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From Wall Street to Wellness: Andy LaPointe's Journey with Traverse Bay Farms | Consumer Products · The Inspired Stories Podcast

0:04
Welcome to another edition of Inspired Stories where leaders
0:07
share their experiences so we can learn from their successes,
0:10
how they've overcome adversity, and explore current challenges
0:13
they're facing. Welcome to another edition of
0:18
the Inspired Stories podcast where leaders share their
0:20
experiences so we can learn from their successes and be inspired
0:24
by how they've overcome adversity.
0:26
My name is Anthony Codispoti and today's guest is Andy Lapointe,
0:30
Co founder of Traverse Bay Farms, a health focused company
0:34
specializing in fruit based products.
0:37
This includes things like fruit concentrates, fruit capsules,
0:40
fruit powders, dried fruits, and many, many other items.
0:44
They are based in Northern Michigan and have won 42
0:48
national food awards at the largest professional food shows
0:52
in America. They've been featured in a
0:54
number of magazine articles, online news stories, and
0:58
included in two nationally published natural health books.
1:02
Their products are distributed in 42 States and five countries.
1:07
Andy has a diverse background as he has a great deal of
1:10
experience in fintech, blockchain and mutual funds.
1:14
He was formerly a Series 7 stockbroker and has a rare blend
1:19
of sales and marketing, creating education systems, financial and
1:23
analytical analysis, e-commerce and public speaking.
1:27
He teaches courses, has written many books.
1:30
He's been interviewed extensively by some of America's
1:34
largest publications on subjects of crypto, small business,
1:37
startup factoring, acquisitions, and exit strategies.
1:42
Now, before we get into all that good stuff, today's episode is
1:45
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1:48
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2:11
Now back to our guest today, the Co founder of Traverse Bay
2:14
Farms, Andy Lapointe. I appreciate you making the time
2:17
to Share your story today. Thanks Anthony.
2:20
I really appreciate you having me out.
2:21
Looking forward to have a great a great podcast.
2:24
All right, so Andy, tell us in your own words, what does
2:28
Traverse Bay Farms do and how did you first get started with
2:31
this? And that's an interesting story.
2:34
Traverse Bay Farms, we're a health and Wellness company that
2:37
offers all natural products, which is with using as much
2:41
locally grown ingredients as possible.
2:44
And being based in Northern Michigan, we're right on the
2:47
45th parallel N, Bel Air Michigan.
2:50
And the 45th parallel N is known as the Goldilocks scenario for
2:54
growing fruits and vegetables. So basically what this means?
2:57
It's not too hot and it's not too cold, and some of the best
3:00
fruits and vegetables are on the planet are grown along the 45th
3:04
parallel N, including Washington apples, grapes out of France to
3:08
make great tasting champagne and wine, as well as Northern
3:12
Michigan with our cherries, apples and Peaches.
3:18
And so and so how did this all come about?
3:20
How did you get, was Traverse Bay Farm something you started
3:23
from scratch or was it something that you bought into?
3:26
How did the idea for all this come along?
3:29
Actually, that's a very interesting point and a very
3:32
interesting question because as you mentioned in the interview,
3:35
the, the, the introduction, I was a Series 7 stockbroker,
3:39
registered investment advisor and a mutual fund wholesaler for
3:42
15 years, traveling 150 nights per years.
3:45
So I spent a lot of nights on the road and the company that I
3:49
was working for was actually headquartered in New York City
3:53
and I was in the World Trade Center about two hours, about
3:56
two weeks before 911. So I spent a lot of time in New
4:00
York walking the Trade Center towers.
4:03
And during that fateful day, I was actually in Covington, KY.
4:08
And being in the financial services industry, it's a very
4:11
small industry. And I knew some folks that
4:14
actually worked in the Trade Center.
4:15
Fortunately, a lot of those individuals did make it out, all
4:18
the individuals that I knew. But as I was driving home from
4:22
Covington, KY back to Bellaire, MI, which is about a six and a
4:25
half seven hour drive, I came up with the idea of #1 Anthony, you
4:31
could have been on those planes or in the towers, or I could
4:33
have been on those planes since I was traveling 150 nights per
4:36
year, 75,000 airline miles. As I was driving back, I made
4:41
the decision to completely alter my lifestyle where I didn't have
4:45
to be on the road anymore. And as I was driving back, we
4:49
came, I came up with the idea of launching Traverse Bay Farms,
4:53
which is the gourmet food company.
4:54
And we can talk a little bit more about that when I was
4:56
younger working in the food industry and the family's
4:59
pizzeria business as well. OK, so the, the inspiration for
5:03
this came out of the tragedy of 9/11 and realizing maybe, hey,
5:09
this all this travel that I've been doing is I don't know,
5:13
maybe I'm not enjoying it Like I, I want a different lifestyle.
5:16
Was that part of what was going on here?
5:19
Absolutely. It's, it's one of those, one of
5:21
those experience in life when you get a whack on the side of
5:23
the head and say, you know what? It, it, it was a turning point
5:26
for my life. And I think everyone goes
5:28
through that at one time or another where something tragic
5:32
or traumatic happens in your life.
5:33
Just a simple experience. And, and for some folks who
5:36
could be driving the car and a deer run out in front of you and
5:39
you hit the brakes or, you know, sort of off into a ditch, those
5:43
traumatic experiences are life altering.
5:46
And for me, that was a very life altering event of taking a look
5:50
at my lifestyle as I was driving back, driving through Ohio with
5:54
Patterson Air Force Base, the planes taking off here and on
5:57
the radio that there's booms going on.
5:59
No one kind of knew what was going on, but they were actually
6:02
Sonic booms as the planes were taking off.
6:04
So it was it was a very interesting experience coming
6:07
back. And all of that led to the
6:10
decision of taking a step back, realizing what was most
6:14
important for my life, my lifestyle as well as my family,
6:18
and how I can use the experience that a had in the corporate
6:22
world and transition to become a lifestyle entrepreneur.
6:25
OK. So it does sound like we need to
6:27
rewind back a little bit further to understand where the idea for
6:30
this came from, because immediately prior to this, you
6:34
were in a completely different world, right?
6:36
You were going to the World Trade Center, you were in the
6:38
financial space, Series 7 stockbroker.
6:42
But it sounds like earlier in your life you had some
6:45
experience in the food industry. Tell me about that.
6:48
Yeah, absolutely. Growing up from 14 to about 18
6:52
years old, I had four uncles that were in the pizza business.
6:56
Actually, they were franchisees for one of the largest pizza
7:00
chains in the US And matter of fact, one of my uncles actually
7:03
grew up with the owner of the pizza franchise, and they were
7:08
actually horse jockeys at the DRC Detroit race course when
7:12
they were 14 years old. So when I was 14, I actually
7:15
grew up in the pizzerias, making pizzas, working the commissary,
7:18
working the dough. But most importantly, that was a
7:22
influence on me in the food industry.
7:25
And what that really showed me to taught me to do is to have
7:29
dedication to work, number one. Number two, the love of food and
7:33
#3 the love of service. Because when you make a pizza,
7:36
when you make a salad, it doesn't matter what you make for
7:40
a customer or your own family. It's actually a a love of
7:43
service because you're actually creating something that you want
7:46
someone else to enjoy. So that kind of instilled on to
7:49
me the love of food and the love of service.
7:51
So that does date back to when I was 14 years old being in the
7:56
food business. So that's that's where my
7:58
experience and the love of food and service really started and
8:02
that's how this cultivated into the Traverse Bay Farms with our
8:06
gourmet food business. So tell me a little bit more
8:09
about love of service. Was that something that was just
8:11
kind of innate to you and your early work experiences, or is
8:13
that something that was passed down to you from a a work mentor
8:17
or a family member? Actually, and that's that's it.
8:20
It was from my from my grandmother, Ma Mae.
8:24
She was French Canadian actually my great great grandmother was a
8:30
Ojibwa Indian, and my grand, my great great grandfather, was a
8:35
French fur trader. So they migrated from Canada
8:39
down to northern Michigan over the generations.
8:41
And Mae, she spoke broken English, mostly French.
8:44
I don't speak French as much as I probably should, less name of
8:48
Lapointe, but Mae Mae, she actually taught us the love of
8:53
family as well as the love of food.
8:55
As matter of fact, Mamay and my cousin, the one who was one of
8:59
the franchisees for the pizzeria business, they actually shared
9:02
A10 acre plot and we had apple trees, Peach trees, grapes, a
9:08
family community garden where we'd go over every Sunday, pick
9:12
all of the stuff out of the garden, all of the apples, all
9:16
the cherries. And we'd sit in Mamay's porch
9:18
and she would just talk about food.
9:19
She would talk about different things, about pulling us
9:22
together. And she always loved to cook.
9:25
So I think that was ingrained into me for the love of service
9:28
and all those warm memories of growing up, being in the kitchen
9:32
with Mamay and helping her cook, but most importantly enjoying
9:35
those great recipes from from my grandmother when we were
9:40
younger. That's a great story.
9:42
As someone whose own grandmother had a big influence on him, that
9:45
just that sort of warms my heart hearing you talk about yours.
9:49
OK. So love of service, love of food
9:53
cultivated at an early age, big life, smack upside the head kind
9:58
of moment coming, driving back on, you know, 9/11 and
10:02
realizing, hey, I want to do something different with my
10:04
life. And so then connect the dots a
10:05
little bit more for me. Like what?
10:07
What were the first steps to actually get Traverse Bay Farms
10:10
launched? The we the company started in
10:13
2001 and being in Northern Michigan, we had access to a lot
10:18
of the co-ops, we had a lot access to a lot of the farmers
10:21
where all of the produce was being grown and at our
10:27
fingertips basically. So that allowed us in 2001 and
10:30
September 12th we actually started.
10:32
The concept started on September 11th.
10:34
On September 12th, we actually started the business and
10:37
launched it. And then in 2009, I stepped away
10:41
from the corporate world full time to work on my business full
10:44
time. So it did take us 8 years to
10:46
transition. So from that eight years of 2001
10:50
to 2009, we transitioned. Our first product was a cherry
10:53
juice concentrate which was made with Michigan Montmorency
10:57
cherries, helps with maintaining natural joint health and such.
11:00
And then we moved on to different fruit based products.
11:04
And what we wanted to do is not only use as much locally grown
11:07
produce as possible in all of our fruits and all of our
11:10
products, which includes the fruits and vegetables, because
11:12
we knew the farmers and the growers.
11:14
But more importantly, to help share the story of Northern
11:17
Michigan of having some of the best produce not only in the
11:20
region but also in the US being right on the 45th parallel
11:24
north. And so your goal was to use as
11:27
much locally grown fruit as possible.
11:29
That's it was important to you, important to the identity of the
11:32
brand known as Traverse Bay Farms.
11:35
I'm going to assume that you were using a probably contract
11:37
manufacturers then to take the fruit and process it the way
11:41
that you guys wanted it, you know, first into the the juice
11:44
product and then later into other things.
11:47
At first we did from that standpoint because as we were
11:50
growing the business, we wanted to #1 have a proof of concept
11:55
where we did have recipes. And the recipes really date back
11:59
to on my grandmother's porch, you know, cinnamon, pickled baby
12:02
beets, bread and butter Pickles. That kind of dated back to those
12:07
concepts and ideas of doing that.
12:09
And a matter of fact, talking about recipes, I still remember
12:12
when I was younger towards the later years of my grandmother's
12:16
life, she would pull all of our aunts in, some of our uncles and
12:20
we'd sit on her porch and each one of my aunts and some of my
12:24
uncles had a three ring binder and Mae would share family
12:28
recipes, all just verbally spoken.
12:31
And everyone would write it down.
12:33
And you know, then you'd photocopy them and give them to
12:35
give them to everyone else on the porch.
12:37
So that's where some of the recipes actually originated
12:39
from. And I still have those fond
12:41
memories of the closeness that food brought our family together
12:46
and sitting on that porch. And most importantly is that
12:49
open communication because when you really think about it,
12:51
Anthony, food is the only product in the world that is
12:56
actually invited into every single experience of us as
13:01
individuals, from funerals to births to weddings to
13:07
graduations. That's the only product that is
13:10
invited into all of those moments, important moments of
13:14
life. So my dedication to service
13:18
means when we approach a recipe from the very beginning using
13:23
proof of concept and as we grew the company every all the magic
13:27
happens in Bel Air now. But as we grew the company, what
13:30
that meant us and allowed us to do is really have that company
13:35
culture of understanding for our mission and our employees that
13:39
we are a very important part of our customers lives.
13:43
We're just not putting food in a jar and what I could what I'd
13:47
really like to stress with your with your listeners is no matter
13:51
what you do in for for a career, everything you do in life
13:55
touches a customer touches somebody else and approaching
13:58
that, as you know, we are invited into important decision,
14:02
retirement decisions, estate planning decisions, taking that
14:07
love and expanding that into that relationship or that that
14:11
meeting with a client. That's the difference between
14:14
adding genuine value add or just being another individual,
14:19
helping them reach their goals. And that's when you really deep
14:21
down able to reach down deep and really make that personal
14:25
connection. And for us since 2001, and for
14:28
me even, yes, it was with financial services, but with
14:32
food, it is taking me to that next level because it's every
14:36
single event of a person's lives from as I mentioned, wedding,
14:40
birth to death, graduations and all the other important events
14:43
of someone's life. I really like all that, Andy,
14:45
because it's not it's, it's clear that there's a passion for
14:48
you that goes deeper than just, hey, I've got a great product to
14:51
sell. And I think that's, that's a
14:54
fine way to approach a business, right?
14:55
I mean, you know, you want to develop a good product, you want
14:58
to get out there, you want to sell it and market it and
14:59
distribute it. But it's clear to, you know,
15:02
listening to you that there's a, there's a, a deeper purpose and
15:05
a, and a passion behind what you're doing, which I have to
15:08
assume shows up. And not only, you know, how your
15:12
employees come to work and how they approach their own work,
15:15
but also, you know, as customers interact with you and your staff
15:19
that that's something that has to rub off on them as well.
15:23
So I would guess that you've probably got, you know, at this
15:26
point, you know, 27 years later, you know, a pretty solid base of
15:30
loyal customers who really respond to that type of
15:33
messaging. Absolutely.
15:35
And most important is the when we reach out to our customers,
15:40
it's more as as you mentioned Anthony, it's more than here's a
15:44
new product, we want you to buy it from us.
15:47
Here's a new product, Yes, it is.
15:49
But this new product and for example, in today's day and age,
15:53
you have high inflation, high prices, folks are on limited
15:56
budget just because all of us are getting squeezed all over.
16:00
So what we try to do with all of our products and then a new
16:03
product, because having a new product and asking someone to
16:06
try something new, it's a big risk on our part, but more
16:09
importantly on the customer's part, because they're taking
16:13
something of value, which is their money.
16:15
They've gone to work, spent an hour out of their time earning
16:18
50 or $100 or 20 bucks an hour. It doesn't matter.
16:22
They took an hour out of their time and we're asking them to
16:25
give part of that money or value of their life to us.
16:30
So what we try to do with all of our new products is number one,
16:33
offer the product which is outstanding winner of 42
16:36
national food Awards. So we have proven we can do
16:38
that. But more importantly we want to
16:41
share with our customers how they can use that product with
16:44
every meal of the day, breakfast, lunch, dinner,
16:47
snacks. So what that allows us to do is,
16:50
again, add that value because we have a quarter jar of cherry
16:54
salsa. You don't want to eat salsa and
16:56
chips every night, although it's good and it is a national award
16:59
winner. Shameless plug there.
17:00
But more importantly, how do I enjoy that with breakfast?
17:03
So we do include a free downloadable recipe cookbook
17:07
that includes all of our products for breakfast, lunch
17:09
and dinner. Cherry salsa on a breakfast
17:10
burrito. You can do cherry salsa on a
17:13
meatloaf for, for example, meatloaf is traditionally a
17:18
tomato based product. You have meat and tomatoes
17:21
basically with cherry salsa, you can put a trench down the top of
17:24
the meatloaf, pour some cherry salsa in there, which is that
17:27
last quarter of the jar. And as that meatloaf cooks, that
17:31
cherry salsa is going to kind of seep through the middle of that
17:33
meatloaf. So you have kind of like a
17:35
cherry meatloaf Danish, which is excellent, but more but most
17:40
important, it shows the value add for our customers.
17:43
Again, we're not just not showing them sharing a product,
17:46
we want to share an experience that our customers can enjoy
17:49
with every meal of the day and every event of their lives as
17:52
well. So talk to me about how you got
17:54
from 2001, 9/11, 2001 to here we are, you know, 23 years later,
18:02
what were sort of the, the big levers, the big moments in the
18:05
growth trajectory of the business, you know, were you
18:08
guys? I'm thinking particularly about,
18:11
you know, sales and marketing. Were you guys focused a lot on E
18:14
com early on? Was it a lot of like, you know,
18:18
big box distribution? What what was kind of the
18:21
strategy, what what really helped you guys get where you
18:23
are today? The strategy 100% was E com
18:27
because coming into the gourmet food business or any food
18:31
business for example. And since we're, we're talking
18:34
about the food business, it's really hard to get shelf space
18:38
even at being a, a specialty brand like we are the local
18:41
grocery stores, they only have, you know, this much self space
18:44
and they already have six or eight different products in
18:46
there that are proven sellers. So our whole strategy was go
18:50
direct to the customer, B to C. And what that allowed us to do
18:54
is, number one, have an increased profit margin compared
18:57
to having a distributor and wholesaler in place #2 it
19:00
allowed us to tell our story directly to the consumer and
19:04
build that loyal customer base. But most importantly #3 it
19:08
allowed us to take our brand and build it and shape it and mold
19:13
it to how we wanted to do it rather than just having a
19:17
product on the shelf. And E com was very new at that
19:20
time. And I mean, this was nineteen,
19:23
2001. I mean those bills pretty new
19:26
You still, I think you still had pets.com.
19:28
You had to build your own shopping cart back then there.
19:31
There was no Shopify. Yeah.
19:33
No, yeah. And actually when I was, when I
19:36
was travelling, wholesaling, the one way I leveraged my time when
19:39
I got back to the hotel at night, I actually built, I
19:44
actually built my first website on Geocities, if anybody
19:47
remembers that. Oh yeah, I'm I'm that old.
19:51
Yeah, I remember, you know, Yep, with the purple flashing signs
19:55
that everyone thought was the best, best, best sliced bread at
20:00
the time. But that was the first site.
20:02
It was Geocities. So it was absolutely econ #1 But
20:06
what really took off was research started to come out
20:11
about the natural health benefits of Montmorency
20:13
cherries, Michigan grown Montmorency cherries and.
20:17
One of the websitesmsn.com did a story about the health benefits
20:20
of Mount Morenci cherries, and it just so happened we were
20:24
referred to the journalist reporter.
20:28
I don't know what term you'd use way back then, who actually
20:31
wrote that article. And we were included in that MSN
20:34
article as one of the sources for Tart Cherry.
20:37
And come to find out, the journalist was referred to us by
20:40
a friend of a friend or a customer or something, but we
20:43
were actually included in that. And that really took offs and we
20:48
were we that really helped us with sales proof concept, but
20:51
more importantly getting the product at the marketplace.
20:54
Wow, you know, and it's, it's interesting.
20:57
I wonder what your trajectory would have looked like without
20:59
that article. Maybe still would have been very
21:02
successful, but could have taken longer.
21:04
But it's interesting. I've been involved with
21:06
businesses my myself where just, you know, one press mention can
21:11
be enough to get you sort of on the way and you know, that you
21:16
can sort of ride the Crest of that way.
21:19
Unfortunately, that was that was really that was very early in
21:22
our in our growth. And what that basically allowed
21:26
us to do is number one, of course with the with the growth
21:31
that allowed us to go to some local grocery stores and
21:33
starting to put our product on the shelves in local grocery
21:37
stores. But Anthony, that came with
21:39
another challenge because if we're making cherry salsa, for
21:43
example, there were six or eight other companies that are also
21:47
making cherry salsa in Northern Michigan.
21:49
So for a gourmet food company or excuse me, for a supermarket to
21:53
take off a good selling cherry salsa product and put an unknown
21:57
like ours, what we decided to do rather than beat our head
22:00
against the wall is number one, create a Raspberry salsa or a
22:05
black bean salsa using raspberries or black beans.
22:08
Michigan is one of the top growing black bean states in the
22:11
nation. So rather than trying to bump
22:13
another skew off, we went to the store managers and said, you
22:16
know what, you already have a cherry salsa.
22:19
How about a black bean salsa? You don't have that.
22:21
So that allowed them to expand their their salsa selection to
22:27
their customers, but that also allowed us to start getting our
22:29
skews onto the shelf with our, with our different product line.
22:33
Because why butt heads against a leader in the marketplace when
22:37
you can strategically come around, come alongside, and be
22:41
on the same shelf space as them without trying to knock them
22:44
off? Because the buyer's simply not
22:45
going to do. It yeah.
22:46
So how does the sales percentage wise breakdown now E com versus
22:50
brick and mortar? Actually, the brick and mortar
22:54
right now, we have wholesalers, which is direct to the stores.
22:58
Then we have distributors, which is distributors sell to the
23:02
stores. A lot of our business is direct
23:05
to the consumer, number one, but we are distributed in 42 States
23:09
and that's through the very strong relationships we do have
23:12
with our distributors and wholesalers.
23:14
And the benefit about having a Business Today, no matter what
23:18
business you're in, you have the ability to offer your products
23:22
online, of course, distribution and wholesale.
23:26
And for example, Fair faire.com is a online website that allows
23:32
specialty food companies such as mine to list their products and
23:36
stores across the nation can pick it up.
23:38
So it's the leverage opportunity today is absolutely fantastic.
23:41
But back to your original question, we do have a very
23:44
strong online presence #1A very strong distribution presence,
23:48
being in 42 states as well as five countries internationally.
23:53
And so from that standpoint, we're, you know, probably 1/3, a
23:56
third a third. So what we never wanted to do is
23:59
be relying upon 1 income source. We wanted to have multiple
24:04
streams of income, having multiple relationships because
24:06
to be quite honest, in the summertime, a lot of folks are
24:09
not shopping online. They're out at the beach,
24:11
they're on their boat, they're at the cabin.
24:13
So the online sales historically go down, but the nice thing
24:17
about that being in the stores, they're on the beach, they're on
24:20
the, they're at the cabin, they're on the boat, they go to
24:22
the local retail stores and they buy our products.
24:24
So the online sales, they're in the summer like this and the
24:29
like that and then the summer sales for our distribution are
24:31
like that. So it offsets us.
24:33
So we're still meeting in that fulcrum sweet spot in the
24:37
marketplace. That's why we have multiple
24:38
streams of income. That's great.
24:40
Andy, talk to me about the importance to you of approaching
24:45
work with purpose and avoiding sort of the busy work that can
24:52
trap a lot of us. And that, and that's a great
24:55
question. I know busy work is very easy to
24:58
do, especially in today's day and age.
25:01
I mean, you have your, your mobile phone, you have your
25:05
social media, your emails going off, you're getting 20 spam
25:10
calls an hour like we do all the time and you're trying to stay
25:13
on track. And what I'd, what I'd suggest
25:17
is your listeners, grab a pencil and a piece of paper or on your
25:22
type of writer, write down two things.
25:25
What is my long term goals and what are my lifetime goals?
25:31
Although they sound similar, they're completely different.
25:34
Long term goals are I want to buy a house in five years, I
25:38
want to be debt free in two years.
25:39
I want to, you know, pay off the kids College in six years or
25:43
whatever it is. Those are long term goals and
25:46
they do have deadlines. I want to pay off the house in
25:49
five years, be debt free in five years, so on and so forth.
25:51
But a lifetime goal is a goal that you must accomplish.
25:57
And a lifetime goal is the overarching lifestyle or goal
26:03
that you have for yourself and your family.
26:06
And for example, my lifetime goal is a lifestyle, and my
26:11
lifestyle is to be a lifestyle entrepreneur, which you create
26:16
the lifestyle that you want for you and your family, no matter
26:19
what that lifestyle is. And then you create the income
26:23
to support that lifestyle no matter what that lifestyle is.
26:27
For me, it's about lifestyle. So what that means is I need to
26:31
be focused on #1 multiple streams of income to support
26:35
that lifestyle and the freedom and flexibility, because that's
26:38
a lifetime goal for me #2 I need to, excuse me, I need to start
26:44
to keep saying I need to. But the point of matter is my
26:47
focus is to focus on what allows me as a person to become what I
26:54
agreed to with God or the universe before I came to this
26:59
realm. What was my mission before I
27:01
came to this realm? And when you really think about
27:04
that, take a step back and really think about what did I
27:07
want to become before I came to this realm?
27:10
And the best way to do that is to look back at the activities
27:14
we did as kids. Because a lot of times when we
27:17
were young, we were carefree. We're 7-8 and 10 and 12 years
27:21
old. We love to draw.
27:22
We love to go fast on our motorbikes, We love to, you
27:27
know, build forts. We love to whatever we wanted to
27:31
do at that time. But when you really think about
27:33
it, that's your true passion. And over life, we get lost into
27:37
trying to make a living. We go out and we get whatever
27:39
job we can. I mean, again, for me, the love
27:44
of service, which translated into food with my grandmother
27:48
Mamey. But #2 I enjoyed numbers, I
27:51
enjoyed finance, I really liked not so much counting pennies and
27:56
stuff like that, but how to make those pennies grow for me.
28:00
I just like that. And with my, with my lifestyle,
28:03
I kind of weaved and stayed within that path.
28:06
Not to say like all of us, you know, you make, we make mistakes
28:09
along the way and lose three or five years of our lives by doing
28:13
busy work. Go back to your original
28:14
question, what is your lifetime goals and what are your long
28:18
term goals? Because the long term goals
28:20
funnel up into your lifetime goals.
28:23
So what advice would you give somebody, you know, who's trying
28:27
to figure out, you know, what that you're talking about going
28:31
back to, you know, what was your purpose before you came here and
28:33
like, thinking about what you enjoyed doing as a kid?
28:35
And you're like, I don't know, I, you know, played football in
28:39
the backyard, But that doesn't really help me sort of with a, a
28:41
career path here. What?
28:43
What sort of coaching could you give there?
28:47
The best thing to do is go into the silence, where you go into
28:52
the silence, you turn off the phone, you turn off all your
28:54
social media communication, you turn everything off and you sit
28:58
still. And by doing that, that allows
29:02
you to calm the mind, calm the body.
29:07
And what is amazing about the silence is you don't have to say
29:12
anything about the silence. Let the silence come to you.
29:15
And what I mean by that, just let your mind wander and doing
29:20
this two and three and four days and five days because it does
29:23
take 21 days to create a new habit.
29:26
Doing this consistently, 5 and 10 minutes every single morning,
29:29
that will allow you to see a consistency and a pattern of
29:34
thoughts that are coming into your mind, motivation and
29:37
encouragement that is coming to you from the silence because
29:40
it's very easy to get caught up into the world.
29:43
So what I would suggest is sit down, take a step back, turn
29:47
everything off 1015 minutes, especially in the morning.
29:51
Wake up in the morning, go into a quiet room, go into your
29:55
office, turn everything off and just sit and think.
29:59
Secondly, have a pen and paper next to you, or you don't want
30:03
to turn on your computer because of pen and paper.
30:05
There's research that suggests that the action of the hand as
30:09
you're writing actually connects the brain to the hand and the
30:12
hand to the brain and allows you to think deeper.
30:15
It's the motion of the hand of writing.
30:17
So pencil and paper, take a step back into the silence for 21
30:22
days, 5 to 10 minutes a day, which isn't that much.
30:25
And take a step back and write down the thoughts that come to
30:29
you. So #1 that'll give you guidance
30:32
if you're like, you know, I really don't know what I'm
30:35
interested in or what I should be doing.
30:37
But more importantly, that allows you to take a step back
30:40
and kind of hone in your interest #1 your special talent
30:44
and skills #2. And Anthony, you mentioned when
30:47
you're a kid loving throwing a football outside that really
30:51
does have a small inclination or small direction because #1 that
30:57
may mean you're not meant to be sitting in an office number two
31:00
or a hybrid job or #3 as a coaching job or number four.
31:06
That could be something where you'd like to work physically
31:08
with your hands. So little activities like that
31:12
take, take a step back and say, you know what, I like this.
31:14
I like throwing a football in the backyard.
31:16
What does that really mean? As I mentioned, like working
31:18
with my hands, potential coaching, not working in office,
31:21
having a hybrid job. So what that does that allows
31:24
you to focus your activities in and most importantly, allows you
31:28
to take a step back and say, you know what, What I'm doing now is
31:31
exactly what I should be doing, what it's meant to do.
31:34
I never thought about that way or what I'm doing right now is
31:37
maybe only 5060% of what I should be doing.
31:40
And that allows you to focus into your lifetime and goals
31:43
rather than your long term goals.
31:45
So we've been talking mostly about Traverse Bay Farms up to
31:48
this point, but you've got a really interesting history
31:53
before that and, and parallel to it, are you still doing a lot of
31:57
education and coaching and public speaking?
32:00
Is that still part of your life? Yes it is.
32:03
Yes, it is because the, the benefit about educating and
32:08
coaching and speaking, if you do it with your children or if you
32:12
do it to get paid or no matter how you do it, I mean, Anthony,
32:16
you're, we're coaching right now.
32:17
What that allows you to do is express your expertise #1 but
32:22
more importantly, it allows you to give back to the world, to
32:24
the greater universe. And by approaching it as I am
32:28
coaching my children, I'm coaching my grandchildren, I am
32:31
coaching for Big Brothers and Big Sisters, I'm in encouraging
32:34
them. It allows you to give back to
32:36
the world because what that always allows you to do is have
32:40
a sense of give back, appreciation and gratitude.
32:44
Rather than saying I'm only doing everything in this world
32:46
for me, me, me, me, me, me. It's more importantly, I gives
32:51
you the satisfaction of knowing that the universe is out there
32:54
and everything you put out into the universe from encouraging
32:58
and coaching, it allows you to have appreciation and gratitude
33:01
and more appreciation and gratitude that you have in your
33:03
life. I believe it allows you to
33:06
really calm your mind, calm your body, and most importantly,
33:10
allow you to really focus in what's most important to you,
33:13
your lifetime goals and your lifetime goals allows you to
33:17
give back to the universe and giving back to the universe is
33:20
your kids, somebody you don't know and you we don't know how
33:24
we're going to affect other people.
33:25
Someone could be listening to this podcast, Anthony, or any of
33:28
your other podcasts. So you know what?
33:30
That was an hot moment. That's exactly what I needed in
33:33
my life. And that's by us coaching, by
33:37
us, giving back to the community, giving back to quote
33:39
UN quote, the universe because we don't know how it's going to
33:42
affect us. And we've all heard stories and
33:44
seen movies and such where someone's been affected in such
33:48
a positive life in a positive way, somewhere down their life,
33:51
it actually comes back to us in a very unknown or small way.
33:55
We don't know how it's going to come back to us.
33:57
It could be 6° of separation or 1° of separation.
34:00
But the approaching it as appreciation and gratitude and
34:04
giving back. And again, that allows us to
34:06
create calmness not only for ourselves, but also to achieve
34:11
our lifetime goals. So talk to me a little bit more
34:14
about some of your financial background is Series 7
34:17
stockbroker. You were, you know, going to New
34:20
York City, you were traveling a lot, speaking a lot.
34:23
You know, looking at your profile, I see, you know, a
34:26
background in crypto and blockchain and kind of help me
34:29
wrap my arms around that part of Andy Lapointe.
34:35
That's a, that's a really good question because most important,
34:40
everyone has opportunities in their lives to to look at and
34:44
focus on, but as long as they dovetail together, that's where
34:48
you're able to take the experiences from one part of
34:51
your life and use it in a different part of your lives.
34:53
For example, with crypto, I actually learned about crypto
34:57
way, way, way blockchain way back when.
35:00
And 2013, I was actually sitting with a friend of mine who was a
35:05
sushi chef at one of the local sushi bars and he was taking a
35:09
break. We're having to take a break.
35:10
He's like, he's like, hey, did you ever hear about something
35:12
called blockchain? I'm like, no, I never heard
35:16
anything about blockchain because you ever hear Bitcoin?
35:19
I'm like, no, I never heard about Bitcoin.
35:21
So basically my introduction to Bitcoin was over a California
35:26
roll and some sake at a sushi bar back in 2013.
35:31
So the way that dovetailed in that was from my experience as a
35:35
financial advisor from 15 years in the corporate world.
35:38
I'm like, you know what, what is blockchain?
35:40
What is crypto? Because with crypto that's
35:42
basically digital money. And in my mind, that equated to
35:45
financial advice, financial advising, corporate consulting,
35:49
mutual fund wholesaling. And then from a blockchain
35:52
standpoint, that was authenticity, transparency, as
35:56
well as integrity of transactions.
36:00
You didn't have a third party affecting transactions or any
36:05
fraudulent attempt because the blockchain and coming from being
36:07
trained in the financial services, everything was about
36:10
compliance. In my mind, everything is about
36:12
compliance today. Where you do have certain guide
36:14
rails, you have to stay in those guide rails.
36:16
And when you do stay in those guide rails, you can actually
36:19
move faster forward than you could if you try to go outside,
36:24
you know, the norms of society or anything like that.
36:26
So the blockchain that really caught my interest from from
36:29
that standpoint. And so talk to me about the
36:33
kinds of people that you're generally speaking to, whether
36:36
it's in smaller group or one-on-one coaching or it's the
36:41
the courses that you're putting out there or the public speaking
36:45
that you're doing. Who's the audience that's
36:47
generally receiving this? Are they just kind of your
36:50
average Joe? Are they small business owners?
36:53
Large business owners kind of paint a picture for me.
36:57
Well, my, my, one of my first courses on Udemy, for example,
37:01
was an introduction to cryptocurrency and blockchain
37:05
and that created that back in about 2015.
37:09
And to answer your secondary question, most of it is
37:13
one-on-one. When I do individual consulting
37:16
is one-on-one number two course consulting where they've
37:19
purchased my courses on Udemy or on Amazon.
37:23
For example, my daughter and I wrote a series of Bitcoin books.
37:28
The first one is Bitcoin Smart Kids and it's simply a 1518 page
37:33
book teaching the very basics of Bitcoin to children.
37:38
And it doesn't matter when I say children, doesn't matter what
37:40
age you are, because I think we're all children to a certain
37:42
degree. And what that because if you can
37:45
teach a very complex subject simply that means you truly
37:48
understand it. So my daughter and I, when she
37:51
was 1615, we wrote Blockchain Smart kids talks about
37:57
blockchain or Bitcoin. What is it?
37:59
Then we did metaverse Smart kids talks about the metaverse
38:02
because she was interested in the metaverse.
38:04
Then we did blockchain smart kids.
38:05
It talked about the blockchain, the hash rate, explaining it at
38:09
a elementary level so anyone could pick it up.
38:12
I had financial advisors that actually bought all courses, all
38:15
three of those, all four of my books, and they actually called
38:19
me up and say, Andy, this is, you know, so and so just wanted
38:22
to let you know I read your books before I do a presentation
38:25
to my clients about Bitcoin because I really don't know what
38:27
they are because they're so simple.
38:29
So it allows them to explain it to their clients on a very
38:33
elementary basis. So #2 that is the, the books
38:39
that we write #3 as I mentioned, one-on-one for small business
38:43
owners. And then because the way I
38:48
approach everything is whenever we create a course or a guide to
38:52
teach somebody else, and whenever we learn a new subject,
38:56
no, no matter what it is, it's always good to approach it as
39:00
being a teacher. So for example, when I first
39:03
started learning about Bitcoin, I had no clue what it was
39:06
because like I said, I was eating California roll.
39:08
I had some sake and that was a great, great dinner.
39:11
But when I went back is OK. How do I explain it to other
39:15
people? And one of the best ways to
39:17
create a course, and if I could pass along to your listeners, is
39:20
to when you create a course or a book, write it as, of course, as
39:25
if you were being a teacher #1 because you have to know your
39:29
course material better than your students.
39:31
So whenever you approach something new, you want to learn
39:34
all the material as if you were a teacher, then you basically
39:38
funnel that back and make that into the final course that you
39:42
have. But whenever you learn a new
39:43
topic, what you want to do is approach it as being a teacher
39:47
so you learn the best of it. So when you have a consulting
39:50
session with a client, you are able to answer those questions
39:53
that they may not know the need to ask, and you're answering
39:56
those questions before they ask them.
39:57
And so the the folks that you're coaching or the folks that you
40:02
know are taking your coaching and then passing it along to
40:04
their clients, what's the context of it?
40:06
Are they trying to teach them how to invest in crypto?
40:11
Are they trying to give them advice on maybe other real world
40:15
applications of blockchain? What?
40:17
What does all that look like? Well, from the crypto
40:20
standpoint, the crypto are mostly courses in books and for
40:25
example, I'm a equity investor in a crypto education startup
40:31
company based out of Vancouver. So we're about 3 years old now.
40:35
We're going through the going through the steps of bringing
40:38
those courses to public. So I'm also investor in a crypto
40:42
startup education company too from that standpoint.
40:45
And then from my experience of creating the courses as well as
40:51
bringing that and doing presentations to clients, that's
40:54
where the company that comes into it.
40:56
So from that standpoint, we're teaching investment advisors
41:00
specifically how to present crypto blockchain to the clients
41:05
so the clients can make intelligent investment decisions
41:08
into Ethereum and to block Bitcoin, as well as what is
41:14
blockchain as the underlying backbone for cryptocurrencies.
41:19
So from that standpoint, that is an educational standpoint that
41:22
is for institutional clients. So aside from sort of the
41:27
speculative element that goes along with crypto, where what
41:32
what do you think are some of the near term applications for
41:36
crypto and blockchain in general?
41:40
Well, blockchain in general, of course, is the underlying
41:44
authority of cryptocurrencies. And for example, I have a
41:50
company called AG Tracer and it's a blockchain based company.
41:54
And what AG Tracer basically does is we are building this out
41:59
and it allows farmers and growers to record onto the
42:04
blockchain when their crops were harvested, how their crops were
42:08
grown, if they're using pesticides, if they're organic,
42:12
number one, and then #2 they can place that information out of
42:16
the blockchain. So that allows a consumer the
42:18
trust of knowing how the produce has grown, how the product has
42:22
grown, when it was harvested, as well as each distribution point
42:26
along the way. And the proof of concept, for
42:29
example, is Traverse Bay Farms. So what we're doing is we're
42:33
going through the proof of concept now where we basically
42:36
say, OK, we're taking these ingredients in, we're putting it
42:38
onto the blockchain. These are the ingredients is
42:41
this is the manufacturer date, this is the storage date.
42:46
Then it went to this wholesale company, this distributing
42:49
company, and then the store puts it on their shelf.
42:52
So it basically has a traceability factor from batch
42:57
all the way to product. But more importantly, as you go
43:00
to farmers markets too, AG Tracer will allow farmers to do
43:04
the exact same thing. They have a produce that was
43:07
just harvested last weekend. You have a farmers market on
43:09
Friday. They'll have that black chain
43:11
application where someone can take their smartphone, hit the
43:15
QR code and it'll show exact traceability from harvest all
43:19
the way to sitting in front of the farm stand at the at the
43:23
local farmers market. So there's a lot of flexibility,
43:25
but anything that has to do with blockchain, with the
43:28
traceability and the trust factor, that's most important.
43:31
And crypto is a secondary component because blockchain is
43:34
the underlying focus. Cryptocurrency is from a, from
43:38
an investment standpoint, it's a risky investment #1
43:41
diversification department number 2.
43:43
But also you do have to do your research when you do start
43:45
selecting the different cryptocurrencies out there.
43:48
Because you know, back in 2013 there were Bitcoin, Ethereum
43:53
wasn't even there. You had Litecoin, you had maybe
43:57
two or three dozen cryptocurrencies out there.
43:59
I think now you have 10,000 plus cryptocurrencies out there.
44:03
So research is most importantly from that standpoint, but it all
44:06
goes back to the underlying blockchain of those
44:08
cryptocurrencies. So you're in the proof of
44:10
concept stage for AG Tracer that you just described.
44:13
Now when will a customer be able to see that QR code on a label
44:19
and and see it for the first time that that chain of custody?
44:24
We're we're looking at probably second quarter of 2025.
44:27
OK. All right.
44:28
So we're getting closer here we are.
44:30
We're recording this in Q3 of 2024, so not too far off.
44:35
What are some of the bridges that still need to happen for
44:39
you to get there? What what are some of the
44:40
challenges that you're working through?
44:42
A lot of it is #1. Anytime you make a company, of
44:46
course you have to add the value add for the, for the client, you
44:50
have to have the value add for the consumer #2 is how does a
44:53
company make a profit? That's, that's the point that
44:56
we're working at. And there's a couple different
44:59
business models that I prefer not to go into on this podcast
45:03
that we're looking at. But there are some different
45:06
business models that we are looking at from a revenue
45:10
generation source and you know, subscription base, of course #1
45:15
print on demand #2 there are some, there's two or three
45:19
different models we're looking at.
45:20
So that's the that, that's the different branches that we're
45:23
looking at now. So proof of concept is probably
45:25
about 70 to 80% done. So to make sure that we're going
45:28
back, we're in the alpha stage right now.
45:30
Of course, then you have the beta stage.
45:32
And then from what we're doing now, it's more importantly how
45:37
we're going to have income created so we can maintain the
45:39
viability of the company and most importantly, build the
45:42
company into the future. What is the What's the
45:46
underlying tech? Well, we have the blockchain as
45:50
the underlying tech from that standpoint.
45:51
If I can never just go into that right now.
45:54
If you don't. Mind.
45:54
Absolutely. Yeah, well, we'll have you back
45:56
on to to talk about it when the time is right.
45:59
Yeah, we're looking at the second quarter of 2025 S about
46:02
six months. OK, what?
46:05
Those pretty exciting times. Yeah, very exciting.
46:07
What, what other fun things are you involved with in the sort of
46:10
blockchain crypto? It doesn't even have to be sort
46:13
of this new tech like because I know you've got a, a long
46:16
standing background and mutual funds and wholesaling and you
46:20
had your series 7. And what, what other kind of fun
46:23
things are you involved with and sort of the whole financial
46:26
realm? Well, that's from the financial
46:31
realm. When I was when I was travelling
46:36
150 nights per year, 75,000 airline miles.
46:41
So if I can back up just a little bit and what else am I
46:43
doing? One of the catalysts for a book
46:47
that I wrote called Up North Dream, the guide to moving to
46:49
Northern Michigan was I was sitting on a plane usually on
46:55
Thursday night or Friday night, flying back from wherever in one
46:58
of the seven states that I covered.
47:00
And the people next to me, oh, you know, where do you live?
47:02
You know, the standard sitting seat mate conversation and a lot
47:07
of the people said, Hey, you live in Northern Michigan.
47:09
How can you live in Northern Michigan and still have an
47:12
income with what with what you want to do?
47:14
How do you make a living in Northern Michigan?
47:16
And this was before COVID. This was before work from home
47:19
became popular. This was before everyone moved
47:21
to their second home, so their primary homes.
47:23
So one thing that I focused on and one thing that I still focus
47:27
on is how to design that lifestyle and up north dream.
47:32
The guy that moved to Northern Michigan was actually a catalyst
47:35
of those seat conversations. And you mentioned, how does it
47:38
all tie into financial, my financial services background,
47:41
The financial services background allowed me to really
47:44
get into the personal and intimate moments of a lot of
47:47
people's lives, just like food does.
47:49
Because when you think about it, when you're sitting across the
47:51
table from a client and I've heard things that they didn't
47:55
even share with their spouses. I heard thing that you know
47:59
someone's someone has $1,000,000 to invest.
48:01
Come to find out that their spouse is cheating on them,
48:03
their kids are on drugs. They're doing this, they're
48:05
doing that and they've never told anyone else this, but
48:08
having that confidence of sitting across the table for
48:13
someone they have, they're more than likely they're disclosing
48:15
that. Just like when you go to your
48:16
doctor, you're disclosing information.
48:18
So my Up North Dream book, that lifestyle book allowed me to use
48:23
that financial services background to write a step by
48:26
step guide how to move to Northern Michigan.
48:29
And I actually taught classes in the Detroit area because most of
48:33
the people moved to Northern Michigan at that time lived in
48:35
the Detroit area. And I taught evening classes,
48:39
people who pay $150.00 an hour, it'd be an hour course, 150
48:43
bucks, I'd sell out using the adult community education
48:47
courses where they'd go through the adult community education
48:50
course. So they'd take my course for 150
48:52
bucks and there'd be 30 people in the class and that's get half
48:55
of that. And I did that for about four or
48:57
five years using the extra time and leveraging my time.
49:00
So that's how everything kind of dovetails in together of taking
49:04
a step back using my financial services background and writing
49:07
that step by step guide, which was a catalyst of sitting next
49:10
to folks on the plane. How do you make a living in On
49:13
the Mission? Interesting and really focusing
49:15
on that purposeful, meaningful work and stepping away from the
49:19
busy work and what what's the the biggest actions I can do And
49:22
it's like, wow, I can sell out this course, you know, 30
49:26
people, 150 bucks an hour. I get to keep half of that and I
49:30
get to educate people on a topic that was, you know, communicated
49:34
to me that a lot of people had questions about.
49:37
And it all goes back to that service when we were originally
49:40
at the beginning of our podcast, Anthony, It's that dedication to
49:43
service. It's that long term, not the
49:47
long term goals. Of course, you know, I wanted to
49:49
write a book that was a long term goal, but the lifestyle
49:52
goal was that income and giving back to the universe.
49:56
So up north dream allowed me to do that because what that did is
49:59
that of course I created income to support my financial goals.
50:02
But more importantly, the lifetime goals was living a
50:06
lifestyle that I wanted for me and my family, creating an
50:08
income that I needed to support that lifestyle no matter what
50:11
that lifestyle was. So that's how everything kind of
50:14
dovetailed together. And no matter what you, your
50:17
experiences in your life, again, if you take a step back and say,
50:20
you know, I coached, I coached football, but now I'm doing this
50:24
in the corporate world. But if you take a step back and
50:27
really think through your experiences, in all honesty,
50:30
they dovetail together even more than a lot of folks may give
50:36
credit to. If you take a step back and say,
50:38
OK, how can I use this experience to help me reach my
50:41
lifetime goals and just take that step back, go into the
50:43
silence and work through that step by step.
50:47
What are some of the fun growth goals that you have for Traverse
50:50
Bay Farms? Any good projects other than
50:53
what we've already heard about with the the blockchain that
50:56
you're going to be integrating there?
50:58
Well, that that was a really, that's a fun goal that's moving
51:01
forward number #1 because that takes advantage of the
51:05
technology in the marketplace and the demand in the
51:07
marketplace. But also it allows more trust
51:11
for my company in the marketplace because we're giving
51:14
that forward. One of the other fun things that
51:16
we're looking at is actually pulling back some of the
51:20
products that we're offering. Not that they don't sell, but by
51:24
pulling back on some of the products that we're offering.
51:28
It may not seem like fun, but it really is.
51:30
Then we can focus on, because right now we have about 40
51:35
different SKUs, we want to pull that back to about 30.
51:39
So about maybe a 2025% pull back of our less selling products,
51:44
number one. But more importantly, that's
51:46
going to allow us to focus on the products that have more
51:50
flexibility in the marketplace and more ability for us to
51:54
really add value to our clients by taking a step back and
51:59
creating more recipes, breakfast, lunch and dinner
52:01
recipes, snack recipes for our, you know, for these remaining 30
52:05
some odd products. But more importantly, the other
52:07
fun thing we're really going to focus on doing is going back out
52:11
to Hollywood and meeting some of our some of our celebrity
52:15
clients. So two things.
52:19
I heard they're going to work on reducing the SKU count.
52:23
Let's focus on the ones, yeah, I mean the ones that you're going
52:26
to remove, that's not that they're not selling, but you
52:29
want to focus on the the core hero products that are really
52:32
moving quickly. That's going to allow you to
52:35
simplify inventory management. It's going to help with cash
52:38
flow. It's going to help you sort of
52:40
refocus your efforts on the ones that are are your best sellers.
52:44
And then heading out to Hollywood to meet some of your
52:48
celebrity customers. How how is it that you know that
52:52
some of these folks are customers?
52:54
Are they already posting about you online?
52:57
What's going on there? Actually, it's a really cool
53:00
story about probably about 1213 years ago, we get a call from
53:05
just a a customer and she gives us a call and says, hey, you
53:10
know what? I've been a customer of yours
53:11
for a while. I've been buying from you.
53:13
I'm like, yeah. And she goes, you know, I've
53:15
been buying from you and we're like, yeah, we know who, you
53:16
know, we know your name and stuff like that.
53:18
And she goes, you know what? I, I work in Hollywood and I
53:21
have a lot of celebrity that are clients, like really.
53:25
And she goes, well, you know what, if you would like, I've
53:28
shared your products with other folks in Hollywood and they like
53:31
it. If you'd like, why don't you?
53:33
This is 12/10, 12:15 years ago. She goes, if you like, why don't
53:36
you come out to Hollywood? I will introduce, I will set you
53:40
up at some of my events, give you a chance to meet some of the
53:43
celebrities that I hang with. So we've been out to Hollywood
53:46
every three to five years at Oscar and Emmy Award parties as
53:49
well. On our website.
53:50
We have, we have currently probably about 30 or 40 photos
53:55
of celebrities with our products.
53:57
We have celebrity testimonials on our website that we've just
54:00
met from customers of ours and say, you know, if you like your
54:03
product, we want to introduce you to other people that we've
54:05
been with. So it's, it's really cool.
54:07
And with COVID, we were going to go out there 20 of COVID because
54:12
COVID happened in end of 19. We're going to go out there in
54:14
February of COVID. But that's when that started
54:17
really locking everything down with no one knew what was going
54:20
on. So probably 2025 will go out to
54:24
another Oscar and Emmy party. So we've been out there a couple
54:27
times. So it's been really cool.
54:28
Where can I see these pictures on your site?
54:30
Yep, If you go to Traverse Bay Farms and then About us,
54:36
actually, if you go to Traverse Bay Farms, the tart cherry
54:38
capsule page, you'll see a video testimonial of Kevin Sorbo, a
54:43
great individual. He was 1980s Hercules series.
54:46
He has some new series out now as well as the What If movie,
54:51
which is a phenomenal movie from several years ago that he's
54:56
given us testimonials for our tart cherry capsules.
54:58
He's given us testimonials for our cherry prime.
55:01
And what's really cool about that, Anthony?
55:03
It has given us an opportunity to, you know, meet some of the
55:06
some of the greatest people out there from that standpoint.
55:10
Oh, that's that's what makes it fun.
55:12
That is a lot of fun. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
55:16
Any other celebrities that you that you can mention?
55:20
Yeah, we have a lot of celebrities.
55:22
For example, Ernie Hudson from the Ghostbusters.
55:25
I mean, I have two retail stores.
55:28
He he's on our wall with our products.
55:30
We have Sasha Cohen, Olympic medalist from a couple years
55:34
ago. She has her tart cherry, Miss
55:36
America, Miss Michigan, as well as a lot of other people.
55:41
Joey from The Sopranos, He's he's on our wall.
55:45
So it there's a lot of folks that that we've met over the
55:49
years and there's some of the best folks you'll ever meet,
55:51
which is fun and it's cool. You wouldn't expect to see that.
55:54
But that's really has was formed by just going out, doing the
55:58
hard work, blocking and tackling, but most importantly,
56:01
giving back and having folks really, really reach out because
56:07
they they, they know intuitively that you're doing a good job as
56:12
a company and as individuals. And plus it's fun.
56:16
Aside from the fun component, are you able to measure an ROI
56:19
or is that a little bit kind of fuzzy, hard to do?
56:23
It's kind of fuzzy, hard to do because there's there's no, you
56:27
know, this is a infomercial, this is a, you know, hard dollar
56:32
outlay to do this from that standpoint.
56:35
But as I mentioned, we do have folks that give us a call and
56:37
say, hey, I saw this on your website.
56:39
That's my favorite actor or actress.
56:42
If they're using it, I know I want to buy it.
56:45
Yeah. And again, that's really fun.
56:48
And that allows the fun factor because a couple years ago,
56:51
excuse me, several years ago, we took our employees out there
56:55
with us too. So not only do we get the
56:57
experience as company owners, we always have our employees
57:01
experience as much as they can as well.
57:03
So. Andy, people listening to this
57:06
are like, wow, this Andy Lapointe guy, he's really smart,
57:09
very successful. He's, you know, migrated from,
57:12
you know, 1 industry to a completely different one and
57:16
he's found success in it and he continues to have his hands in
57:19
both of those things. And this guy's just Superman.
57:23
What they don't realize is that, you know, everybody has
57:26
struggles, right? Everybody's gone through hard
57:28
times. Everybody's had, you know,
57:30
challenges they've had to overcome.
57:32
What what's something either on a personal or professional side
57:35
of things, that big challenge you had to overcome and some of
57:38
the lessons that you learned coming through the other side?
57:45
I, I think the biggest challenge to overcome, of course, is
57:50
emotionally and you know, figuring out your, your lack of
57:54
self-confidence to a certain degree and your lack of
57:58
confidence of going into a new industry that you've never been
58:00
into. I mean, everyone has those.
58:03
But I think the biggest down, the biggest overcome is to, no
58:13
matter what what you face in life or in your business, as
58:18
Napoleon Hill said this, every adversity has a seed and of
58:23
equivalent or greater benefit. And everyone's had adversities.
58:28
And being in business, losing money is the biggest adversity
58:33
ever. And if I could, if you don't
58:35
mind, when we were first starting out, when we were
58:40
really getting into from B to C, we're going to B to B for
58:45
distributors, We had a distributor that we started to
58:50
distribute through. It was a local distributor just
58:53
a couple hours South of us. And you know, the 1st order was
58:57
maybe 2500 bucks, half a pallet. Then our 2nd order another month
59:01
later was 5000 and then two months later it was 10,000.
59:05
Then four months later, their third or 4th or 5th order,
59:08
whatever it was, was close to $30,000 and they're paying us,
59:11
which is fine. They're paying us.
59:13
And we're yes, you know, we're, we're finally successful.
59:15
We have a distributor, they're paying us, they're paying us.
59:18
And so that was going up the mountain.
59:21
But what happened and what typically happens as a trend in
59:25
the food distribution industry, and this is just a little bit of
59:28
an insight. If you ever have a customer that
59:31
has been with you for 20 years or two months, they start buying
59:34
regularly every 15 days and they pay you every 30 days or
59:37
whatever terms are. But if you have a customer
59:41
that's buying from you regularly, then on day 25, five
59:44
days before the next payment is due, they place another order.
59:48
So then, then you're there, you're 2 orders into them before
59:53
that first payment is due, and then they do it for another
59:56
month. Of course, you're sending it to
59:57
them because they're a good customer.
59:58
But long and short of it, one of the greatest adversities we had
1:00:03
is out of customers that did exactly that for about 6 or 8
1:00:07
months, they were a good customer, then they started.
1:00:10
Order in more before the 30 day terms were up.
1:00:13
So they were into US to about $30,000.
1:00:16
I get a call that says, Andy, this is so and so I'm very
1:00:19
sorry. We're going bankrupt.
1:00:22
So we're out 30 grand, 30 of hard money.
1:00:25
My our money that we sent, we trusted and we've always had
1:00:30
good relationships with our distributors.
1:00:31
I always call them, excuse me, I make it a point to call them
1:00:35
personally every month and a half to two months how our sales
1:00:38
are going, what do we need to do just to keep that open
1:00:40
communication. But we lost $30,000.
1:00:43
Some people that's not a lot of money.
1:00:45
Other people that it's a lot of money.
1:00:47
For us, it was a lot of money and the surprise of doing that.
1:00:52
So the adversity was there's two things I can do #1 lose my mind
1:00:59
because we just lost $30,000. Number two, let it affect how I
1:01:04
am going to move forward in the business or #3 take the hit, get
1:01:10
the most you can out of it, get some sort of return and move on
1:01:15
no matter how hard it is. Ultimately what happened was he
1:01:20
declared bankruptcy. I said I'm not going to take
1:01:23
this hit. I'm going to do everything that
1:01:24
I can within my power to get my, you know, to get, get the money
1:01:28
back. So what I did is I drove an hour
1:01:30
and a half S to the bankruptcy court, sat in front of the,
1:01:34
excuse me, the client was my ex client.
1:01:36
The customer was sitting in front of the judge and the judge
1:01:39
says, OK, you're bankrupt and you know, did the gavel and
1:01:42
everything. And my customer turned around
1:01:44
and looked at me and I said, what about my $30,000?
1:01:48
He goes, I'm bankrupt, too bad for you.
1:01:52
Literally to my face in the courtroom as the judge is
1:01:55
sitting up there as he's walking out.
1:01:58
So that was a huge adversity. And again, there's a couple ways
1:02:02
you could take that. Number one, is he going to take
1:02:05
my business down? No #2 because I'm not going to
1:02:08
let it #2 financially, that was a huge hit.
1:02:13
So we did have to retrench. We did have to take some hits
1:02:18
like any company would, any newer company.
1:02:22
But #3 the seed of that adversity, that greater benefit,
1:02:27
the equivalent or greater benefit, what I'm doing today is
1:02:31
again, not allowing my customers to take that secondary order
1:02:35
before the payment terms are due #1 #2 limit my credit to my
1:02:40
customers. We're back then I was like,
1:02:42
yeah, you need 100,000, I'll give it to you.
1:02:43
You need 50,000 worth of inventory.
1:02:45
And I'm just throwing these numbers out, but you get the
1:02:47
idea. I'll give it to you because I
1:02:49
was desperate for the business. But what that allowed me to do
1:02:53
is tighten up my mindset, tighten up my business model,
1:02:56
but most importantly, tighten up my emotions to say no to certain
1:03:01
types of business or say no to certain patterns and say, you
1:03:05
know what? It's not worth it.
1:03:06
This is not I've been through it.
1:03:07
It's not worth it. So the greatest achievement or
1:03:11
the greatest benefit out of any adversity is to take a step
1:03:16
back. I wrote down the Benjamin
1:03:19
Franklin close way back in the day.
1:03:22
My sales manager said, you know what, Andy, whenever you want to
1:03:25
make a decision, you can use the Benjamin Franklin clothes.
1:03:28
I'm like, what's the Benjamin Franklin clothes?
1:03:30
He goes, you take a piece of paper, write a line down the
1:03:33
middle. The pros are making the
1:03:35
decision. What's the worst that can
1:03:36
happen? If the pros have more bullet
1:03:39
points than the worst that can happen, you make the decision.
1:03:42
Yes, if the pros have less and a the no's have more, you don't
1:03:48
make the decision. So I did the Ben Franklin
1:03:50
clothes on myself. And you do the same thing with
1:03:52
clients. Mr. and misses client.
1:03:54
You know why you, you know, I know you're, you're interested
1:03:56
in buying this car, but why you, you know, what are your
1:03:58
objections? Write the yes's.
1:04:00
Write the no's. If the no's outweigh the Yes's,
1:04:02
don't buy it. If the yes's outweigh the no's,
1:04:04
then you buy it. But so I did the Ben Frank and
1:04:06
close it myself. But most importantly, that
1:04:08
allowed me to tighten up my mental attitude and that's
1:04:12
that's how I overcame it, just to say no to certain types of
1:04:15
business in certain patterns. Yeah, thanks for sharing that.
1:04:18
That is a a painful lesson to learn.
1:04:22
Anybody who's been in business has experienced something along
1:04:25
those lines. And in the early trajectory of
1:04:28
your company, $30,000 was a lot of money.
1:04:32
But you know, as you're looking back now and you're in a
1:04:35
steadier, more successful place, probably grateful that you were
1:04:41
able to learn that lesson at $30,000 as opposed to $300,000
1:04:48
right later down the road. And it it, it encouraged you, it
1:04:51
forced you to make changes in how you approach things on the
1:04:56
business side of things to prevent those bigger losses from
1:04:59
potentially happening down the road.
1:05:01
Yeah, absolutely. And and one other point if I, if
1:05:03
I could throw it out, Anthony, what we, one of the things that
1:05:06
also learned from that experience is maintain your
1:05:09
vendors and have a strong relationship with all your
1:05:12
vendors. We, we, we do not jump from
1:05:15
vendor to vendor to supplier to supplier, excuse me, from
1:05:18
supplier to supplier just to save $0.30 and a pound of sugar
1:05:22
or $0.30 and a pound of cherries.
1:05:23
We don't do that because if we have long term relationships
1:05:26
with our suppliers, our suppliers will go to bat for us
1:05:30
and with us when we need them. And although we were early in
1:05:33
the company, we did have good relationships with our suppliers
1:05:37
and that's one of the reasons we were able to overcome it is I
1:05:40
kind of said, hey, this is what happened to some of my
1:05:42
suppliers. They said, you know what, we're,
1:05:45
we like working with you. You've always paid your bills.
1:05:46
We're willing to give you 45 day terms or 60 day terms on some of
1:05:51
our, our suppliers worked with us very, very well.
1:05:55
So I'd like, I'd like to toss out, yes, you can always get
1:05:58
something cheaper from somebody else, but that long term
1:06:01
relationship is vital as you in life, it's, it's vital to have
1:06:05
long term relationships, no matter what aspect of life
1:06:08
you're in. So another way to overcome that
1:06:10
and another way to to benefit from that that we did is keep
1:06:15
your suppliers, keep your relationships as long, excuse
1:06:18
me, as strong as possible and as long as possible.
1:06:21
We rarely change suppliers. We rarely change suppliers for
1:06:25
that reason. And that came out of that
1:06:26
lesson. Well, part of it came out of
1:06:28
that lesson of that changing suppliers.
1:06:30
Andy, I just have one more question for you before, before
1:06:33
I do it, I wanted to do 2 things.
1:06:35
If you're listening today and you like today's content, please
1:06:37
hit the subscribe, like or share button on your favorite podcast
1:06:40
app. Andy, I also want to let people
1:06:42
know the best way to get in touch with you.
1:06:43
What's that? Best way to get in touch with me
1:06:47
would be two ways, the website traversebayfarms.com or
1:06:55
231-533-8788. There you go.
1:07:00
Last question for you. What do you see are the big
1:07:03
changes coming in? Let's focus on Traverse Bay
1:07:07
Farms that that business, but maybe pick one big change that
1:07:10
you see coming in the next 5 years that's likely to affect
1:07:13
you guys. The biggest change is going to
1:07:16
be more individuals, more people, more companies are going
1:07:20
to be purchasing food online. And the purchasing food online
1:07:26
because not only the convenience #1 the the accessibility #2 but
1:07:32
most importantly, in my opinion, is by purchasing more and more
1:07:37
food online. Because we're specifically
1:07:38
talking about Traverse State Farms.
1:07:40
You have to have that trust factor and by having that trust
1:07:43
factor, you have to be everywhere at once.
1:07:46
You have to be omnipresent with all of the social media
1:07:49
channels, with all of the all of your online marketing, not so
1:07:53
much offline marketing because if it's an online business
1:07:56
channel, it's more of online marketing.
1:07:58
So the biggest thing that we're looking at over the next five
1:08:01
years is to take advantage of more food being purchased online
1:08:06
from convenience. But more importantly is folks
1:08:09
when they do purchase food, it's something we consume into our
1:08:12
bodies. It's something that we eat which
1:08:14
is very, very personal to each and every one of us.
1:08:17
So what we're, what we're doing is we're not only maintaining,
1:08:21
but also increasing that trust factor when they purchase our
1:08:25
brand, know it's nationally award-winning quality
1:08:27
ingredients, but more importantly, that we stand
1:08:29
behind all of our products and we deliver it to our customers.
1:08:33
So the biggest trends that we're seeing is more gourmet food
1:08:35
purchases online through convenience and #2 from a price
1:08:39
standpoint that's very, very important.
1:08:43
And then building a trust factor of next three to five years.
1:08:45
Terrific. Andy, I want to be the first one
1:08:47
to thank you for sharing both your time and your story with us
1:08:50
today. I really appreciate it.
1:08:53
Thank you, Anthony. I certainly appreciate you
1:08:54
having me on. Well, folks, that's a wrap on
1:08:57
another episode of the Inspired Stories podcast.
1:08:59
Thanks for learning with us today.