Latest / The Inspired Stories Podcast / What 10,000 Hours in Restaurants Taught Jason Schofield About Running a Business

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What 10,000 Hours in Restaurants Taught Jason Schofield About Running a Business · The Inspired Stories Podcast

0:04
Welcome to another edition of the Inspired Stories podcast,
0:08
where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from
0:11
their successes and be inspired by how they've overcome
0:14
adversity. As you listen today, let one
0:17
idea shape what you do next. My name is Anthony Codispote and
0:21
today's guest is Jason Schofield.
0:24
He is a nationally known restaurateur and senior
0:26
consultant with High VOCA Company that helps restaurants
0:30
save money and run smarter supply chains.
0:33
High VOC uses AI to examine every purchase, unlock rebates
0:38
for more than 350 manufacturers, and give independent owners the
0:43
buying power of a large chain. Their team also designs
0:47
kitchens, guides menu costing, and even offers food safety
0:51
training. Through these programs, High BOC
0:54
connects clients to over $20 billion in collective purchasing
0:58
power. Jason's insight has shaped many
1:01
of those services. In 2024 alone, he wrote a series
1:05
of LinkedIn articles on industries, trends, and the role
1:09
of AI in hospitality, earning him the nickname The Restaurant
1:13
Whisperer from many thankful operators.
1:19
Hey Jason, I'm going to stop recording just for a second.
1:22
But before we get into all that good stuff, today's episode is
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back benefits.com. All right, back to our guest
2:15
today, the CEO of High BOC, Jason Schofield.
2:19
Thanks for making the time to Share your story today.
2:21
Thank you for having me. So Jason, let's start with your
2:25
roots. What initially sparked your
2:26
passion for the restaurant industry?
2:29
I mean, as a kid in Tampa, my dad would go to all the
2:32
restaurants and they would say, Mr. Schofield, your table's
2:35
ready. And we're Mr. Schofield, your
2:36
table's ready. So we'd go to a steak out.
2:38
It's a Spanish restaurant, every type of restaurant you'd ever
2:41
have. And then afterwards, my dad and
2:44
I will go to baskin-robbins in Britain Plaza.
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He'd get his butter pecan ice cream and I get my my ice cream.
2:50
And then that was the happy time.
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So I wanted to chase those happy times as I got older.
2:56
And those were my happy times, was the eating ice cream and my
2:59
dad. But I associated that with
3:01
restaurants. So then I worked my way in as a
3:04
chef, a restaurant tour and stayed in the industry.
3:08
So what was your first job in restaurant?
3:10
Were you like in high school? My first job in a restaurant, I
3:13
was 14 years old and I worked for McDonald's right across the
3:17
street from my dad's pawn shop there in Tampa.
3:19
And I didn't want to work for him.
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So I went and worked for 3/25 an hour minimum wage.
3:24
And I was making, working actually at McDonald's when they
3:28
made biscuits still in house fresh.
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And it was, it was a great learning experience and I just
3:33
loved it. I just, and then it went from
3:35
that to them pizzerias and making pizzas at my cousin's
3:38
restaurant and playing basketball afterwards and then
3:41
go and, you know, just one after the other.
3:46
And so at some point you start at a restaurant group or was
3:49
this a family business, go field restaurant group?
3:52
No, it was it was my restaurant. So I just I'd been a corporate
3:56
chef for Delaware North and then I had been a private chef for
3:59
our for some well known people. And then I'd done all that I had
4:03
done and I was like, I'm going to go try to my own.
4:05
So then I opened my first one, then it came in the second one
4:09
and it turned into a 3rd, 4th, 5th, and then it kept growing.
4:12
Then it was just a group. And what kinds of restaurants
4:16
were these? So everything from fine dining
4:19
where we would mill our own flour, do our get whole hogs,
4:23
goats and breakdown and make our salumi and charcuterie, to
4:26
cheeses, to pasta milling our flour, doing everything to a
4:31
coffee sandwich shop, to a tiki bar, to a bowling alley bar, to
4:34
a sports bar, to a juice bar, to craft cocktails, pizzerias, just
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whatever I felt like when I wanted to do it.
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I just love food and I enjoyed doing what I did and I still do.
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I still do it. I just do it now for charity.
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But I don't cook anymore professionally.
4:54
Do you still have any of the restaurants or did you sell?
4:56
No. Done.
4:59
Why do you say it that way? You people don't realize what it
5:03
is to do and be successful in a restaurant.
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It is stacked against you. And I find that the more people
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want to do it. And I, I, I've come to realize
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why they want to open a restaurant.
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And it's because usually the majority of all Americans, why
5:18
they were in college or in high school, their first job was in a
5:20
restaurant hostessing or cooking, or why they were in
5:22
college, they would wait tables. So it's nostalgic then brings
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you back to those times of your life that were happy and good.
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So people think, well, let me open a restaurant.
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It's sexy, it's glamorous, it isn't anything, but you got to
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love it and it's and it's and it, if you don't love it, it
5:37
will eat you up and spit you out.
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And like I said, the odds are stacked against you.
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It's 95% of them fail the first year and then 90% of those ones
5:45
that made it the first year fail the second year.
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And there's just so many things that are stacked against you
5:51
that you're just one disaster away from, you know, failing in
5:54
a restaurant. But there's no shortage of ones
5:56
opening up all the time. What do you think you were doing
6:00
differently that allowed you to be successful with multiple
6:04
operations? Oh man, well-being a corporate
6:08
chef, I figured that if you ever if you got to be good at
6:11
anything, I've learned that you have to master your craft.
6:14
There's like that 10,000 hour rule, right?
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Basketball, 10,000 hours perfecting your craft, 10,000
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hours of of playing a violin, 10,000 hours of shooting a free
6:22
throw. It kind of goes with the same
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just you need to be able to work every position in a restaurant
6:29
before you want to go open a bar or every, every, every job there
6:33
is in a restaurant to ever even open a restaurant for many years
6:35
before you go do it. And I think that once you
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realize that you're going to find out what you're good at,
6:40
what you're bad at, and then you need to hide accordingly.
6:43
So I think that what set me apart was I got to work in those
6:48
jobs. I got to see what it is.
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I got to be a corporate chef for a Delaware N sports service
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arenas, huge sporting events, Kentucky Derby, Super Bowls, and
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see what it takes to do that. Negotiating contracts, then also
7:01
working for a hotel year. The other side of it, what it
7:04
looks like to the design side of it, what does the ambiance, the
7:07
feel, the new Disney effect, what is it that the
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Instagramable moments, all those play a intricate role into being
7:13
successful in a restaurant. And I got to learn all those
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before I stepped into my own. Thinking back to your time with
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your with the Schofield Restaurant group that you were
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running, what was maybe 1 particular challenge that a
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hardship that you had to overcome during that time that
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really shaped and influenced the way that you continue to run
7:34
businesses today? This, that's a good question.
7:37
I like it. Goosebumps.
7:38
That's a very good question. So it was a very hard, painful
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lesson. I went into a town and I was
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like, I'm Jason Schofield. I'm going to change the way they
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eat, get rid of this. We're going to do this, this,
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this and this and this. And then the the I was like,
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it's an affluent area. They're here, they're going to
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come and they're going to buy the droves.
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Great, very painful. They wanted their they wanted
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their what they wanted. And I realized that I'm in
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business to make money, not in the business to change other
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people. I'm not a Michelin star chef.
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I'm not a I'm not the TV star where they're going to come here
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just because they want to be, you know something, it's a very
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to get to swallow your pride to be successful.
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It's not the same. You know, you need to be able
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to, hey, you're in the business to make money.
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You have a family or you have your own personal stuff.
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So that's first. And that was the hardest lesson
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I had to learn. I was like, you know what, this
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is a half million dollar lesson I have to learn, like I need to
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read. Just go back to give them their
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$0.10 wings or nickel beers and their whatever and then let them
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happen. And then it was packed.
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It was like, all right, cool, I'm going to make this amount of
8:39
profit. I'm gonna make this amount of
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margin. And that's what I'm in the
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business to do. Let me go do that in other
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places where they might appreciate it.
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And then do that. I think that that's what set me
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apart with that. It was a very hard lesson.
8:50
Pride. So, yeah, it sounds like, you
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know, you had this idea you wanted to put all this fancy
8:55
food out there, you were going to elevate their dining
8:57
experience. And what you learned was it flow
9:00
at the river, right? Go go with what your customers
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already want and do that really well.
9:06
Yeah, pivot and persevere. Yeah, no, you, you're there.
9:10
Nowadays it's even harder. You have, you have so many
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restaurants vying for the same dollar in the same town and
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they're popping up everywhere. You have over saturated areas
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that you know that we're busy that now aren't and you have to
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differentiate yourself and you might have to change the way you
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do business. It's just a the landscape has
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changed a lot in just the last five or ten years with social
9:30
media and algorithms and how they place you and the people's
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preferences. And it's just, it's, it's very
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hard now. You need to have a lot of
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information and and to be successful these days.
9:40
Say more about that. What's changed in the last five
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years? You're just saying like, in
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order to be successful, you've got to get like the the right
9:46
influencer to snap a shot of you.
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Is that what you're talking about?
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All of that plays, yeah, you have to have, you can go into a
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restaurant and you can look at a see where a chef is at in their
9:59
in their culinary career, how they play, how they present.
10:02
And the flavor could be good. But if it's just slapped on a
10:04
plate, it's not an Instagrammable moment.
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Someone's not going to take a picture of it and put it out
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there and get like, Oh my God. So now it's like this wow
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factor. I call it the Disney effect,
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like the Instagrammable moments. You have that part of it.
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You have social media that ranks you.
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You have to set your part. You have to set yourself apart
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where you are A, you are a drop. Imagine the ocean, you're 1 drop
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and that little ripple effect that you might be in a little
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pond and you, if you have every other restaurant is vying for
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that same thing in that little pond.
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You have to make a big enough ripple where you, you have to
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set yourself apart. And that's very hard.
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So if you're not using tools, know what your costs are, know
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what your break even point is, who's doing your social media?
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What can you automate if you're not responding to someone fast
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enough on a Facebook, if you're not having somebody answer your
10:50
phone, if you're not getting back to an e-mail, if you're not
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dealing with all these things that you can now have AI to help
10:55
you with or you can have outsource it or put someone
10:58
there to do that. There's other restaurants that
11:01
are that are going to be more successful and get that dollar
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that you might miss. So help me with the timeline
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here. You had multiple locations with
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the Schofield restaurant group. At some point you start high
11:14
VOC. Did one wrap up before the other
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started or was there some overlap?
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So no, I, I ended up exiting Schofield Restaurant Group and
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after I was like, you know, I didn't get to see my son grow up
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when my kids grow up and I dropped my son off to college
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and I have Maddie's crafting crew at the time.
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And I was like, I'm not going to see her grow up.
11:34
It's OK to have restaurants named after her name,
11:35
restaurants after her kids, but you're not going to do it.
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So I exited, I, I walked away and I, I did it happily.
11:41
I and then I was like, what am I going to do?
11:45
Well, I can be the used car salesman to be a consultant and
11:48
kind of do that. I was like, but everyone's doing
11:49
that. How can I set myself again in
11:51
the restaurant? What I had learned?
11:52
How can you set yourself apart from everybody else?
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Well, I knew that the future was always going to be virtual.
11:57
The younger kids are using that phones are using that
11:59
technology. They're going to be on this,
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they're on social. They're, you know, this would be
12:02
for TikTok. So in 2015, 2016, there's like,
12:05
I knew that the future was coming.
12:07
So we came up with high virtual operations consultants.
12:10
So he came up with an app and then we came up with an online
12:13
management software to help train your staff and to do that.
12:15
And then we came up with a way to take your tests and things
12:17
like that online, serve it up safe at at highvoc.com.
12:21
And then it was kind of like that and it just then it just
12:24
kept growing and growing. And then we got connected with
12:27
Buyer's Edge platform and give rebates to restaurants.
12:30
How can I help the little man, be a big guy, take what I had
12:33
learned and pass that on to them so they can be successful.
12:36
I remember what it was like looking at your phone, if you
12:38
can make payroll, if I can order food, how can I help them not do
12:42
those pitfalls that I did? So that's where Hive came from.
12:44
And then it just pivoted. Then the pandemic happened, then
12:47
we pivoted again. And then after pandemic it, that
12:50
was a race to 0. Always so many masks and gloves
12:53
and things like that. Half the 2/3 of the country was
12:55
closed. Florida was open.
12:57
So then it went into supply chain and then now manufacturing
13:01
and distributing paper goods. So we do that now.
13:04
So so. It started out as well, I
13:09
wouldn't be a restaurant consultant, but that feels sort
13:11
of tired, like lots of people are doing that.
13:14
How can I set myself apart? And so you came up with some
13:18
ideas to use like onboarding and training systems on your phone.
13:21
Is is that what you're at the. So it's called, it's called
13:24
yeah, Hyve University. You could go on and train your
13:26
staff. So the biggest part of what
13:28
makes the restaurant successful, Darden Group, look at them.
13:31
Why would I want to reinvent the wheel when someone like a Darden
13:34
Group or, or they have spent millions and millions of
13:39
dollars, Disney has spent millions and millions of dollars
13:41
of putting all these training and all the stuff into to
13:44
effect. Why wouldn't I take a part of
13:46
their book and just make it my own?
13:48
So by training your staff, this is what a Beaujolais wine is,
13:53
this is what a Bordeaux is, this is what a confit means.
13:55
This is what I want them to know what's on my menu for my
13:58
restaurant, But how can I have that to other restaurants?
14:01
So we made an online learning management software that you
14:03
could output and tests randomly select people, push
14:06
notifications like, Hey, this person go on this staff when
14:09
they get on boarded, did they have their did they have their
14:11
food manager car? Did they have their ServSafe?
14:13
Did they have their tip certification?
14:15
And it was just a way to like on board that.
14:17
So that was why we came up with first and then my silly brain,
14:22
it would even take your recipes and put it in the app.
14:25
And then if you were hired as a a salad station, had a picture
14:29
of what your salad station look like, what went into everything,
14:32
what was on your station. It was the all broken down by
14:34
station. So you could on board an app and
14:37
you can see if he was actually learning on the app, if he
14:39
actually looked at his menus and if he was doing it.
14:41
So you, you, there was no excuse for them not to because here's
14:45
your recipes, here's your costing, here's this and it was
14:49
all paper. So now it was I, we put it on
14:51
the phone, hence the virtual operations consultant.
14:53
And that's what we did. Fascinating.
14:56
And then what happened in COVID? So then we were about ready to
15:03
sign one of the biggest deals that we had done.
15:05
Two of them, we went to a company out in Utah.
15:09
I won't say their name, but they're huge company and they
15:12
were going to bring us on board to give rebates to all their
15:15
customers. They had about 10,000 of them
15:17
sign the papers up. We went out there, they had a
15:19
hive summit. They brought some of the other
15:21
channel partners in. They introduced us like you
15:24
should do business. This what we're going to do.
15:26
Papered everything up, went out to dinner, went to New Jersey.
15:31
And now this was what was it? March, the 1st week of March,
15:35
March 10th or 7th, like the world shut down South.
15:38
End of February we're in Utah. First week of March, we're in
15:42
New Jersey at a it's a famous sub shop out of New Jersey on
15:46
the beach. Everyone sees them and we were
15:49
going to go up there and do that and then came back ready to like
15:53
life's going to change us pop bottles.
15:55
And then if I was watching the basketball game, they're like,
15:57
we have to close down. Like what?
15:59
What's the like? Everyone has to go home.
16:01
I'm like, what is this COVID stay in place lockdown And then
16:04
they cancelled our contract. They cancelled everything,
16:06
everything and said and I was like, what do I do again in the
16:12
restaurant? Pivot, persevere.
16:14
All right, well, we have this platform, Florida's open.
16:16
How can we save them? How can we get the money?
16:17
How can we do this? We have the platform, we have
16:20
the reach. So we just pivoted, started
16:22
bringing in COVID test kits, started giving gloves, started
16:25
getting masks, started getting hand sanitizers.
16:28
So then we added that part of our business and then it
16:33
transpired to erase the 0 during COVID.
16:36
And then we knew there was not going to be, you know, can't
16:38
sell Outback all their COVID test kits, can't sell bass pro
16:53
And then how we've grown that. OK, So, yeah, give me give me
16:57
the the lay of the land today. So we still have the Hive
17:01
university, right? The training, the learning
17:03
management system. You're doing a lot of paper
17:06
goods. And So what you guys are buying
17:08
these in massive quantities so that you get price breaks and
17:12
then you're passing those price breaks on to your clients.
17:14
Is that how it? Works so we actually own and
17:17
operate our own trucks and Fordham and then we do we do
17:23
RFQS for national chains, Outback Bloom brands, anybody
17:28
that needs custom goods or paper products or a portion cup or a
17:32
saddlebag school districts and we do that on a national level.
17:36
But then we in Florida we actually have our own trucks
17:38
where we are fed up the middle man and just import it,
17:41
manufacture it and then distribute our own selves.
17:44
We have our own, our own platform, our own inventory
17:48
management software. You can download our our app
17:51
from the phone on the from iPhone or iTunes and Google Play
17:55
store and order products. And now we manufacture pizza
18:00
boxes. We actually are bringing
18:01
manufacturing back to the US because it's not easy right now.
18:07
And I have this little adage, you probably know better than I
18:09
do. Like everyone's like buy a, buy
18:11
a, a, a this, not a car wash, buy a laundry mat.
18:17
So cool, so much money. When you hear about it, it's
18:19
already too late right now. I want to get ahead and bring
18:21
manufacturing back. So in four or five years when
18:23
everyone's trying to do it, we're already be on our way out
18:26
and that's all We're manufacturing pizza boxes.
18:28
We manufacture those white and our warehouse out here.
18:31
So my hands are kind of dirty, but we do all that kind of stuff
18:33
and we're bringing it back and. I mean, business must be good
18:37
because, yeah, your hands are dirty because you guys are
18:39
moving into a bigger warehouse today.
18:41
Yeah, we are. So we're moving from one
18:43
warehouse into another and just getting ready for another
18:47
machine to come, and it'll spit out 250 pizza boxes a minute.
18:50
Just wow. Yeah.
18:52
And so on the watch, what does that manufacturing process look
18:55
like? Are you guys getting like large
18:57
like rolls of corrugated and you put them into this machine and
19:00
it cuts them into the right sizes and folds them?
19:03
So we get imagine like a, a sheet like the size of a coffee
19:07
table. We get sheets that like that and
19:09
it'll go in the machine and it might cut six boxes.
19:12
It might cut four boxes and it might cut 3 depending on the
19:14
size. And then it might cut one.
19:16
But it will eat them as fast as I can feed it.
19:18
It'll spit them out, it'll shake them, it'll count them and then
19:21
put them through a another automated rail that go through a
19:25
vacuum sealer and it'll shrink wrap them and then someone just
19:28
palletizing them. And it just, I can do custom up
19:31
to four colors on one big printer and I can do as many
19:34
colors on the digital printers that we have.
19:37
So paper goods, other kinds of inventory items that restaurants
19:42
need. Everything you can think of, the
19:44
only I don't really touch is perishables.
19:46
We, I mean, we're a Heinz distributor, we're a Moanin
19:49
syrup distributor, we're canned tomatoes distributor, flour
19:53
distributor. We are getting into goods that
19:56
are that I can be as a convenience to the big boys.
20:01
I'm going to be better on pricing as far as the paper
20:03
goods is because we don't have the overhead.
20:06
They might be better on other things, but I don't want to get
20:08
into dairy and produce and stuff.
20:10
But we we do well. We do really well and all that.
20:14
And so you guys are in Sarasota, FL, right?
20:17
We are in Sarasota, FL, yes. And are most of your customers
20:21
regional because like I hear you say, you own your own trucks?
20:24
So we do regional, we deliver directly to the customers.
20:28
So we import probably we manufacture products in about 7
20:31
different countries. We import containers and then we
20:33
distribute it, warehouse it and re palletize it.
20:35
We sell it to other wholesalers throughout the nation and other
20:39
in Florida. And then we actually deliver now
20:41
directly to the end customers in Florida.
20:44
So we go from anywhere from hotels to food trucks to
20:47
restaurants to multi chains, you name it.
20:51
And so you are what is known as a group purchasing organization,
20:55
am I right? Hive VOC is the parent company
20:58
of Hive Disposables. So we are a an aggregator of
21:02
data and we take that data and give rebates to restaurants for
21:05
free just to participate. What does that mean?
21:08
What? What kind of data are you
21:09
aggregating? So if you imagine like a
21:12
restaurant, typical restaurant might have 300 skews that
21:17
they're ordering on a daily basis.
21:18
French fries, Dawn tablecloths, you know everything that is a
21:23
brand name, Gen. pack, Pactive, all those things.
21:26
They all have rebates and what we do, we take your invoice
21:29
level data from your customer number and the big box read the
21:33
the manufacturers want to know who their customers is.
21:36
Well, the middleman doesn't want to give that.
21:38
So the bridge from the manufacturer, the the Cisco's
21:41
and the Cheneys of the world to the customers, we bridge the gap
21:44
by giving the data and then they get the rebate.
21:46
So we compile what they purchased from the the retailers
21:51
and we take that rebate. We take a little piece of that
21:53
and then give the rest of it to the customer and it's their
21:55
money. Every restaurant should be
21:57
getting. There's a hundred and we can
21:59
give about 150,000 rebatable items on a quarterly basis.
22:05
And there's about, I think up to now 50,000 deviated contract
22:08
prices. So that's how we do it.
22:10
We take that data and say there's 10,000 people buying
22:14
this, give us a rebate and give us a deviation.
22:16
Here's the data, here's where your customers are, here's the
22:19
type, here's the demographics. And we give them all that data,
22:21
as much data as they want as that we're allowed to give, just
22:24
not personal info. This is where it's going.
22:26
This is zip code, this state, this region, and then they give
22:30
us a rebate based on that and a deviated cut price.
22:32
Every restaurant gets to participate in it.
22:34
Hence every restaurant participates in deals that are
22:37
sweet as honey. So the Hive gives them back
22:39
their honey, their money that they're already buying.
22:41
That's their money. We just put all that through
22:43
because you would have to take all that invoice level data,
22:47
submit it to each of those 300 manufacturers, and then wait 1/4
22:50
and then get it back. You have you're you're a
22:53
plumber, you're a dishwasher, you're a server, you're a
22:54
Hostess, you're a cook, you're everything when you're an owner.
22:57
So we do all that heavy lifting for you just by aggregating it.
23:02
Interesting. So the purpose of all of these
23:06
suppliers providing these rebates is because they want
23:10
some data on who their customer is.
23:12
You're providing that data, but you're stripping out the
23:15
personal information. It's like here's the ZIP code,
23:18
right? Here's the zip code that it's
23:19
going to, basically. Here's the zip code.
23:22
It's a, it's a Mexican style restaurant that is, you know, on
23:27
this side of the road, this address and it, you know,
23:30
whatever that is and it here's the history.
23:32
I'm not, I don't know who owns it, what they're doing, giving
23:35
emails or phone numbers. None of that.
23:37
It's just the type of restaurant where it's at and the zip code
23:40
and it's is an Italian, is it a fast casual?
23:42
Is it a QSR? Is it a hotel?
23:45
That kind of data. There's no different than when
23:47
you buy a car, you get a rebate or a phone or your your glasses
23:51
you wear there, you get a rebate.
23:52
Everything has a rebate. Buy it at Walmart, you get a
23:54
rebate. We just take the time to send it
23:57
in. That coupon is there for
23:59
everything that you buy. So different than when you go to
24:02
Publix. Yeah.
24:02
So give me an idea, say, I don't know pretty good restaurants
24:07
doing $2,000,000 a year. What kind of rebates might they
24:10
expect on an annual basis? So a $2,000,000 restaurant, if
24:14
they're, if they're in their pie of like the successful
24:17
restaurant, they're at 3330% food cost.
24:19
So we'll just say 30% of 2,600,000.
24:22
So $600,000 in purchase COGS. Imagine 2% of 600,000.
24:27
So 2 * 6, they're about $12,000 to $15,000 a year that they'd
24:31
get about 1000, a little bit over $1000 a month on average,
24:35
but it would come quarterly. So they could get a three to
24:37
$4000 check and that's nice. For not having to do anything
24:42
because you guys are doing and So what is your tech stack?
24:45
Without giving away secret sauce, what does your tech stack
24:47
look like? Because if you guys are going
24:49
through receipts and invoices by hand like this is cumbersome.
24:53
It's not worth it. I don't know.
24:55
So it's all, it's all, it's all, it's all through data
25:00
aggregation. So imagine like your customer
25:01
number, your e-mail, that's what takes it.
25:03
And then it now eats all that. So every item has a manufacturer
25:07
product code and then it has a skew from that box retail.
25:11
But the manufacturer product code is the same.
25:13
And it doesn't matter which one of your distributors are buying
25:16
it. They might put their internally,
25:18
they might put a number on it, but that manufacturer product
25:21
code never changes. That little skew or that G10
25:23
code or that barcode never changes.
25:26
And that's what's the rebates based on.
25:28
And that's what the manufacturers want to know that
25:32
type of data. So we just take that number,
25:35
take what they're buying, what they purchase, the catchweight
25:38
and there's 27 line items that we capture on that data and
25:42
that's what we give back to the manufacturers and.
25:47
So. It's.
25:48
It's easy for you guys to do this for the products that
25:51
you're supplying to your customers, but what about like
25:54
the perishable items or the items that you don't touch?
25:58
It doesn't matter. So the the are you like
26:01
counting? Into their accounting software.
26:02
Is that what's happening? Well, no.
26:04
So the items we don't touch are just like that's what we
26:06
personally sell to the restaurants.
26:07
So our disposables, that's what we are distributor.
26:09
We're just a paper and distributor like that.
26:12
But it doesn't matter who you're buying from or what state you're
26:15
in. If you're buying from a little
26:17
guy and they're part of the platform and they're doing it,
26:20
we there's 350, probably 400 distributors now that
26:23
participate in this. So you could be 1 of 400 that
26:26
you're buying something from and they're going to give the rebate
26:29
because they're giving the data because we have to basically
26:31
take what you purchased and match it with what you what you
26:34
bought and it have to line item. And then that's how the data
26:37
just, it just does it automatically based on the
26:38
customer numbers. How are you getting that data
26:40
from the customer? Just a customer number.
26:43
So you participate, you say, hey, I own Joe's Pizzeria,
26:46
here's my customer number from Cisco PFG and Cheney Brothers.
26:50
Here's my customer number. We just, you say that we want to
26:53
participate, you give us permission to just to get your
26:55
invoice level data. You still order the same, you
26:58
still call your Rep up or you put your order online.
27:01
We just get a data feed. And by doing that, either you
27:04
can upload it, you can take pictures of it, or we just get
27:07
an e-mail or we automatically we can tie into that purveyor and
27:13
they might actually just give us the data and you participate and
27:16
you, there's no contract. You don't pay me, you don't do
27:19
anything. We get our money just for
27:21
allowing you and that's what we want and that's how we go and
27:23
negotiate contracts on a big scale for the big 10 thousand,
27:27
15,000 units. That's how they get to get their
27:29
prices way cheaper than a normal place because they're part of
27:32
their own deviated contract prices and rebates.
27:37
We just mentioned that you guys are moving into a new warehouse
27:40
as we speak, but say more about that, like why specifically now?
27:45
Why a bigger one? What's going on?
27:47
So right now we, we, we bring in manufacturing and so we are now
27:51
moving to bigger warehouse because we have this, we have
27:53
another machine coming next week.
27:55
It's 55 feet long and about 12 feet wide.
27:57
And it's, it's another pizza box machine.
27:59
But we're going to manufacture them in the warehouse that we
28:01
still sell products out of. We also going to be adding some
28:05
of digital printers that will print on cups and coffee cups
28:09
and phone cups so we can get those customers in and help the
28:11
mom and pops. Everything I do, I want to be
28:14
able to save a restaurant money. That's my heartfelt thing.
28:17
I wanted to be able to help them because I knew what it was like
28:20
when I had my restaurant and I forgot to pay my bill and my
28:23
lights were off and my kids came home and I was like, oh, we're
28:26
going to get the 10 out. We're just going to camp in the
28:27
living room. Let's make fun of it and like,
28:29
let's do this. But they didn't know that.
28:30
They were like, oh, cool, we get to camp out in the living room
28:33
with that. But it was just because I had to
28:35
make payroll or I forgot or I didn't have enough money in the
28:38
bank because I didn't know what I wasn't.
28:40
I didn't know what I didn't know when I was first shutting out.
28:42
So everything I do is to help restaurants do that.
28:45
So we just, they just participate.
28:47
There's no contract they signed to us.
28:49
We get their data, we go and negotiate stuff for them.
28:52
They participate and they can pick as much or as little as
28:55
they want. Say more about camping out in
28:57
the living room with your kids. What What led to that?
29:01
There's no lights, they can't camp out in their room.
29:03
So there's not just just owning a restaurant and you have to pay
29:08
your employees before you get paid.
29:09
So I might not have paid my electric bill that month or
29:12
forgot and it got turned off, but it was turned back on the
29:14
next day. You know, just it, it, it
29:17
happens more times than you think.
29:19
You know, it's no different when you're struggling and you're,
29:22
you have a restaurant, but you want to make sure your kids get
29:24
fed and you're not going to eat because you can eat at the
29:25
restaurant. You know, like, I mean, it's,
29:29
it's, it's just what happened. So, but when you have a family
29:32
and you have your little kids and they're over that weekend
29:34
because it's your weekend and you're like, Oh crap, we're
29:38
camping out on the thing and we're going to bring a pizza
29:40
home from the restaurant and we're going to like, tell
29:42
stories and like, this is scary, but it's scary stories with the
29:46
flashlight like, and they, they'll remember that, but it's,
29:50
it is what it is. It happens a lot more than you
29:52
think. What did it feel like on the
29:53
inside for you going through that?
29:57
Like I remember crying to my daughter one time, like I just,
30:01
she's like, why are you crying? And she was probably 8.
30:05
And I said, because I don't want to fail you or your brother.
30:07
She goes and she goes, she looked at me and we were laying
30:10
down there in the little pillows and she goes, she put her little
30:13
hand on my face. She goes, well, you can't fail.
30:14
I said, why? She goes because you're too good
30:16
at everything. And I was like, I was like, I
30:21
you're in trouble now go to your room.
30:22
I am in my room. I'm like, well, she just put a
30:25
little hand on my face, Dad, you're good at everything.
30:26
And I was. Like oh wow.
30:28
But I felt defeated, like no lights on, like I'm crying
30:31
because I'm sitting here. They don't know that you're
30:35
$100,000 in debt in your restaurant.
30:37
You borrowed everything, you've leveraged everything to put in
30:39
this restaurant and it's failing.
30:40
Or you, you try to make payroll or you're, you're just, you
30:43
don't know what you don't know. And I knew a lot.
30:47
And the more I realized I knew I didn't know anything at all and
30:51
I had to swallow pride. And then that's a coming to
30:53
Jesus moment with yourself. Like, I don't care what I think.
30:57
What do they want? What am I not doing and how can
31:00
I hire to replace what on week out?
31:02
I'm not good at bookkeeping. Hire a bookkeeper that's way
31:04
better than me. Not good at this.
31:06
Hire someone who's good at that. I'm not good at like this.
31:08
Hire someone who's good at that. I'm good at what I'm good at.
31:10
Let me focus on what I'm good at.
31:12
I can learn the other stuff, but learning to hire there's, I'm
31:17
going to say this last thing and that's it.
31:19
There's three skills, human skill, technical skill, and
31:21
conceptual skill. Two of you, two of these get you
31:24
promoted into the next level to get to the restaurant.
31:27
But if you don't have conceptual skill to solve problems and you
31:30
make yourself thinking that you're indispensable below I can
31:32
do it all, you're going to fail. That's the recipe for failure,
31:37
and that's a hard lesson to learn.
31:39
You know, I'm so glad that you shared some of these stories
31:41
here, Jason, because these are the things that don't get talked
31:44
about very often. And people see what the it's not
31:47
fun, right? It and it feels terrible and and
31:51
admitting it out loud to others is like, that's just this
31:54
ultimate blow to your ego. But this is the kind of stuff
31:57
that is so common when people are starting businesses.
32:01
So common. And you see it probably from a
32:03
lot of your customers today. Oh, and.
32:05
They don't want to ask for help. And, and it's, it's, it's, it's,
32:09
it's hard to ask for help. It's hard to say as a grown
32:11
person that you're failing or that you don't know what you
32:13
don't know. And you get overwhelmed, you get
32:15
bogged down. And then it just takes one thing
32:17
after every day in a restaurant, there is a problem.
32:20
You are a, if you're not a good problem solver in a restaurant,
32:23
you will not, you will not. You need to hire one if you're
32:25
not one, you need to hire someone that can solve problems
32:28
and just be like, all right, the dishwashing didn't come in.
32:30
Hey Chris, you're going to go over there and do this.
32:32
You 2 are going to work the line.
32:33
I need you to be the Hostess. So you're going to take tables.
32:35
We're all going to. And if you can't move that and
32:37
then problem solve in a restaurant.
32:40
And that's one thing I was really good at conceptual
32:42
thinking and solving problems. I like solving them so.
32:45
Is that your superpower? That is my superpower that that
32:48
that is. That is one thing that and I
32:51
love the chaos and it's a sickness.
32:53
It you'll find most restaurant tours or good chefs or people
32:57
that love this. They love getting beat up every
33:00
day and coming back the next day and doing like that.
33:01
I can't believe I did this. And then you like, man, I just
33:04
did that. Holy crap, let's do it again
33:07
tomorrow. And it's you do that.
33:09
You go do a Super Bowl, You go do you feed 30,000 people and,
33:13
and and and one sitting and then you're like, let me do this
33:16
again. Logistics, planning.
33:19
It, it, it, it, it There's a recipe for success.
33:22
You follow the rest. You will follow the recipe.
33:23
It's great. If I tell you to bake a cake and
33:25
I'll give you a recipe, it's probably not going to work out.
33:28
If I give you a recipe and you follow it, can you tweak it
33:31
later on? Yeah.
33:32
Can you make it better? Yeah.
33:33
But it will come out good. It will be a cake.
33:36
It might not be pretty, but that comes through experience that
33:38
come through those 10,000 hours. So one of the big things that
33:43
you know you're able to help restaurants do is get back some
33:46
margin points, right? You're getting some better
33:48
pricing, you're getting on these rebates.
33:50
I wonder if there's a particular client story that sticks out in
33:54
your head where you were really able to help them out of a jam.
33:58
Well, I don't know if it was a particular story, but we went
34:02
into one, one group and they had very successful restaurant group
34:06
and they're here in Tampa, Tampa Bay area and they probably had
34:09
like 15 places Print money. You would know it if I told you
34:13
the name prints money going down.
34:16
And I met with the Co at the time.
34:18
He's a friend now. He's a good friend of mine.
34:19
David and I probably spoke too fast and he's just like I asked,
34:26
asked him for a bill. I saved him money, gave him
34:28
$15,000. She's in the next door.
34:32
She's right in the other room saving $15,000 on one invoice.
34:36
Just took a picture of it and he's like you just saved his
34:38
$15,000 like that. What else can you?
34:40
What else would you like me to do?
34:41
Gave me his credit card processing, dropped that, gave
34:44
me his rebate program, signed him up for that, did insurance,
34:51
dropped that when we were said and done.
34:53
I'd probably save this restaurant Group A half
34:55
$1,000,000 within two hours of me leaving it and they didn't
34:58
sign any contract with me and didn't pay.
34:59
I'd get paid on the back end, but not from them.
35:02
And, and then it was like, then it became a lifelong thing like,
35:05
hey, Jason, can you help this guy out?
35:06
Hey, Jason, can you help this guy out?
35:08
And, and, and that was half $1,000,000 to your bottom line.
35:14
Like if I can give you 10 to 15% savings just by having a
35:17
conversation with me. But no one wants to do that.
35:22
No one wants to be told what they're not doing right.
35:24
So you have to make it their idea to be like, I'm here to
35:27
help you if you want it. If not, don't worry about it.
35:29
Call me when you need me. I'll be here.
35:32
Say more about that. How do you, how do you make it
35:34
their idea? How do you help them sort of
35:37
arrive at the idea? You, I don't, I don't know.
35:44
I still have a hard time with that to this day.
35:46
I it's like an adage. I don't know how to say it.
35:49
Like I don't know how to make them do that.
35:52
It comes through. They, they like trust and want
35:54
to do business with you. Yes.
35:55
At the same time, everybody comes in and tries to sell them
35:58
something. Everybody's coming into a
36:00
restaurant too. They they look out there and
36:02
like, hey, I'm not here. They take your card, you get it
36:04
and like I did it, like I'll get you get business cards and you
36:08
just, you know it, it happens. You don't want to be told what
36:11
you're not doing right. So you have to be like chef, how
36:14
can I be of service to you? I'll come and place your orders
36:17
for you every week. Let me walk you through that.
36:19
Here's here's here's and let me do your order guide for you.
36:21
Let me take your pricing and and go back and be working for you
36:24
and I'll give you a laminated 1. I find that when I solve a
36:27
problem for them, that's one less thing that they have to do
36:29
1 less problem they have to solve.
36:31
And that's how I get them to trust me and to do stuff is like
36:36
I have to solve a problem from I have to be a service.
36:38
If I'm just another liability them they already have fifty of
36:40
those that walk in the door and they pay every day as a
36:43
liability everyday piece of equipment, people that.
36:47
So if I can take one of those things off and solve that
36:49
problem, make it as easy as possible, then it then it then
36:52
it's a trickle effect. Then they call me, then they
36:54
send me text messages, you know like, hey, can you help me with
36:57
that? Sure, no problem.
36:59
Make an e-mail. Why do so many?
37:01
People call you the Restaurant Whisperer, Jason.
37:04
I got that name from another guy that gave me a podcaster just
37:07
because I've failed enough. I failed enough to to learn what
37:12
I what I've learned. And they've been painful lessons
37:15
and all this stuff is out there for them.
37:19
Rebates are for them. You don't need me.
37:20
You can sign up for rebates. There's plenty programs out
37:22
there. You can dining lines, Fire's
37:23
Edge, RPP, Consolidated concepts, FRPG 1.
37:26
There's so many restaurant people out there that are GPS
37:29
but they're not told you because here's the here's what happens
37:33
when I'm a cook in a restaurant and I'm getting my my 10,000
37:37
hours in and I'm going to get my chance to go open my restaurant
37:39
and this guy's going to believe in me.
37:41
I take all those food purveyors and all those sales people that
37:43
were my sales Rep when I was there.
37:45
I solved the problem. Now going into them because now
37:47
I have all this, I have a produce guy, dairy guy, all
37:49
this. Those guys are all in
37:50
Commission. Those guys are all making money
37:53
because that's their one thing. Your insurance guy, your ice
37:56
guy, you're all those guys are on Commission.
37:58
They don't tell you that his margins are based on Commission.
38:03
So I'm going to tell you like, look, there's a better way to do
38:04
it. Here's a rebate for you to
38:06
offset that. You can negotiate prices.
38:08
You can ask them like, hey, I need a better price on my
38:10
chicken. Hey, I, I need to shop it
38:13
around. So if you're not doing it, those
38:14
margins go up. That's where the whisper part
38:17
is. I, I've learned those lessons
38:18
and, and, and, and I'm there to advocate for the small guy.
38:22
I want to, I know what it was like.
38:24
It's painful, man, So hard. Now I can't even.
38:27
I tell people when they come to me like don't do it.
38:31
Don't start a restaurant. No, If you, if you have
38:34
$200,000, put that into something that's going to give
38:37
you a 10% guaranteed return. Go buy a house, go do something
38:39
else. You failed 95%.
38:44
Even though this is your business, this is your industry,
38:47
you're like, go look somewhere else.
38:50
It's so. Hard because if you, if you, if
38:53
you don't own the property and you don't own the liquor
38:55
license, you have nothing to bank on.
38:57
If you're not going into it to build good books, good clientele
39:00
and sell the business to somebody that wants to take over
39:02
your business in five or ten years and you have an exit plan
39:04
going to it. You're not going to get anything
39:06
out of that restaurant. No one wants to come in and buy
39:09
your, your chairs or your FF and EI go buy restaurants for
39:12
pennies on the dollar. When they close that you might
39:15
have spent $100,000 in this pizza oven.
39:17
I'm going to give you $5000 and you're going to pay me 3000 of
39:20
that to take it out of there. Because if not, it's going to
39:22
stay there and the landlord's going to give it away for free
39:24
because he wants it out because there's another client that
39:26
comes in that doesn't want a pizza in there.
39:27
He's going to put a Taco place in there.
39:29
So he lets me come take it for free.
39:31
I'm at least going to give you something for it.
39:33
That's The Dirty side of this business.
39:37
So there's some recipes for success, but there's also, you
39:41
know, you have to have that vision, like already knowing
39:44
that I'm going to do this, to do this, or I'm going to do this
39:46
forever. Let's talk about sustainability
39:50
and long term planning, Jason. How do things like ethical
39:53
sourcing, Community impact environmental Responsibility fit
39:57
into your business? I don't think it fits into my
40:00
business being a distributor. Yes, it I, it doesn't matter to
40:04
me. I work for the customer.
40:06
If the customer wants it, I'm going to do that, but for the
40:09
customer. It goes back to that intricate
40:12
story of what sets you apart from the guy down the road.
40:14
If you think that that's very important to you, then stick to
40:17
who you are because people want to come to you because a, you're
40:19
authentic. You are what you say you are.
40:23
So if you are, if you believe, you know sustainability and you
40:27
believe in all the practices, yes, they are good for the
40:29
environment. You should buy sustainable
40:30
cheese and meats and produces and all that stuff.
40:34
You should for the our planet. We all live on it.
40:36
But that comes down to the story to the restaurant tour wants to
40:39
tell, hey, can they afford it? Because it's very expensive.
40:41
It's not cheap. You know, you, you want to get
40:44
APLA plastic cup, It's $110 a cup where I can get a RPET which
40:48
is recycled 100% PET recyclable cup for half to 1/3 of the
40:53
price. How many of those cups can you
40:57
justify to sell to get that $110 case versus a $50 case?
41:01
Again, you have to know these things and and look at your
41:05
numbers, know what your break even is, know how many pizzas
41:07
you have to sell. A lot of people don't know what
41:10
that those formulas are that are out there, and that's sad.
41:16
You've written a lot about a is potential in the restaurant
41:20
industry. Talk to us about that.
41:23
Where do you see it being used now?
41:25
Where do you think it's going? You you can I use a it's AI is
41:30
open on the screen right here. That's this one.
41:32
It I can go in here and it will never forget a conversation that
41:36
I have and I can say you are now my virtual GM and I have a
41:40
little thing in here. It's my virtual, my virtual
41:42
management helps me with everything.
41:45
Take my emails put in there and I can go back and reference the
41:47
things that I forget Imagine you having a tool that you could
41:50
talk to that you know it'll be here soon you'll have to be able
41:53
to put like a gentle manager. You have a little camera on that
41:55
will remember everything and help you like recap today for
41:58
me, Table 12 did this, Table 6 did that.
42:00
These, this, this boom, boom, all those things that you
42:02
forget. AI can do that now for you.
42:07
Those glasses, that little AI pens that you can wear, the
42:10
things that you can do on the on the computer.
42:12
You can create little AI agents that answer things for you and
42:17
automate. And if you're not doing it,
42:20
someone else is doing it and they're going to get your
42:21
dollars. You have to embrace technology.
42:24
Unfortunately, it's here. So what can restaurants do right
42:28
now with AI low hanging fruit? I mean, as much as people don't
42:34
want to say there's so many tools that are coming out,
42:37
Gemini's great if you want to do, if you want to take a, you
42:41
can. Here's a great one you get APDF
42:44
of five or six vendors, even your, your, your purchases right
42:48
now. And you want to put that into
42:49
something and compare prices. You can ask Google Jim and I
42:52
take this PDF, put in a Google sheet for me like that, tell me
42:55
the price variances and start on this and you can just start
42:57
telling you what to do and it will take APDF or even a
43:00
picture. It's Google Oculus.
43:02
That's this is what we use to take pictures of our of the
43:05
stuff like that. I can take pictures of a of a
43:10
APDF put it in here and it will take that and put it all in
43:13
columns and it's, it's miraculous.
43:16
So imagine doing that with the data that you don't want to
43:18
spend there and key in one at a time and do this and like look
43:21
at this and key it in like I used to have to do you say take
43:24
this picture. Can you put this in here?
43:26
Boom, boom, boom, boom. And it'll say sure, here it is.
43:28
Would you like me to export this into Google Sheets?
43:30
Yes. Can you put that in the table to
43:31
me and tell me, let's add a weather table.
43:34
How does weather affect or how does this concert affect or how
43:37
do they you can any idea you have?
43:39
You could tell the AI right now and make these models and it
43:42
will never forget a thing. That's low hanging fruit.
43:46
Imagine having that data like that.
43:49
Man, crazy Jason, behind most success stories there's usually
43:56
a chapter that almost broke someone.
43:58
If we haven't already talked about your example, what's the
44:02
serious challenge that you've overcome, personal or
44:05
professional? Man, probably one of the biggest
44:10
ones I did. I'd signed a personal guarantee
44:16
for a lease and I, I, it, it was a costly mistake.
44:23
I knew going into this lease I wasn't, it was a chance.
44:26
I was like, I, I convinced myself I sold to myself and I
44:31
bought myself. It's usually on any
44:33
conversation, someone's buying and someone's selling.
44:35
If you know where that is, you know, we are, but I was on both
44:38
ends of this conversation. I fucked myself and do it.
44:40
I bought it and I was like, yes, this is great.
44:45
Half million dollars later had to file a bankruptcy early in my
44:49
career to be able to, to do this.
44:51
And I was like never again. And I, I was like, either I can
44:55
just feel like I'm going to give up, don't want to do this.
44:58
I'm going to be this, I'm going to go be a cook forever.
45:02
I didn't want to be the 50 year old cook that was working for
45:05
the me at the time, a 30 year old chef.
45:08
And I had like, I wanted to grandeur.
45:10
I wanted to do all kinds of great things and it and it and
45:15
and I had to swallow my pride, man.
45:18
A lot of restaurant owners and a lot of people don't want to
45:20
swallow their pride. They think they know it and they
45:22
think they know it all. But if you're the smartest
45:24
person in the room, you were in the wrong room, man.
45:29
You need to hire a talent. You don't want to hire people
45:31
that you're better than so that you can feel better and stroke
45:33
your ego. You, you want to be around other
45:37
people that are better than you. All it's going to do is elevate
45:40
you. You want to be a millionaire,
45:41
hang around millionaires. You want to be a billionaire,
45:43
hang around billionaires. You want to be you want to be
45:44
broke, Take advice from broke people.
45:47
I'm not. There are people way smarter
45:48
than us that came up with that. It's the same thing in the
45:51
restaurants. I thought I knew what I knew and
45:53
I was like, forget that. And I effed up.
45:55
Seriously. Seriously.
45:58
What was that like for you going through that period?
46:01
What's that? What was it like for you going
46:04
through that period of time where you're filing bankruptcy
46:07
and you've got all these uncertainties and these bills
46:09
and this debt hanging over your head?
46:14
A lot of soul searching, a lot of like, what was me?
46:18
Oh boohoo feel sorry for myself. But then I realized I, I read
46:21
this book and it was, I don't remember the name of the book,
46:24
but it was an adage, like suddenly a man with no options
46:26
has every option in the world. And I realized it's done.
46:29
It's over. Now I can do anything I want.
46:31
I can rewrite it, but now I can rewrite it with like the right
46:34
stuff and the things in mind. So it was scary.
46:38
I didn't know what I was going to do.
46:40
It's never as bad as you think it is.
46:41
In the moment you break a bone, it hurts.
46:43
It hurts so bad. But two months later, three
46:46
months later, you never forget it.
46:47
It's done. A hurricane lasts a day, 8
46:51
hours, really bad 4 hours like Oh my God it's gone.
46:54
Then it's pick up the pieces and the light goes on.
46:57
It's a disaster. Pick up the pieces, move on,
47:00
learn it, rebuild it, build it stronger.
47:03
If you don't learn from it, you're going to make that same
47:05
mistake twice. So you got to a point during all
47:10
of that where you were there was this realization that, OK, this
47:14
is actually a helpful reset point.
47:16
Now I can go out and I can do things the right way and I can
47:21
do anything the. Sky's the limit, yeah.
47:25
What did? It take to get to that point
47:26
though. Believing in myself, surrounding
47:33
myself with people that believed in me, Having your daughter put
47:36
your hand on your face and telling you you're good at
47:38
everything and remembering who you are.
47:39
What got you there? I, I, I think that you have to
47:44
know who you are and, and know what you're capable of.
47:48
If you think you can do something and the next person
47:51
thinks they can, you're both right.
47:53
It's not up to me to, to tell you.
47:54
So that's the biggest things. Like I believe I can do anything
47:57
and I know I can't. I might not, I might not bake
48:00
the cake right the first time, but give me 10 * 20 times.
48:03
By that 50th time, that cake is going to be beautiful.
48:07
By the 100th time, imagine what it's going to be.
48:09
That gets me excited. Imagine what it's going to be in
48:11
the future. Like I keep putting in the work.
48:13
Imagine what it's going to be like tomorrow if you go around
48:18
thinking about how bad things are going to be every day and
48:20
how bad it is, you're just going to see more the bad.
48:22
But like, man, I got some wins today, dude.
48:24
Like I got set myself up tonight for tomorrow.
48:27
Put out my pants. Make sure I pull out my that
48:29
little bit of stuff when you go and you leave, like here's my
48:32
stuff. Put the tongs, put like the I
48:34
would make sure anyone's set the kitchen.
48:35
Like here's your pants, here's your spatula, here's your
48:38
ladles. Here's everything I needed when
48:39
I come in the morning because that's a win that day.
48:41
I started off the day with a win.
48:43
Don't matter. I'm one, I'm one up.
48:46
But if I come in that day every day, like not setting myself up,
48:49
the future me for success, I'm just going to have more of that.
48:52
I'm carrying yesterday in the day, yeah.
48:57
Lots of attention to details, lots of planning, lots of
49:00
focusing on the good. Because the good and the bad are
49:03
always going to be there together, right?
49:05
Where are you going to focus your energy?
49:08
Yeah, and it's a choice. You want to change.
49:11
You have to choose to make the change you can.
49:13
Nothing's going to come by wishing.
49:14
Or, you know, as much as I love to to pray, and then I do all
49:17
the time, I still have to put the artwork in.
49:21
For every action, there's a reaction.
49:22
That's science. That's a fundamental law of
49:24
nature. Like for every action, there's a
49:25
reaction. So if I want to change, I have
49:27
to put a change in it to get it out.
49:30
I ain't going to wish it. So yeah.
49:36
Jason, we've already talked about high VOC is, you know, as
49:40
we speak moving into a new warehouse, you've got this new
49:43
55 foot piece of equipment coming in.
49:47
What are some other exciting things on the horizon for high
49:50
VOC that we haven't talked about yet?
49:52
Let. Me think we will be.
49:56
We are going to have a machine that is coming where we'll
50:00
actually be able to make #3 craft boxes, boats, the French
50:05
fried boats, things like that. I'll be able to brand them.
50:07
We'll be able to do many actually manufacture things in
50:12
the US this year, not in just including cups and stuff like
50:16
that, but we'll actually be able to start bringing that back.
50:18
That's that's exciting to for me.
50:21
We have a patent on a, we're the distributor of Safe Seal pizza
50:24
box, which is a global patent on a tamper proof pizza box.
50:27
So you have a tear strip on it so no one can get in there and
50:30
open your pizza for delivery. I think that's going to be,
50:34
we're doubling down hard on that, that safe seal.
50:38
I mean, I don't know. I wanted to, I want to keep
50:42
growing and keep doing what I love so I can go do the other
50:45
things that I love after this. What's that?
50:49
Man, I do a lot. I love.
50:51
I love doing the stuff I do with charity.
50:53
I do a lot with the Children's Cancer Center.
50:55
I auction myself off and I do in home cooking experiences and
50:59
then it raises money, you know, anywhere from $20,000 a pop for
51:02
10 people in their house. But I bring in one of my chef
51:05
friends from, you know, New York or a craft cocktail guy from
51:09
here and we do this whole experience in your house and you
51:11
donate it, we cook it and then it's like, boom, I do that.
51:14
And then I cook the class every month for them.
51:18
And then the kids, the kids with cancer.
51:20
And I love it. I if I could do more of that and
51:24
just be involved, like my whole wall over here is just got
51:27
little, little things of like that.
51:30
I want to do more just you're only here once, man.
51:33
That dash is all you get born this day, dead that day.
51:36
That dash is everything that matters.
51:37
So I got to make sure that counts for something.
51:39
So this is all doesn't mean any. I can't take women, but I could
51:42
take those memories and those lives of that touch.
51:44
So that's what I want to do more of.
51:46
I love that. Yeah, man.
51:49
Jason, I've just got one more question for you today.
51:51
But before I ask you, I want to do 3 quick things.
51:53
First of all, anybody who wants to get in touch with Jason
51:55
Schofield today, go to their website, very easy to remember,
51:59
hivevoc.com. And there's a Contact Us page
52:03
right there that you can get in touch with them very easily.
52:06
hivevoc.com. hivevoc.com. Also, if you're enjoying the
52:12
show, a quick comment or review on your favorite podcast app
52:15
goes a long way towards helping others discover our show.
52:18
So thank you for taking a quick moment to do that right now.
52:22
And as a reminder, if you want to get more restaurant employees
52:25
access to therapists, doctors, and prescription meds that, as
52:28
paradoxical as it seems, actually increases your
52:31
company's net profits, reach out to us at Add Back benefits.com.
52:36
All right, Jason, Well, last question for you today.
52:39
What is 1 specific thing that you hope to be celebrating a
52:42
year from now? Oh man, my, I, I, I would have
52:51
put a dent. I want to I want to have doubled
52:55
or doubled my, my revenue and that's going to come through
52:58
some merger and acquisitions. And I have some things on the
53:00
dinners next week and South Florida that that might be a
53:04
very morality to be able to grow this into something that I can
53:08
do some damage with. Oh man.
53:12
The most interesting thing right there at the end.
53:14
There's some MNA planned here. Yeah, lots of MNA this year, a
53:18
lot of the guys want to retire. A lot of them just writing it
53:20
down on like little books, mom and pop 65 year old guys that
53:23
have been doing it forever. They just they don't have any
53:25
technology. They don't have the technology
53:26
stack. They don't can't do it.
53:27
I want to buy them and just let them have money and give them,
53:30
treat them like a, a 1099 employee and give them a
53:33
Commission on it. And we just take over all their
53:35
business and enveloping into us as a SBU.
53:37
That's what I want to do. Like the RV world guy, he,
53:40
that's how he got his well, his big, he went around all the
53:43
little RV guys, strategic business unit, SBU D them into
53:46
his big one, then exited one day and then he gave them all a
53:49
piece of the EBITDA again on top of it.
53:51
And against that kind of fits into the hive.
53:53
You have all these little hives everywhere and you just make
53:55
them all. I can really grow it and that's
53:57
the plan. I love it.
53:59
We're going to check back in, in 12 months, see how that's coming
54:02
along. Jason Schofield from High VOCI
54:05
want to be the first to thank you for sharing both your time
54:07
and your story with us today. I really appreciate you being
54:10
here. Thank you so much.
54:13
Folks, that's a wrap on another episode of the Inspired Stories
54:16
podcast. Thanks for learning with us.
54:18
And if one thing stood out, try putting it into action today.