Latest / BBQ Therapy / #55 Derrick Todd | How Pool Boy Rubs Turned Flavor Into a Brand

Transcript

#55 Derrick Todd | How Pool Boy Rubs Turned Flavor Into a Brand · BBQ Therapy

0:00
I bought a boat, moved my wife, 3 kids, a dog and a cat onto the
0:03
boat and we sailed down the East Coast for 18 months.
0:07
Oh wow, I got really bored man. What are you doing today?
0:12
I'm fixing the damn boat. There's something else wrong
0:15
with it. I'm spending more money.
0:17
I was spending over $10,000 a month on this boat every single
0:20
month of the 18 month, and some of them was higher than that.
0:23
It cost me $20,000 to get out of the dock.
0:27
The very first time that I took it out, it was boat break out of
0:33
another thousand. Every time that you left the the
0:36
boat and you went in into town to buy parts, it was wild.
0:42
Listen, learn, get inspired. I'm Tavis Bryant and this is BBQ
0:47
Therapy Like subscribe and follow to help grow the BBQ
0:51
Therapy community. Also visit my website at
0:55
www.barbecuetherapypodcast.com. Welcome to the BBQ Therapy
1:08
podcast. My name is Tavis Bryant and most
1:12
people cook to follow recipes. Some people cook to impress, but
1:16
few people cook to express who they are.
1:18
Today's guest didn't just want to better seasoning, he wanted
1:22
his voice in a bottle. Derek Todd is the founder of
1:25
Pool Boy Rubs and Seasonings, a brand built on balance,
1:29
patience, and confidence in your own palate.
1:32
This episode isn't just about rubs, it's about trusting your
1:35
taste, standing on it, and letting your flavors speak for
1:38
you. Derek, welcome to barbecue
1:40
therapy. I got one rule, make yourself at
1:42
home. I have 0 sponsors so speak
1:45
freely. Thank you.
1:48
So I have a tendency to use foul language.
1:51
Is that going to be a problem or should I keep it PG?
1:55
No, you fine. It's over 18 show.
2:00
All. Right.
2:01
All right. My first question, where you're
2:04
originally from and how did food show up in your life growing up?
2:09
OK. So the first part is a difficult
2:11
question to answer and people ask that and it's a normal
2:16
question. You should be able to answer
2:17
that. Where you where you from?
2:19
But I was raised in a Jerry Springer environment, right?
2:23
So I was all over the place. So I was originally born in
2:26
Mobile, AL and from there we bounced back and forth to all
2:32
kinds of different places Bay, Minette and then my mom met this
2:36
dude about when I was, I don't know, 11 great guy's name was
2:40
Bob. We moved to New Jersey, then
2:42
Virginia and graduated high school and I'm like, I got to
2:47
get out of here. So I moved to the South Carolina
2:51
area. But food started showing up in
2:55
my life when I was at my grandma's house in Section 8
2:59
housing back in the 80s. She would go to the farmers
3:04
market. And I don't know if kids now
3:07
understand this, but we used to get these big bushels of beans
3:11
and the old ladies and the kids would be around a table just
3:16
popping them and peeling them. You know what I'm talking about.
3:19
So we were all hands on back then because we didn't have no
3:24
no food. My my grandmother had food
3:26
stamps. This is back when it wasn't
3:28
SNAP. It was actual stamps in a book.
3:32
So that's where food popped up in my life.
3:36
Hope that answers your question. Did I answer your question?
3:38
Yeah, you answered the question. I feel you.
3:40
I've been in Georgia and I mean, I understand it because I grew
3:43
up that also as far as the food wise, where with the folks joke
3:49
about government cheese and back when powdered milk and all that.
3:53
So I know about dead life also. So we used to make big pots of
3:57
beans and we used to get leg quarters and chicken backs and
4:01
all this other stuff. So I definitely understand what
4:04
you're talking about. All right.
4:08
And as far as you cooking, how did you learn to cook then or
4:12
how did you start getting into cooking?
4:14
No, this is going to be crazy. So when I was coming up, I made
4:19
a list of all the things that I wanted in a wife.
4:23
And I think everybody should do that.
4:26
Your potential partner, all the things that that you want.
4:30
It could be, I don't know, 20-40 fifty things, but there should
4:32
only be like 5 that are non negotiables.
4:36
Like maybe one of those is she doesn't snort coke.
4:42
OK, fair. I wanted to marry a woman that
4:46
did the cooking and and cleaning.
4:47
And since I was raised in the Jerry Springer family, basically
4:53
I had to become sufficient in all aspects of my life.
4:57
But the one that I didn't want to be was cooking and I just
5:01
didn't really, I didn't really learn it back then.
5:04
I should have because my grandmother, she made a lot out
5:08
of a little. So it's one of those things
5:10
where I should have learned. I didn't though, I didn't so
5:14
cooking. So I started cooking.
5:16
I had a so the company is called Pool Boy Rubs, right?
5:21
So I was a pool boy for 22 years.
5:24
I just recently, three months back, sold my last pool company.
5:28
It was a small one and I focused all my attention on this BBQ rub
5:34
company. But back in 20/20/2019 I had a
5:40
retail swimming pool store. I took it over in 2016.
5:46
When I did that, they only sold chemicals.
5:48
That was it, maybe one or two floats.
5:51
And then obviously they sold the pumps, the filters, all of that
5:54
jazz. I took it over and I had the
5:57
whole shopping mall. I wanted to make it into a
6:00
backyard store, so I busted down walls.
6:03
I painted the walls. All of the walls were white.
6:06
It was boring. But the people that that ran it,
6:09
they were solid people. They had it for 30 years prior
6:11
to me taking it over. I brought in grills, I brought
6:15
in big green eggs. I brought in Green Mountain
6:17
Grills and this brand called Flame Broil, which is a gas
6:21
grill, and I wanted to bring in ancillary products that would
6:26
sell on a weekly, monthly basis, something like that, repeat.
6:31
Where's it? If you sell a $3000 Big Green
6:35
Egg, they're not coming back to buy another one for, I don't
6:39
know, 20 or so years. Unless they're hardcore, then
6:42
maybe. But I'm like, you know what,
6:47
let's figure this out. So the program was the people
6:53
that sold the eggs and the grills got a huge manufacturer's
6:58
discount. So I'm like, all right, we did
7:01
that. I brought a grill home and I
7:03
started learning to cook. I started learning to grill
7:07
right there on my Big Green Egg in twenty 18/20/2018 and I
7:13
sucked at it. I did what everybody did
7:15
YouTube. I was like, how do you cook
7:17
burgers? Oh yeah.
7:19
When it just basic stuff I was like I was ignant.
7:22
So even now I'm cooking some a lot more intense stuff than I
7:28
did back then. But most of my customers, if you
7:33
look at people who post about pool boy rubs on TikTok and
7:38
YouTube Insta, man, they're doing some intense stuff.
7:43
And I'm like, I would have never thought to do what these people
7:48
are doing. This is wild.
7:50
And I'm like, so I'm never going to call myself a grill master.
7:55
I'm just not because I think that would be an insult to these
8:00
people that are freaking awesome at running grills, smokers and
8:04
whatnot. So there you go.
8:07
Everybody have their part to play, so your part is the
8:09
seasoning part and you have perfected that.
8:12
What was it about BBQ that made you want to understand it and
8:16
not just do it? I think it it's partly the
8:21
lifestyle, right? So for who do this a lot and the
8:30
community, there's a certain I got your back type of deal.
8:34
Say come on in, you want to learn how to do a brisket.
8:38
Great. I'm going to show you how I do
8:41
my briskets and you might want to do something different.
8:44
But I feel like the community has embraced me even though a
8:52
lot of them still don't even know who I am.
8:55
But the ones that do have just been like, come on in brother,
8:58
give me this big warm hug and welcomed me.
9:01
So I mean that that's it right there.
9:05
It's just a bunch of dudes and ladies that are just hanging
9:09
out. That's how the community is.
9:11
I can tell you from experience that my initial intent was the
9:16
compete. And since my daughter was born
9:19
right before I decided to do that, I postponed it.
9:23
And that's why she's growing up right now.
9:25
That's why I started the podcast.
9:26
But I also go to competitions and walk around and go to
9:30
barbecue classes, even though I'm still in the process of
9:33
waiting. And that's how I just meet folks
9:36
and get to know them and become friends with them.
9:39
And now I know so many people just by walking around and just
9:42
meeting folks. And and now since I just decided
9:46
to start a podcast since I was in the house and I can't compete
9:49
and stuff like that, and I have my daughter, but it I've met so
9:53
many people now that is I can have enough people to come on
9:57
the show even though I'm not competing and out there every
10:00
week like some of them. But they have embraced me and my
10:03
wife because I brought her a few times and she sees how welcoming
10:08
just BBQ people are compared to, like I say, people that you are
10:13
flesh and blood with. So the community is awesome.
10:19
You guys that or the people that do the competition stuff, Those
10:24
dudes are intense man. Being up all night long checking
10:30
temperatures, getting their wood right, injecting man that these
10:36
men and women do to please judges is wild.
10:39
I'm not sure if I've got it in me.
10:42
Yeah it takes special people to. That's a whole different
10:45
environment because you spending all that money to feed 6 people
10:49
tell you your food is good or bad.
10:54
Wow so early on. What frustrated you about the
10:57
store bought seasoning? I didn't have any, to be honest
11:02
with you. I didn't have any at all really,
11:04
because when I started, when I started grilling, it was when I
11:10
told you I, I brought in grill. So I became the largest Big
11:14
Green Egg dealer in the state of South Carolina.
11:16
That's where my store was. It was in the, in the Greer
11:18
area, the upstate of that state. And I brought in all these, all
11:24
these rubs from like local people and I brought in sauces
11:28
and BBQ sauces and some of this stuff is really freaking good.
11:32
I'm not going to knock it at at all.
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When I started grilling, that's the stuff that I used.
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I didn't go to. I didn't go to the local grocery
11:41
store. I just used the stuff that I was
11:44
selling that was from the local people or their big, big urine
11:49
egg makes a rubber. They probably don't make it.
11:52
They probably private label it. But it was good stuff.
11:56
I having a bit of a sense of humor.
12:00
I was on my retail floor and I was stocking this, this rub.
12:05
And I was like, you know, it would be a funny name.
12:07
Pool boy rubs since I was a pool boy.
12:11
And it plays in into that, into that fantasy where the teenagers
12:16
like looking at a video, right? And he sees the pool boy show up
12:22
and was holding the pole knocking on the door.
12:25
And the lady opens the door in her nightgown and he's I'm here
12:28
to clean your pool. And she goes, but I don't have a
12:32
pool. And he drops the pole and like,
12:34
let's go, you know what I mean? So I'm like, I can play into
12:38
that fantasy. I can really dive in into that.
12:42
But I didn't, I didn't just launch it right off because man,
12:47
I was running a 7 figure company.
12:49
I had AI had 80 hours per week that I was working.
12:53
I had 15 people working for me. So I, I bought the Domain pool
12:58
boy rubs.com, I got the Facebook, I got a couple other
13:01
things and I just parked it. I sold that business in 2021.
13:06
I bought a boat, moved my wife, 3 kids, a dog and a cat onto the
13:10
boat and we sailed down the East Coast for 18 months.
13:14
Oh wow, I got really bored man. What are you doing today?
13:18
I'm fixing the damn boat. There's something else wrong
13:21
with it. I'm spending more money.
13:23
I was spending over $10,000 a month on this boat every single
13:27
month at the 18 months and some of them was higher than that.
13:30
It cost me $20,000 to get out of the dock.
13:34
The very first time that I took it out it was boat break out of
13:39
another thousand. Every time that you left the
13:42
boat you went into town to buy parts.
13:46
It was wild. So I sold that boat and I moved
13:50
here to Ruskin, FL and I started three more businesses and one of
13:55
them was the the, the BBQ rubs, the the pool bull rubs.
14:00
I'm like, you know what? I had this thought, let's go
14:04
ahead and cash in on this thought.
14:06
This all-purpose. This was my first one that I
14:10
made, but it wasn't the first one that I formulated.
14:14
The first one that I formulated was this one called the MILF
14:18
Rub. But I didn't even have a name
14:20
for it until I was already selling the the pool boy
14:25
all-purpose and a friend of mine helped come up with that.
14:28
He's a great guy. He lives in South Texas.
14:32
I think I got off on a on a rabbit trail there.
14:36
All right. And when you start coming up
14:38
with your own, where they did anybody teach you or you just
14:42
went in the kitchen and started putting something together, or
14:44
how did that go about? Nobody taught me.
14:47
What I did was the local people that I was selling their rubs.
14:51
One of them, one of these guys had a really good flavor that I
14:55
really liked. So I looked on his in ingredient
14:58
list and I'm like, OK, he's got some pepper rake in there.
15:01
He's got some brown sugar in there.
15:03
Got a couple things. Let me see what I can do and put
15:08
my own spin on it. So I did, I did go in there and
15:12
Frankenstein it opened up the the cupboard and started pulling
15:15
out all this stuff and mixing it in a bowl and tasting it on a
15:20
chip or just like, all right, I think it needs a little bit more
15:23
of this, little bit more, more of more of that.
15:26
And then I got something and that was real close to what I
15:30
wanted. And then I'm like, all right,
15:31
let me see if I can scale this from a little bitty bowl to
15:36
something that bigger that I can that I could work with and put
15:40
in bottles. And I was, that was me posting
15:45
it on my Facebook and I'm like, hey, guys, listen, so I came up
15:48
with this rub. I got this and I'm coming up
15:52
with it. Would anybody like to try it?
15:55
So I packaged up like some samples and I sent it out to, I
16:00
don't know, 10-15 of my friends that live in various parts of
16:03
the country. And they tasted it and gave me
16:06
feedback and I modified it to make it good.
16:09
And I think I got it dialed in Now, man.
16:12
Everybody that tries it says, but they like it.
16:15
So unless people are just being really nice to me.
16:19
After that, how long did it take you to formulate that very first
16:22
formula? It was a month or a week or so
16:25
or. Weeks.
16:26
Couple weeks. OK, Yeah, OK it.
16:29
Wasn't it? Wasn't long.
16:31
And when did you decide to, hey, I'm just going to go full scale
16:35
and start bottling these and selling them to everybody?
16:40
That was a gradual process because I posted it on Facebook
16:46
and when I posted it on my personal Facebook, I didn't even
16:49
have a logo or nothing, but I did know what I wanted to call
16:53
it obviously. And people were like, hey man, I
16:56
would be interested in in buying that from you.
16:59
So I'm like, all right, cool. So let me do some research, look
17:03
to to see where I can get bottles, how much the bottles
17:07
would cost, how much the labels would cost.
17:09
And I started working it out and I just, I don't know, we're all
17:13
dogged it, man. I came up with a couple of
17:16
sketches on what I thought the logo should look like.
17:20
And I posted those on Facebook and had people voting.
17:24
But these are all my friends. I think I got like 10,000 people
17:27
following my personal Facebook, not my business, but my personal
17:30
Facebook. And I was just reaching out to
17:33
to a people like that. And I decided that I wanted to
17:38
scale it early on, but I didn't really have the means, the
17:43
systems in place to really do that.
17:46
And so I'm, I build businesses. I this is my 16th company.
17:51
Yeah. So that's what I do.
17:52
I build businesses and I'm like, all right, so I need systems, I
17:56
need recipes, I need trademarks, I need all of this stuff.
18:01
And when I first started selling it, man, I was just selling it
18:04
on, on Facebook. And Facebook is a really crappy
18:07
method of selling it because there is no back end help.
18:11
There's no notifications or anything.
18:14
Like you can sell like a bottle or three bottles of something.
18:18
And unless you go into their portal, you will never know that
18:23
you sold anything because there's no notifications.
18:25
There's no e-mail, there's no text message.
18:26
You don't get squat. You got to go into their portal
18:29
and did I sell anything and that was a pain in the ass.
18:33
So I quickly moved over to a a website where I started selling
18:37
it and most of my flavors people would were like, Hey, I want
18:43
this. Some of them were like I wanted,
18:47
but most of it was like people were like, hey, I need you to
18:50
make me a version of this that's spicy.
18:53
I'm like, I don't like spicy. So I did a lot of research on
18:57
the Spicy 1. So did I answer your question?
19:01
Yes. Travis, I will jump on rabbit
19:03
trails. You're fine.
19:05
This is fine. Go.
19:06
All over the place this. Is your show.
19:07
This is your episode. Go wherever you want.
19:12
Were you bottling these yourself or were you going through a Co
19:15
Packer? Or did you have someone helping
19:17
you bottle all these? In the beginning I was bottling
19:21
it myself, operating under the cottage food laws, but in order
19:27
to scale and get bigger and get out from under the college food
19:33
laws, you've got to have a commercial kitchen making it.
19:37
So this has been a two year process.
19:40
It's not. It wasn't quick.
19:42
I didn't jump in and bam, all of a sudden.
19:44
So it's been a two year process. Thursday I got my very first
19:52
order in it. That was just a part of a part
19:56
order because I was doing the event this past weekend.
19:59
It was a Friday, Saturday and Sunday so I might my Co Packer
20:03
was was shipping me a pallet of my very first pallet of.
20:09
Rubs that they they made from for me so I can put it on Amazon
20:15
and get it in any retail stores now.
20:17
And I've got 2-2 flavors that I can do that with.
20:20
And these are the these are the two.
20:21
So the all-purpose and the MILF rub are the 2 that are Co packed
20:27
that I can put on Amazon. But I got a couple of just a
20:31
couple of cases to get me through the event this past
20:34
weekend and I almost sold out today, about 30 minutes after
20:38
you and I get off this podcast, I've got the rest of the palette
20:42
showing up in in in front of my House of almost 1000 bottles.
20:46
It's awesome. And I'm gonna be trying to
20:49
figure out where to put all these cases.
20:51
My wife is. I guess we're just gonna have
20:53
cases of rub piled up in the bedroom.
20:56
I'm like, yeah. All right, we're gonna switch it
20:59
up to going through each one of your rubs and breaking them
21:02
down. Let's start off with the milk
21:03
rub. Man, I love Freedom steak rub.
21:07
All right, this one is the first one that I came up with.
21:12
This is my first blend because at the time I was living on my
21:17
boat and I don't have that boat anymore, just to clarify.
21:22
But in my heart, it's still mine, you know what I mean?
21:24
I didn't want the, I didn't want the payments, but man, I miss
21:27
it. So my family had left for some
21:31
reason, maybe they had to go to my wife's mom's house for
21:35
something. And I was there with the cat and
21:38
the dog for a whole week. And I'm like, I'm doing this
21:41
keto diet where I'm doing like only eggs, steak and water.
21:47
So I was doing carnivores. That's what it was, but I needed
21:50
something that didn't have sugar in it, but that would pull the
21:54
flavor of the meat out, pull the flavor of the eggs out.
21:58
So I came up with this. It's a seasoned salt, so it has
22:03
your salt. It's got some pepper, some
22:05
garlic, some onions, and parsley.
22:08
Pretty basic stuff. But the blend I came up with
22:12
specifically for steaks and eggs.
22:16
Now I found that it works good on a lot of other stuff.
22:19
And people that have bought this and done TikTok videos, they put
22:25
it on stuff and I'm like, wow, I would have never thought to do
22:28
that. But my wife has been using this.
22:31
Now any recipe that calls for like salt, pepper, garlic, she
22:37
just substitutes and puts this in and you get a a little bit
22:41
extra. But the recipe turns out
22:43
awesome. Unlike some of the others where
22:46
people like oh you have to own a grill to use this, no you don't.
22:51
This is used inside my house on my stove, in my oven way more
22:57
than I ever use it on my grill. I put this on fried eggs almost
23:02
every single morning. So that is the MILF rub.
23:05
Did you have any questions about that?
23:07
No, no. And that's the best way to have
23:09
it so everybody can use it and not just put it just for the
23:14
grill because most people cooking inside anyway.
23:16
So it's definitely to have something that's versatile like
23:20
that. I've had a bunch of people come
23:22
up to me this weekend is hey man, I don't have a, a grill.
23:26
I'm like, listen, you cook food every day there.
23:30
I, there are 6 different blends here.
23:33
You can use these six different blends on almost every single
23:37
meal that that you cook and you never have to light up your
23:40
grill. Just because it's says BBQ, it
23:43
give you a BBQ flavor, but it doesn't have to be on the grill.
23:47
All right, let's move to the Pool Boy All-purpose BBQ Rub.
23:52
All right, there we go. This is your your plain
23:56
traditional BBQ flavor. You go to the to the store and
24:02
you buy a bag of BBQ chips. This is the flavor that's
24:06
probably going to come to mind. It's it's a sweet, smoky type of
24:10
BBQ flavor. This is the bread and butter of
24:15
the BBQ world here in my mind. You lay this down, it's got it.
24:21
It's a brown sugar base and it just works.
24:25
It just works as a BBQ blend. OK.
24:29
And next one is the Rub me Honey.
24:32
Rub me, honey. All right, so people wanted
24:37
something that was a little sweeter, slightly less less of a
24:41
kick, even though the all-purpose doesn't really have
24:44
much of A kick. That smidgen of cayenne pepper
24:47
that you can't even taste. This one here is made with honey
24:52
powder, so it's got the brown sugar, the honey powder.
24:55
As a result it's really sticky if you can see that in the
24:59
camera. I don't currently have any anti
25:01
clumping agents in this, so this is natural stuff.
25:05
If you buy this, you might have to open it up and break it up
25:09
with a fork before you use it. But rub me, honey baby.
25:15
All right, Next up is the Mardi Gras.
25:17
Mardi Gras. Awesome.
25:19
Mardi Gras is one of my favorites.
25:23
Like I said I grew up in Mobile, AL which is the home of Mardi
25:27
Gras. Mardi Gras parades were invented
25:31
in Mobile, happened long before New Orleans.
25:35
New Orleans stole it and made it really popular, which is good,
25:38
but this is a Cajun flavor. I like that Cajun flavor on like
25:44
my shrimp, my, my, my fries, some fried food.
25:49
I like that Cajun flavor. So I came up with this as a
25:53
result of that. I wanted that Cajun seasoning.
25:57
I wouldn't really classify this as a BBQ rub.
26:01
This is a Cajun seasoning that anything that you're thinking
26:07
about in your mind that you come up with, man, this piece of meat
26:12
would taste better with that Cajun flair to it.
26:16
That's this. It does have a little bit of a
26:19
kick to it, but it's not terrible.
26:22
One of the favorite things that I like to make with the Mardi
26:26
Gras rub is a fried shrimp Taco. And I mix this in with the
26:32
batter so it goes into the grease with this on it and I
26:36
pull it out. And if it's just me eating it, I
26:41
might sprinkle a little bit extra on top of the shrimp right
26:45
when they come out of the oil. But it's a little bit too much
26:48
kick for some of my kids. Kids don't have a really intense
26:51
palate, but this is one of my favorites.
26:55
All right, And the next one is the sunburn sweet heat.
27:00
Sunburn. Now this is the one that people
27:05
requested. They're like, Derek, you got
27:08
this all-purpose and it's good. But I want something with some
27:13
heat to it because there's people out there that really
27:16
like spicy. I'm not one of them.
27:18
So I'm like, you know what, what is a pool, a swimming pool
27:23
related type of theme that I could put on this that would
27:28
reflect heat and temperature. And I came up with sunburn for
27:32
the name, But I'm like, all right, let me research Peppers.
27:37
So I did some Googling, did some researching of some Peppers and
27:41
I came up with the Trinidad scorpion pepper because when you
27:46
eat a Trinidad scorpion pepper, you don't taste the heat like
27:50
right off. It comes in a couple of seconds
27:53
later, just like a sunburn. So when you're out on the nude
27:58
beach and you're having a great day and you don't really feel
28:01
anything while you're out there. But once you get back to your
28:05
room or maybe the next day, you're like, oh man, that's,
28:08
that hurts. I need to put some aloe Vera on
28:11
me. That's what this is the heat.
28:14
It's a sweet heat. So at first you're going to take
28:16
a bite, you're going to get a heat, you're going to get that
28:18
sweetness, a little bit of heat. But as you swallow, you're going
28:23
to be like, oh, oh, oh, OK, it's happening.
28:25
It's happening now. It's coming.
28:27
So that's this sunburn. All right, and wrapping it up,
28:31
the Black Magic seasoning. Black Magic was also a highly
28:37
requested blend, so this was my latest one.
28:41
And this one was the one that I had to do the most tinkering
28:47
with, like the sunburn and the rub me honey.
28:52
I just basically modified the all-purpose with those, to be
28:57
honest with you. This one I had to tinker with.
28:59
I had to come up with something that was going to hit that
29:03
blackened flavor, but still have its own unique flavor profile.
29:09
So something that the people that have used this have said is
29:15
they use this as their blackened seasoning.
29:18
And unlike some other blackens that they have to mix and add
29:25
stuff to, they said that they don't have to add additional
29:28
stuff to get that blackened profile that people really like
29:33
when they're using the black magic.
29:36
And which one of this is seasoning surprised you the most
29:39
when it hit out to the public? Surprised in In in what way?
29:45
As far as sales, as far as which one jumped off the shelf the
29:49
most, which one jumps off the shelf the most?
29:51
Oh to to this day the MILF rub is still my #1 seller.
29:58
It's it was my fourth released flavor, I think, but it has
30:04
jumped to the top of the charts and it is stayed there
30:07
consistently. I think it's because it's just
30:10
so versatile, right? It's a salt and pepper, garlic,
30:16
onion, parsley, and I think because of that people can use
30:21
it on everything. It every like normal everyday
30:25
stuff, fries, eggs. If they're doing some steamed
30:30
broccoli or steamed veggies, they don't have to like do a
30:34
teaspoon of sugar, do a teaspoon of salt and whatnot.
30:37
There's no sugar in this, but do a teaspoon of pepper.
30:40
They just use this, sprinkle it on their boom.
30:43
Good. And I did not think that this
30:46
one was going to fly off the shelves as fast as it has.
30:50
I nearly sold out of the bottles that I had this weekend.
30:55
It is continuously the number one seller on our website also.
30:59
And that's the one that feels the most personal to you at all
31:03
your blends. It's the, it's the one that that
31:07
has helped me the most when I was doing my keto and it's the
31:12
one that me and my wife probably use most often because I use
31:17
that every day, whereas some of the others I'm not going to.
31:22
But like I'm doing, I'm getting back into the, the carnivore
31:26
diet. So I'm doing eggs and meat as
31:28
much as possible and I'm doing the MILF rub on that a lot
31:33
simply because because it's real easy.
31:35
It's real basic to just put it on there and it really pulls the
31:40
flavor of the meat out. OK, and what truly separates
31:44
pool boy rubs from every other rub on the shelf?
31:49
That's a good question. I like, I, Like I said earlier,
31:52
I don't have a, an extensive flavor palette where I've tried
31:57
a bunch of the other ones. I would say what separates it is
32:02
the interactions that I as the founder has had with the end
32:08
user. So as I've sent out bottles and
32:12
samples and they give me feedback and I've used that that
32:16
feedback to tweak it and change it and come up with something
32:21
that everybody likes. And I've done that with every
32:24
single blend. I have made some and then I've
32:28
sent it out to about 10:15, 20 people gotten their feedback and
32:33
be like, all right, so where does this blend need to be?
32:37
Does it need more of this or less of that?
32:40
Or what does it need? And I've been really one-on-one
32:45
with as many of my customers as possible.
32:49
These are customer, these are friends, people that are are
32:53
going to tell me the truth. I think that is that's probably
32:57
the biggest thing to it's probably the biggest thing.
33:01
Some of these other some of these other blends, you have a
33:04
company that is just so big, they come up with a a blend and
33:12
they're like, OK, let's slap a label on it.
33:15
We're going to do 200,000 of them and send it out to Walmart
33:19
and just let people buy it. And they are more profit center
33:25
than coming up with a a blin that has been tested by real
33:33
people that use it in the field. These large in investment
33:38
companies that when you go to a grocery stores, no matter what
33:42
the brand name is, these large companies own a good chunk of
33:47
that company and they're only in it for profit.
33:51
And I'm not bashing them. Some of them are good, but
33:53
they're using ingredients that is designed to make them the
33:58
most profit. And I just want to build a
34:01
company that yeah, I want profit, sure, but I also want to
34:06
build a company that people I want a cult following.
34:10
I want people to go I'm using pool boy.
34:12
That's my go to rub. That's what I'm, that's what I'm
34:15
looking for. Just people that are like pool
34:17
boy, that is my man. That is my rub versus versus.
34:22
I went down to Publix and I picked up some of that XYZ
34:27
seasoning for $2.00 for a 2 LB bottle or whatever it is because
34:32
they're not putting any. I don't know.
34:36
A lot of companies when they start getting bigger, they
34:38
sacrificed the quality for quantity and you can tell by
34:42
looking in the bottles that is not mixed up right where you see
34:46
a lot of one color in one area and you have to shake it up to
34:50
kind of get it mixed together and stuff like that.
34:53
And people like y'all focus on quality and kind of upscale from
34:57
there and keep the quality. So it's definitely a good thing
35:02
that y'all doing because a lot of these companies like I was
35:05
talking to somebody like Clorox, the bleach company owns
35:09
Kingsford, I think Kingsford Charcoal and a couple other
35:12
companies, which is weird like they just.
35:14
Do they really? Yeah.
35:16
It doesn't shock me, brother. It doesn't shock me because
35:20
there there's this guy and he's on TikTok and YouTube.
35:24
And what he does is he goes to stores, he takes a picture of
35:29
all the different brands and he does this red highlighter over
35:34
all of them that are owned by the same company.
35:38
And it's which one of these is a mom and pop brand.
35:40
So the whole aisle will be like red and they'll be like one
35:44
that's like blue that's owned by you can find him.
35:48
But it's like there's a lot of big companies out there that
35:52
just own so much of this stuff. Exactly.
35:55
And the same products that I was telling my wife, like Marriott.
35:58
Marriott got so many hotels but the different names but they'll
36:03
be right beside each other. Is this by Marriott?
36:06
This by Marriott and you got the regular Marriott.
36:09
It's like they just people buying dish detergent owned by
36:12
the same company. You got 7 different detergent
36:15
names by the same company and it's just it do it to just to
36:20
trick people just put it under one name.
36:23
But so how is social media helped or help you build your
36:26
brand? Social media is everything, man.
36:30
Social media has been everything for building the building the
36:34
the brand. Because like I said at first, I
36:38
was reaching out on my Facebook for people to here's 3 versions
36:45
of the logo. Which one do you do you like
36:49
better AB or C? Here is a blend that I'm
36:51
thinking about. What do you guys want?
36:54
Let me send you, let's send you you some.
36:57
And I even the shows that I do like this past weekend, I didn't
37:03
get a lot of feedback, man. It was just it was more of a
37:07
what is your stuff taste like? Here's a sample.
37:10
I get that. And how much is it?
37:12
And they grabbed it, grabbed it and go.
37:15
Now I do have all of my social medias out there where people
37:19
can scan and follow me. And I hope that maybe they'll
37:22
reach out and be like, hey, I like this.
37:26
I like it because of this reason.
37:28
Or maybe they want me to change something.
37:31
But that is that has been everything.
37:33
Social media, Facebook, TikTok. Now TikTok has been really good.
37:38
Instagram, not so much. YouTube, I can't figure YouTube
37:42
out posts a video that I posted on TikTok on YouTube and it
37:50
might get 2 views, it might get 2000 views and I have no idea
37:55
none whatsoever. Like I'll goes like 1500 views,
37:59
1500 views, 300 views, 7 views, 500 views.
38:04
I don't know. I don't know.
38:05
I don't get it. But TikTok and Facebook, man,
38:08
TikTok is it, man, It's TikTok is wonderful.
38:11
My favorite 1 is when you was in the restaurant and you pull your
38:13
rub out. Oh yeah.
38:16
You saw that? Look at them.
38:21
All right, let's do a short master class for those that
38:24
might want to get into creating a rub.
38:26
Can you give a couple of tilts for those that may want to get
38:30
into building their own rub and as well as trying to market it
38:35
also? Money, fine money.
38:39
So money has been the absolute biggest thing for me because so
38:45
I've had this, I've had this business for two years now and I
38:49
have I've been peddling along. And then I didn't really go full
38:55
time in it until three months back where that's when I sold my
39:00
little pool company that I built.
39:03
And I was able to take the majority of that money and put
39:07
it into the rub business because when when you are blending rubs
39:13
at your house, you are legally very limited to who you can sell
39:19
those to. You can do it and you can sell
39:22
it, but you have got to have a lot of safety protocols in place
39:31
and it is frowned upon is different states are going to
39:36
have different rules. But I didn't even know cottage
39:39
food laws was a thing and I learned about those.
39:43
Find money, sell your feet pics if you have to.
39:46
I don't know. And then insurance.
39:50
Insurance get yourself $1,000,000 coverage.
39:54
I think mine is just like a couple of $100 every couple of
39:59
months. So maybe $1000 for the policy.
40:02
But. If something happens, say you
40:07
make some rub and somebody doesn't doesn't have a good
40:12
reaction to it, you don't know what it is.
40:15
You could lose everything. But if you could have a
40:19
commercial kitchen make it, that's it.
40:22
That is it. Because you get a lot more
40:25
assurances because DHEC isn't involved heavily.
40:30
And then you have a commercial in insurance with those guys and
40:36
you can once you start doing it on a bigger scale, you have less
40:43
variations between bottles. So it's not.
40:48
So like I told you earlier, I've owned 16 companies.
40:51
This is not been my easiest company.
40:54
This is one of my hardest companies actually.
40:57
It's been very difficult to build and to come up with all of
41:01
the back end stuff because there's a lot of back end stuff
41:05
that people don't see or understand.
41:08
And if you are not, if you do not have the business owner
41:13
mindset, I would tell you don't do it.
41:15
Do not do it. You are going to get ran through
41:18
the coals. It will not be fun if you do not
41:22
understand how business works. I do because I've owned 16
41:27
companies and man, the learning curve is very intense.
41:31
But for those of you that, that want to do it, we start off with
41:35
about 25 to $30,000 is a good starting place.
41:39
Insurance upfront, as as much as you, as much as you can get all
41:45
the stuff in place, domains, whatever you can get upfront and
41:51
then start blending and then making sure people taste it and
41:56
like it or don't do whatever you'd like to do.
41:58
But money and insurance. Those are my 2 tips.
42:03
Definitely. And what's next for pool Boy
42:05
Revs? So next is I am, I am working
42:10
hard. I've actually been working hard
42:12
for the past three months to try to get my 2 rubs on Amazon.
42:18
And that has been that's been difficult.
42:21
So I'm working hard to get them on Amazon.
42:25
And while I'm doing that, I'm also working to get them on to
42:30
TikTok shop that that is actually more exciting to me
42:35
than getting on Amazon. And I, I was telling people,
42:40
hey, wait to purchase until I'm at until I'm on Amazon, because
42:45
then you could leave me a five star and that'd be good.
42:48
And Amazon will see that I'm getting re reviews and I'm
42:51
getting sales to just hold off to a purchase.
42:53
I'm not telling people that in anymore, man, because I have
42:57
learned that some of these other companies have waited over a
43:02
year to get their products on Amazon.
43:05
And I'm like, OK, pool boy rubs.com, you can buy it now.
43:11
So I'm like, I would rather have the sales to be able to keep
43:17
moving forward because a business that doesn't have sales
43:20
in over the long run is not a business it's going to it's
43:23
going to ultimately die. So those are two big things for
43:27
me. But some local stuff here in the
43:30
Florida area is, I am, I am working to get into the State
43:36
Fair, which is is a really big thing.
43:39
And then I'm looking at other cities to get into the State
43:43
Fair just so that I can like recoup some of the money that
43:47
I've spent. Because I have, I've spent, I've
43:50
spent 445 digits getting to where I'm at now the, the pallet
43:57
that I have coming in hopefully about 30 minutes to an hour.
44:01
That was a large outlay of cash for just two blends.
44:06
That was a large outlay of cash. Yeah, that's what's that's
44:10
what's next. Getting into as many local shows
44:12
as possible to get my name out to maybe people that are not
44:17
following me on social media, Getting more people to follow me
44:21
on social media because that's a big push.
44:23
Yes, I want to make money while I'm at the at the shows, but
44:29
that's almost second to getting people on board the pool boy
44:34
rubs train. You know what I mean?
44:36
I want fans. I do.
44:38
I want fans. I want you to come on board.
44:41
I want you to taste my rub. I want you to make a video about
44:45
it and anybody who makes a video with my rub, I'm going to like
44:49
it. I'm going to repost it.
44:50
I'm going to comment. I'm going to every single
44:52
comment in your comment section. I'm going to comment on every
44:55
single I'm going to I'm going to boost your posts by doubling the
45:00
amount of comments because I want you guys to be fans of the
45:06
pool boy rubs brand. And if you have any blends or
45:10
flavors that that you want, let me know.
45:13
Like I've had several people be like, I want you to do a coffee
45:16
flavored. I hate coffee.
45:18
So I'm like, I don't even know where to start.
45:20
So I'm going to have to make something and then let a bunch
45:24
of other people try because I'm not putting it in my mouth.
45:26
If you want coffee stuff, I just so far I've been trying to make
45:30
stuff that I want to eat. That's it.
45:33
Yeah, that's excellent. I hope you, the TikTok store
45:36
would be good for you because you can make your own, I mean
45:39
like commercials on TikTok. And because that's what I did
45:43
recently, just made a commercial and just boosted it just to try
45:47
to boost. And I saw that it actually
45:50
worked. I only spent I think it was like
45:52
$8 each day. I did it for two days just to
45:55
see how it was and it just went everywhere.
45:58
And I did the same for Instagram and that it's just like running
46:01
your own commercial. So I like how they do that and
46:05
you can sell your own product and then if you click a link and
46:09
all that, it could probably go to your store and stuff like
46:12
that. So that's I love how they do
46:14
that. TikTok is great and the people
46:17
who don't like it, these government morons that are
46:21
trying to ban it and have been trying to ban it for years, they
46:24
don't understand it or they do and they're trying to figure out
46:28
how to profit from it. TikTok is good.
46:31
Definitely. All right, thank you for that.
46:34
Derek. Your therapy session is over.
46:36
I got one quick game for you and then I get you out of here.
46:38
A college basketball, they have a tournament bracket, so I made
46:41
a tournament bracket with 16 meats that you cook on the
46:44
grill. Just tell me which one you
46:46
prefer to eat and we'll see which one is the winner.
46:49
All right. First matchup is hamburger
46:51
versus steak. Steak.
46:55
OK, next matchup is pork ribs versus pork belly.
46:59
Ribs. All right, next matchup is hot
47:03
dog versus smoked chicken. Smoked chicken.
47:06
All right, next matchup is burnt ends versus pork chops.
47:11
Pork chops, OK. Next matchup is smoked Turkey
47:16
versus sausage. Smoked Turkey.
47:23
OK, next matchup is smoked ham versus BBQ shrimp.
47:28
Oh, I'm going to go with BBQ shrimp.
47:34
All right. Next matchup is Lamb versus
47:37
Brisket. Brisket all.
47:40
Right next matchup, beef ribs versus smoked Bologna.
47:45
Beef ribs. All right, next round matchup is
47:49
steak versus pork ribs. Steak.
47:53
OK, smoked chicken versus pork chops.
47:57
Smoked chicken. OK.
48:00
Next matchup is Turkey versus Shrimp.
48:03
Shrimp. OK.
48:06
Next matchup is brisket versus beef ribs.
48:11
Brisket. OK, Item 4, steak versus
48:16
chicken. Steak.
48:19
And shrimp versus brisket. Brisket.
48:25
OK. And the final 2 is steak versus
48:28
brisket. Steak all.
48:31
Right steak is your winner, all right, If you want to give your
48:37
website and promote anything, you definitely can do that now.
48:42
Pool boy rubs.com is the website and I currently as of right now
48:49
have a couple of packages on there.
48:51
I've got like a BBQ starter pack and I've got a another pack that
48:56
that has AT shirt in it. And those are the two kind of
49:00
products on my website that I'm most excited about.
49:05
Those are limited time offers. I'm not sure exactly when this
49:08
is going to come out, but if you're listening to this, go to
49:12
the website poolrubs.com and see if if it's still there.
49:15
If it's not, then message me and be like, hey, Derek, you idiot,
49:18
bring that back. I like it.
49:20
So I'll figure it out and that's what I can do as a small
49:24
business. If you want me to put something
49:27
on the website that's not there, I can do that as a small company
49:32
because I'm very versatile now, whereas these big companies,
49:36
they're never going to read your e-mail.
49:38
I will. Definitely true.
49:41
All right, spoken. All right.
49:43
On that note, everyone, we'll see y'all next episode.
49:47
I built something onto my podcast that every BBQ brand
49:50
should be a part of. It's called the BBQ therapy
49:53
Smoke Showdown. Bracket 16 meets you, cook on
49:56
the grill, go head to head, and every guest picks their winner.
50:00
It's one of the most engaging parts of the show.
50:03
Every guest plays and every listener loves it because No2
50:07
brackets are the same. Now I'm opening it up for a
50:10
presenting sponsor, meaning your brand becomes part of the
50:14
segment. Every single show.
50:16
This isn't just an ad. This becomes part of the show.
50:20
And if you're interested, reach out to Tavis Bryant at
50:23
barbecuetherapypodcast@gmail.com. Thank you.
50:28
Thank you for joining us for another therapy session.
50:31
And remember, like, follow and subscribe to help the BBQ
50:34
Therapy community. Also visit our website at
50:37
www.barbecuetherapypodcast.com.