said. If you've got to do it, you know, and we're talking text and phone, you can always send an email.

Yeah. If it's.

You have to control your emails.

There's always going to be harvest time. You know, anytime you're growing, there's always going to be a time. There's always going to be planting time and harvest time. You know, where it's planting time, you're going around the clock to kind of get. Get it in the ground and the weather and, you know, you got to take advantage.

You're not.

Things are not in your control. And when you get the chance to do it, everything else has just got to stop and you got to get it done. And then it's a matter you maintain, you grow. But then hardest time will come if you've done it. Right. And that's a good thing.

Right. And everybody has energy for it.

Everybody has energy for it. And it's your ability to stay in control of and most of the time and not. You can't live every day like it's planting and harvesting time, you know?

Right. No, no, no. It will. You will burn out.

So you'd be unpleasant to work for. It'll be hard for you to have any kind of good people who will want to work with you. And now, now your problems get worse, you know?

Right, exactly. So, you know, that's another thing I started implementing. Like Tuesday and Thursdays are the only days that I'll take outside meetings because I'm just finding that Monday is my day. Right. I look, you know, as touching base with all my executives. And we've got calls set up and then you have emails in there. Right. So as things begin expanding, because when you grow, it's not just that your revenue grows, it's everything expands. I mean, the amount of marketing emails I get daily is insane. You know, so just weeding through your emails can take you half a day. Because I always try to keep up on a daily basis with emails. So putting in the parameters you need to stay balanced. And well, while in the middle of this, I believe that we're finding very critical because we want to be a healthy organization. We're a family. And so having those parameters, really probably we need it more than anybody because we. We've got to have those hard stops where I know if my son calls me at seven o', clock, he's calling me to be mom, not CEO, you know, and that's a very fine balance to have, so. And an important one.

Right?

So, yeah.

Well, this is fantastic. I'd love to just keep talking to you forever and hear about how you got into social media, how you got into this, how you got into that. But maybe we'll get a chance to talk later after you've gone through another phase of growth, because I know I would sure love to do it. And I'm going to do my part because I love your product.

Thank you.

To keep you growing.

Thank you, thank you.

And I'm glad to hear about this new one and how I can get my hands on it by ordering online@outerisle gourmet.com and so. And that was the everything sandwich then. So you can get them before anybody else.

Yeah, yeah. They're not widely available yet. So.

John, this has just been a lot of fun and thanks so much. I'm just really proud of your vision and your impact and the jobs you're creating. One quick question I do have. You said Texas. You're a California company and starting. You got to go where the answers are as you get bigger folks. And all of a sudden, now would you. Would it just. I'm just too curious about how you got a thing in Texas.

Okay. I'm going to tell you. And it's not the cliche California company moving to Texas. It makes a ton of sense for us because Texas is middle of the country distribution, that's huge. So when you think we're shipping from California to the east coast right now and everything out of California is exorbitantly more expensive because we grow 80% of the world's fresh vegetables and fruit. So April to August, everything leaves this state. So distribution goes up. Like just shipping goes through the roof. So the cost, there's nothing of, you know, there's limited. So what we're going to do is we're going to have middle of the country distribution, which is huge. We're going to also have redundancy in our manufacturing right now. You know, California's fire and earthquake. So we'll have that redundancy that's so key. We'll have the expansion capabilities that we very much need. And also we'll have supply chain differentiation, you know, which we can get fresh organic cauliflower out of Mexico at that point and not just fully rely on the California crops that we do. So, you know, if we decide to do that, it's all about capacity and what our suppliers can supply us with. So Texas gives us access to a different set of suppliers that will be necessary as we grow.

Well, thanks for explaining that. But by the way, it would have been all right if it was a cliche. Leave California, go to date. That would have been fine too.

Yes, yes.

Hey, thanks so much, John. I'm really excited about your future. Congratulations.

Thank you so much, Larry. It's been a pleasure to talk to you.

It's been a pleasure.

If you enjoyed what you've heard and are dead serious about finding out for yourself exactly how this works in the real world. I've taken the most valuable business lessons I've learned over 40 years and put them into something for you to watch. Go to whiteellawinning.com webinar now in order to move up as fast as possible. I'm Larry Wydell and I run the Million Dollar Mastermind. Go, go, go.