Latest / Epic Entrepreneurs / Crafting Success: Ben Colvin's Journey from Nonprofit to Ginger Beer Entrepreneur

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Crafting Success: Ben Colvin's Journey from Nonprofit to Ginger Beer Entrepreneur · Epic Entrepreneurs

• 0:28
  Bill Gilliland: Hey there, everybody.
• 0:29
  Bill Gilliland: Welcome to this week's episode of Epic Entrepreneurs, and I'm talking to my friend Ben Colvin here today, one of the owners at Devil's Foot.
• 0:37
  Bill Gilliland: Hi, ben, hi yeah.
• 0:41
  Bill Gilliland: So tell us a little bit about how you got into Devil's Foot in the first place.
• 0:48
  Ben Colvin: All right, that's a good long story but to cut it short, uh, a good handful of us, uh, friendship had, uh, we've us, 2015 ish have been, uh, you know, going out and enjoying asheville and um, and all of our friendships and and we're having some bad cocktails at certain places and just going.
• 1:06
  Ben Colvin: Why are they putting this, you know, really watery ice, but then putting buffalo trace on it and a and a you know syrupy, sugary thing in there.
• 1:14
  Ben Colvin: We were like this gotta be something better.
• 1:15
  Ben Colvin: So, being in nashville and, uh, you live here long enough, you know how to brew.
• 1:19
  Ben Colvin: So we uh, so took my homebrew equipment and turned it into a non-alcoholic homebrew facility, uh, in my house, and we're just trying to make some kind of spicier, less sugary.
• 1:31
  Ben Colvin: Uh, you know, cocktail mixed ginger beer and, uh and uh, before too long, we were like you know, this stuff's pretty good.
• 1:38
  Ben Colvin: We could probably make a lot of this stuff.
• 1:40
  Ben Colvin: We could bottle it, do something, um, and that was one of those days.
• 1:43
  Ben Colvin: We had our counter full of ginger root um, at my house just running it through food processors and stuff, and my wife was was like y'all got to get this damn devil's foot out of here.
• 1:53
  Ben Colvin: We were like what the hell is a devil's foot?
• 1:55
  Ben Colvin: And she said, I don't know, it's all those ginger roots, all this gnarly ginger root that lives down in the ground, kind of like hooves of the devil's foot.
• 2:02
  Ben Colvin: And we were like that's pretty cool.
• 2:03
  Ben Colvin: That was a cool thing she came up with.
• 2:15
  Ben Colvin: But then, soon after that, my wife and I found out we were having our first child and we took everyone down to Burial Beer to celebrate and by the time we got there realized there was nothing but water on tap.
• 2:20
  Ben Colvin: You know, this is circa 2015, 2016.
• 2:22
  Ben Colvin: So that was the norm and we all looked at each other like this is a huge, you know, gap in needs here.
• 2:26
  Ben Colvin: There's a lot of opportunity here to do something cool.
• 2:28
  Ben Colvin: And so Jacob and I, um, made the decision we could try to work our way out of our current jobs.
• 2:34
  Ben Colvin: So, after 16 years of conservation, nonprofit work, I uh, you know, started working my way out and finding equipment that was, uh, the breweries locally were kind of outgrowing and investing in some of our own stuff, and um started making ginger beer in a in a 2,500 square foot mechanics garage old mechanics garage.
• 2:56
  Ben Colvin: That first year, jacob and I put out in 2018, we put out our first cans.
• 2:59
  Ben Colvin: That first year.
• 3:01
  Ben Colvin: We put out something like 150,000 cans on a really small one can at a time canning machine.
• 3:07
  Ben Colvin: But it allowed us the flexibility to brew during the day and then get home, put my kid to bed and get back in at nine o'clock at night, put on episodes of seinfeld, just can all night.
• 3:17
  Ben Colvin: I wanted to do um, but yeah, maybe fast forward.
• 3:21
  Ben Colvin: Now we're sitting in a 15 000 square foot facility putting out, you know, 1.2 something million cans a year.
• 3:26
  Ben Colvin: Um, our venue and space are growing, our staff are are growing and happy and sticking around and we are now distributed across five states North Carolina, south Carolina, tennessee, alabama, virginia.
• 3:42
  Ben Colvin: We're about to go into three new states coming up really soon.
• 3:46
  Bill Gilliland: Nice.
• 3:46
  Bill Gilliland: So I want to talk a little bit about the transition from jobs to the business.
• 3:54
  Bill Gilliland: Did you just pull the plug one day, or how did that go?
• 4:02
  Ben Colvin: So there's definitely some some translation between and I think when you're when you're young and you're in the middle of it, a nonprofit feels completely different.
• 4:10
  Ben Colvin: But the higher up you kind of become the administration, you realize non-profits, business and you got to run it like a business and um, uh, so my last job, my last job in that field, was executive director wild forest and fauna, where I could work you know, this is the right one google, uh, chat and zoom or a thing.
• 4:27
  Ben Colvin: So I was working out of asheville with a staffer in Uganda and one in Peru and my board was on Seattle and New York.
• 4:34
  Ben Colvin: So there's a lot of coordination to be done.
• 4:39
  Ben Colvin: But yeah, as you're in the nonprofit world, you're talking about the same thing.
• 4:43
  Ben Colvin: You're raising revenue, whether you call it, you know foundation grants or donations or whatever you.
• 4:47
  Ben Colvin: You know it's bottom line revenue, and then you got your expenses.
• 4:51
  Ben Colvin: But but eventually we were starting to look into this and it felt like a much bigger undertaking, kind of coming up out of nowhere.
• 4:58
  Ben Colvin: So uh had some friends that had gone through mountain biz works, uh, training and courses with them.
• 5:02
  Ben Colvin: So I had some old workbooks and things to kind of run through and really dug into it.
• 5:06
  Ben Colvin: And I mean, fortunately, we were at that place where we started transitioning out of our jobs, so we had some time and instead of just sitting around at the coffee shop doing nothing, we were digging into books and trying to build out business plans.
• 5:17
  Ben Colvin: And I think a lot of people say that early business plans in particular are worthless kind of thing.
• 5:25
  Ben Colvin: And you can look back on it and be like, yeah, we didn't follow that, we ended up going nowhere near that, but without doing it, without putting it to practice and doing that kind of thing, you're not, you know, you're just shooting in the wind.
• 5:39
  Ben Colvin: So we ended up having you know however many iterations of a business plan Um and that was before you were.
• 5:42
  Bill Gilliland: Is that before?
• 5:42
  Bill Gilliland: Were you already canning at that point, or was that before you?
• 5:45
  Bill Gilliland: So you're still working.
• 5:47
  Ben Colvin: Yep, we're still working on it.
• 5:48
  Ben Colvin: I mean, honestly, I was working out of my job and we were trying to find.
• 5:50
  Ben Colvin: We scrapped together the bare bones of investment we could all put in together ourselves just to get some tanks.
• 5:56
  Ben Colvin: You know, catawba Brewing in particular.
• 5:57
  Ben Colvin: They were growing really fast at the time, so a lot of their outgrowing tanks we were able to kind of purchase pretty cheap from them and build relationships with all these breweries that kind of thing.
• 6:07
  Ben Colvin: So it allowed us some time while you know, we weren't full steam ahead brewing canning nonstop.
• 6:12
  Ben Colvin: It gave us the time to sit down and kind of get our foundation under us and kind of work on a plan.
• 6:16
  Bill Gilliland: Yeah, got it.
• 6:17
  Bill Gilliland: Yeah, yeah, and I love what you said.
• 6:19
  Bill Gilliland: Yeah, of course the plan changes, but you got to do the thinking ahead of time.
• 6:24
  Bill Gilliland: So if you hadn't have done the plan, you probably never would have pulled the trigger.
• 6:27
  Bill Gilliland: And you pull the trigger and then you pull the trigger and then you adjust the plan.
• 6:30
  Bill Gilliland: I mean it's, you know whether you follow it.
• 6:32
  Bill Gilliland: I mean it.
• 6:32
  Bill Gilliland: You know plans never work out exactly right.
• 6:34
  Bill Gilliland: So, yeah, that's, yeah, that's pretty cool.
• 6:37
  Bill Gilliland: Yeah, so what's your?
• 6:39
  Bill Gilliland: Give us some of your business philosophies now.
• 6:45
  Ben Colvin: I, um, I I kind of came at this, of course in the nonprofit world.
• 6:49
  Ben Colvin: So I think, um, uh, early on I had some people kind of came at this, of course in the nonprofit world.
• 6:53
  Ben Colvin: So I think early on I had some people kind of knocking us, being like it seems sort of naive, that kind of thing.
• 6:57
  Ben Colvin: But one of the last things I did in the nonprofit field, I went out and did and took part in this.
• 7:03
  Ben Colvin: I think it's like three years.
• 7:06
  Ben Colvin: Every three years this conference gets put on.
• 7:09
  Ben Colvin: It's an invitation from conservation groups by Patagonia.
• 7:12
  Ben Colvin: They put it on in Lake Tahoe.
• 7:14
  Ben Colvin: There's only like 300 people there and they're all organizers and conservation professionals, that kind of stuff.
• 7:20
  Ben Colvin: And you're working really tight with a lot of the people that Patagonia works with it's legislators, it's grant writers, it's lobbyists.
• 7:28
  Ben Colvin: How do you really get things done?
• 7:30
  Ben Colvin: And being in that context I just learned a lot.
• 7:33
  Ben Colvin: That company has done something pretty special.
• 7:37
  Ben Colvin: I think they've put a lot of their ethic above their bottom line at times and over time you realize it's grown their bottom line like crazy.
• 7:48
  Ben Colvin: So particularly, I was sitting one time and Yvonne Chouinard was in the room this time giving a talk to this whole group, and this really long.
• 7:53
  Ben Colvin: You know, dreadlocked guy from buffalo field campaign raised his hand and said what do you got to say about?
• 7:58
  Ben Colvin: I could never afford your products, uh, if I wasn't doing this and getting some kind of discount, because I'm a campaign staffer, you know.
• 8:04
  Ben Colvin: And his answer was, hey, man, like I can make everything cheaper if I want to, but then I couldn't support the american farmer and I couldn't support organic cotton growers and I couldn't support, you know, fair wages and I couldn't support vacations for my, my staff, and like, if we're going to do the right things by the right people, we've got to, we've got to do it right.
• 8:22
  Ben Colvin: So maybe I understand that you couldn't afford it a fleece jacket or something at that point.
• 8:28
  Ben Colvin: Uh, but that family of four that's going skiing, that outfitted themselves completely in in this organic cotton gear or whatever, um, it's helping me to fund your campaign, it's helping me to do good in the world.
• 8:42
  Ben Colvin: And and that guy, really I think he got it.
• 8:44
  Ben Colvin: He, you know he came at it kind of um, critically, but I think he sat back and thought you know what he's he's telling me?
• 8:49
  Ben Colvin: He's, he, he's having to make a premium product.
• 8:53
  Ben Colvin: He's having to make it cost a lot.
• 8:54
  Ben Colvin: That's sometimes out of someone's reach, but the point is that he wants to be able to turn it back and give good.
• 8:58
  Ben Colvin: He doesn't want to just sit there and make profit for the sake of ships.
• 9:01
  Ben Colvin: He wanted to build a company that was built on some values.
• 9:15
  Ben Colvin: So that's what we built off of at Double Split.
• 9:17
  Ben Colvin: We built it.
• 9:18
  Ben Colvin: Our original mission vision values were built in the way a nonprofit kind of would that we wanted to have a foundation rather than shooting in the dark and just making a product.
• 9:27
  Ben Colvin: We wanted to say our plan is to make the best product, to hire the best people, to do good in the world, to do good through our business, to do less harm and more good on the planet.
• 9:38
  Ben Colvin: And it's helped to kind of guide us as we've gone along.
• 9:42
  Ben Colvin: So I think that was kind of an early on push for how do we want to actually do business.
• 9:47
  Ben Colvin: We know we can make this product, but how do we want to do it?
• 9:51
  Bill Gilliland: Yeah, no, I think it's super important to get your values and culture essentially established that ahead of time.
• 10:00
  Bill Gilliland: I mean, I love that.
• 10:02
  Bill Gilliland: And there's two interesting paradoxes here.
• 10:06
  Bill Gilliland: Number one is a nonprofit has to make a profit to stay in business and the other one is that you know for-profit businesses can do.
• 10:14
  Bill Gilliland: It's not a paradox.
• 10:15
  Bill Gilliland: For-profit businesses can do a lot of good in the world.
• 10:17
  Bill Gilliland: I mean, patagonia does a lot of good in the world.
• 10:20
  Bill Gilliland: So I love that.
• 10:22
  Bill Gilliland: You kind of had a role model in a way, of a company or at least a company you wanted to emulate.
• 10:28
  Bill Gilliland: So how's that translated into what you're doing now?
• 10:34
  Ben Colvin: Well, funny, fast forward now and we're, you know, in some pretty big retail stores across the region Fresh Market, earth, fare, publix, all these stores across multiple states in the Southeast and one of the head buyers, one of those big retailers, had tried our product, loved our product, wanted to put us everywhere.
• 10:50
  Ben Colvin: And um had tried our product, loved our product, want to put us everywhere.
• 10:52
  Ben Colvin: And he wrote back and he said you know what you guys are the Patagonia of soda and I said that's high praise, man, that's full circle.
• 11:01
  Ben Colvin: What do you mean by that?
• 11:01
  Ben Colvin: And he said, well, you guys have have values and you have um and you have, you have culture and you're you're holding to it, you're not compromising to it, and and it shows you're doing something, quality and um, and everybody can feel it, that kind of thing.
• 11:16
  Ben Colvin: And it just felt like, man, this is going kind of full circle.
• 11:18
  Ben Colvin: So, um, you know, our aim is to live that dream.
• 11:22
  Ben Colvin: It's to walk the walk and talk, to talk.
• 11:24
  Ben Colvin: So, um, you know, I look back now and we started with one employee, or you know, jacob and I and one other employee who was, who was driving our product.
• 11:34
  Ben Colvin: Now we're sitting here looking at 15 plus 15 plus employees between two facilities and I've really only lost Two employees in you know, eight, seven years of business.
• 11:57
  Ben Colvin: No-transcript instilled in us an intent to to grow and to grow smart.
• 12:04
  Ben Colvin: Right, we've we've seen people who grow too fast outgrow themselves and put themselves in a hole.
• 12:08
  Ben Colvin: We want to grow smart and by by doing that, we needed the right people there and we didn't want to do what we've seen in the brewing industry forever, which is, you know, we can turn through people, we can.
• 12:19
  Ben Colvin: We can pay them little and work some grueling shifts and work them hard and long, and you know what they burn out and they leave, and they leave you a bad review on Google or something.
• 12:30
  Ben Colvin: We looked at it the other way and said it just seems like a smart thing to do to find the right people, and by the right people I mean people that fit the culture, that can work well with everybody else, that have sort of an aligned vision and journey.
• 12:48
  Ben Colvin: They're wanting to be on and try to bring people in and expect they're going to be there for the long haul, not just for building the culture of who we are.
• 12:56
  Ben Colvin: But it sure seems through every study you looked at, it's a lot more cost efficient and a better investment to find employees that want to stay on long term rather than having to go rehire, retrain, reprogram this whole new group.
• 13:13
  Ben Colvin: We like to build this like a family, and I know people say don't treat your business like your family, but we really do.
• 13:20
  Ben Colvin: We like to hang out with each other, we like to spend some free time with each other.
• 13:24
  Ben Colvin: We all know each other's kids names and um, you know it was hitting 19 degrees last night, I guess, and we were all texting around making sure everybody had blankets and don't get on the icy roads, coming to work late, you know that kind of thing.
• 13:36
  Ben Colvin: Um, so I think we've really tried to, you know, build out of that.
• 13:41
  Ben Colvin: And so I think we've really tried to, you know, build out of that.
• 13:42
  Ben Colvin: And so when we look at this core group of people, we got they're incredible and, um, not just what they do day to day, but uh, you know, we got hit by this, this pretty big storm, and uh, we had no cell coverage for six days, so there was no way to check in with with our folks.
• 13:56
  Ben Colvin: And, um, so I got into our facility and, you know, waded through waist-deep water to get to the front door and checked out.
• 14:03
  Ben Colvin: Luckily we were in pretty good shape.
• 14:04
  Ben Colvin: We only had a half-inch of water in the back of the building, but I had to put a sign up on the door saying hey, everybody, leave your name, let me know you came by and you're okay, I'm going to keep checking in daily.
• 14:13
  Ben Colvin: That's kind of all I could do.
• 14:19
  Ben Colvin: That was on Thursday.
• 14:20
  Ben Colvin: I guess it was about Sunday.
• 14:21
  Ben Colvin: Jacob's cell phone was working and he got a phone call from our friends in Charlotte and the brewers were like hey, we've been canning water for two days straight, like we're coming up with an 18 wheeler if you're ready.
• 14:29
  Ben Colvin: So by Monday they pulled an 18 wheeler in and I would say 80 percent of my staff were there.
• 14:35
  Ben Colvin: They just showed up.
• 14:38
  Ben Colvin: You know, they had their own stuff to deal with, they had their know family and houses to take care of, but they all showed up and spent probably four days straight of 12, 16 hour work days just working on their own to help get supplies out to our community.
• 14:52
  Ben Colvin: And, um, yeah, I don't know there's not enough I could say about our staff.
• 14:56
  Ben Colvin: We've just grown a culture of really great people and it and it shows not just in their work ethic but the way they they give to others.
• 15:05
  Bill Gilliland: Yeah, I think that's a.
• 15:06
  Bill Gilliland: I think that's the true Testament is that they give to others.
• 15:09
  Bill Gilliland: We could do some math and you know you and I were talking offline about how you know lack turnover is expensive and you know, in in an industry where you know people would tend to drive down wages, you guys have chosen to treat your people differently, pay them well and keep them and create this culture that everybody wants to be part of and everybody wants to be part of something right.
• 15:39
  Bill Gilliland: I mean everybody wants to.
• 15:40
  Bill Gilliland: They want to be a team.
• 15:41
  Bill Gilliland: People want to be on a team.
• 15:41
  Bill Gilliland: Most people part of something right.
• 15:42
  Bill Gilliland: I mean everybody wants, they want to be a team that people want to be on the team most people.
• 15:45
  Bill Gilliland: so I reckon, I reckon it's, I reckon it's hundreds of thousands of dollars that you've saved is the wrong word but not had to spend, I guess, in a way just by having, by just creating this commercial commercial.
• 15:58
  Bill Gilliland: So I want to, I want to, just I just want to recap a little bit.
• 16:02
  Bill Gilliland: So, from Patagonia was do the right thing by the right people.
• 16:06
  Bill Gilliland: Number two was get clear on your values, because that's good for marketing and for I mean, the marketing kind of takes care of itself in a lot of ways if you get this reputation and then grow smart with the right people.
• 16:21
  Bill Gilliland: And four was invest in the right people.
• 16:23
  Bill Gilliland: And then that, and then the outcome was we have this giant storm that's disrupted everything in our area and, uh, you know, people show up and work and help distribute water.
• 16:33
  Bill Gilliland: I mean it's unbelievable.
• 16:35
  Ben Colvin: It's, it's pretty unbelievable.
• 16:36
  Ben Colvin: Um, yeah, I think, uh, I think there was a time when and it still, I guess, happens when you're finding your first job you just want to find a job, you just want to find a paycheck, spend some time out doing something, whatever, yep.
• 16:51
  Ben Colvin: But I think you're right.
• 16:52
  Ben Colvin: I think, the more you find out, people want to be a part of something bigger than that, and if you can't create that, I think that's another reason for people leaving.
• 17:04
  Ben Colvin: They're looking for something to feel proud about and to be a part of and, yeah, something we should all look to create in our own business.
• 17:12
  Bill Gilliland: Yeah, we call it.
• 17:12
  Bill Gilliland: You're right.
• 17:14
  Bill Gilliland: When they first go to the job, they want to get a paycheck right.
• 17:17
  Bill Gilliland: They don't know what they don't know and sometimes I mean that's the point of having a bunch of jobs before you actually have a career.
• 17:24
  Bill Gilliland: So we say job, career, calling, so it's job and then hopefully they want to make a career out of, you know, be part of something and you know career doing what they want to do.
• 17:34
  Bill Gilliland: And my guess is and then calling, like then is it, this is what you're supposed to be doing?
• 17:39
  Bill Gilliland: Like this is what you were put on the planet to be doing.
• 17:41
  Bill Gilliland: Obviously, I think it's super interesting that you came out of the nonprofit conservation and then you got into this, but you've taken the same, some of the same well, all the same values and applied them to this.
• 17:54
  Bill Gilliland: So I mean, obviously this is where you're supposed to be and I know it feels that way, or else you wouldn't do it to be.
• 18:04
  Bill Gilliland: And I know it feels that way or else you wouldn't do it.
• 18:08
  Ben Colvin: My guess is those two people that left probably left for more of a calling, I would say.
• 18:10
  Ben Colvin: One of the guys had an opportunity to go in and help build out some really big affordable housing stuff in Asheville.
• 18:17
  Bill Gilliland: Yeah, right, I mean you can't argue with that stuff, right?
• 18:21
  Ben Colvin: And another guy had.
• 18:22
  Ben Colvin: This is mid-COVID.
• 18:24
  Ben Colvin: He was like, hey, I found this other job that's going to actually pay me pretty good through COVID.
• 18:27
  Ben Colvin: What do you think about that?
• 18:27
  Ben Colvin: I'm like, hey, man, see what you got to do?
• 18:29
  Ben Colvin: Yeah, it's just, you know, you hear some horror stories about how people leave.
• 18:35
  Ben Colvin: You know how employees leave or how things happen.
• 18:38
  Ben Colvin: I think our goal is like never have that.
• 18:39
  Ben Colvin: You know you're building, you know the people who've worked for you, whether they're still there or not, they're a reflection on who you are and who your business is, and we want it to.
• 18:49
  Ben Colvin: You know shine.
• 18:53
  Bill Gilliland: Yeah, my guess is that everybody you know is talking great about Devil's Foot.
• 18:57
  Bill Gilliland: They're like man.
• 18:58
  Bill Gilliland: My time at Devil's Foot was awesome.
• 18:59
  Bill Gilliland: You know, here's what it taught me.
• 19:03
  Bill Gilliland: Just like you were at the nonprofit for years, here's what that taught me.
• 19:07
  Bill Gilliland: That's informed my decisions moving forward.
• 19:10
  Bill Gilliland: Everything is a.
• 19:11
  Ben Colvin: You just got to be a sponge everywhere I'm going to give you a shameless plug here, but one of our rock stars is Miranda.
• 19:18
  Ben Colvin: Oh man, jacob and I knew from way back through sort of bartending and being part of the of that kind of thing.
• 19:25
  Ben Colvin: So when we opened our venue taproom she was the first person we wanted.
• 19:29
  Ben Colvin: We, we brought her in and we said, hey, this is not come in with bar shifts, like, we want to hand you the keys, build some vision out of this place, work together as a team and have some ownership in this.
• 19:38
  Ben Colvin: And, um, you know, from my perspective, I don't know if I've ever seen anybody at that age kind of get that opportunity.
• 19:43
  Ben Colvin: And from her side I think she thought, what you're gonna, you're gonna let me run with this, and it took a little figuring out.
• 19:49
  Ben Colvin: But then, once you get into it, um, you know it's, she is part of this team and it's not, it's, it's not my place to say, hey, just go and do your job.
• 19:58
  Ben Colvin: It's my job to sit there and say, hey, what do you want to do, what do you want to become, what's your dream?
• 20:02
  Ben Colvin: So when we kind of build out our annual plans and what our goals and objectives for the year are, there's growth in that right, I don't want you sitting here stagnant Like what do you want to grow into?
• 20:13
  Ben Colvin: And when she expressed, like her growth, her want, her desires to learn more about business and, you know, even open her own and do her own her own thing one day.
• 20:23
  Ben Colvin: And how does she get there?
• 20:24
  Ben Colvin: So, boom, she's working with action coach and meeting new people and and hanging out with you guys and learn a lot.
• 20:31
  Bill Gilliland: Yeah, when I first met her, I was like Holy cow, where did y'all find her?
• 20:36
  Bill Gilliland: That was my, that was my initial.
• 20:38
  Bill Gilliland: Every once in a while that happens Like, yeah, I mean, holy cow, that was a good hire.
• 20:46
  Bill Gilliland: Yeah, what I love about what you said, though and a lot of people don't, some people miss this.
• 20:55
  Bill Gilliland: Not a lot of people get it, but some people miss it and that is that create.
• 21:01
  Bill Gilliland: You want to create the conditions for your employee success, whatever.
• 21:06
  Bill Gilliland: That is Like I, you know, I've had employees to me and said hey, bill, I'm going to go start my own business.
• 21:11
  Bill Gilliland: I'm like, well, I can't, don't, don't you know, don't, let me stop you, cause I'm I mean, I've started a few businesses.
• 21:16
  Bill Gilliland: I'm like, whatever you got to go, if that's what you're meant to do, go do it.
• 21:21
  Bill Gilliland: So I think that's fantastic.
• 21:24
  Bill Gilliland: So, yeah, I love that.
• 21:26
  Bill Gilliland: Create the conditions.
• 21:27
  Bill Gilliland: Man, there are all kinds of lessons in this conversation we had.
• 21:32
  Bill Gilliland: It's hard to sometimes, when you're starting, it's hard to those values get tested.
• 21:40
  Bill Gilliland: I guess, yeah, because you're saying, well, I want to pay people, well, but here's the deal, what are your thoughts about that?
• 21:48
  Bill Gilliland: I guess.
• 21:52
  Bill Gilliland: How do you do that?
• 21:54
  Ben Colvin: How do you sort of follow those values?
• 21:56
  Bill Gilliland: Yeah, I mean it sounds like we're sitting here talking and you and I and those yeah, I mean it sounds like.
• 21:58
  Bill Gilliland: It sounds like you know where.
• 21:59
  Bill Gilliland: We're sitting here talking and you and i're just chatting and it sounds easy.
• 22:02
  Bill Gilliland: But you know, because you have these values, but they're going to get challenged right somewhere along the way.
• 22:08
  Bill Gilliland: Something's going to happen and you're going to be well, hang on.
• 22:10
  Bill Gilliland: And I don't know about you, but I've.
• 22:12
  Bill Gilliland: There have been times when I've been challenged and I'm like, and I realize that, look, I'm out of culture here, I got to come back and I got to pull things back, and that you know, it just happens.
• 22:22
  Ben Colvin: So, yeah, no, I would say you know some of the some of the biggest, some of the biggest assets that we have that have kept us going away is the amount of resources here in our area and our state in particular.
• 22:35
  Ben Colvin: So we've worked with NC IDEA.
• 22:37
  Ben Colvin: We've received two grants through NC IDEA to help grow our business and grow our company.
• 22:44
  Ben Colvin: It's allowed us to kind of put more of what we wanna do into our employees and our growth as well.
• 22:50
  Ben Colvin: We've worked with Land of Sky and Mountain Resources to help bring in the right kind of, you know, support for our staff and our employees and also to like build in training.
• 23:01
  Ben Colvin: They do a lot of training grants, um, so, uh, yeah, there's just beyond that.
• 23:06
  Ben Colvin: You know, mountain biz works.
• 23:06
  Ben Colvin: I will say, um, great, every, every single community should have something like that.
• 23:12
  Ben Colvin: Most of them do, but I don't, you know, not to the dynamics that they've got.
• 23:15
  Ben Colvin: They're particularly this hurricane.
• 23:17
  Ben Colvin: I was like this is going to be a total catastrophe.
• 23:21
  Ben Colvin: I don't know how anyone's going to be able to work fast and quick and pivot to support businesses through this.
• 23:26
  Ben Colvin: And Mount BizWorks was real, real fast.
• 23:28
  Bill Gilliland: They did a nice job, very nice job.
• 23:31
  Ben Colvin: They were able to help get capital to people and help because we knew there were going to be grants, there was going to be SBA stuff, but the SBA is broke.
• 23:40
  Ben Colvin: It's going to take forever to get that through.
• 23:41
  Ben Colvin: You know it was going to take so much time and none of us had that.
• 23:44
  Ben Colvin: You know we were losing almost four weeks of revenue in the middle of peak leaf season and then really slow recovery after that.
• 23:52
  Ben Colvin: So it's anyway.
• 23:54
  Ben Colvin: I guess what I'm getting at is there's there's resources and agencies and organizations in every community, but particularly ours, that I feel like every single person that wants to do business or has a dream and wants to build it and do some kind of, some kind of dream that they've had, needs to reach out to the small business community and find out who these people are and don't be afraid to approach them.
• 24:14
  Ben Colvin: And I mean just like coming from the nonprofit world.
• 24:18
  Ben Colvin: As a nonprofit, I was there for a reason I was there to provide a service and to help.
• 24:22
  Ben Colvin: And so all these nonprofits or agencies in our area that's their goal is to help.
• 24:29
  Ben Colvin: It's not to critique you, it's not to do anything.
• 24:32
  Ben Colvin: It's there because they're there to help.
• 24:34
  Bill Gilliland: Yeah, sometimes it's hard to ask right, we're taught to do our own work in school and I think sometimes that hurts us when we could collaborate or ask for help or anything.
• 24:46
  Bill Gilliland: So having capital, so profit, money, does help.
• 24:54
  Bill Gilliland: There's a connection.
• 24:54
  Bill Gilliland: It's easier to live into your values if you, if you're not stressed for, for, for capital.
• 25:00
  Bill Gilliland: So I love that the way you've.
• 25:02
  Bill Gilliland: You've kind of you kind of tied that together.
• 25:04
  Bill Gilliland: So and I guess you know you, you I mean we lost, lost some revenue, but you, I mean you also had some geographical diversity.
• 25:13
  Bill Gilliland: That didn't.
• 25:14
  Bill Gilliland: That probably helped you, you guys, I mean all diversity that didn't.
• 25:20
  Ben Colvin: That probably helped you.
• 25:20
  Ben Colvin: You guys I mean all your business isn't right here I mean, yeah, probably a third um of our distribution.
• 25:25
  Ben Colvin: But I mean we had two weddings that had to get canceled.
• 25:27
  Ben Colvin: They were coming to the venue.
• 25:28
  Ben Colvin: We had two weddings.
• 25:29
  Ben Colvin: We had a bunch of christmas, holiday parties and thanksgiving gatherings, a reunion, you know all kinds of stuff that got lost.
• 25:36
  Ben Colvin: It it was tough.
• 25:37
  Ben Colvin: But you know, we specifically I don't think every business can do this, but we, even before COVID, we built this business intentionally I guess it was meant to be conservative to have sort of different levers we could pull so that we have a, you know, a canned product.
• 25:53
  Ben Colvin: So if COVID hits again I'm not dead in the water.
• 25:57
  Ben Colvin: I got a product that can actually get to the hands of customers, I can distribute across different States.
• 26:00
  Ben Colvin: I got distributors.
• 26:01
  Ben Colvin: But also, if there is a terrible aluminum tariff on China again, I've got more onsite venue relatable stuff that I can pull that lever and increase revenue coming in from that different stream.
• 26:16
  Ben Colvin: And then we started to grow out our canned cocktail program.
• 26:21
  Ben Colvin: So we take our fresh organic farm to can product and blend it with sort of local distilled spirits from friends that do really great spirits here.
• 26:29
  Ben Colvin: It's not very yeah.
• 26:30
  Bill Gilliland: Yeah, no, it's good stuff, yeah.
• 26:31
  Ben Colvin: Yep, and so it's just different levers that you can pull and not everybody can do that.
• 26:35
  Ben Colvin: I understand, but I think it's another sort of uh you know result of trying to plan whether that plan goes sideways or not.
• 26:43
  Ben Colvin: It's trying to build out some plans and contingencies so that if something happens um, I was talking about post-hurricane stuff and brad stolberg, who's local talks I was just tired of this word people throwing around was resiliency.
• 26:56
  Ben Colvin: I get it like I understand that, but I'm not sure people understand the level of resiliency that's kind of required.
• 27:02
  Ben Colvin: And brad talked about it a different way.
• 27:04
  Ben Colvin: He called it, um, rugged flexibility.
• 27:06
  Ben Colvin: He said it's not just being kind of passively resilient, it's like you gotta be rugged, meaning like you can't just like passively do you gotta put on your boots and get dirty and work long days and with no power and no water, and um, yeah, and you gotta be flexible, which means not just responding to things that happen to you, but, um, but re, you know, not reacting to things that happen to you, but responding more of of current events in the, in your economy.
• 27:31
  Ben Colvin: So, um, you know, it's it.
• 27:33
  Ben Colvin: I think it's another way of saying like, ooh, this is going to be bad.
• 27:38
  Ben Colvin: My mom used to say this it drove me nuts.
• 27:40
  Ben Colvin: To just say like, well, you know, life's what you make.
• 27:42
  Ben Colvin: It Drove me nuts.
• 27:44
  Ben Colvin: But at the same time, like you know, I kind of think that's what you're saying is, instead of sitting back and letting things happen and just reacting to the world that happens around you, it's that you got to have your own impact and your own intention on the world and be able to be rugged, get dirty, get down in the mud to clean it up and get it right and react to it, rather than just sit around and let it happen to you.
• 28:09
  Bill Gilliland: Yeah, super cool yeah?
• 28:10
  Bill Gilliland: No, I love that Well, your mom's smart Life is what you make it.
• 28:13
  Bill Gilliland: I mean, there are things outside of our control, but there's a lot we can control.
• 28:18
  Bill Gilliland: Let me wrap it up with this.
• 28:20
  Bill Gilliland: This is something I usually ask almost everybody.
• 28:23
  Bill Gilliland: It's like let's just say what do you wish you had known so before?
• 28:30
  Bill Gilliland: It can be about anything, about business, about life, whatever.
• 28:32
  Bill Gilliland: What do you wish somebody had told you years ago?
• 28:37
  Ben Colvin: you know, what do you wish somebody had told you years ago?
• 28:42
  Ben Colvin: I'll tell you, like I don't know, I'll say the two biggest challenges we've had is COVID and a hurricane.
• 28:49
  Ben Colvin: So we, you know, we founded this company because, you know, in part because we were having our daughter and wanted cleaner, non-alcoholic celebratory options, you know.
• 28:57
  Ben Colvin: So my daughter and my business have both lived through covid and a hurricane and um, and it's really hard to prepare anybody for anything like that.
• 29:07
  Ben Colvin: But, um, but you know, I think we could have, I think we all could have done better coming out of those things.
• 29:14
  Ben Colvin: But I guess if there's anything I would have been told, it's um, you know, be ready for it, be ready for those kinds of things, cause I mean, I think in our minds we all know, you know it can hit the fan at any point, kind of be ready, but until you live through some really big uh, interruptions and disruptions, I'm not sure you really know how flex, how ruggedly flexible you can be.
• 29:37
  Ben Colvin: Otherwise, um, yeah, but I've been been given great advice, you know, and and um, we've had a number of opportunities to sell, investment and and grow faster than than we have, and a lot of it was felt like too much of a giveaway and and and people have always advised us just to be careful about that kind of thing and, looking back, I feel really, really grateful that we had that kind of advice.
• 30:01
  Ben Colvin: I think, um, yeah, you know, I see a lot of entrepreneurs these days that are, um, they're starting out in something and they kind of think it's going to happen overnight.
• 30:10
  Ben Colvin: They're going to build a brand, sell the brand, walk away, something like that and um it, it takes time, it takes patience, it takes, um, you know, some strategy and some some technical work to get there and um.
• 30:24
  Ben Colvin: So, yeah, if anybody taught me anything, I think it's don't expect the, the overnight success.
• 30:30
  Ben Colvin: This isn't a tiktok instagram kind of celebrity growth.
• 30:34
  Ben Colvin: This is you got to really put some time and effort and love into what you do and sacrifice.
• 30:39
  Bill Gilliland: Yeah, what's the saying?
• 30:42
  Bill Gilliland: Most overnight successes take about 15 years.
• 30:44
  Bill Gilliland: Yeah that's true.
• 30:46
  Bill Gilliland: It's something like that.
• 30:48
  Bill Gilliland: Hey this has been awesome.
• 30:49
  Bill Gilliland: This is cool.
• 30:50
  Bill Gilliland: Yeah, I love it.
• 30:51
  Bill Gilliland: I love that it also when you don't take outside money or take less outside money and you maintain control, then you can.
• 31:00
  Bill Gilliland: It's easier to live into those values.
• 31:02
  Bill Gilliland: It's you know you're not stressed about a.
• 31:05
  Bill Gilliland: You know hitting a some sort of a profit goal or something like you can make a decision to make less money in a quarter that you know is going to help you three years from now, which is hard to do when you've got a bunch of outside shareholders screaming for.
• 31:21
  Ben Colvin: Well, and just the idea of it's something you love.
• 31:22
  Ben Colvin: You're trying to maintain some control.
• 31:24
  Ben Colvin: You don't want to lose that and let it go skew and you lose those culture, those values you know.
• 31:30
  Bill Gilliland: Yeah, yeah, I don't think it would.
• 31:31
  Bill Gilliland: Well, hey, this has been fun, ben, thanks for being here, yeah.