0198: The Semper Savage Salad Dressing Story: Part II with John Currie

Ea interviews. Episode 198, Inspiration, Transformation, Success Stories and the Imperfect Action Round. Seven days a week, join Mario Ficcini for today's expert authority effect interview. Have you ever had an idea that you just wanted to bring to life? You know, maybe it was a product, maybe it was a service, or maybe it was something in the culinary industry that you just wanted to serve to the world. Well, I'm excited to have John Curry, CEO, speaker and marine Corps vet. And he's going to be talking about his company, Semper Savage. And I can tell you the salad dressing is delicious. I'm going to bring him up right after we thank our sponsor. Every business needs a book, including yours. Visit freebusinessbookpublishingcourse.com today to learn the seven steps to publish and promote your nonfiction lead and profit generating business book and eight weeks. Once again, that's free businessbook publishingcourse.com Here he is, ladies and gentlemen, Mr. John Curry. John, how are you feeling today?

Hey, Mario, I'm feeling great. Super excited to be here. Thanks for having me on the show.

Oh, it's my pleasure. I love hearing inspiring stories and you know, what a blessing it is for me to be able to interview cool people like you that are making a difference in the world, steering the country in the right direction and taking your knowledge and expertise and just sharing it. And I gotta say, the dressing is delicious. And I want to know, why did you not want to play it safe? What would you tell someone who has an idea? You know, because some people, I would say it's easy to start something in the service business because I've done it, I've started stuff in the product business. I've had a lot of ideas, truthfully, since fourth grade for restaurants. I love culinary. I love to eat. My nephew, very proud of him. Him and his wife graduated the Culinary Institute of America. They're professional chefs, Everyone loves food. But I know there's a lot of pros and cons to that industry. So why did you decide to venture into it?

Honestly? Because I can. So that, that is a really interesting question, a question that I talk to people quite a bit about.

You know, when is the right time?

How do I, how do I start something and still make a living? And my advice is always don't quit your day job.

So I am fortunate and I was able to put myself into a position where I was able to take a little bit of risk, make a little bit of investment and not have to worry about paying the rent or the mortgage. And Putting food on the table and those sorts of things. Things. So I always say to someone who is about to launch a product, to someone who is about to start a business, once you've got that idea and you know that it's viable and you've really, you know, tested out that idea.

Start the business, but don't quit your day job. Give the business a chance to grow, Allow it to get out of diapers.

You're not going to be able to either. You cannot expect a business to just be birthed and start hunting gazelle. You know, it's. You got to get it out of diapers. So that's my speech on that. And. And the. The. At least the gist of what I often say about an answer to your question, a direct answer, is because I could, because I had put myself in that position to be able to.

Now I have a fun question I'm going to ask you. Do you have any idea what you think it might be?

I have no freaking clue, Mario, what it might be.

What if someone can't, or what if they're not in a position to? Would you still tell them to go for their dream and go for it 100%?

Yeah. I mean, risk is something that everybody has to manage. You know, every time we get into a car, you got to manage risk. Every time I get into an aircraft, I got to manage risk. Every time, you know, anything happens in life, as dramatic or as simple as it may be, you have to manage risk. And so everybody's going to be different when it comes time to pursue their dream, whatever it might be.

Now, when you're saying when you get into an aircraft, I mean, I've gotten into an aircraft, but I just have a high suspicion you're not referring to the commercial airliners that I've been in so far.

No, no, not. And I. During my Marine Corps career, I was a pilot. I flew Cobras, H1 whiskeys. And now I work. I work for, actually, the State Department, and I work overseas, and I fly another aircraft now. But, yeah, it's something that's always on my mind, and it's a continual allegory throughout my life. My wife will often tell me, well, when you get in the cockpit, you wouldn't do it this way. And I'm like, yeah, yeah, probably wouldn't. So. But anyway, it's like an ongoing allegory throughout my life is this entire aviation thing.

Well, I appreciate not only the symbolism, but your service, and I'm just thrilled that you're doing what you're doing now, because you can get this out to the world, and I know that's your goal with it. So I want to ask about the first steps of it, because I know you're doing well now, but what was it like in the beginning? And how did you get. I got to ask because I had this on the list.

How do you do the professional wraparound? It. The lid, the black.

The seal?

Yeah, it's. Well, so first of all, it is manufactured for us, but the way it's done is it's just shrink wrap. That's all it is. It's a sleeve, a black sleeve that goes down over the top of the bottle, and then it's heated up, like with a heat gun, and it, you know, it sucks up to the. To the bottle.

I was having some fun with that, and I gave some to my friend, and I was telling people about it, and I was telling Stacy, thank her again for sending them. And I looked at it. I'm like. Because from the branding and marketing standpoint, I mean, that's my background. And I was looking at this. I'm like, this is really well done. And I was looking at that, and the creative side of me was going, how the heck did they do this? And it reminded me of those Easter egg wraps when I was a kid that you would put in the hot. You put it around the egg and put it in the hot water and it would shrink up on there.

So, yeah, it's basically the same thing.

Okay.

Yeah.

So how did you get it to that point? Because it's phenomenal.

It's good story, you know, and there's a million little stories within the overarching story. But the overarching.

We got time is.

Yeah, the overarching story is that when I was a kid about middle school age, I was. I was a little bit unusual. I really loved salad. And so I. I was always looking for good salad dressing. And I. I did work at a Italian restaurant for a couple years where I. Where I learned about how to make good food, generally speaking. And the lessons I took away from that were great recipe, great ingredients. Just put it together correctly and you're probably going to have great food. Right. Just execute the recipe. So that's one piece. But I was always looking for great salad dressing. There was a few restaurants to include the one that I worked at that really had some great stuff. And they were all like mom and pop Italian places. And so I had zero culinary background other than flipping pizzas and putting together sandwiches and salads. Salads and stuff. You know, at an Italian restaurant. But I would go to these places, I would order salad, and I'd be chowing down, you know, and I'm like, man, this stuff's great. I wonder what it has in it. And so I would literally look at what was left in the bottom of the bowl and look at what was on the. On the salad. And I'd go home to my mom's cabinet, and I open it up and I. Well, that kind of looks about right. I pour a little bit of that in with some oil and some vinegar, and I just. I made a lot of really terrible concoctions over the years, but it kept getting better and literally over decades. So it was like 2009, I think, before I really hit the right formula. It was completely accidental, of course. By then I had learned quite a bit along the way.

Yeah, I mean, accidental after how many years of testing it?

Exactly. So I got better and better. You know, I learned little things like, oh, olive oil is a key ingredient. I can't just throw some crazy nasty oil in there. You know, it has to be extra virgin olive oil. And so anyway, those. That was how the actual product got invented. Then it was friends and family going, man, this stuff is really good. You should market it. And so I'm listening to all this over the years and kind of thinking, yeah, I don't have the money to bring something to make market because I've done a little bit of research. Pretty expensive. Yeah, I don't want to take that risk. So one year for Christmas, our oldest daughter was away at school. She wanted the salad dressing because she couldn't find. Same as me. She couldn't find any decent salad dressing. She wanted. She wanted my stuff, and she bought me a case of mason jars. She put, hold on a second, I'm going to show it to you. This is one of the actual Mason. Mason jars. We'll see if I can show it to the camera just a little bit. Anyway, she bought me a case of these bad boys. And on it, it has my face, and it says, john Curry's world famous salad dressing. And so I'm sitting there on Christmas morning, and I look at a box full of these things, right? And first of all, it was great. I was just, you know, it was a great, great gift. And it had a note that said, okay, now fill them up with salad dressing. But Stacy and I started looking at this, and we're like, God, it sort of inspired us just looking at this. This label on. On a. On a bottle.

So that was One event, it was just kind of a little. Little bit of a kick. The other thing was, I was working at the Pentagon at the time, and I had a good friend named Mac Talbert. Mac has a barbecue sauce business called Smoke and Shine, which we are so involved with. And here are good friends. Well, I had no idea that he had this business. So one day he comes walking into. Into our little cubicle area, and somebody asked him about the. The barbecue sauce business. And he starts going off about, yeah, we're in, you know, 20 stores or whatever. We're doing great. I'm like, what, dude? You got. You know, you've got a freaking barbecue sauce business. He's like, yeah, I didn't. I never told you about that. And I'm like, no, I never told you. You never told me about that. Let me tell you. I got a salad dressing, and you and I need to talk. So we did. We had lunch. And the long and short of it is he was able to mentor me through the initial steps that I needed to take or that Stacy and I needed to take. He mentored me, and then I would come home and say, hey, Max said this. And then we just pursued it from there. It was pretty simple. I just step by step, did what he did. I used the same bottlers, I used the same. Same everything, same label company, full nine yards. And so he was able to mentor me through that. And that got us this. An actual product in a bottle. And. Well, what now? Right now. I had already started the company, technically speaking, but we weren't really doing anything. And I.

As I went through this process, I kind of got re. Inspired to do something different. The initial thing was just, yeah, I'll put it in a bottle, we'll sell it to friends and family. We'll maybe take it to a farm stand here and there. You know, I just didn't have really a lot of big plans. But very quickly, whatever it is in my personality, I. I'm not sure what you would call it. Took over and I was like, achiever.

Yes, Overcomer.

Maybe. I don't know what it is, but I very quickly said, you know what? If this stuff is really that good, if I'm willing to take the risk to put it into a bottle, why would I not be successful at it? Why would I settle for mediocrity? That's why. That's what it is. You just helped me. You just helped me, Mario, to understand better.

I have always abhorred mediocrity, and I can relate to that ever since I was a kid, I. I could not abide it. And so that's what it was. And I was like, why would I not make this as successful as I possibly could? And so that's where I said, okay, we're going to try to make this into something.

Something big is the bottom line. Something big. And so we're working on it right now.

What would you say has been the funnest part of it?

Oh, wow.

The funnest part is probably getting really good feedback from customers. That's the funnest part of producing something, is having, even if it's just on Facebook or something, having a customer say, we love our simple savage, or they post a recipe or something, and we get quite a bit of that saying, hey, I. I made, you know, pork chops or something with it. Here's what I did. That is a lot of fun. The process, and I think this is important to note, is fun. I love the creative process, from making the logos to making videos to.

Coming up with product descriptions. I. I love that whole process. Stacy. And Stacy really does most of it, but she's the creator in the kitchen, and I love it when she comes up with a new idea. God. Oh, a recent one. It'll eventually come out anyway. She made a ginger one, and I was like, wow, what a great, great idea. Never in a million years would I have thought of that. And that part is fun. Coming up with new products, coming up with a new way to engage the public, coming up with a new way to market the product is a lot of fun. And we actually have a good time doing it together. Photography, video, we go all over the place and do that stuff. I love all of that.

Well, there's one thing I like about business. I mean, there's a whole lot. But bringing people together, because I've had the pleasure of doing stuff with friends and family and, you know, significant others at times. And it's a lot of. It is a lot of. It's not just fun. It's very memorable because.

I personally feel you can only watch so many movies and just do so many things. Like, even dinner, it's like, oh, should we go to the usual place again this Thursday or Friday, because it's Thursday, like, just.

You know what I mean? It's a lot more fun to instead of go to a concert, like, be the concert, or produce a movie or produce a show or create something, because I think it's that fear that holds most people back.

I'm still learning. You know, people seek me out for expertise on certain things now, but I remember starting off and it was like, I don't know what I'm doing. And then five years later when I did, I still don't know what I'm doing. And 10 years later and 20 years later, I still don't. I'm still learning. But it's that progress and you can track it and you can do it with those. The ones you care about and that you love. And I think that's. That's priceless.

Yeah, I agree 100%. And I think that a lot of people, the fear of failure in one mode or another, I think holds a lot of people back.

I saw something recently, it was, don't be afraid of failure or success, but be afraid of being in the same place you were next year.

Absolutely. Go for it. You know, just go for it. Try to be smart about it. Try to be successful first time. Understand that you're going to have colossal failures along the way, and you just gotta roll with it.

You know, you're gonna fail, Fail spectacularly. Right.

But. Well, you will absolutely learn. I heard a. Years ago, I heard something that was. I thought was pretty wise, and that was. I guess they were talking about education in general. Anyway, whoever was writing the article or, or making the speech said, you know, Instead of spending $50,000 on your child's education in college, spend $50,000 buying him a business. Let him run that for five or six years, and when he's done with that, or she is done with that, they're going to have a better education and maybe even something that's worth something.

Afterwards. And I thought that was. There was a lot of wisdom in that. If you kind of unpack what, you know, what's, what all is behind that, a lot of wisdom behind it.

Yeah.

I'm excited to see where you're going, and I'm going to ask you about that. But you just shared the fun part. I know you're an overcomer. What was probably the most colossal hurdle you had to overcome was it the packaging, the marketing? What was like one of the first cinch points you really felt.

It would. It was actually. It was actually the thing was the culmination of many things. So I had a production date that I wanted to be able to meet. In order to do that, I had to have a label design. In order to have a label design, I had to get the artwork. In order to get the artwork done, I had to settle on a name. In order to settle on a name, you know, there was just all these things that had not been completed. Completed yet. And this would have been back in 2018, right? Actually, yeah, yeah, 2018. When we first started the business and I can't remember when our first run was. I think it was that winter. So we were coming up against it and I hadn't finished everything yet.

Anyway, that pressure and.

When a lot of things culminate that you're trying to manage and maybe you weren't ready for that.

That was definitely one event, which was actually a lot of things.

That was probably the toughest time to get through from an execution standpoint.

I can relate to that with the books I've published in the EA interview Shine app, you know, all I want to do is launch it and get it into your hands. And it's like, well, is it on itunes and Android? Yeah, well, it's on one, but the other one's given an issue and then, well, we can't get it on there because you need the graphics and then it needs to be tested and it needs to. I'm just like, can we just jump, you know, skip to the end without the labor pains? You know?

Right. I know it's tough. Well, and then even hiring somebody to do certain work is. It can be tough. So I quickly found out. So I was doing all the artwork, I was doing all the film stuff, I was doing all that kind of creative side of it, and I was designing T shirts and doing all sorts of things because I thought that was going to be part of our business, which it may become a little later. But.

I couldn't take an idea and download it to somebody else's head for them to put on paper or into Trons. Right. I couldn't do that. Really think I did find actually a graphic artist who somehow is able to do that. He's a young dude, he's a college student, he lives in Sri Lanka. But Robbie's been. We've done a lot of work together and somehow he has a talent for being able to sit, to hear my words or my description, or maybe a real. Take a real rough.

Picture that I've maybe hand drawn and then, voila, he gives me something that. That looks right. But that's just one example of. If you're the guy with the idea, it can be very, very difficult to even hire somebody else to do it because they can't do it without being downloaded, without downloading what's in your brain. Kind of tough.

Yeah. When you're dealing with. I've gone through it with designers, developers, programmers. Hey, I have an idea. I want to build a software and it's like, can it do this, can it do that? Just the communication. But if you get the right people when you do.

Yep.

It's so smooth. And it's like, you know, there's like this second nature or this, this wavelength you're on. It's like, hey, what about this? Yeah, great, go for it. I mean, those are my favorite messages is, you know, you send me a paragraph of, oh, while we were working on abc. By the way, here's something I have no clue about because it's not my wheelhouse. I don't care. Here's what I advise we do for moving forward. Great, go for it.

Exactly. And it's almost a. When you can get relationships like you're describing to where there is an intuitive.

Explicit.

Collaboration, you're winning big time. Keep those people. Don't. Don't let them go. Keep them happy.

Yeah. I'm very thankful for my team. Some of them I've worked with over 10 years. Most of them are at least five to eight. I do have new people because everything's growing and the show's doing well and so is business. But I mean, same with my clients. I've got clients I've had for 10, 11 years. And it's why I was excited to start the show, because I had the confidence, I knew what I had done in other areas. I'm like, this is going to be a cakewalk.

There's an old Marine infantry saying times two plus one. So whatever you think you're going to do, it's going to be twice as hard. It's going to take twice as long and just a little bit more. There's. There, there's, there's. I've applied that to everything. Hey, this is going to be easy. No, it's not. Make it about, you know, make it about twice as hard, twice as much, Much effort, twice as much resources, and you're probably in the ballpark. That has definitely served me well.

It is worth it, though.

I agree, yeah, 100%.

But, yeah, I don't think I've ever publicly shared this, but when I started the show, I'm like, I've got background in video. This is going to be. My goal was to be able to.

Book, record, ed, edit and premiere the episode every episode in under an hour. As far as, like, self contained, how much work goes into it?

Yeah, that's a lofty goal.

Hey, gotta start somewhere, right?

All right, so let me ask you, where do you see this going in the next five to 10 years.

Yeah. So I've got some pretty.

I've definitely put some milestones out there. So next year I hope to be launching at least two more products in the same line. So the first, the first hurdle is to get this thing out of diapers, make it profitable, make it so that it's running on its own. And when I say that I mean it's sustaining itself monetarily. Doesn't need any more input from mom and dad. It doesn't need cash infusions here and there. It is running on its own and producing a surplus that we can work with.

That's the first step. And we are less than a year from launching our product. So I'm not nervous that we're still in that phase. Next year I want to launch new products and I want to simply grow. Now I have not put a, I have not put a number on that. I want to see positive growth. I want to see it moving down the road. More than that, I want to see the brand and the products getting noticed by anybody, of course. But I want, you know, I want to field calls from you know, Black Rifle coffee and nine nine nine line clothing and I don't know, name, name another, you know, veteran owned business who might be looking for, for partners that is already winning big time. Yeah, I, I'd love to be connecting with people like that.

And then go from there. Ultimately.

Within the next five years I expect to expect this to be a full time, very profitable. If it's not, so what? As long as I'm having a good time. But.

I'm not gonna accept that. Very.

That's excellent. Love that attitude. So we have one more thing to do before we thank our sponsor. Yeah, I know you've seen it.

I have seen that.

It's the wheel of whatever. And I gotta put a caveat because normally I just make stuff up on the fly.

Usually from the VIP guest gives me ideas. I usually have some beforehand. But I don't want to ask you like who would you like to have dinner with and they will be having your dressing. But I also don't want to go too deep but I'd love to get some information on the government. Like what can you tell me that? Like no one knows that you're allowed to say that we're not going to get in trouble for. Do you have something.

Conspiracy theory. Can I ask you about the moot?

No. Oh yes. Let me tell you about the UFOs.

Not exactly.

Okay. Oh, I got one. I got one.

Yeah, yeah, go.

Okay. You alluded to it earlier. What was the most memorable part about flying the cobras.

Who?

Wow. The most memorable.

Still pretty good. And I know you can talk about it. Huh?

Oh, no, no. Yeah, no problems at all. So it's not going to be politically correct.

That's fine.

But.

Watching the enemies of the country go up in flames, that was probably the most memorable thing for me. Yeah.

Cool. Love the honesty. That's all I ask for on the show.

It's just the truth. That was the most memorable. Definitely something I took away from it.

All right then.

And it was a good thing.

And on that high note, we're going to thank our sponsor and we'll be right back for the imperfect extra round. Thank you for sharing, John. I did enjoy that. You've heard me say every business needs a book, including yours. And it's true. And that's why you should visit freebusinessbook publishingcourse.com today to learn the seven steps to publish and promote your nonfiction lead and profit generating business book in eight weeks. But you know what, don't take my word for it. Take it from a few of my authors like Lori, I went from having an idea and a possibility to actually.

Getting my book published. Or Catherine, thank you for making my mom number one best selling author.

Or Mary Alice, what he got done for me in three days regarding my book launch.

Unmanageable. John Cody. I've worked with Mario over the phone and online and he's been very helpful in getting me where I needed to.

Go with promoting my books. Rocio, there's no way in the world I would have been able to do this with somebody else again. I've attempted it in the past. It didn't serve me. As a matter of fact, I ended up more frustrated than anything. So this has been a very seamless process. Adele, if you're looking for an amazing business coach, I highly recommend Mario Ficini or Bill Benner.

I can't make a higher recommendation than.

To work with Mario Ficini. He has been great for me and right now I won't work with anybody else except for Mario.

Hey, their words, not mine. Visit freebusinessbook publishingcourse.com to get started now. And and I look forward to hearing your transformation as the next video success story. Once again, that's free. Businessbook publishingcourse.com and we are back with the imperfect action round. I gotta be honest, I'm still enjoying that last one. I'm like, what can I ask him? That's like not breaking any rules that will get us in Trouble, but is still honest and just not the same as everyone else asks you.

So you can ask, you can ask me anything. If I can't answer something, I'll simply tell you that I can't answer.

Out of all the interviews I've done so far.

I would have to say I think there's only one time I got a pass out of all the questions, out of all the guests. And I try to keep it interesting. So I actually like it. When.

You said it's not going to be politically correct, I'm like, yes, most people won't go this place, but my show. So do what I want. Just want honesty. That's all I ever want.

There you go.

So the imperfect action round. These are the things I always ask. 60 second answers. It's a lot of fun.

Number one, what is the fastest path to profits?

Keeping in mind, like I alluded to earlier, Semper Savage itself is still not a profitable venture. It will be. But I do nevertheless have a philosophy that, that I think is. And that is being a servant to your customers. Be a servant.

Do, help, help people out, help out your customers, help other companies out, help other individuals out. That is, that is a, to my mind, the quickest way to build goodwill, which can be priceless. Whether it's business to business or between you and your customers, just, just serving them over, serving over, deliver. I think that's it.

I would tell you that you're already profitable because of your mindset in the goals you have. Not the goals, the values. Because I remember when I was starting out, I was like 150% into the customer. What can I do before, during and after. And when you're in the startup phase, you don't really need to justify quarterly earnings and all of that. You're in the startup phase and you're on the right track. And it's one of the reasons I wanted to have you on because I know what you're doing and we're your heart's at. So thank you for that.

Thank you.

Number two, why do you think most people stop and why did you decide to go forward?

I think most people stop out of fear.

And fear takes a lot of forms.

I think most people stop because probably.

Family, they're afraid of failing in front of family. Nobody wants to be disgraced in front of their wife, their kids or their mom or their dad.

I think that's a big barrier for a lot of people. The second barrier would be friends. And sometimes we have friends that are brutally honest and we appreciate that. And sometimes we have friends who are negative Nellies and we don't appreciate that. But sometimes when you have a fragile venture that you are trying to get going, I think a lot of people give in to that. I think a negative Nelly friend can break somebody's spirit unknowingly to start something. But I think fear is why most people stop. Why did I not? I assessed the risk.

I was willing to take the risk. I knew roughly how much I was willing to risk and I saw no downside for me also.

Well, and so I took the risk. A third thing is that I looked around at all the veteran owned companies that were doing things and I'm like, well, thank God I'm not wanting to make coffee or hot sauce or beef jerky or T shirts because those spaces are completely crowded. When I discovered that nobody, to my knowledge, nobody I could find on the Internet was making salad dressing and marinade, I'm like, it's an empty space. Why would I not go for it? Geez, we got a great product, maybe we'll win. Yeah, we'll see. But it was an empty space.

That's awesome. And I'm glad you did go for it because so many people don't. And I have an idea for something and I remember thinking of it 10, 15 years ago and I was like, you know, whatever. And then eight years ago I was like, I should do this. And I started looking into it and it turns out there was already a product out there. It took a while to find, but like you said, I couldn't find it on the Internet. And it really was a milestone for me because it shows me that, I mean, think about the auto industry. You can go into it, it's also a crowded space, but sometimes that's even a better deal because now you have the space made up. You don't need to do the marketing and you don't need to create the industry.

There's more competition, but as long as you're better than them, it's easier. And I remember thinking of this thing and I go, they look like the website was done well, the thing was done well. I go, but it took me a while to find it. I go, it doesn't even matter. It's the marketing and the sales. They weren't talking about it enough. And I tell my clients all the time when we're refining their marketing message or publishing their business books, I go, you can have the best tasting steak in the world, but if no one knows about it, they're not going to come to the Restaurant. And even when they're in the restaurant.

You got to get them to order it out of the other 30 things on the menu.

Yeah, 100%. And you're absolutely right. You can have the best thing in the world. But it's like the old parable of the. What was it anyway? Where the lights hidden under the basket.

Oh, hide your light under a bushel.

Yeah, yeah, there you go. If you, if you hide your light under a bushel, no, nobody's gonna know. And it's the same thing if you keep it in your basement and you're like, oh, I got the best, whatever I invented, you know, the longer lasting light bulb 12 years ago. And look at me, you know, look at me. I'm still stuck in my base. Well, you never let it out of the basement, dude, you know, you've got to do something with your life. You get one freaking shot at this thing.

Yeah, you got to go for it.

Yeah, go for it. What are you gonna, you know, what's the downside? Assess the risk and go for it.

Yeah, but it's, it's interesting that, you know, you were talking a little bit about the, the market space. I mean, the salad dressing market is crowded itself. You know, you walk into a, walk into a grocery store and you got a whole vial of it. Right? Well.

It'S all commoditized and it's all full of, full of oil blends and dyes and water and xanthan gum and all sorts of other sorts of binders and things like that. It's because the products have become so commoditized and so our decision modes were not going to play play in your grocery store game. We're going online, we're maintaining our standards of all natural homemade salad dressing in a bottle. Your Italian grandmother would be proud to serve this stuff in her kitchen. She's not going to tell you she bought it from somewhere, but she would be proud to serve it.

And I think you're winning that way because so many people are going to the healthier. When I pick up organization organic food and I'm always looking at what's in it and I don't really care if it's a little bit more or premium. I actually prefer that. And I've told people that.

I know it's the best, I know it's better. There's no decision making when you're in a, let's say arguing contest over which of these five are better and they're all pretty much junk. And it's like 40 this one's 40%, this one's 50, and this one's 60. It's like, why even argue? Because here's the real winner over here.

Right? Exactly. And so while it's a crowded space, we're a completely different thing. We're something that doesn't. Our products are something that doesn't exist on most store shelves. You might find it in a specialty store or something, some similar product. But a product like ours does not have a piece of here in a Kroger or a, you know, name the store.

It doesn't because of the commoditization that has occurred.

Yeah, it's the best thing you can do in any business is decommoditize the product. Too many people look and sound the same as everyone else and know in the the prospect doesn't know which one to buy. And the only thing left is the price. And it's the worst way to market anything. But that's a whole other training I've.

Done, you know, and people may buy our salad dressing because of, they've tried it and they loved it. I suspect, however, that people are going to end up buying our salad dressing, at least initially, because they love the values that we espouse. They love the way we engage the public. We love the authenticity that we bring. You know, it's myself, it's Stacy. Our kids are in the pictures, our friends are in the pictures. You know, we didn't hire fancy models or anything. I mean, this is our family, our product. We are veteran owned. We are, we are family run.

And I, I think those values are what people are going to go, yeah, I'm going to try this guy's stuff. You know, it looks fantastic. Let's give it a try. And then they try it and they're like, wow, this is the best. This is the best salad, you know, I've ever had. I'm gonna buy some more. So we're just coming at it from a completely different angle.

And there's a lot of brands that do the premium placement. Like when I bought my Oakleys and Bose, it's like they're not trying to run the discount game. And this, that, the other thing, it's like, we're here, you want us, great. If not, Merry Christmas.

Yeah.

So one of the last questions I got for you, what are some books that have made a difference in your life?

Yeah, so there's a tremendous number. So recently.

This is going to be an unusual answer, but recently I've been getting back into Dostoyevsky, so Crime and Punishment is what I'm currently reading the Brothers Karamazov before that.

And I wish people would read more, more Dostoevsky, more Solzhenitsyn, more of these super dense readers that are some of the most important thinkers in their time and still some of the most important.

Ideas that we need right now.

Hey, if it's too dense for you, buy a Jordan Peterson book because that guy distills it very well.

Excellent. Well, thank you for those. Where would you like people to learn more?

Hey, if you Google Semper Savage, you're going to find us. You're going to find us on Facebook. You're going to find our website, which is www.sempersavage.com which is where our, our sales come through. But you can find us on, on social media if you just Google Semper Savage if you want to. If you're interested in purchasing the product, you want to learn more about the product, there's videos and pictures and all sorts of recipes and things on our web website@semper savage.com Excellent.

And I will make sure a link on the eainterviews.com show notes page goes right there. This has been a lot of fun. Thank you John. It's been a pleasure.

It's been an absolute pleasure, Mario. Thank you for having me.

All right, Expert Authority World, we have another great episode today. I'll see you tomorrow. Have a great day and God bless. You're already the expert, but have you transformed your expertise into a tangible asset that will generate and qualify leads while increasing profit for you 247 and if so, how well are you promoting it? With the Expert Authority Effect publishing method, it's easier and faster than ever. Visit freebusinessbookpublishingcourse.com today to learn the seven steps to publish and promote your nonfiction, lead and profit generating business book in eight weeks. Visit freebusinessbookpublishingcourse.com to get started. Now, once again, that's freebusinessbookpublishingcourse.Com hey, thanks for listening to today's episode Episode. I hope you got a lot out of it. I know I sure did. If you haven't done so already, I invite you to subscribe to the show and also be sure to check out eainterviews.com for complete show notes, the full interview video experience, links to the resources we mentioned, and more. Have a blessed day and I'll see you tomorrow.