Episode 253: The Story Behind the Fastest Growing and Longest Running Regional TV Show in the Cou...

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 am here with very Vera, Vera Stewart. Vera, thanks for joining us this afternoon.

Well, Larry, it's my pleasure to be with you today. Thank you for asking me.

Yeah. And, you know, it's an honor to talk with someone who's been successful in so many different things for such a long period of time. And the, the great thing is you pick up, you know, you learn how to navigate all kind of different things in life. And we can all learn from each other in life because the principles, the kind of ideas of a winning strategy are really applicable in so many different other areas of life, business and personal. And so that's why it's so much fun to talk about these, to get them from different points of view. And how would you say, Vera, what is your would you say right now is your what's turned into your main business? Would you say?

Well, the television show has probably been the largest growth in the last 10 years, which it certainly was never in my business plan to begin with. As a home economics graduate from the University of Georgia, I went with the anticipation that I would choose the easiest subject and come out with a degree from a fabulous university. At the time, back in the 70s, if you were really beautiful, you could be a flight attendant. If you were really smart, you could be a nurse. And if you were very hardworking, you could be a teacher. And so I was a teacher, and the idea of being a businesswoman never crossed my mind. But as now a grandmother, when my granddaughters show me their dolls and they want to talk to me about my dolls, when I was growing up, I didn't have dolls. I had a briefcase. And I would either play school or business. So I guess I'm doing what I was destined to do. Larry, you growing up, you did have to.

She had a briefcase. Where did that come from? I've never heard of that before.

I mean, honestly, I would set up my desk and I would go around to the trash can and pick up the junk mail, and that would be in my briefcase. And, you know, I just had this posture about myself as a child. And I think with my education background, my organizational skills are based on the credentials that you have to have to be a teacher. You have to turn in the lesson plan. You've got to know in September what you have accomplished in May. And I literally run my company like that. The format and the manual that we have written over these 37 years is really based on the same principles of being an educator. I really lean heavily on those management and organizational skills to put into play all of the different elements of my company.

You know, you've got your own cookbook, recipes for my table, the Very Vera cookbook. You've got your own cooking camp, the Very Vera cooking camp. And talk about that has sold out every year for 16 years, right?

Well, actually 17 this summer will be year number 18. And Larry, honestly, cooking camp was the solution to my accountant. Basically, this time of year, well, it would have been the month of April. Saying, you know, Vera, your company does so well with every holiday because you're mail ordering your cakes and casseroles. You know, every time there's an occasion, people all over the United States are ordering your product. And then you get to the Masters golf tournament that happens in the month of April. And all the, you know, the Fortune 500 companies have you catering their dinner parties, but then you get to the summer and it takes all of your profit to keep your company afloat. Said you have got to come up with something that you can do within the walls of your business in the June, July and August to make money so that you can show a profit at the end of the year. Well, going back to that home economics education degree from the University of Georgia, I thought, well, I'll just teach the children how to cook in the summer. You know, we're not that busy in the building and I've got the space, I've got the equipment, and I never dreamed that it would end up being the success that it is today. Now run by former campers. All of my counselors are college students that used to be campers. I mean, it is the rite of passage for that age young person in our community. And then it's the first entrepreneurial experience for so many young people in our in Augusta. It's just a remarkable element of our, of our brand.

Well, when you started out teaching, you know, you got so many things. You got my mind going in 40 different directions here. Vera, you had to have role model as a child. You know, your parents somehow you locked in on that idea of organization and business. And I mean, kids don't even know what a briefcase is, you know, or they, they might have seen one, but their own briefcase is not going to be give Giving a kid a briefcase as a Christmas present is not going to bring ear to ear grins, you know, so where, where did that get that machinery get going in your mind?

You know, I think it was just, you know, I'm the middle of five children. You know, my dad did own his own business and you know, back in the, back in the day, it was a, you know, it was a three bedroom, one bathroom house with five kids and two parents. And you know, I don't know whether it was my way of developing a spot that was mine in the house and just going to the idea of I could have a desk and, you know, I could have a school. So I don't necessarily remember mentor at that young age, but honestly, the things that I've spoken about when I do motivational speaking about entrepreneurship are those teachers along the way that affected me either very positively or very negatively. And it could be one year you had one that was remarkably organized. I mean, set your watch, you knew good and well that they were going to have a gorgeous bulletin board and they were going to be very creative in the way they presented the subject matter of the day. And then the very next year, your teacher would, you know, set your watch, okay, read chapter seven and answer the questions at the end. And she never opened her mouth. The bulletin board never changed. There was nothing that inspired you to look forward to the next day. And so these are the things that I think, as now 37 year veteran of owning my own business. I still go back to these examples and the way that it has affected the person that I am today. And I give them so much credit, you know, the lowest paying occupation that there is. And it has been the absolute foundation of who I've become.

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.

Well, the thing is, as a child, I remember being in school, but I never remember unless it was like the worst teacher of all time with a bad attitude and everything. You know, I never, it never dawned on me to analyze my teachers. It was kind of like teachers or teachers. And if, if they did a bad job, then I, I would more likely interpret that I just wasn't any good or not interested in that subject. But the right teacher can make any subject interesting. I learned later for some reason that that switch clicked on in your mind to like, if I'm in a subject, the teacher has got a job to do here. And if they're sorry about it, disorganized, not that interested, not that enthused, whereas I would have just sat out there, it's like, well, that's the way it is. You were more aware as a child.

Well, Larry, you know, I honestly can't take that as what I'm referring to because I think it's later, as time goes on, you reflect back on, you know, I find myself being this sort of person. Where did this come from? It's essentially the question that you've asked me, you know, is how did you get to be this person? And I think it's those influences that maybe don't show up until later. You know, I've maintained such a structure in my company that I think that it has given me more relevance as a. I'm the oldest person in my company by many, many, many years. But I'm probably one of the most energetic and enthusiastic in the building because I'm still so passionate about what I do and I still have this formula for having learning be part of what our company represents. I think it's just food, you know, food for thought is what is said in the food industry. But it truly is food for us. Thinking of the next thing to do and how we're going to, you know, the show we filmed this week was great. The show we film next week is going to be even better. And that's my attitude. I mean, I'm not going to be satisfied if we're not growing. I mean, here again, it's just like school. We finished first grade or you're going to be even smarter in the second grade. And that's the way I take each of the seasons of our show, is that I want my audience to be able to visually and audibly recognize the difference in our programming every single season. We are growing as a television show. Why more markets are taking our show is because if you go back and look at season one and you look at season nine that we just finished filming last week, it is remarkable what a local program looks like. When we get to the 300th episode in the middle of season 10, we will have the longest running syndicated cooking show. In the Southeast region. Wow.

Wow. How did you explain that right there that you wanted. You want to make sure your people know on your team how that happened and why that happened. There was a design behind. And did you say that to say how you get them to buy into your style of working, or you want them to know that it's not an accident, there's a purpose behind it?

Right. And I think really, Larry, the traveling through the. Being a local caterer in Augusta, which I started cooking in my own home kitchen, you know, 37 years ago, and when we outgrew that space, moving into a commercial location, I feel like for those folks in the Augusta, Georgia area, they feel like they own part of that because it was with their support and interest in what I did that we were able to grow. But then you move into mail order and you start shipping these products to California and New York. I mean, I had sales customers in every state. And then you get picked up by Costco of the Southeast, and Bloomingdale's and Neiman Marcus and Saks catalogs are selling very Vera products. You know, I had a certain quality and level of representation, not only in the packaging, but in the product of what I did that I had to make sure was in place and was going to be even better the following holiday. So when I. When I closed retail almost seven years ago, it'll be seven years ago the end of next month to concentrate on my show and my camp and really giving myself a little bit more longevity for what I was doing. Because I don't have a family member that wanted to take over retail. I just thought when I write this cookbook for all of the recipes that people bought for 30 something years, and I've got to make sure that when they make it themselves, it's gonna taste just like the one they got in the mail. I mean, it was so important to me to not leave out a step and to walk through it like I was standing next to them. I mean, there's probably not a cookbook in America that doesn't say, when you're making a cake, cream the butter and sugar until it's creamy.

Yeah.

Well, Larry, do you know how long that takes?

No.

No, you don't. Of course you don't. No. I don't tell you to do it for 20 minutes. And I tell you what else you can be doing during that 20 minutes.

Yeah.

Then you're gonna buy into my recipe book, because that's gonna be the best pound cake you ever put in your mouth, because I told you exactly how to do it. So that's the educator that allowed me to write the cookbook. There's not an Amazon review that says that one of my recipes is bad.

Yeah, fantastic. Thanks so much for kicking these interviews off with such a bang and giving us the real behind the scenes to what started out as a regional TV show and sounds like it's the fastest growing, longest running regional TV show in the country. Is that what you said?

That's right.

Unbelievable. Thanks so much.

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 Whiteellumwinning.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.