Latest / The Weekly Run / Let The Madness Begin | #10

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Let The Madness Begin | #10 · The Weekly Run

• Jeff Perera: Welcome back to the Weekly Run. I'm Jeff. Aaron: I'm Aaron. We're here again. It's again and again. Jeff Perera: Man, we are doing it, we are committed. think we've 10 weeks in a row, ⁓ It's great. I love it. Aaron: Consistency, Jeff. It's all about the consistency. Well, I'm just surprised to see you in Orlando. This is like, you must be excited for a couple, a week at home. Jeff Perera: It's nice to be in my own bed. Feels good. Short lived, but it's worth it. It's gonna be a very rested spring break and then right back to the grind. Aaron: Temporarily. Are you guys just, is this like a staycation spring break for you? Or are you just like, I've traveled enough, just want, like home is the vacation. This week are you guys, you've got young kids, you gotta get out of here, you gotta move. ⁓ Jeff Perera: No. We're on the, yeah, so I'm actually in San Diego for the first half doing a bit of a conference. And then the back half we're gonna spend some family time together. So it'll be nice, looking forward to it. Aaron: Okay. I've never been to San Diego, my wife has, but she's always said it was amazing. So you guys should have a good time. Jeff Perera: I think it's gonna be nice, yeah, I I imagine that while it is a work trip, it will feel a little bit like vacation, so. Aaron: It's like a speaking thing though, right? So can we really call this work, Jeff? Like you're just giving them the Jeff experience. That's all that's happening. Jeff Perera: That's fair. should maybe I should promote this a little bit. Yeah, so I am I am doing a speaking engagement at the restaurant franchise and innovation summit. It's in San Diego. It's at the Lowes Coronado Bay Resort really looking forward to experiencing that and yeah, I'm gonna do a little a talk around Aaron: ⁓ Jeff Perera: how to scale a founder-led brand. Aaron: How do you prep for something like that? What's your process for? We've discussed this before with Danielle, because Danielle does this a lot, as well, ⁓ with the different opportunities and events that she speaks at. And I know she told me her process. I'm curious what your process is. I feel like they might be different. It's not quite the same approach. Jeff Perera: you We definitely have a different approach. Definitely different. So I've got some key bullet points that I want to talk about. I know those topics just off the top of my head. So I'm not ⁓ really any real like, ⁓ you I'm not like ⁓ waiting the punch line or, know, I'm like, I've, there's, there's ⁓ no cards I have. ⁓ Aaron: Yeah, there's no note cards. You don't have to stack up the note cards. Jeff Perera: a few slides with the main topic and I'm just gonna kinda talk freely about that. think, I mean listen, I was gonna say I run a founder-led brand, so I'm just gonna get up there and speak to real experience and talk about it. think if you were to ask me to, you know. Aaron: Well, I mean, it's a nice part when you know what you're talking about. gonna get up there and talk about it. Jeff Perera: jump into your world and give a talk, I'm gonna need notes. I'm gonna need lots of notes So, no, this will be great. I'm really looking forward to it. I think it's a cool topic because I think operating in a founder-led environment is a little different than operating in a, I don't wanna say professionally managed one, you because I think we're pretty well managed as an organization, but. You know, I think when the founders are at the helm and even our, you know, Justin as our partner in this business, he himself, while he's not the founder of this business, is a founder and has that mindset. And so there's a little, yeah, there's a little bit more of, I think, culturally, you know, you're trying to really maintain the feeling of something as you're scaling a business and how you infuse that into the franchisees you select, the people you hire. Aaron: Yeah, very similar. Jeff Perera: the way you communicate internally within the brand. There's so many factors that play into how you maintain that as you build more and more businesses further away from kind of where you started. It's gonna be a fun chat. Hopefully it's valuable to the attendees and I don't know, maybe they have some questions and we get to talk about it some more. Aaron: What's the best? Maybe I'm putting this right here. What's the best or the first thing, like gotcha question from an audience member that you could think of? just like, he's like, man, did you just ask that? Or like, I have no, I don't have a good answer or man, I have an amazing answer to that. And so it was just, it's just a good question. Jeff Perera: ⁓ I try not, okay, so maybe this is bad. Maybe I should be preparing. Now you got me worried. But I try not to, you're giving me anxiety. I don't have anxiety. We talked about this in a previous pod. just, whatever happens happens, right? thanks ⁓ that for ⁓ No, I don't really, I'm not trying to anticipate questions that people are gonna have. ⁓ I believe that. Aaron: I'm give you like neurosis about this. ruin that for you. I'm glad I can tear all that down for you. Jeff Perera: a lot of their questions will probably stem off of some of the topics that I plan on bringing up. ⁓ you know, my general outline is really around the idea of, who we are and how we started, ⁓ and why ⁓ bringing founder energy. ⁓ into the culture, into the operations, into the technology that we're building, all of those components then tie back to that who we are and why we do what we do. So I think, ⁓ hopefully I weave that story together ⁓ and ⁓ the ⁓ some insight. ⁓ if they walk away with one thing, I was successful, like a little bit. I just want them to walk away with something, ⁓ so. ⁓ Aaron: Yeah. I think it's a good measure. I always think that what's interesting about the founder led stuff is that it's like from my perspective, not being the founder of this business ⁓ is from the other side of it. It's so cool. Like, you know, your stuff in a different way, you know, you're living it, you're not managing it. You're not abstracted from it at like arm's length. You're, you're living it. And so That has its downsides too. There's times where it's like you may be a little too in the sauce and you need to pull out and put a different hat on. So there's a balance. It's not perfect. But I know that from my perspective, somebody that's part of that orbit of the founder led business, know, we're taking something from it as part of the team. It's great that you guys, it's not theoretical. When we talk about something, it's normally literal. It's literally something I'm... Jeff Perera: Yeah. Aaron: I've done in a store or trying to do in a store or will do in a store or a literal problem we've had. And again, I think that the difference between what's theoretical and what's literal because we've done it. So you don't lose that connection. There's two sets of customers for us and both are important. Jeff Perera: Absolutely. Yeah, both of those customers are going to appreciate the founder's involvement in the business and the way that we lead and organize. So, you know, part of the conversation that I'll have is around who those customers are and like how it shows up for our customer that comes in every day to buy a bagel ⁓ and that means to ⁓ have business that feels like a mom and pop in their neighborhood, ⁓ you and then the franchisees ⁓ that ⁓ Aaron: Yeah. Jeff Perera: Operating those businesses, you they kind of take that ownership of ⁓ Me being the founder and bring it into business that they're running. So ⁓ It's gonna be fun. ⁓ I've got five I'm not a big guy either. So it's gonna be ⁓ Aaron: Oof. That's good. How much time for five slides? What's your time slot? Ooh, it's a screamer. Okay, it'll be done by time you even get up there. 15 minutes is so fast. We can't even do a podcast in less than 35, so you can't. Jeff Perera: 15 minutes. I feel like by the time I start it's over. Yeah, it's so fast. So fast. Yeah, they're gonna bring the hook and just like, put me off the stage. You know, they're gonna rip me off the stage, so. Aaron: So here's my question, do you like it? Do you enjoy doing these? Because I know our marketing team has you doing these things like it's your job. So do you enjoy it? Jeff Perera: I do. Yeah, I do enjoy it. think in some degree, I think it is my job. You know, like the role that I play as the namesake is to get up there and stand in front of people and talk to them about what we do. And I think that for me to dive into that and engage in that deeply is valuable, you know, for the success of the organization and I think for the success of the brand. So ⁓ I'm going to. ⁓ Aaron: Yeah. Jeff Perera: get out there and sit on as many panels and do as many speaking engagements as I can just so that we have the opportunity to share our story and kind of spread the word about what we're doing here. It's pretty cool. Have you done any public speaking here? ⁓ Aaron: I have done some, yes, certainly not to the level of you, but I've some stuff over the years. mean, stuff like this, but also some big, well, big, some more like in-person presentation events. The magic of it is can you practice and do this talk or speech with the slide assist where it's all timed out perfectly. And it's kind of fun. It's like once you lose that clicker and you can't control it, like it changes the game for real. ⁓ I had lot of fun with it, but. Jeff Perera: ⁓ I would fail so. I bet you, yeah. You probably had it dialed in too. I would have failed. I'd have been like, wait, I'll go back a slide, please. I'm not done yet. Aaron: You can't, can't. And I was a glutton for punishment and I actually did put some like timed jokes in there where the next slide was the punch line and I was like, am I really doing this? So here's how I do it as a difference. I am the exact opposite of you. I don't have note cards because I wouldn't, I'm not coordinated enough to like look up, look down and all stuff. So what I do is I just drill it. So a couple of days before I just start giving the speech. So I'll just. go in my garage with my laptop and give the speech and I'll do it. Cause what I found to disastrous effect, whenever I practice is what I say. So I've had times where I've practiced, I've like thought of a joke or I thought of a phrase and I rolled around in my head and come to the conclusion that it was stupid. But Jeff Perera: Memorize it. Aaron: without practicing something to rewrite that, as soon as I stand up there, I just see myself like it's like an out of body experience. I just start saying the thing and I'm like, what are you, it's like slow-mo, like, what are you doing? No, don't say that. And then I say it anyways, yes, 100%. So I learned that about myself. And so now I just, I know I'm black out when I get up there. So I just, I drill this muscle memory into my brain. And so then I watched the recording afterward and that's what I said, thankfully, is what I practiced and so it works. But. Jeff Perera: Let go! ⁓ save it And this is probably why you don't listen to the pod. Aaron: There's a hundred percent why I listen to the pod because I don't practice any of this. I don't want to know what I said. Jeff Perera: ⁓ aaron okay, well I do have more exciting things to talk about than my gallivanting adventures of chatting ⁓ to people about being a founder of that brand, and that is Bagel Madness. Because we are one week away from Bagel Madness, ⁓ and you and I were analyzing of the signups and the results here so far, the early ⁓ bracket completion. ⁓ Aaron: Bagel madness. Favorite time of the year? Craziness. It's craziness. Did you look at the number? We have almost, I gotta get to today's numbers, but it's like around 6,000 brackets have been created. It probably crossed it today. 6,000 brackets. That's insane. Jeff Perera: Yeah, I think with today, we over 6,000 brackets created. And those are unique brackets. Like you can't create, one person cannot create multiple brackets because it is tied to your loyalty account, email phone number. So it would mean you would have to be logging out, creating a new account and doing this. And there's no prize. They're doing this just for fun. Aaron: Correct. Jeff Perera: Individ- these are all individual brackets. These are all one bracket per person. It's crazy. Aaron: It's, yeah, there's nothing, there's nothing really to gain here. ⁓ And what's been wild to me, because we did this last year, we talked about this a little bit, but we did this last year sort of pen and paper and it was fun and we put it up in stores and just talking about how far we've come. it's like the original one was stickers and posters that we had to mail around and all stuff and now everything's digital, So let me give you a perspective from like us on the dev team with this stuff. it's sort of, this was actually, I had a joy report for today. This is my joy report because I've had a lot of software we've released in the last two or three weeks and we're still releasing. So we've been very busy. ⁓ It all started with Bagel Madness, but moving that to the app and doing that work, it's sort of a labor of brand love because it doesn't help you buy a bagel. you know, from a functionality standpoint, it's just for fun. And so we think that's important and that's how we like to look at the brand, both my team specifically, but the whole business, we just talked about this, it's about sort of the joy of the brand. And so we put effort into it, but you never know, right? My biggest fear is we put this thing out here and we get like 300 signups and there's 50 corporate employees and so you're like, ⁓ geez, you start taking the numbers away and you're like, ⁓ man. Jeff Perera: you Aaron: Just parents did it. So, you like you start reducing that number down to like the actual people that signed up and it would be sort of sad, right? And that's fine. It's not a big deal, but to see people respond and engage with the brand and the fun and to have fun with it, have fun with us. That's amazing. That's so rewarding to put effort into building things and then to get that kind of response. so it just energizes. I know my team to just keep Jeff Perera: Yeah Aaron: pushing the envelope on that kind of stuff and to have fun and to create these experiences digitally, to go with the in-store experiences that are already great. It's just super rewarding. So that's my joy report. I haven't had one, I think, since we did it, but the response has really felt great for the team. Put some hard work into it and I think it paid off. Jeff Perera: That's amazing. I love that because when you put work into something, you want to see a result. You know, I mean, you just do. And I'm really glad that you and the team have, you know, over 6,000 people participating because they're getting to see your work. They're getting to enjoy it and participate in it, which is fun. Aaron: Yeah. Jeff Perera: And so next week we start with blueberry, cinnamon, last year's champion, matching up against This is like a one seed versus an eight seed, right? This is champion ⁓ versus the underdog. But is churro an underdog? Aaron: I can tell you that I picked that upset. Mark, that's why I picked that upset. Jeff Perera: That's absolutely crazy. think of the 6,000 brackets, you're probably like the one of three people that picked it. Aaron: 100 % there's no way I'm getting a perfect bracket. That is a very tall order. That is the Davidson upset. Jeff Perera: No, absolutely not. Blueberry, cinnamon, sugar is gonna smoke churro. It's not even gonna be close. Alabama alone will carry blueberry, sugar. Aaron: But here's, this is true, this is true. But what's unique between what we learned from last year to year, last year, we had we had them on separate days. And so ⁓ each bagel got a day and then we rank the sales, That was the way it was. Now we're they were head to head on each day. Jeff Perera: No, no, no, no, we matched them up. We matched them up. They were head to head the same day. But what we did was we had a mix of sweet and savory competing against each other. So what we realized is that for whatever reason, the sweet bagels just seemed to dominate over the savory ones. So we created a sweet bracket and a savory bracket for this year. ⁓ And so the very, very best of the sweet and the very, best of the savory will come head to head for the championship on the last day. Aaron: That's okay. That's what we did. And we don't do it on weekends to like bias that like it's more equal. Jeff Perera: Correct, because the weekend business and the weekend traffic is a lot higher, so we're doing all the matchups Monday through Friday only. So that you can have a much more, I don't know, mono-e-mono battle, bagel versus bagel. Aaron: And also, as you were just commenting on the kind of circle back on that to where you were, but like the seeding was another, like we put thought into this. And that's what I love about what we do is we're like, let's not just do it again. We could have just thrown the stickers back out there and just taken five seconds and thrown some things on some practice, but no, we did the analytics. We thought through this. This is important. Jeff Perera: We did. No, we did. Because I think... Huh. The brackets have been seeded. ⁓ It's a much more balanced competition this year. And I think we'll see a lot closer battles between bagels when it's out there. I do think we have a lot more stores this year than we did last year. We're about 20 stores heavier. Yeah, like 20 stores heavier than we were last year, which is gonna make an impact in the total bagel counts. But I think... Aaron: Vice is many. Jeff Perera: I think it's gonna be a lot of fun. ⁓ I wanna go through the rest of this week back here real quick though. I've got on the 17th, Sprinkles facing off against Banana Bread. Sprinkles is a perennial favorite. But Banana Bread is like one of those sneaky bagels that's gonna come in I think and potentially take over for Sprinkles. Aaron: then depends on how many kids come out, because that is the kids favorite. Sprinkles. If the kids, if it's family purchases that day, then... Jeff Perera: This is true. This is true. Yep. And next week is a bit of a spring break week for a lot of places just right in the smack dab in the middle of March. So we'll see what happens there. The 18th, I feel like this is going to be a landslide and I'm biased on this because I picked this bagel as my overall winner. Cinnamon roll is going to obliterate lemon, obliterate lemon blueberry. We talked about this Aaron, cinnamon roll has name recognition. This is like Aaron: Yoy! Well, so... Jeff Perera: It's the mascot vote, right? Like, ⁓ I never had cinnamon roll, but it's gonna win. It's a cinnamon roll. It's not a cinnamon it's a bagel. It tastes like a cinnamon roll, You get my point, like it's gonna, it's gonna crash. Aaron: ⁓ yeah, 100%. 100%. And the picture of that bagel is amazing. Visually. It's just a good looking bagel. Now, another thing that's interesting about this here ⁓ is the digital menus are in stores. And so before, like now you see the matchup. Like you walk in to a shop and you're gonna see the matchup, bagel versus bagel, right on the menu. So it's not gonna be like, ⁓ what's? Jeff Perera: It's visually. It is. Yes. Aaron: Like, you know what you're doing. Before, we were just counting sales. But really, the in-store was like, okay, just we have two bagels of the day today, so it's a little different. You can choose one or the other, but there's nothing to tell you. It's like this one versus that one. So we've given all opportunities for people to vote with their bagel purchases and make it clear what they're doing. Jeff Perera: It's be up 100%. The last bagel of the day match up for sweet side is blueberry pancake for a funnel cake. Aaron: Have fun. Jeff Perera: I think I picked funnel cake as well. No, I did. It tells me right there, my pick. Yeah, I funnel cake. And then we go into the savory round. I'm looking at the ads, yeah, it was great. Garlic bread versus pepper jack everything. Aaron: Yeah. That's why you have an app. I, so this is where like the store, so we've talked about this, but like I spent a lot of time in O-Town. I didn't know, the bakers told me that garlic is a heavy hitter. People love themselves some garlic bagel, and I didn't know that just from like the numbers. And so they actually informed some insider information. Jeff Perera: Top tier, top tier. Garlic bread's a top seed. Yeah, garlic bread is a top seed. It is like a very, very good bagel. And I think, again, I think it plays a little bit like the cinnamon roll does. It's got this like name ranking, you know what you're getting, like pepper jack everything, what does that mean? Right, like garlic bread, I know what it is. It's gonna be garlicky, maybe it's got some cheese on it. So I picked garlic bread as well. The next matchup. Aaron: know what you're getting. Jeff Perera: This one almost feels unfair to even have to pick one. Mike's hot. Mike's hot honey everything versus tomato grilled cheese. It's not even fair. This one actually might be like the closest matchup of the entire, the entire tournament. Aaron: ⁓ I know which one. This one hurt me. Totally agree. This one hurt me. Two of my favorites. What'd you pick? Jeff Perera: I picked Mike's not honey everything. Aaron: So did I. Only because I had that recently, I was like, my God, this thing was so good. Jeff Perera: I just, it's just so good. feel like tomato grilled cheese had its moment last year and it's a very good bagel of the day. You know, when you get that sun-dried tomato dough and the cheddar cheese on there and it's like, you have this whole experience of like the grilled cheese dipping into like soup and then, like I love that. It's a, the whole thing is a vibe. But Mike's not on the everything is delicious. Aaron: But this is why it's so good and like it's it's it's really does mirror March Madness. This is the madness part. Like you have two teams and you're like, these should not be meeting so early. But they do. And somebody gets knocked out. Jeff Perera: This is like, this is one of those like 12th seeds versus five seeds where the 12th seed team is like 22 and three and played in like a lower level conference and just like smoked a bunch of their competition all season long, but has like, you know, five blue chip recruits on their team versus like the five seed, which is good. They finished second behind like the best team in the nation and they dropped down to the fifth seed and then they show up and they're like, we got him beat. Aaron: Yep. Yep. Jeff Perera: I don't know, this could be an upset. Mike's not honey might lose. I'm just saying. All right, Chatfield's bagel, first loaded baked potato. Aaron: and just duke it out. It could. Jeff Perera: Another tough matchup. Aaron: This is true, but this is the antithesis of the name recognition where, now, check out the delicious bagel. Like, make no bones about it. But for uninitiated, what is it? What, you know? Correct. Jeff Perera: If you're not a chat built fan, if you don't even know what this is, you're like, what are we doing here? Yeah, mean, jalapeno base, salt, pepper, honey, cheddar cheese? I mean. Aaron: Yeah, yeah. It's an amazing bagel, but it may lose to loaded baked potato. I actually picked loaded baked potato, but only because it wasn't a flavor pick. They're both really on par. was, I think people are gonna be, you know, they're not gonna know. Now next year, they'll know, but. Jeff Perera: I did too. These two bagels might not even be on the list next year. They may not make the tournament. There was very, there is some, there is some really heated conversation in my household this year about who's in the tournament because... Aaron: This is true. You may not make the tournaments. This is more like the BCS than March Madness, like the old BCS, not where everybody would be like, voted in. It's like, you kidding me? How did Florida not make it this year? It's going to be like that. Jeff Perera: ⁓ yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So the bagel in question is the abbey. Aaron: This is true. I did notice its absence. I mean, especially in your household. That's a conversation. Jeff Perera: perennial, perennial bestseller at Bigelow of the Day. The namesake lives in my house. Aaron: I was gonna say. Jeff Perera: And she's like, how is it not on the list? I'm like, it's not top eight anymore. Sorry kiddo. Aaron: Wow, wow. I mean, she does work in marketing. you know, you... Well, she has a lever. Like, go start pushing the Abbey. It starts to go, you know. Jeff Perera: Go. She could have, I know, she probably had to say, but she's like, the numbers are the numbers. Do you know what the beauty of this is Aaron? It's everyone has a lever. Just go buy the bagel. Show up in the store and buy the bagel. Everyone can pull the lever. This is the most equal opportunity competition that's ever existed. Because you don't have to have any skill to win. You just have to have a credit card. Aaron: This is true. This is true. Brie Lovar. Jeff Perera: ⁓ The last matchup is French onion soup versus bacon Swiss. Aaron: Another super close one. Although what I find super hilarious about that is, correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't both of those come from the same baker? Jeff Perera: Yeah, yeah, yeah, they did. I think they're both airporter bagels. Yeah. Aaron: ⁓ That's what I'm saying, making the poor guy choose between his own creations. First round. Jeff Perera: You have kids, Aaron, you have a favorite. You don't have to tell me, but you have a favorite. We all do. It's never said. Eric Porter has to say right here. He's making a choice. Poor guy. He's gonna have to go home and look at his bagel and say, I'm sorry, bacon Swiss. It's gonna be French onion soup this time. Aaron: Listen, these are things we don't talk about. It's just never so. That's right. I'm sorry. I think it is going to be French onion soup. I mean, this is all foregone conclusion until next year's inclusion of maple bacon anyways, which is a destroyer of worlds, so. Jeff Perera: I think it has to be French again too. that's... Maple bacon, we might have to start a third bracket. I don't even know. Like where do you put maple bacon? We need like, we have like the sweet bagels, got sweet, savory, we need like an umame category. Is what we need, because that's what that bagel is like, elite. Aaron: It doesn't matter. Yeah I still think that all of the borderline bagels like that should have to play bubble games to get in. Jeff Perera: Yeah, that could help. We'll do the Global Games. I agree. I think that'll be fun. We'll start the madness a little bit earlier in the month and see who gets plays in. It's gonna be great. I think we've got 10 days of Amazing Bagels of the Day where we got the sweets matching up against each other and the savories matching up against each other to, you know, culminate, right? Honestly, it's like, think we wrap up the Bagel Madness Tournament the week of Easter. So we've got... Aaron: It's gonna be a fun week though. Jeff Perera: A solid like three weeks of games ahead of us. It should be fun. Should be a lot of fun. Aaron: I enjoyed it last year. Whose idea was bagel madness? Let's give the insight, well, I was gonna say, okay. So for those. Jeff Perera: I really, for those of you listening to the pod, I raised my hand. Raising it. Yeah, I think the idea came from me and then we, you know, I mean, we have such an incredible creative team and we have great marketing team. I think the bagel madness that I envisioned has really. Aaron: That was the sound of Jeff raising his head. Jeff Perera: just taking it, it's just got up another level. I mean, it's got up, you know this, I sent the email to you, I thought it was hilarious. I was like, it's so fun. We did do a press release, we announced, we did a press release and we announced Bagel Madness happening. And then I was cold solicited in email for the gamification of this activation in our app. And they're like, we see you built this incredible game in your app. Aaron: ⁓ yeah. Jeff Perera: why don't you hire us to build the next one? I was like, no thank you, we'll pass. Yeah, we got this. Pagle Madness happens, next Monday. Get involved, it'll be fun. I have Joy Report content that I wanna talk about, and that's sort of how I figured we'd wrap up the chat this week because I just had the most fun experience with a customer that I just wanted to share. Aaron: We got it. We got it. Give it to me. Jeff Perera: I'm working Neptune Beach. ⁓ And someone comes up front, like, Jeff, Jeff, you gotta come out, want you to meet a guest. They wanna meet you. I'm like, great. ⁓ So ⁓ I go out front ⁓ and I go to the table ⁓ and there's three boys sitting that with their mom. Like ⁓ eight, and six. ⁓ And young man, ⁓ eight year old, He's like, hey, you're Jeff. And I'm like, I am Jeff. He's like, your bagels are really good. I'm like, thanks. And ⁓ I sit down at the table with them and I was like, what are you eating? And he's telling me all about his bagel and then his brother's trying to get in on it and his other brother, his younger brother's trying to get in on it. They're all talking and the mom's like, leave the man alone. He's got to go back to work. And I'm like, no, no, it's fine. It's great. And this boy, Kyle, says to me, I want you to make me a birthday cake bagel on my birthday. As mom says, you can't. Aaron: Ha ha! Jeff Perera: You can't ask him to do that. He's not gonna just make you a bagel. And I was like, when's your birthday? He's like, June 29th. I'm like, awesome. I was like, I think we could probably make a sprinkles bagel on June 29th if you think that's a good idea for your birthday. And he's like, ⁓ yeah, that'd be awesome. I was like, yeah, it's pretty cool. It's like a vanilla bagel. It's got sprinkles inside of it on top of it. And I was like, and I think you pair it a cake batter, cream cheese, and you're all set for your birthday. And he's like. That's amazing. And the mom's like, you don't have to do that. And I'm like, oh, I think this will be really great. And Eric Kirby is there and he's working the crowd and he overhears this conversation. He leans in and he sees me on my phone and he's like, oh, you're really doing it. And I'm like, yeah. And he's like, and the mom's like, what do mean you're really doing it? And Kyle's like, what are you doing? I was like, well, we have this calendar. And I showed him like my screen with the bagel of the day calendar. and I typed in there, Sprinkles, and then parentheses, Kyle's birthday. And they're like, you're not really doing this. And I was like, oh yeah, was like, June 29th, Sprinkles, Kyle's birthday, it's gonna be great. And so, I was like, they're like, that's so nice, you didn't have to, I'm like, I don't have to do a lot of things, I was like, this sounds great, I think Kyle's gonna really have a great birthday. And he's like, well, we're coming to get bangles, I'm like, that's great, we'll see you then. And so I just went back to work, and that young man went to anybody he could find. in the store, if they were wearing a Jeff shirt, he goes, did you know Jeff's gonna make me a sprinkles bagel on my birthday? And people are like, what? You know, it was. Aaron: Oh, by the way, this is a brand new store. know, and everyone's like, yeah, that's great. Jeff Perera: Yeah, it was, Hilarious. So yeah, so Kyle June 29th happy early birthday and Can't wait for you to send me a picture of your sprinkles bagel with a candle Aaron: Hey, I mean, as far as birthday cakes go, ⁓ there's a, it's a pretty good, ⁓ I've done donut, ⁓ donut cakes in the past and they're good, but like a bagel cake? Now we're talking. That's a move. And I can say that the, Jeff Perera: That's a move. Aaron: the cake batter cream cheese, like that's Sprinkles on Sprinkles, man. So if he likes sprinkles, he's gonna get his birthday's wish on that combo. Jeff Perera: the cake batter cream cheese is the cake batter cream cheese. You have to do it for your birthday. I mean, it's actual birthday cakes. It's just so delicious. So delicious. Aaron: I've talked to people in store that are like, yeah, I just take it home to frost things with. Like, I'll just get like a tub of it. No bagels, just the spreads. Jeff Perera: Yeah, I mean it. Yes, it's cream cheese, but it can also be frosting. Just saying. Aaron: Hey, don't you put cream cheese on like a carrot cake or something? Like that's valid cake. Yes. Jeff Perera: Yeah, there's cream cheese frosting, carrot cake, cream cheese frosting on a red velvet. Cream cheese is a great. Aaron: There go. Which is really, really the classier of the cakes. Anyways. It's fancy, right? Jeff Perera: Red velvet, sounds fancy. You know it's a chocolate cake derivative, it's nothing too fancy. I'm not gonna ruin it for you Aaron. Red velvet, it's one of my favorites, I get it every time I see it on menu. Aaron: Listen, don't tear these things down for me. Isn't that what we is that what you promised Josh was red velvet isn't that? Is that is that his standing favorite? Jeff Perera: I did. I did. It's, yeah, I still have to deliver on that. Maybe. I'll be delivered on dessert that day for sure, but I didn't, I didn't hit the mark with a red velvet, but we'll get it. We'll get a red velvet. I think a red velvet bagel. Yeah, red velvet bagel with a sweet cream cheese. like a great birthday gift. But happy early birthday to Kyle. Aaron: You kinda did. Maybe for Josh's birthday. I'll find out. I'll let you know. Ha Jeff Perera: Super excited for that one, it's gonna be a lot of fun. Aaron: And it's gonna be a lot of fun. Could you imagine? He's gonna be able to say, that's my bagel. That's great. Hey, he owes you pictures. Jeff Perera: the other side. This is what we do though, you know? This is what we do. Bring joy. Aaron: And that's honestly what's so, it kind of circles all the way back to the top of the conversation is that that's what makes it fun, right? Being able to do that kind of stuff, able to make those kinds of decisions, people that are engaging with us, have some fun, not take it too seriously, and just enjoy. That's how you're the community shop. You don't be the community shop by having lots of... Jeff Perera: Yeah. Aaron: red tape and bureaucracy and distance from your customers. You're the local shop, I be in local. Jeff Perera: Yeah, because I think if you're willing to lean into that, it makes it really special for a lot of people. Not just Kyle, but it makes it special for a lot of people. Aaron: There you go. See, we just practiced your talk. It was way longer than 15 minutes. You just nailed it, end to end. Jeff Perera: Done. I only got to cut 23. No big deal. Just cut all of it. That's fine. Just trim it. Aaron, thanks for getting together today. It's always fun. Have a great spring break and see you back in a couple weeks. Aaron: You just have to cut most of it out. It's fine. Just trim it. You too, my friend. Till next time. Jeff Perera: Bye.