Welcome to our live show!

Uh, we did a few minutes live that maybe weren't live, so we're trying it again. Um, I'll do the expedited version. Welcome, it's Saturday. We got Rich Miletto here, Miletto Packaging. Uh, we're gonna talk about some super cool shit— his swimming background, his fantasy sports advising career. Um, shoutouts to Bev Assets, Alias Rocks, and, uh, Jay, and his recent NASCAR partnership. And, uh, Rich, you were just about to tell me, uh, one of the gentlemen who's a figure in the fantasy sports world, you were continuing that story. So please go on.

Yeah. So Jeff has a radio show you can hear if you have SiriusXM Channel 87, but, uh, it's Elite Sports.

And we are live on LinkedIn now, by the way.

I see it now. Yeah. Sweet.

Um, so anyway, Jeff, I sent these cover letters out to, to these gentlemen and Jeff took a liking to it and literally carried it around in his briefcase for one year, he said. And finally said, I've had time, I've been wanting to get back to you. And yeah, and so that's, that's how that started there. And I'm fortunate because, uh, some of the other people I know and network, they're like, you're part of a major legit website. And, and that is pretty cool, but that's, that's the secondary gig, right? Like, that's more of a, a hobby. And I'm fortunate to basically It doesn't pay a ton, but it pays enough to cover my golf habit. I mean, that's, that's really what it comes down to, right? So, and my, and my little bit of betting habit too, as well. So, totally, very, very thankful for that.

Well, I mean, I absolutely, I want to be clear, this man, you emailed him this. So to back up for the folks who missed it. So Rich has a sports background. been involved in a couple sports either personally or as a fan for several years. He starts to get more into the fantasy, you know, world, gets invited to this kind of higher-end league, has addresses for some of these, you know, figures in the industry because he's sending out shirts for the league, includes a cover letter. And you're saying this man held on to that letter, didn't say a word to you, didn't respond, nothing, held on to that letter for a year before replying and going, hey man, I've had time to think. And by time he meant 12 fucking calendar months. Right. And was like, let's do this. That's what happened.

Yep. Yep. So I, I, you know, snail mailed these letters. This was old school. This was a printed letter. And he said, look, it— your letter hit me so hard. I've been carrying around. I just haven't had a chance to reach out. And, and this, like I said, this was during COVID So most everybody was scaling back anyway. So there wasn't a ton of opportunities. So I'm sure that played into it because no joke, right before I Got on and was given this internship. A couple of people had left, and while I was there, a couple more people left. And then we ended up needing investors and stuff. So like money got tight. Some of the guys had cut salaries and things like that. So yeah, and I told them I'm loyal to a fault, Adam. So they would have to kick me to the curb before I would leave and go someplace else. Do you know what I mean? Because because of the opportunity and the platform and all of that, and so. So yeah, I'm very thankful for them. They let me be me. We are proud to be a non-AI site as far as our articles will not be AI. We are now using an AI tester to make sure that, you know, nobody's kind of skirting the rules or the policy. So I'm very happy about that. I've been able to go on Sirius a couple of times as a guest here and there. A big shout out to my buddy Mike Dempsey, who co-hosts with Bob. Harris at Football Diehards. Mike's really— if it wasn't for Mike Dempsey, I probably wouldn't have even sent the letter. I wouldn't have even thought about it. Um, I want to give a big, big shout out to him. He, he does Jaguars radio down there in Jacksonville.

Okay.

He actually— it's funny, he was, he was a rower in college, right? And he's had a job covering football, loves football and covers football. And so shout out to him as well. But yeah, kind of wild, right? We all, we all kind of have some of those wild stories somewhere, Adam.

I mean, I mean, we do. It's just what, man, like, I truly, and I, I'm sure I sound like a broken record at this point, and to be perfectly frank, there's, I talk a lot and I will gladly be told to shut the fuck up in a lot of, a lot of categories, but this isn't one of them. Like, man, if I could tell my younger self of 20 years ago anything, dude, like, go meet more people. Like, put yourself out there, you know, say hi, make more friends, you know, and I thought I was doing a good job of it then.

Yeah.

Right. Um, but fuck, dude, that's crazy.

So, so networking is everything. I'll be the first to admit that it is everything. And it's harder to do today, right? Like, I think we were all forced to network in person more. Like, don't get me wrong, network groups existed and people would get invited in and they kind of hit and miss how helpful they were.

Sure.

But, you know, in-person meetings were more common.

Sure.

Um, gatekeepers, door knocking was more common, right? Like, even at college, they'd have these networking events, and now it's a lot of virtual stuff. And that's great. I think, you know, my— as my dad pointed out, that's saved cost and time because you don't have to travel these long distances. But I also think it's kind of curbed personal experiences. You know, some of the folks I've come across lately, like, no, I don't want to hear from, you know, We were— we had to do an audit and we were looking through the pest control stuff and me and the one lady there, we were like, I don't, you know, I don't know the guy's name anymore. He used to check in, they've changed. You know, I used to tell you every day he would be here and this and that. And the intern that was working with her was like, oh, I like it that way. And me and the lady were like, no, no, we like being checked in with. We like know what's going on. We like to meet these people. I want to have some connection so I know who I'm talking to. A problem arises, be ahead of the problem, right? It's just different now. I mean, you and I talked about it the other day, and networking is everything, and I think it's just a little trickier to do it these days than it used to be.

Well, I couldn't agree more, and I'll add a couple examples. So shout out to, if you're watching, Patrick Smith with Revolt Marketing and Robert Ledbetter with OptiChain 365. 360, 2 wonderful gentlemen who I had the good fortune of meeting on LinkedIn recently. Um, but I bring them up because they just shot me cold messages on LinkedIn. Uh, Patrick's in Denver, Robert's in Texas, so we live nowhere near each other, to your point, right? Like, there's a physical distance. We're not going to meet each other out at a bar or bowling, right? And they just shot me a note and they're like, hey man, like, I see your posts, I see your profile. Like, I think there's maybe a way that we could, you know, work together, or I could help your clients with things that they might be telling you they need help with. You know, are you open to having a call? And of course, I mean, both you guys have known me long enough to know the answer is almost always going to be yes.

And so— Hold on a second. I've tried to get ahold of you all week, but you've been too busy for me. But that's okay, dude.

I have responded.

That is bullshit, Sam. I have responded. I told you I didn't have time to film a video. There's a difference.

Okay, okay, you're right, right. Thanks for calling me out.

Now don't get me wrong, I do owe you a video and you will get it after this podcast, but, uh, I did not leave you hanging. Uh, no, they, they both said they were like, uh, we ended the call and, and they were right, you know, I think there's ways we can work together. And they were like, well, just thank you so much for responding.

And like, yes, yes, hit the nail on that. Sorry to interrupt you. This has been the biggest problem, man. I can't get a— give me a no response. Give me you're an ugly response. Give me anything. The— this, this concept that the ghosting is so mind-blowing.

Right, right, Rich. I gotta, I gotta chime in here, man. So this— I'm, I'm with you guys. So you're gonna— I can barely talk, but I have to, I have to chime in. First of all, I'm this just pick up the phone guy. Yeah, I mean, that is my tagline, is just pick up the phone. Yes, I literally put my phone number if you want to talk to me. You don't need to schedule. Just fricking pick up the phone and call me. Some— something happened in the last 10 years where you have to ask permission to call people now.

Right?

I just call. If I have your phone number, I'm going to call you. Adam knows this as well. I'll just call you out of the blue. Hey, what's going on? And I'll start chatting. Now, I'll always be respectful. Is this a good or bad time? But I think you put your number out there and say, hey, if you want to network with me and do business with me or whatever it may be, Just call me. We'll have a conversation. But everybody has to go through this gyration of, okay, you got to go so many posts to them, follow them here, and, and you gotta like this stuff over here. And then once they get to know you, then maybe you guys can connect and talk. It's like, just have a quick conversation. That's it.

Yeah.

I need 5 to 10 minutes. A lot of people don't know we exist at Muletto Packaging, right? And, and oftentimes we, we kind of— I mean, because we'll do a lot of different things. I prefer Obviously, we prefer to do the repacking because we got the equipment for it. So cost-wise, time-wise, it makes a lot of sense. But you need relabeling, we can do that. You need resorting, we can do that. We've been in the industry for almost 40— 35 years at this point. 30-some— 32 years. Did your dad start the company? My uncle started the company along with my cousin back in 1994. Um, started in Indiana, right? But we can do— we used to— heck, we used to do, um, you know how trailers would get disrupted and you got to send them somewhere and kind of sort through what's good or bad on the trailer? We used to do that in Indiana. Okay, so there's a lot of things, but like some of these new startups, I'm like, guys, talk to us. We, we understand the pitfalls. Like, you're not going to want to design your cart in that way. You're going to be mad later when flaps don't line up perfectly and you're not going to—

They got to follow you for a couple months, comment on your content. Have you responded? link request, and then if it's okay, like, that's so much time wasted. Just freaking give it a call.

Major time wasted.

Pick up the phone.

Yeah, 5 minutes. I need 5 minutes to show you we exist. That's it.

That's it.

I gotta give a— I gotta give a couple shoutouts to folks in the comments. Uh, sounds like Cogs is also fighting a cold. Uh, so sorry to hear it, brother, but good to see you here. Good morning, Josh. Uh, good to see you. I think we're having drinks soon. Uh, and I'm glad, uh, I'm hoping our buddy Seth over at TQL got you taken care of. Um, and then Chris, I'm not even gonna try and butcher your last name, but good to see you, man, over at, uh, Poor Proof. Networking, number one, gets you the meeting. Having a detailed route to market, number two, gets you the business. Fucking amen.

He's fantastic too, by the way. He's a pick up the phone guy.

Yeah.

Also here, Chris, while you're listening, I heard that you like to text, uh, uh, Alicia about 5:00 AM. Uh, in the morning, which is brilliant. Keep on doing it, man. I love it. Honestly, keep, keep Alicia on her toes. She's usually up by 3 AM. She can handle it. Hello, Alicia, if you're hearing me.

So, Rich, tell us, uh, uh, you mentioned just now a little bit about Muletto. So give us kind of the, you know, the elevator pitch, if you will, on, you know, where you guys are at now, what you're, you know, what you're interested in doing, how you can help. Right. And we'll dig into it as needed. But just give us the, you know, who is Rich and what does he do?

All right. So my name is Rich Miletto. I'm the sales manager at Miletto Packaging. My uncle and cousin started the company. I am not a part owner. People get me confused with my cousin all the time. So I just like to put that out there. I was fortunate enough to get an opportunity. They called me when I was living in Charlotte and said, hey, we want your— we want your help. Right. So I have a sales background. That's what I've done basically all my life since I was 18 years old. So, uh, moved up here to Eau Claire, Wisconsin. We're an hour and a half-ish, uh, straight east of Minneapolis-St. Paul, right off of 94, Interstate 94. Uh, what we do now— we started out— so my uncle's background was in the glass industry, so we handled a lot. How we ended up in Eau Claire was Leinenkugels needed someone to pack all their glass for them. The glass company didn't want to do it because they had all these different brands. Leinenkugels was really in front of the craft market, right? Like They had seasonal brews when other people didn't. They had 5, 6, 8 different brands out there under the Leinenkugel name when that really wasn't common, right? And they needed the packages, and glass companies at the time, they really wanted to run, say, 3 days in a row, pack up boxes.

Right.

So they asked us to do it. So we supplied all the glass to Leinenkugels. We brought in the bulk glass, we put it in boxes, sent it to them, and so on. Um, they eventually went in-house with that, like a lot of breweries do. But during that time, we've kind of evolved into what I call— we are variety pack specialists. We do a ton of variety packs. We've got multiple variety pack lines. We're about to get a 4th line up and going. We can do any pack size you want. 4-pack, 4-flavor, all the way up to 24-pack, any number of flavors you want. The only thing we can't do is the 2-tier stuff. You know, the Pepsi cubes you get with the 2 tiers? It's about the only thing we can't do. And I'd like to—

everyone thinks it's just— so you guys are a package— you're a packaging company?

We are a co-packer. We are a co-packaging company. So really we offer a service, not necessarily a widget or a box, if you will.

Gotcha. Okay. Is there a difference? Do you have like a— do you have like a, like a can line and all that?

You think— think not liquid in cans, cans in boxes. Right.

Yep.

So, so, uh, for example, last week when Rich and I talked, I put him in touch with a couple facilities I work with here in the Midwest who do liquid in cans and might also put cans in boxes, but liquid in cans is kind of their primary focus, right? And so, because I see it from the ops perspective, and I know you'll see it from the sales perspective, where someone's like, hey, I went and had 3 flavors made and they're all sitting in 12-packs of individual flavors, right, at the initial production facilities. So at all the names, at like the Circle, the Red Boot, the Artie's, the Proper, those places of the world, right?

Yeah.

City, Cold Spring, you get the idea, right? And then they go, well, now I want a fridge pack that alternates those 3 flavors every time somebody pulls a can. Well, that can be done But it's fucking time-consuming. It's labor-intensive. And a co-packer makes their money on efficiency, turn and burn, right? So that's where, for example, there's other things, but Rich and his team can come in. So that's kind of the fork in the road, right?

Gotcha.

And I'll give you a pack when you—

like RTDs have variety packs. Are you doing the variety packs then?

Yes. So I'll give you a perfect example, Sam. Um, you've seen that 15-pack of Reds out there, right? It's a 15-pack variety pack that's out there. We do that. We do all of those. for Molson Coors. So Molson Coors fills the 3 different flavors, sends all 3 flavors to us. We bring it in, store it in our warehouse, and they just come in plain white donor packages. We open them up and we repack them into a new box with the appropriate variety mix. And to Adam's point—

Is that a human being doing that?

Actually, we've got equipment doing it. So we have— so let me back up a little bit. We have, like I said, 4 lines. One of the lines is fully automated. So if they come in trays, say from Cold Springs or City Brewing, Yeah. Robots will pull the cans out of the trays, put them in buckets. So there's a robot per flavor, and they put them in buckets and they drop, say, 3 cans per, per bucket, right? And now you've got 4 flavors, and that gets packed in on a machine just like a cartoner you've probably seen at any of the— at any Molson or co-fillers, right? And just packs it together. The challenge where we fit in is typically you want to fill, like Adam said, You want to be doing this high speed. Well, if you're going to do the variety packs, you got to fill all your product ahead of time and then go back and pack it. You— nobody has 4 flavors of different tanks being fed into one line to get cartoned up. So you've got to have the warehouse space.

A co-packer did all that. So there's another step in the process. If you want a variety pack, you're going to go to someone like you to do that work.

And the funny thing is Molson Coors has tried to do it in-house. They had a Massive machine and all the stuff they bought. And what they found was there was a lot more headache to it because, as the plant manager told me, we're filling it, sending it on trucks to go to the other side of the building because we got to store it till we get all 4 flavors.

Right.

Then once we get the 4th flavor, now we bring it back to the production side and now we got to run it through this machine. Well, now you have this machine. Are you— is this machine running? Because these brewers want their machines running 24/7, right? Well, how are you getting this variety pack machine to run 24/7 when you're constantly having to— are you able to just fit all the flavors like the Reds variety pack here, and now we're going to run the Samuel— oh, the Henry Weinhardt's variety pack here, and so on? And it became just a logistical nightmare. And so what I keep finding is a lot of the smaller fillers will do it as a value add, and they don't realize as they scale up, holy crap, we need a lot more warehouse space. We need a lot more planning.

So is repacking things that have been packed and certain—

Yes, it's filled. Yes.

Okay.

We focus on specialty packs.

All right. Question. Why would someone want to make that expense? It seems awfully expensive to me. I think I know the answer, but I want to hear from you is why do I need to use your services? Because I feel like that's an extra expense. I mean, it's very competitive in RTDs and you're making these packs. What's the, what's the reasoning?

I think it varies per client, but I would argue part of it is introductory to the marketplace. You can—

if—

why fight for 4 different shelf spaces when you can fight for 1 shelf space, right? Because fighting for shelf space in the retail market is tough. Uh, it's also a great way to introduce a certain flavor, certain brand to market. You know, if you look at the THC brands in particular right now, that's where we see a lot of this. It's a great way for market introduction. You give the clients a smattering. And I'll add a third part to this. I'm part of that Kool-Aid generation too. I'm a little old, but I remember getting different varieties of Kool-Aid, right? People want variety. And, and this— the variety pack started out with the beer industry, and you just don't see a lot of that around. But if you go back to when you did, you might get a variety pack with an IPA, a stout, a pilsner, um, you know, something light, a cream ale, things like that. And then you've kind of seen some variety pack IPAs out there, but you really see it on the RTDs. Um, we're seeing it on the soft drinks. You know, if you go to a Costco or— and this is where we fit in really well— is your Costcos, your Sam's Clubs, they typically want something unique. They typically want things that aren't really out there everywhere. So a lot of what they're looking for tends to be a little labor intensive, right? I mean, we can pack into trays and do overwrap. We can pack into cartons if you want. We can pack cartons and then put the overwrap on there. And that's something else that's happening too with your RTDs, especially with your spirit-based stuff. Some of the biggest distributors out there are requiring things like an overwrap and a label, and your Molson Coors aren't necessarily set up for that. That just slows down stuff when they're trying to do 1,500 cans a minute. That doesn't work well, right? To your point on the cost, we work really hard to try to minimize that, especially from the freight standpoint, because to your point, Sam, There's no way to get around your paying costs if you're sending it to me, right?

Yeah.

Because you're now adding a step instead of sending it from your door at your brewery or your filling facility to your distribution location or warehouse. Now you've got to have it come to me first. The challenge is when you start trying to do these variety packs in-house by hand, it's slow, it's labor intensive. So your costs go up doing it anyway. So then the question becomes, Do you want to go to market without the variety pack or not? And quite frankly, the market tendencies right now, especially like I said, in your non-alcoholics, your RTDs, your soft drinks, your THC stuff, people want variety. They're not buying every client or different formats.

Every client I talk to, or clients, you know what the number one item is?

What's that?

The variety pack. Yeah, it's the number one item. Yeah, every, every one of them, it's a variety pack.

We got a question real quick from, uh, which I want to make a comment. So Rich, when you say this, the club stores, the Sam's Clubs, the Costcos want something unique, I'll add a layer to it. They require something unique.

True.

Right? I want to be clear, if somebody's listening, it's like, oh, that's interesting. No, you have to have something unique or they will tell you to pound sand, right? Um, they don't want the same thing everyone else is getting. That's the whole point of the club store, right? Um, so to switch gears a little bit, Chris asked, uh, THC category in 2026 is the RTD category of 2016. Question is, which percent— which 10% of the brands will still be around in 2 to 3 years? My answer is A, things we've talked about before— folks that are price competitive, keeping their costs low, offering variety packs. I would also say the big thing for me is folks that are are owning their markets now to bide their time until there's more widespread acceptance and then growing accordingly, as opposed to the people overreaching now who are going to shoot themselves in both feet. But I mean, I see you guys nodding. What else do you want to add to that?

Uh, I will tell you that it— the new— the people that are navigating the waters right now Cautiously optimistically. And what I mean by that is monitoring inventory tightly but not killing shelf space, because I don't— the law is going to change. We all know this.

Yeah.

So it's going to be those that were set up for success, in my opinion, when this law does change, that is really going to benefit in the marketplace. Those, to your point, that don't shoot themselves in the foot and overextend themselves.

Yeah. Sam, what do you think?

No, I think you're both right. I mean, it's going to be an interesting ride here in the next couple of months to see what happens. But I definitely think that they'll figure something out, be with age gating. And then the people that are sticking to it and not overspending and protecting their cash and being very strategic where they go and how they do it have an opportunity because there's a lot of people that just can't get the packaging right. I mean, you know, with THC, you have to have— each state has their own rules and what has to be on there. So Minnesota seems to be the one that everybody, like, if you can meet Minnesota's requirements, it usually covers everybody else. So there's a lot of things that go into the category, a lot of unknowns.

Which, to your point, Sam, 6 months ago it was Florida. Literally 6 months ago everybody was matching Florida, and then Minnesota changed the rules for their state, and now everybody's matching Minnesota. I mean, Adam and I talked about a client of ours that— and now I've talked to 2— that has changed packaging 4 times in 9 months because of this. And it's killing— it's a perfect example. Stuff like this, the government is going to kill the business for some because they either didn't have the opportunity to plan or didn't realize how it was going to get so messy. And they're putting them behind the 8-ball. And it's frustrating because I'm with you guys. There's too many parts to this. There's no reason to make this more difficult than it is when we have a 3-tier system with alcohol. There really isn't. And if you read what the Wisconsin bill was proposing, like you were supposed to paint poles or something to separate the THC from the alcohol products, and it had to be completely separate from the soft drink stuff. And it's like, guys, we're not— I get it, you don't want to poison kids, you know, but let's, let's not— I mean, it's not like we're, we're putting Beer and variety can packages or variety pop packages, soft drink packages, you know what I mean? Like, so I feel like the system's already there. We're trying to reinvent the wheel when there's no need to.

Yeah, yeah, it's just gonna be an interesting ride. I mean, you know, I got a client, and maybe you'll appreciate this, he's like, I'm coming out with spirit-based RTDs with the same brand on it.

Oh, the same brand as THC. Wow.

He's like, it's easier.

Well.

So he's going to still go down the ride of the THC, still doing that, but he's going to have the same taste, same flavor, same marketing, but it's going to be a spirit-based product as well because he's prepared to pivot. And he also has his NA product with it too, and functional. So he's like, I don't know where this thing's going to go, but there's a lot of frustration because it's being overthought and fought. and our government in terms of what to do with these brands. But people want the product. The product— it's not that it's not, it's not unsafe, but you do need to make sure that, just like any product, your point, you know, I mean, why do you have to separate it from beer and spirits? I mean, you ID them. Here, I'm 21. Whatever.

They're all 21. And, and the thing of it is, is we already have— we know how it works on the alcohol side, and we know that there needs to be some sort of federal standard. States still vary, but remember when the craft stuff started and there was like the, the BrewDog lawsuit in Ohio because they only allowed beer up to 9% or whatever it was? So you still had some of that, but it's not like your ABs, your Molson Coors, and things of the world couldn't produce beer in Texas and send it all over the country, right? And that's really what's happening now is you're asking people to I mean, for example, this one particular THC client, there was 2 different packages for the same milligram and the same flavoring because of the state laws. And they're not even in all 50 states yet, right? And why do that to a business? I mean, is our goal to allow businesses to flourish and have success, or is our goal to handcuff businesses as much as possible and make life miserable for them? Like, what do you want to do? Because if it's the latter, that's not good for consumers.

Right.

And I would think, you know, taking care of consumers would be a good thing.

You would assume. I was gonna ask you to touch on that, Rich. I mean, you just mentioned it from a federal sort of top-down handcuffing of the brands, but also just in general, I think people, and we've had this conversation, so I'm gonna pop up and get coffee, uh, at the start of it, but I think people underestimate, and I'm dealing with this right now with a non-op brand, the difficulty that brands present to whether it's their co-packer or their, uh, their co-man, their co-packer, their distributor, whoever it is in the supply chain, when, you know, they make what to them are subtle changes. And it's like, oh well, that's just— it's just a small change, it doesn't matter. Well, does it matter where it's shipped? Does it matter what it's packaged with? Because now I either have to have Something scan, you know, something automated scan that packaging and be able to tell the difference. Or I have to try and get a person to develop a habit in 30 minutes to notice the difference. And that's, you know, when the only difference is, well, this letter's capitalized and this letter's not. Fucking come on, dude. Right? So tell us a little bit. I'm gonna grab some coffee.

So I'll give you a perfect example. We got these cartons in and Um, there was some confusion. We went to pack, and so I had to go through and look at these cartons, and basically we had to circle the differences. And you know what the nutritional panels look like, Sam. It's a lot of fine print on there, right?

Yeah.

So you're— you've got people that are going to be sorting and look at this. You need to find some major signifying factors, right? Well, on this one particular carton flavor, the, the 4-pack variety pack, the UPC code and the warning label were bigger and kind of moved. So that was our signifying factor. Unfortunately for 2 other brands, they didn't do that. The signifying factor was something much, much smaller that we had to find at the top of the box. And this is where I really wish we would simplify things, whether we make the standard that it's 5 milligrams across the board everywhere, whether we make the standard it's 10 milligrams in And no higher across the board. Whatever it is, there needs to be some sort of standardized— here's the big one. For one state, you could say 10 milligrams was one serving. In other states, you had to say it was 2 servings. So we had cartons, same flavor, same products, exact same liquid in the can, but you had to have 2 different cans and 2 different boxes for it because one had to say serving size 5 milligrams, 2 servings per can. Another one said, no, no, no, it's one can per serving, so you've got to change that language. And we're talking about the nutritional panel where, I don't know about you guys, but I'm kind of old, I need reading glasses now. I had to get magnifying glasses out to see what I'm looking at, you know?

It's a side note, but I promise it'll make sense. I got my license renewed this week, right? Last week I went and got my driver's license renewed. So I had to do the little quick, you know, put your head on the bar vision test, right? And I've had 20/20 vision my whole life in a family of people with glasses. It's fucking— I'm the milkman's kid, right? And so I put my head on the bar and the thing comes up and the lady goes, read the first line. And I'm looking at it and I'm like, ooh shit, because it started to do this, right? And I'm like, son of a bitch. And so I close my right eye and then it clears up and I'm like, well, that one's the problem. And I read her the first line. She goes, great, step back for your picture.

Yes!

Right? So my time is coming, but that's exactly what I'm talking about, right? Like, you make these— whether it's federally mandated or it's brand changes— like, you make these subtle tweaks, and, you know, to the person at the computer— and no knock to the graphic designers, don't get me wrong, that's an entirely different load of work, and it is just as difficult and time-consuming as anything else— but you make those changes not realizing how much specificity and focus you are putting on the person downstream. And the opportunity for miscommunication if it is not abundantly explained what someone is to be looking for, right?

I was on the call with Johnson Brothers, the brand we're bringing in here, and they have a compliance manager. So I was on with the business, the VP of the cannabis part of their products, or, uh, Ryan, and he's like, yeah, as long as our compliance manager thinks it's okay, and then Jeff's talking to his people Just before we produce the product to bring it into Minnesota. I mean, there's so many people just to try to double verify. I mean, what's the old saying is, uh, measure twice, cut once.

Cut once.

Yep.

Well, and it's, it's, I mean, again, I'm putting words in Rich's mouth, but even as the ops guy that sits behind his, his own screen, right? Like the, and the street runs both ways. Like I don't ever want to make operational decisions. I would ideally not make operational decisions without also saying, hey, I think this is how it could affect the sales and marketing opportunity downstream. No different than I don't want them to be going, well, we're going to make this sales marketing decision without understanding the downstream operational effects, right? Like, there's a reason the phrase S&OP exists. Those fuckers have to blend together, right? They just do. But this is the, you know, Rich represents No different than a Coman. The, the, uh, the very focal point of where things break down when you've got somebody going, oh, we made this change, you've got it. Do I now? Because I've got to get a magnifying glass out to understand this distinction, and I've got tens of thousands of cans I have to do that with. You shitting me, right? Yeah, it's insane.

It's like I said, I, I have a lot of sympathy for, for those in the market Because the government has not made things easy.

It—

they just haven't.

Yeah, yeah, no, I, I completely agree. So we got 20 minutes left, and obviously it's—

So can we, can we, uh, I have a question. This is none related unless you want to finish your thoughts.

No, go ahead.

So I heard swimming, and I feel like, Rich, we've talked— I think we've talked before before, by the way. Um, I know we've talked.

We've—

yeah, we've— I think we've had a conversation. But tell me, what are you doing swimming?

So I, I swam through— it was just, you know, something I did as a young kid, and then in junior high, um, and then in high school I, I started swimming. Um, well, so I ended up swimming year-round because I started qualifying for state and said, oh, I might as well put a little more effort into this instead of just doing it, you know, during the winter, during the summers. Um, and so I, I did that and I kind of pivoted to a goal. I had a goal. I wanted to be able to swim Division 1. So I set that goal for myself. Um, you know, I didn't get any scholarships or anything like that, but I walked on at Georgia Tech after I graduated high school. Um, didn't set the school record.

Holy cow.

I, uh, the, the gentleman who swam the same events I did before me, he was, he was a state champ. Um, at Minnesota, I ended up being top 8 or so. My junior and senior year there as far as my events went. But then I walked on at Georgia Tech and, uh, you know, set some pretty lofty goals people didn't think I would set. And so I'll put this out there for people that like to set goals, or even if you don't, write them down and make them visible. I, I set a goal of being a sub-minute 100-yard breaststroker, which back in the late '90s was kind of a big thing. And most of my Georgia Tech teammates thought it was a lofty, ridiculous goal, but I printed out my goal. I had it Taped above my bed, taped above my computer, taped above my TV, taped on the back of the door. So anytime I saw it, if I hopped on the computer to dink around, was I really doing things to help swimming? Was it really helping my goal? When I woke up, I saw what my goal was. I put it over the TV if I was going to start playing video games or something. Was that really going to help me achieve the goal? And I ended up going 59.01, almost broke the 58-second mark, which would have been big. Ended up at the time on the all-time top 10 at Georgia Tech in both the 100 and 200-yard breaststrokes. So I'm not there anymore. You can still see me as a letter award winner.

That's the sprint, I guess. This is your sprinter.

Yep, I'm a sprinter. The 100-yard was, you know, I would argue the 200 is not really a sprint, but the 100 definitely is a sprint. Us sprinters feel the 200 yards distance. You talk to a distance guy, they go, 200 is not it. That's a sprint. That's what we finish. That's what we finish our distance with.

Aren't breaststrokers troublemakers on the Olympic team? Aren't they the badasses of swimming? Breaststrokers?

I would say they're the badasses, but the running joke is your breaststrokers and your divers are a little different.

That's amazing. Thanks for sharing that. That actually makes me think that all of us with goals, especially as entrepreneurs, Is, you know, you get up every morning and we just start the grind, right? Phone call, phone call, fire, hire, fire, hire. I mean, it's just, it's crazy what we deal with, but we all have this destination where we're going, right? And I love the fact that you printed it out in 10 different places by Sunday. Everywhere you were at, you saw your goal. And that is like really important because I do think that your brain makes that connection. And if it's self-consciously or whatever, it forces you to basically look at that goal and say, am I going to do this or not? Am I doing what's necessary to get to that minute that I want to get to? And that minute, just take a minute out to get to that customer I want to hire or get to that revenue I want to generate. That is brilliant. I mean, thank you for sharing that. It really— Do you still do that today? Do you have goals? You tape them all over the place in your You're—

Sometimes I need to go back to doing that, quite frankly. The goals have changed a little bit, but that is something. Because look, I— the reason I did that was I had read somewhere, it was something like people are 70% more likely to achieve their goals— it may have been a bigger number than that, but it was a significant number— if they write them down and view them regularly. And, and there is something to the subconscious that I learned this from a probably a therapy session. I did some sports psychology stuff because I used to, when I was at Georgia Tech, I thought I was out of my league. And I used to really kind of have panic attacks. Like I would dry heave or vomit before my races in college for the first probably 3 months of my collegiate career. So I had to kind of get that under wraps. And she, um, we were talking about change the focal point. I used to focus on it's only a minute, how bad can it hurt? And, and she was like, no, focus on how good does it feel at the end of that minute, right? And just little things like that, right? But we, uh, we had discussed how, um, the subconscious only believes what it sees and hears. So when you talk to those people, you see those people that talk to the mirror in the morning, you know, the self, you know, I, I think of the Stuart Smalley from Saturday Night Live. Yeah, right, right, yeah. There's some actual truth to that. The subconscious only believes what it sees and hears. So if you look in the mirror and talk negatively to yourself, you're going to constantly view yourself that way.

Yeah.

So if you look in the mirror and people think it's crazy, my wife thought it was crazy when she first met me, and you speak out loud, the subconscious is taking that in. So it pays to look in the mirror and speak out loud. And a lot of people don't want to do that, but there, there is definitely something to positive things happen to positive thinkers. And so when we get in these ruts, we've got to kind of find a way to fight through it. And yeah, I think writing down the goals is helpful. And it's these little things that I did back in college, you know, when I was real specific on stuff that I've gotten a little lazy with that I need to get back to, Sam, if I'm being honest.

I got to share this with you. So this is not a goal, but I was really struggling how to communicate a few years ago. And my wife told me, she said, you got to talk like it's a USA USA Today headline, like write an article, right? And so what she did for me, I'm about to show you. I hope you can see this, but she actually, she wrote this down. Yep.

Who, what, when, where, why.

And how. So, so I basically, I have this taped on my thing here, which I'm gonna start taping my goals on here. But when I'm talking, I'm like, look, all I want to know is who, what, when, where, why. Tell me that. And then I'm very focused. And for the past 3 years, I've been that way. Very regimented in what I do because that was my goal, was to talk that way and think that way. The other thing is, Alicia and I always talk about this, is positive thinkers. It just, it's positive energy. You bring the energy. If you bring negative energy, it's going to come in. So think positively. I think those things are so important in what you share. And I think the 70%, I would like to look that up, but I bet you it is around 70%. That you're 70% more likely to be successful if you believe you're going to be successful. Look, you know, and Adam started his journey. I think it was a struggle, but then he started to think positive and now he's like crushing it. Right, Adam?

Yeah. No, I mean, it's, it's funny. I'm trying to decide if I want to, if I should name names. There's nothing bad about this story. I'll leave it nameless for now. So right when I got laid off, I was actually in the process of Talking to, of talking to a group in the space. I'll leave it at that. And they were like, hey, you know, we'd love to have you come on. It's a contract role. It'll be a 6-figure salary plus, you know, a little bit of commission, but you can't do work for anybody else. And I was like, don't get me wrong, I'm not offended. But it's a contract role. Like, what? Why am I being handcuffed, right?

Or at least—

Right.

And, and I sat with it for a couple weeks, and shout out to the wives of the world, as you both have, mine as well. Um, and, you know, sat with it for a couple weeks as I wasn't getting paid from anybody else. And so I was like, kept pressuring myself, like, I need to make this fucking decision. Um, and just in talking to Bree, I was like, She's like, babe, just fuck it. Just bet on yourself, right? She's like, turn it down. We'll be fine. We'll figure it out. 2 months later, I was making more, we'll leave it at that, right? Than I would've in that role, right? Now don't get me wrong, that 2 months was fucking weird and not, you know, as maybe smooth as I would've liked it to be, but it all came out in the wash. So no, I mean, I, I, yeah, big. I've got my— I have my printout. It sits, it sits just right there.

Oh, I gotta see the printout, man.

That's, uh, it's funny.

I gotta do my printout. I'm under pressure now. Rich and Adam is, uh, I gotta put my printout everywhere.

Absolutely.

We got about— There is something there. There is something to seeing it all the time, I think. I think that That is more— I don't want to say crucial, but if you're honest with yourself and you're seeing a goal you have constantly, it's a constant reminder to you. This is my goal. And I think those of us that really want to achieve our goals, our next inherent step is, am I doing everything to achieve this goal? And so I think when you see it regularly, not only is it a great reminder, Sam, like you have, That helps keep you on the path, right? But then even when you're not in the activity of doing it, making these calls, you see it and it just— maybe it triggers a memory of some conversation you have and you went, you know what, holy crap. I mean, because we've all had these epiphanies that, you know, you're outside playing with the dog, you're throwing Frisbee and you're thinking about packages, and then you're like, why isn't there a dog food variety pack? When we get wet dog food to reward our dogs at times, How come I can't find a tray with overwrap with, say, 3 different wet dog can flavors in there? Has anyone thought about this? Like, I'm not even seeing it at Costco and Sam's. Like, how can I get in front of a company that produces this and be like, hey, have you thought about this? Because this would be a minimal cost difference, right? You send us the stuff already in trays, we'll reuse the trays, we'll recode them if you want, we'll put overwrap on it. Man, it's, you know, 10, 40 cents, 40, 50 cents to do something like this. And now you could be in at a box store and potentially selling more cans because now instead of somebody buying 3 cans of this and 2 cans of that, you sell them a 6-pack of 3 different— or a 12-pack of 3 different flavors. And volume drives everything, right?

I need to talk to the dog.

I agree. I'm, I'm trying— that is one avenue I'm trying to get down. But it was— I did, I had this epiphany playing with the dog because the one had been sick and we had to kind of, you know, get them back on some other soft foods. And I was like Boy, this would be nice if I could buy 12 of these and get 3 different flavors out of it, you know?

You know how many dog treats I have sitting around here with my 2 Aussies? They're all over the place.

Oh, I bet.

I'd love to have a dog treat variety pack too.

There you go. That's another great idea.

Uh, so Rich, I'm gonna—

you—

I'm gonna introduce you. I'm typing it now to, uh, Tiffany and Kurt with Smart Start Solutions. They're, uh, ex-Cargill folks. They do a lot, but they also work in pet food.

Oh, wow.

Yeah, uh, they're here in Minnesota with me, same as the FoodOps guys. I'm gonna put you in touch.

That's who we had breakfast with one day, right?

Yeah, yeah, shipping.

Appreciate it.

That's awesome. Yeah, dude, absolutely.

It's—

I mean, it's a solid idea. It's a phenomenal point. I don't know why it's not an option. Um, Sam, you want to— well, first of all, Rich, uh, Sam's got the million-dollar question that we always ask everybody. But before we get to that, uh, where can folks find you? Is there anything we haven't asked that we should have? Like, how do— how How do people get to Muletto Packaging?

So, I mean, you can check out our website. We have leads there. You can find me personally on LinkedIn. Feel free to reach out there, DM me, that sort of thing. The website is muletto-packaging.com. It's a little older. You know, we don't do a lot of volume via the website, but you can find me on LinkedIn. Email me, email me or phone call. You can email me at rich.miletto@miletto-packaging.com. I respond to all emails, even if you don't like the answers I get, I will respond to them. Phone call, I've got no problem giving out my number. You can shoot— I mean, if you want to call me, you can call me at 612-964-3225. I'll throw it out there, it's not hard to find anyway. But that's, that's the best way to get a hold of me. And look, we welcome any unique ideas. I'll be completely frank with everybody. I don't want to pigeonhole ourselves into just the variety packs. We do that really well. We are set up for it. We have the equipment to do it. That said, we have done kitting, we've done pop displays, we've done different things on the food stuff. We've done resorting of large pickle jars and resorting to glass. We packed up empty glass bottles. We've had to pack up liquor bottles. Relabeling projects. We've got a labeler we can use. So if you find yourself kind of in a pickle, reach out.

That—

one of my biggest challenges is, is like I said, I just want people to know we exist, because when people know we exist, it seems like they call, things come up. But otherwise, they don't know we exist, and they don't know there's someone out there that can kind of help them out with a one-off challenge or an ongoing challenge, really.

Totally. Yep. No, absolutely. Perfect. Sam, you want to ask the million-dollar question?

Yes, sir, I can. It's a very important question. You ready?

I'm ready.

What's the difference between success and failure?

Not giving up. That would be my biggest take. Success is measured in so many different ways, right? But For me, it's if you achieve your goal, that's success, but that's not necessarily the success you want, right? Like, we're always going to have some, some small goals to get to the longer goals. To me, the only difference is you learn along the way. Failure is when you quit and give up. And as long as you're not willing to quit and give up, I, I feel like it's the same path. You just have to learn along the way and keep persevering. So I think for me, it's perseverance.

How many failures did you have in swimming to get to that 50 I mean, that—

I tell you what, I had the goal of being a sub-minute breaststroker for all of my senior year in high school and into college. And my senior year in high school, I came up— I mean, when I say just short, it was like a minute flat. So I would say that, that whole year. Um, and then I didn't hit my goal at Georgia Tech until the last 2 swim meets of the season. So if that gives you any idea, I kept failing 2 years, a year and a half, something like that. But like I said, to me, I think, I think the difference in success and failure is strictly perseverance. Are you willing to look past and fight through that? What keeps you going?

So what keeps you going? Me?

For me, that's simple. I'm a very, I'm a very competitive drifting guy. So if, if you tell me you ever want to motivate me to do something, tell me I can't do it. So, you know, all my teammates at Georgia Tech, they're like, dude, you're set too much of a goal. This is ridiculous. You've never been this fast, you know, blah blah blah. You're not 6'4, etc. That was just fuel to the fire, man. Just, you want to see me do something? Tell me I can't do it. And then watch out.

That kind of drives me too. I relate to that because, yeah, I have dyslexia. I was told not to go to college. Then my parents wanted to put me in—

I know you're just like private school.

And then when I was going to college, the guy's like, you should go learn a trade. Everybody told me I shouldn't do it. And it just has been— it's been— people tell me that, it makes me— it drives me nuts. I'm like, No, I'll prove you wrong. I can absolutely—

Exactly. And I can relate to dyslexia. I'm right there with you there, Sam. So I feel that pain.

Are you really? Mm-hmm. That's—

it's real common to— if, if you know someone with ADHD, it's a fairly high likelihood that they've battled dyslexia in some way. And, and dyslexia is a little bit of a— people are confused about it usually. It's an audio thing. Not so much a visual thing. So someone with dyslexia, okay, you hear the word cat, there's 3 distinct sounds to you, right? Cuh, atuh. For those of us with dyslexia, not so much. We hear one word, one sound, cat. So like, I remember my mom—

how do you learn, Rich? Do you do— are you visual? Are you audio?

Yes, audio I cannot learn by at all. Audio is the toughest way for me to learn. I either need to do— doing it is kinetic. Doing it is the best way for me to learn. But I can at least watch somebody do it and try to emulate it, and that gets me down the right path. But if you try to describe to me how to do it, it's lost on me, man. I can't do it. It's a big, big struggle. So spelling was a hard thing for me, sounding out words. Predictive text was actually one of the things that helped me the most with my dyslexia. Because it forced me to learn to sound out words when I knew I was looking for a certain word and I couldn't get it to pop up. It forced me to kind of sound it out bit by bit to get it kind of figured out.

So I learned by doing hands-on.

Yeah, yeah, that's the best way for me to do it.

Do it, and once I physically do it and figure it out— matter of fact, when you'd open up a box at Christmas Day to put the bicycles together for the kids I didn't read the instructions. I just started building it. And then once I learned how to do it, no one could outbuild me, by the way. Once I learned how to do something like mathematical problems using a computer, no one can— I'm telling you, no one can beat me. But I have to physically do it to learn it.

I'm right with you. Perfect example. I got laid off in South Carolina and I went and built— worked for a company where we put together office furniture. And you know, you had to kind of work your way up. And so we're starting to do these desks. I was the slowest putting this first desk together, right? But now we're going to put a whole bunch of these same desks together, right? So once you figure this out the first time, you know, took me longer than everybody else to do this first desk. I was finished before everyone else though when we got to the, to the end. Because just like you, Sam, once, once I was like, wait, wait, wait, here's the trick for this. Oh no, no. And, you know, we even had the instructions and was like, you— yeah, well, this, this is not correct. It's easier if I flip it on its side, put these together, flip it back, then I can put it against the wall. And now I can put the credenza on there and everything else. And so my boss used to laugh because, because I'd be behind everybody on that first office. But then I was the first one done when it came down to getting it all taken care of because we start finding patterns, right, Sam? Like, that's just the way our minds work. So once we figure it out, there's a pattern and a system. And you just start kind of in a groove, man. I can relate entirely.

Your entire life in this last few seconds of this thing, I love it. We should talk more about it. But man, I— yeah, people with learning disabilities usually have high IQs and they usually find paths, easier paths to solve the problem. So I like— if someone says, what do you do? I've solved problems. I'm a connector because I try to find the easiest path to do something. And oftentimes it's not in the instructions. I'm going to tell you, you got to look at the problem differently and then say there's a different way around this to go do it because I've had to do it all my life.

I, I don't like being called— I tell people I'm not a real salesperson, I'm a problem solver. That's why I only want 5 to 10 minutes of your time. If I— if there's not a problem for me to solve, there's no point in us continuing the conversation. I don't want to waste your time or mine. But a good salesman isn't just peddling something. They're offering a solution to a problem or a challenge.

100%. Totally. That's great. Well, thank you for answering that and going a little bit deeper. Really appreciate it, man.

I really appreciate you guys having me on here. This was a lot of fun. Usually I'm only talking sports when I hop on these things. So this was a breath of fresh air, to be quite honest. I know people might think it's weird to get— look forward to talk beverages and packaging, but I don't normally get to do that. So I really appreciate the opportunity, gentlemen. Thank you very much, Adam and Sam.

Dude, pleasure to have you. Absolutely. Any— before we wrap up for the day, any closing thoughts from either one, either of you?

I— if you, if you've heard this podcast and are listening and you're curious about variety packs, please reach out to me. That's my one request.

Beautiful. Uh, I would say for me, if I had anything, it would just be, uh, I'll leave it at look for patterns, right? I think that goes— look for patterns or try to give people patterns to look for, especially when you're building a brand. I think that goes undersold in terms of, you know, I'm just gonna make it and it's gonna be great. Yeah, people, people look for things in pattern, like even just the everyday person at the store, right? They buy things in patterns. They look for things in patterns. Stuff is sold in combinations and patterns, right? Like, be mindful of that when building a brand. Sam?

Absolutely. Absolutely love it. Uh, I just love your resilience. I love the fact that you're authentic. I love the fact that you're diversified— sports, swimming, packaging— and you also built office furniture and you absolutely crushed it. And I totally relate with you today. about when you, you start something. I was like, I always have this saying that, uh, nice guys finish last in the beginning, but always finish first in the end. And that's how my whole life has been that way. You know, it's not always the fastest or the strongest or the best at anything, but at the end I figured a better way to do it, you know, and I worked hard to get where I wanted to go. And I think as an entrepreneur, as a salesperson, whatever you are, Don't give up. Post that goal on your computer, on your notebook, on your shower, on your mirror. I love that. That resonates with me. Post that goal because if you can see it, it's going to connect. You have a 70% more chance of success. So thank you, Rich, for sharing that because I'm going to do it. So thank you. That was really good stuff.

I hope— I can't wait to hear about how successful it is for you too, because I know it will be. You do that, I guarantee you, Sam, you're going to start knocking down goals left and right.

That's great. And Adam, you want to— well, thank you, Rich. I will, I will keep you posted. Adam, you want to wrap us up for the day?

Absolutely. Um, thank you again, Rich, for joining us. Truly a pleasure to have you, man. Um, uh, if anybody's in need of anything, uh, sports, uh, you know, fantasy sports-wise or, or packaging-wise, I encourage you to reach out. Thank you for joining us on this Saturday, and we will see you next time.

Yeah, but remain on the line. Don't hang up.

Yeah, stay here, Rich. We got to download.