From $40K to 166 Restaurants: Black Bear Diner's Journey and Hard-Won Business Lessons

Speaker 1

[00.00.00]

 Hi everybody. Have exciting episode today. I have Bruce Dean, who's the co-founder and chairman of the board for Black Bear Diner. So Bruce and his co-founder started Black Bear. I'm sure you guys have all been to a black bear. The incredible restaurants, uh, started in Mount Shasta as a single restaurant. And then he talks about the journey to growing the business to currently 166 restaurants in 14 states and growing along the way. He shares the successes, some of the challenges, some of the failures. And it's just an incredible episode. Can't wait for you to listen. 

Speaker 2

[00.00.40]

 Welcome to the North State Rocks podcast. Discover the hidden gems and extraordinary people of California's North State region. Join Perry Thompson, CEO of Hat Creek Construction Materials, as he explores the vibrant communities and interesting neighbors that make our region a great place to live, work, and play. Tune in, be inspired and rediscover the North State. This is your community. This is your story. 

Speaker 1

[00.01.10]

 Got Bruce Dean, co-founder and chairman of the board. Now, is that the proper title of Black Bear Diner? 

Speaker 2

[00.01.18]

 Right? Yeah. So, yeah, no. Glad, glad to be here and glad to kind of tell our story. And there's things to be learned, I think, by everybody in business, by the path that we've taken and the founders out there of businesses. And, you know, there's things I've learned over the years on, uh, on how this works. We founded Black Bear Diner. Me and a partner, Bob Manley, founded Black Bear Diner 30 years ago in Mount Shasta. And we, uh, I'd been in the restaurant business forever. I've been in it since I was 15 years old, and Bob had never been in the business. He was an artist and a teacher, and and but we were good friends and and so I had an opportunity to do a restaurant in Mount Shasta that had been there. I'd been running a company up and up in Siskiyou County as kind of a CEO of a company that was doing, uh, gas station convenience stores. And, uh, we had a restaurant, On the motel. And, you know, basically, I ran that company and built a whole bunch of new of gas station C stores up in Siskiyou County. But in 1995, I had an opportunity to do a restaurant in Mount Shasta. I had the food again. I've been in the business 55 years, so I know the food. I know how to run a business. But I wasn't the most creative guy in the world. So Bob again, being an artist and stuff, him and his wife owned a wildlife gallery in Mount Shasta called Shasta Wildlife Gallery, and they had all kinds of artwork and gift items and things that, uh, that were pretty neat. And so I went to Bob and said, hey, I've got this option to a restaurant down here next to the freeway and Mount Shasta, but I don't have an idea what to name it. And, you know, kind of the the cultural piece behind it. And he said, well, let me think about it. So he's a creative guy. And so he came and his wife came up with the name Black Bear Diner and brought a bunch of the artwork out of his, out of his wildlife gallery and brought the gift shop down. And created this restaurant that really ended up having a special field. We didn't know that it was going to be more than ever. One, just one restaurant. We didn't plan this to to be what we are today, which is 166 restaurants across 14 states. Never thought we'd be in more than one. Thought we would just have our friends over and have some fun with this. And and, uh. Well, we we opened the doors September 22nd, 1995. And, uh, basically the doors got blown off over the next period of time and just much more than we ever thought it was going to be. We had people driving from ready to come up, and a lot of people like spending time in Mount Charleston anyway. So they'd climbs on the mountain and always fit in Black Bear and, and, uh, people come into town just to get out of the heat and reading and, and, uh, so it was it got busy right off the bat more than we ever thought. Bob and I worked 38 straight days when we opened it and didn't plan on that. We worked 16 hours a day. We lost £40 each. Verse 38 days. And that's true because when you're in the restaurant business, you're around food all the time and you think, oh wow, I'll just eat. Well, when you're around food that much, you don't feel like eating. So we lost. We lost £40 each in the first 38 days and got the thing off the ground. We didn't have any money either. And against a lot of businesses out there, people that are listening will understand that. You know, we didn't have much. We I think I sold a boat. Bob went into his into his retirement plan for being a teacher, and we put together $40,000 and that's what we started black bear with was 40,000. And so which isn't much, you know, basically I build a restaurant nowadays open, you know, Lincoln takes a couple million dollars to open a restaurant. And, uh, we, we open to a 40,000. So that's why we were there, you know, 16 hours a day. We couldn't afford to hire a lot of people. We did. I cooked Bob, poured coffee, and we got the thing off the ground, and we got some help from the landlord to help us with some tea improvements on the building. And we got we got some help from our grocery provider, Cisco, and they gave us some terms and, uh, we got it off the ground, but again, been nothing that we ever anticipated. So, 

Speaker 1

[00.05.39]

 so contra, you said something interesting. Well, you said a lot of interesting things there, but you contrasted, uh, you know, hey, 40,000 is kind of how we started and, and we think it takes well, you know, you've done 166 of them. It takes 2 million now. So can you just kind of give us an overview of what that 2 million does to open a new 

Speaker 2

[00.05.58]

 one now? Well, what it is, is, is, is, you know, you have to take a building or get a new building. Right now, we're we found it is just as cheap to kind of get a new building than it is to refurbish an old one, a refurbished diner, which we did the first 6070 restaurants we did were all refurbishments of concepts that were there before us, but you never really know what you get. I mean, the plumbing could be bad, the roof bad, the HVAC is bad. Everything is more out. You have to replace everything. And, um, we found out that we could have a landlord build us a shell, a new shell and make the improvements in the site parking lot, you know, sidewalks and all that kind of stuff. Um, they, they put that in. Then we then they build us a shell and then we finish the shell. So that's what it costs to finish the shell. Put all of our equipment in, put systems in HVAC, uh, you know, walk ins, freezers, all the things you need in our restaurant and to get all that in. Obviously, that's much more expensive nowadays than it ever was. It's really gone up since the pandemic. You know, 35% minimally on things if you can even get things even to this day. Um, but also we learned that, you know, we're hiring now, about 120 people for every diner that we open. And you just can't bring people in and not train them. So we end up bringing in 120 people, spending a couple weeks, 80 hours per employee to train them. So we'll spend. 200, $250,000. Now, in just what we call pre-opening expenses, getting the people ready to handle the restaurant, to learn what we're about, learn the menu, learn how to do it. And and we really need to do that because when you open a restaurant and maybe like many businesses, everybody in town wants to try you in the first two weeks, right? So you're as busy as you will ever be at the beginning with the staff that's as least trained as they will ever be. And it's easy to get overwhelmed. And so you really have to hire a lot of people to help that you end up. Some folks just can't keep up with that pressure, and they decide to go back to where they worked before. And and so it becomes an expensive proposition to open a restaurant, not just from, again, the building making the building going, the equipment. Then you have to stock the place with food and all these things cost money. And then you throw in the pre-opening expenses with the employees and you've got a tall ticket. Wow. Yeah. You know, 

Speaker 1

[00.08.47]

 that absolutely makes complete sense about everybody trying the restaurant in the first two weeks. It makes complete sense. Everyone's like, oh, it's a new restaurant. Let's go check it out. And then of course, you reviews kind of. That's kind of sets the standard for how you're going to be accepted into that community. Right. 

Speaker 2

[00.09.01]

 You're you're least capable. Time is when you're open. So I always tell everybody, you know, give us a month, you know, we'll settle down and be able to give you a great service. I mean, the the landscape is littered with restaurants that open, open, busy, disappointed guests. And people don't forget you. Maybe they'll give you a second try. But most of all. And so if you sit there and mess up when people come in, they're less likely to give you another shot. I mean, I always I'm a customer. You're a customer, Perry. I mean, all people that can listen to this podcast are a customer of restaurants. We love going to restaurants, and you've had good experiences. So you'll go back to you'll have bad experiences that you won't go back to. And so you want to limit those bad experiences and to keep your business going. I always tell people it's not how much business I'm doing today at my opening, it's how much business I'm doing in a year. Because I disappoint people today, they won't be back in the year. And we've had our successes and failures with that over time. To be honest with you, just I just it drives me crazy. But it's true. Yeah. Yeah. Well, if 

Speaker 1

[00.10.18]

 it was easy, anybody could do it. So that's the that's the challenge. And I'll say, I think feel like the restaurant game is probably one of the most challenging games in business. I'm into my, uh, what is your experience? You know, I know you've been involved in tons of different businesses, and you counsel a lot of different businesses, right? If you if someone is if you're going to recommend somebody. Hey, I want to start a business. Where would restaurant be in your top ten of choices that you say, hey, I want to be a business 

Speaker 2

[00.10.45]

 owner. Understand? You know, you've got to be passionate about what you do. If you love food and you and you love want to have a restaurant and serve people for your passion, I think that's great for restaurant business is is a great step up industry in our economy where people with ideas, great ideas, can can do something and, uh, you know, and really put their, their fingerprints on it and make it successful. But understand that about 75% of restaurants fail in the first five years. And so this high level of failure is something you need to understand. They they didn't necessarily fail because you had a bad idea or that you didn't execute this, this, this concept that you're trying to put out properly. You failed because basically you ran out of money. The biggest, the biggest failure of restaurants is that they've run out of money. They didn't open quite right. They didn't invest right in their staffing. I just told you, we're spending over $200,000 in pre-opening expenses that I won't, that it's not like I'm spending 200 or $250,000 on something I could put my hands on. Right. It's it's on training people. And if you don't train your people, if you don't spend the time to to do things right, you're your risk of failure. And the restaurant business grows exponentially. Yeah. Wow. So 

Speaker 1

[00.12.18]

 okay, so I wanted to ask, you want to back up a little bit 

Speaker 2

[00.12.22]

 on why 

Speaker 1

[00.12.24]

 I understand, you know, when you're starting out, you had this building, you're able to get into this existing building with a great location and kind of step in. So as the company succeeded and started moving forward. Why did you or did you maybe maybe you dabbled in it, but did you ever dabble in actually owning the real estate, or did you always, always go with with the rental concept and 

Speaker 2

[00.12.51]

 why? Well, we told you that we didn't start with a lot of money. Yeah, we started with very little. And to own real estate costs a lot. So we made the decision that we had a concept that we could grow, that people liked, that we could go different places with. But if I decided to start owning the real estate, that would have that would have taken up all our operating capital that we had and we had none. So it was the easiest path to take to grow the business without owning the real estate. Now we do own Bob and I own one of our one of our real estate, and we California, we own that. Um, but generally everything is leased across the system because we needed to use our capital for growth, not owning real estate. Now, if you can own the real estate, that's the best way to go. You know you can do it. But, uh, if you can't make it happen, then you just. We took the growth now. Also, you know, I've been on a bank board, and, uh, so I know inside all this stuff, you know, the banking industry as a whole is not really too excited to loan on restaurants. Because of the high failure rate, right? So, you know, you can turn. You can use up your your capital and even the amount of money that you can your you can borrow from a bank and tie that up on one unit on real estate and you're done. You don't have any more capacity, you know, lending capacity, borrowing capacity. So that's what we did. And that's also why, you know, one of the things that we did early on, I'll kind of tell the story is that, you know, in 1997, we came to reading and did our restaurant reading, which was very successful, but again leased the real estate. We had a guy down there that that owned the real estate and had a restaurant in there and failed. And he's seen us in Mount Shasta. He basically told us, come here, I'll give you everything you need to open and reading. And we needed to do that because we didn't have the cash. So July 1st, 1997, we opened in Redding, which was very successful. Then Bob and I thought we were really smart guys in that we could do it, you know? So we went to Chico and did one in a in the wrong location, and then we went to Red bluff and decided that we could do that in Red bluff, too. And we took the wrong location. Chico was too small. Red bluff was too big. And and we found out that if you have two restaurants, it may be three times as hard as doing one. But doing having four restaurants is ten times as hard as doing one, because we couldn't be everywhere. We couldn't we couldn't do everything like we'd done in Mount Shasta and Redding and and so those didn't go well for us, and we just made the decision that, that we were going to retrench after we did those and those really stretched our cash flow. You talk about cash flow issues. Holy Toledo. Yeah, yeah, I read that we did that in 1998. And, uh, again, we were thought we were really smart guys, but we came within a just a this much of going out of business in November 1998 because we'd opened too many restaurants and we'd stretched our cash flow. And by the time it came around to November, Bob and I had, after three years of not doing anything but working, decided we were going to take one of those 3 or 4 day cruises in Mexico just to get out of town for sanity's sake, and I didn't know when we left on Friday if we'd be in business on Tuesday, if we had a if we had a good weekend, I could make payroll on Tuesday. If we had a bad weekend. I would have probably been shut in a business down. So that's how close it was. And again, we were running out of cash. No access to capital. I made some bad decisions around growing too much in Chico, and Red bluff should have never done it. But we made it. And we made payroll. I decided we weren't really losing money in Chico and Red bluff, but we we knew that those sites weren't us. As you as you open a business and grow it, you kind of know it takes a while to kind of figure out what what you are, what kind of building you fit in, how you want to be organized, how the restaurant needs to be. And they weren't it. We found we knew Chico was too small. We knew Red bluff was too big. And so I ended up. We ended up closing it. We just said, look, this these aren't. This isn't us. We need to retrench. Chico. We found somebody to take the site and so we didn't get hurt too bad. But in Red bluff, I paid a rent on an empty building for over three years at a time that I couldn't really afford it, but I knew that it was the right move. I had to retrenching it back, and luckily Mount Shasta and Redding were successful enough that I could pay the rent in Red bluff for three and a half years and survive. But it was the right move. We retrenched back. We opened Yreka, we had an opportunity to. There was a former chain in Northern California and across the country called Jerry's, and they'd been 

Speaker 1

[00.18.08]

 before me. Let me let me stop just real quick because I know where you're going with this, but this is really important. You said you paid three years of rent on Red bluff, right? And so can you just talk to the audience just a little bit about, you know, recognizing, you know, you and I have talked about it before, but there's sunk cost, right? The like quit crying over it. You've got to do what's best for your business moving forward, even though it hurts. But I see so many people. I've done it. I've made the mistake of going, no, I can't. I've spent all this money, so therefore I've got to continue spending money. And if I, if I just if I just keep investing in it, hopefully it's going to turn around. And so how did you have the clarity to go. Oh my God. Especially at that young age of being a business owner with your partner at that young age going, hey, this is not working, but we got to pay three years. I think 90% of people in that situation would have just backdated it together and not taken that hit of three years. So how did you have the discipline or foresight to know that was the right 

Speaker 2

[00.19.11]

 decision? Well, I've learned the hard way. Previous to that, another venture I was in, I was in a subdivision venture. I always decided that that I was going to subdivide land and sell land in the early 90s, up in Siskiyou County, and in my gut, I knew it was the wrong thing. I'd spent money getting it ready. I think back in the day I'd spent, I don't know, 7000 $500,000 doing the subdivision maps and all the things that I needed to do. But in my gut I knew it was bad and but I was not willing to walk away from the money that I'd spent. And it was the worst decision I ever made in that I ended up losing a lot more. You know, it was the economy went bad and and things went bad on the thing. And and so I didn't I didn't walk away because I wasn't willing to walk away from that, from that original investment. Smartest decision I would have made would have been to walk away from it and, and sit there and, and stem my losses, you know, at that amount and move on. So same thing here. And so I learned a lesson that we didn't. Didn't feel right. I had a significant amount of money in there, but it wasn't going to be our future. So I took the loss took the loss over three years and put it behind me. Learned learned about us, learned about the business, learned how I could be successful. And but that's a hard thing. And a lot of people don't want to do that. Like, say, you might not have done it, you know. Uh, yeah. Recognize not every decision that you make is going to be a right one. I've been pretty lucky over my career that. That 95% of the decisions I made have turned out right, but that was one of the 5%. It was very painful. Yeah. And, um, but it was the right call. 

Speaker 1

[00.21.06]

 Okay. So that's great. That was a great explanation. So like next question for you. You said a couple of times like, hey, this is the we know what the right location is. Those are the wrong locations. And you know, you talked about size. So as you move forward, especially after, you know, the pain of these two, you know, not working out, what did you learn about what categorizes as the right location and how did you map that moving forward? Because I know you're getting ready to talk about the Jerry's opportunity, which was multi restaurants. And so how did you how did you vet those to make better decisions moving 

Speaker 2

[00.21.45]

 forward. How it works with that is that they were still in business. They were failing. The owners came to us and said, look, you obviously have kind of a kind of a way of doing things. Mount Shasta was a Jerry's, and back in the old days, Redding was Jerry's and we converted them and they were very successful, and they had a number of restaurants that were unsuccessful. And so they came to us and said, look. Why don't you help us convert these restaurants that we've got? We'll pay you a royalty. Kind of a licensing slash franchise fee to do that. And so again, we just walked away from Chico and Red bluff and and it was a way for us to grow. And so we agreed to that. So we signed a deal with them and we converted their restaurants in sparks, Nevada. Uh. Susanville, California. Willows, California. Salinas, California. Las Vegas, Nevada. And these were all restaurants they were struggling in. But we had a concept that would work in these restaurants. So we helped them convert, and it turned them their losses. They lost a over $1 million the previous year to this, which I think was 1999. And we started converting their restaurants in 2000. And that saved them and they actually became a partner moving forward with us as we got bigger. Just um, so that was good. We kind of converted all their restaurants, and we knew that we had a brand that was going to carry it. We knew we had something. So we we started a franchise company in 2002. Understanding that that we had this brand that we could duplicate, franchising means you need to be able to duplicate your success in a number of places. And we've been able to prove the brand was successful. And in sparks, Nevada, all these places, Salinas, Las Vegas was a big one for us because here you're taking a concept from Mount Shasta with 3000 people and putting it in in Las Vegas with millions, right. And people loved us in Las Vegas just as much as they loved us in Mount Shasta already. So we learned that we could grow this thing so we we could then franchise it. We'd proven that we could. The portability of the brand. And, uh, so that's how we started franchising, and that's really how we grew the brand for a number of years after them, is by signing franchise agreements. We would then go help them, uh, convert their restaurant to Black Bear. We would help them open it. We would go personally, and I'd be cooking and Bob pouring coffee at these at these restaurants that we franchised. So we started doing that in bend, Oregon and Madras, Oregon, and, uh, did it in Arizona. Um, did it in Nevada, in the Reno market. And so converted, converted these restaurants and turned them into franchise units. And that's what we did through 2008. And, um, but in 2008, obviously the the recession happened and the franchises franchisee growth kind of dried up because one, there was no access to capital. There was, you know, nobody wanted to lend on a restaurant. The economy was tough. Sales were challenged, all of that. But to me, that was the time that I needed to invest. I needed to show. Confidence in my brand, confidence in what we were doing, that the people, our customers would come in the front door. So we there was great opportunities in real estate at that time because a lot of brands failed. So we took two restaurants that were a brand that had failed called Baker Square, and we converted them in Modesto, California and Davis, California, and to Blackburn. We owned them ourselves. They weren't franchised, so we we owned them. We couldn't spend a lot to convert them. I couldn't spend a lot on those pre-opening expenses that I talked to you about. So again, we were doing it all ourselves, you know, and uh, interesting story on the on the Davis, California unit is that I had worked in that unit when I went to college at UC Davis in 1974 through 76. And my daughter, who went to UC Davis and worked in it from like 94 to 96. And so here had this opportunity to get this restaurant that had this great historical and personal perspective and turned it into a black. So there was a little so I was glad to do that. That's incredible. Yeah. So then those went well. And then that showed my franchisees said, hey, look, we can start investing again. Look, they did it. I can't ask my franchisees to to do something that I won't do myself. Same way as I can. Ask an employee of one of our diners to do something that I wouldn't do myself. And so we we showed we showed that the brand was strong and good and could weather the recession. And we came out of the recession out of 2010 with 28 quarters of same store sales growth. What the in our business. The success is kind of rated on your on your same store sales growth. Are you are you growing or are you shrinking. You're increasing gas or you're shrinking gas. And we came out of the recession with 28 quarters of same store sales growth, which really set us on our path to success. We have started selling lots of franchises. We opened, uh, we opened a lot of them ourselves, a lot of restaurants ourselves. And, and then in 2016, I, I'd grown the brand to about 75 restaurants, and I, and I kind of ran outrun my ability to convert, um, sites. I had a small line of credit with a local bank that helped me, and I was. Really thankful to to them for giving that to me. It was like $1 million line of credit which but was it was key. But I'd outrun that and I needed I knew I had a brand that could grow across the country. And so we we sold the share of the business to a private equity company out of New York City that wanted to invest in us and helped us, gave us the access to equity. They put money in the business, gave us access to to debt because we had to borrow to, to keep growing. And that was another big key to our success is that that we and we chose the right partner. They've been very good for us and they've not been demanding some private equity companies. When you private equity buys a share of your business, they become very demanding of you and will oftentimes make you change the business for profit, for a profit motive that may not be good for the business long term. They never did that with us. And so with them. We've grown from 75 to 166 and and still growing. Today, we opened A1A couple weeks ago in El Paso, Texas, and we're opening some more in the Houston market. And we're growing, opened one in Illinois, and we're going into Wisconsin. So we're really spreading our wings. But I could never have done that without the private equity investment. So that was a turning point. And a lot of people don't understand private equity. You're not selling out your company. You're basically selling either a minority part of your of of your equity or a majority part of your equity. We sold a majority part of our equity because a lot of some of our partners needed to be cashed out at that point, and that was a way of doing that, of monetizing their investment. But, you know, we hung on to a significant share of it. And here we are almost ten years later with our private equity partner, which wasn't the plan. Because private equity generally invests in you and want to turn their investment in 5 to 7 years. They have investors. How private equity works I think probably everybody knows that, you know, they go out and gather a bunch of money from from various sources and combine it into a fund, and then they lend out of that fund or a purchase out of that fund. And in seven, eight, nine, ten different companies are part of that fund. And generally those, those those people that put money in want to get it back in a seven, eight, nine year time period. So generally private equity wants to turn those investments every 5 to 7 years. Well we've been almost in ten because well, guess what happened in 2000. You know pandemic. We were lucky. That was almost going to be five years. And then the pandemic hit. Then what happened after that? Well, in my business, food inflation went nuts. You know, it was shortages of supply. You know, our food products ended up going up 30, 35%. And then, you know, you can't take that kind of hit without raising prices. And at the same time, the customers became very sensitive to price. So that was another one. And then interest rates went up. And that that made it difficult and right, right. So whack a mole and, uh, you know, and in our business too, I mean, we're in the breakfast business. Significant portion of our business is breakfast. Well, what happened last year? Avian eggs went through the roof. We usually would pay $1.50 a dozen. In the past. That went over almost $8 a dozen. And I don't believe in in charging surcharges. You would go to a lot of restaurants and say, you know, eggs, you know, we're going to add a dollar surcharge for every egg you buy or something. I didn't believe in it. You know, I just believe that it was temporary. I didn't want to do anything that would change my customers habits. That that love coming to Black Bear. I didn't want to give them any reason not to. To come to Black Bear. Love. Black. So basically, we ate that, ate that price of increase in the in the cost of eggs for, for over the first 4 or 5 months of the year. And that cost us over $1 million. Um, but I felt it was the right thing to do. So those surcharges when you come in to Black Bear. No split plate charges. I hate that you go into a restaurant and you want to sit there and say, oh, I just we don't feel like eating that much. We'll go ahead and split a meal, and a lot of restaurants will charge it for that empty plate. Right? Not me. I don't believe it's right. You know you want to come in. You want to buy a meal. You want to give half to your kids or spouse or whatever. How about I'm not going to charge you for another plate? Same way. I'm not going to charge you a surcharge to buy an egg. So, yeah, it's just some of my long term beliefs. 

Speaker 1

[00.32.41]

 So that's incredible. So, you know, you covered a lot of ground there, which is awesome. So I want to back up just a little bit Bruce. And and can you explain 

Speaker 2

[00.32.50]

 how. I 

Speaker 1

[00.32.52]

 mean, I think a lot of people listening when you're talking about franchising, right? You're basically taking your concept and you're you're helping them. You've shown duplicate ability and that you've shown previous success. So what they're buying basically is your blueprint, you know, kind of how the restaurant looks, how your training program, your menu and your ingredients, those kinds of things. Right. And but how do you pick 

Speaker 2

[00.33.19]

 the 

Speaker 1

[00.33.19]

 right team member to go execute it, meaning the, you know, Bob and Joe, Bob, Bob and Joe Smith are they want to they want one to do one in Tucson. And they're saying, trust us. How did you vet each one of those people to make sure, because it's your brand. If they go and they f it up, that's that's on you. Right? That's a that's going to show on your brand. So how did you manage that? 

Speaker 2

[00.33.44]

 We've made our mistakes over the years. I mean, to be honest with you, um, that we've you know, generally I've had some real long term franchisees over almost 23, 24 years since we started. I've been my franchisees, very successful, great partnerships. And they have same values. As I say. Yeah, you gotta have the same values as to what we're trying to do, understand what we're trying to do and and agree to do it the way that we would like it done, because we've proven success with that. But occasionally, if you have a franchisee that thinks they know better and that's that's just not Blackbear, that's the franchise model out there, that these are folks, that they own the business. I don't own the business. You know, I give them a model for success and I give them some guardrails. They need to stay within. But they're their own business people. They hire their own people. They schedule their own people. They do everything. I tell them where to buy their food. I don't I don't allow them to go out and buy their food anywhere because I want the food to be the same. Whether you're in Redding, California, here, or you're in Houston, Texas, or Seattle, Washington or whatever, you go into a black bear, the food's the same, and that's really important. You can't have a mixture of stuff, then you don't have a brand. So we set some of the guardrails for that. Where they buy it, they can serve. But how they staffed the restaurant and how they do it, it's up to them. So you have to trust the relationship. You talk with your potential franchisees. You look at their experience in the in in our business, I had some people one point that hadn't been in the business but loved Black Bear wanted to do it. Pledge their ever, ever loving support for us and, you know, but it just wasn't them. It wasn't they didn't have the experience for it. And again, everybody in town shows up within two weeks of of opening. And you've got a franchisee who's not used to that. And so we've gotten away from away from that. We used to be able to sell to an individual operator and somebody unless they've got significant experience. I just really felt feel we're better served by by selling our franchises to people that have bigger companies that maybe have other concepts and know what it's like to be in the business. So 

Speaker 1

[00.36.17]

 when that's that was excellent description. Thank you. So when private equity joined your model that went from 75 to 166 and growing, is that a franchise model or is the private equity group the owner of that business. And they're the ones in your team putting all the people in 

Speaker 2

[00.36.38]

 place. Private equity is an investor. They're still the investor in Black Bear Diner, you know, and they already share of my company. But the majority share the voting stock they own. Right. But they they they don't. Private equity doesn't want to run your business for you. They want you to run their business. That's the model that they invest in a number of companies and invest in management teams that are going to carry out what they've done in the past. And so they love the founder model like me, a founder. Um, they love that because we got passion for what we're doing. We believe in it. We were there from day one, so they wanted to just invest in that and allow us to grow it. They don't want to run it. They let us run it. So they the best private equity companies are the ones that help you, advise you, give you the ability to grow, but get out of your way to do it. So that's that's how that works. Okay. Okay. 

Speaker 1

[00.37.35]

 Excellent. Okay. So 

Speaker 2

[00.37.38]

 now that you're 

Speaker 1

[00.37.38]

 growing, you're in 14 different states. Headquarters are still in 

Speaker 2

[00.37.42]

 ready. Right. So 

Speaker 1

[00.37.44]

 you know this this podcast is called North State Rock. So why why do you think the North State model. You know I know you guys have kind of a you know, the bear theme, large portions kind of, um, country, like, um, home, soulful type home food, uh, very consistent. Why do you think that North State model works so well nationally? What is 

Speaker 2

[00.38.10]

 it is. I just think that people across the country will. Everybody likes to eat like we like to eat up here. You know, no matter what you say. People kind of want to make they like large portions. Doesn't necessarily mean that they can. They're going to eat it all. But they love having the opportunity to. And they love the opportunity to maybe take some home. Um, people are the same across the country. They want to make sure that they get their money's worth. It's not so much how how much you pay. It's the value that you receive for what you pay for. So whatever business you're in and whoever's listening in on the podcast and whatever business they're in, if their customers don't perceive value in what you're selling them or the service that you're providing them, no matter what the cost, they're going to walk away from you. And so you have to provide great value, and value is just not determined in price. Value is determined in what you get, the service that's provided to give it to you, and the environment in which it's provided. So in our in our instance, again, we've got cab cabin themed restaurants that we started in Mount Shasta. It was really, you know, cedar and big carved bears and, you know, beams and things that cabin feel. Um, people like that everywhere. You know, it's just Mount Shasta. And that was one of our learnings. Is that people in Las Vegas like that same field, people in Los Angeles like that same field, the Bay area, Phoenix, Houston, Dallas, Oklahoma City, Salt Lake City, Denver. They all like that. They all want to feel comfortable. And then again, the value perspective about what you're getting from the food and then to be provided by people that are hopefully happy to be there, want to provide great service, you know, and is to me also the fact that we build these buildings that are kind of fun and we have jukeboxes in them that are playing music all the time. And I wanted to provide it not just for the customers, but for our employees, an environment that they feel nice working in. If they feel good working in the environment we provide them. They're going to they're going to take care of our customers, you know. Right. Invest in invest in your staff. And if your staff is happy in whatever business you're in, they're going to make sure your customers are happy. If you you know, in a lot of people go to the customers first, then back to the staff, I believe, invest in the staff, they will take care of your customers. So that's 

Speaker 1

[00.40.48]

 that's brilliant advice and not talked about enough. You know because they're they're basically represent the brand. That's that's who's touching the customers is your employees. And if they don't feel taken care of, they're never going to take care of your customers. It's just a 

Speaker 2

[00.41.02]

 cause and effect. What is your business care of your mind? If not happy being there? They're not going to do great work. They're not going to make sure your customers are happy. And, uh, you know, it's it's a it's a recipe for disaster. Yeah. 

Speaker 1

[00.41.18]

 No, that's great advice. Okay, so we have, uh, we've interviewed a lot of people from the Susanville area. So talk about I think it's a lumberjack now. So that was a Jerry's there. You started there. So that's a great it'll be a great lesson for our group because even though you took over some of these Jerry's, they didn't necessarily continue to be successful. So what were some of the determining factors on where as you grew, you were also closing some of these smaller town ones and why? Bruce, 

Speaker 2

[00.41.52]

 we opened in Susanville. I know you've got a significant presence in Susanville, and when we took over, we took over at Jerry's back. And. 1999, I think, and converted it to a converted to Black Bear Diner. And at one point we again it was far away. We were small at the time. That was probably restaurant number 4 or 5, and so it was far away. Not easy to get from from Redding to Susanville in your car right now, you fly a plane so it's easy for you to get to Susanville. You probably go up and down in 15 minutes and you're there, but when you're driving, it's a couple hours, right? So we it was too far to to really take take good care of. So I basically sold it to a franchisee back in back in the day. And so because she can take care of it and be from Susanville and take care of it and make sure that things were right there. But then we had a fire in Susanville. Somebody left a fire on or something one night and, uh, burned the place down. And during that time, the lease ran out and my franchisee was was not willing to carry forward. And so basically, she made the decision to sell it to another restaurant concept. And that's that's how that happened. So that worked out. You know, I mean, you want to limit the number of things that happened. We had a restaurant in Alturas to, again, pretty small town. I don't know if I would do that again today. Right. But back in the day, there were buses that ran up and down 395 from Oregon to Reno. There was these gambling buses that ran in. I mean, this was 25 years ago and made that restaurant very successful at one point. But at some point they started less and less buses going down the road to Reno. We. Difficult to do it. I basically sold it to a franchisee that was local. Say, look, if you want to run it, run it. But it just wasn't it wasn't the they didn't do a great job. And so it closed over time. So to the to the to the point not everything works out. This is a business that you have to have great people running it. I could never have done any of this without having great employees, great managers, people that that ran it like Bob and I wanted it run. The values and culture that we wanted created the way we wanted our customers to be treated. Whether it's a black bear in Klamath Falls or black bear in Bend or Madras or wherever, we want our customers treated well, we want the brand executed well. I want the food to be the same in those sites as as it is here where I'm looking at it every day. So that's the secrets to growth and not not it doesn't always work out. So yeah. That's interesting. So. So now that 

Speaker 1

[00.45.02]

 you, you guys are opening all these restaurants, is there like a certain demographic or. Hey, we want to be at an intersection with this kind of a traffic count or we want. So are there. I would imagine you kind of have a, a few things that have got to be checked before you invest in that location 

Speaker 2

[00.45.19]

 for a long time. It was feeling in my stomach. Oh, that's really I know that this is a good spot, I know it, I can sense it. You know, for the longest time, we like to be within a stone's throw of a freeway right in Mount Shasta. We're right on the freeway and right on the freeway. The Willows were right on the freeway, you know? And, um, that was kind of a recipe because that was significant business that was going up and down the road a hundred yards from you year round. And then you had the local business unto it. It was a recipe for success. And that's what I felt in my stomach. There was no real demographic survey or anything like that at the time. But now we take a much more sophisticated approach to it, and we hire a company that looks at every location, can go into credit card data for that, for that market, and see where all the from other people that other businesses in the market can see where all the credit cards are coming from into that market. You can see how that will affect the business there by how many people are coming in. You also can get some data around how far these things need to be a part. You know, it's you could sit there and say, oh, I want to put a BlackBerry here, and then I can put another one 3 or 4 miles from it. Well, now we know that that might not be a good idea, because those that 3 or 4 miles, maybe all those customers are coming to your existing restaurant. We did that in Las Vegas. We opened one. We had one on Tropicana and Jones in Las Vegas, and we opened one on Sahara in Durango, which isn't that far. 3 or 4 miles. Well, we found out that that was too close, and it's taken us years to build the business up to the point that each is Isn't nicely profitable, but for at the beginning we cannibalized ourselves. So this, this, this site tool that we that we pay for. We'll look at that. We'll look at where your customers are coming from. Will you cannibalize any other existing sites. And we'll give you an actual, um, guess, an educated guess on what kind of volume you can expect from the site. So those are those are good tools. We need them now. You can get all the tools in the world, and if you don't do a great job opening the restaurant, or you hire the wrong manager to do it, or you do all this, all this time spent looking at this, at this location all the time and money spent building it. If you you know, I say the investment doesn't stop the minute you open the door. You keep having to invest in people, in your team, in marketing and all those other things. And a lot of people miss the boat that sit there and say, look, I'll just get the place open and and they stop the investment. That's a mistake. You've got to keep investing and especially investing in people. 

Speaker 1

[00.48.22]

 So investing in people. Let's start with a manager. How do you guys. 

Speaker 2

[00.48.27]

 Um, how 

Speaker 1

[00.48.28]

 do you pick your managers and how do you. Is it just they turn in resumes? This guy, that's a good person. Do you have a pretty, you know, multi-phase interview process? Do you have we based on experience, do we use a recruiter? What do you guys use now that you're so 

Speaker 2

[00.48.45]

 big? All of the above. But the reality is, is that a manager is key to our success. We have a good manager of a good black bear. We've got a black bear, a manager that doesn't quite get what we're trying to do. We'll have an average black bear, and if we have one that's just not very good at it, we won't have a good one at all. We won't have a good restaurant. Everything that we've invested can go to. Not. So, um, I've learned that we that we're, we're best growing our managers from within our business. Them coming from without. Okay, okay. Somebody is looking for a manager's job that isn't working in my business. Is basically unemployed for a reason. Because you know what? There's there's just. You hang on to good managers and other concepts same way. And whoever business you're in, you got great people. I believe in investing to keep keeping them right. So and generally every business has a culture. So my business has a certain culture. Whoever is out there, your business has a certain culture. Your business has a certain culture. And it's hard to bring people in from the outside that came from a different culture into your into your brand or your specific brand culture. So we find it best that we grow our people from within. They know us. They know what we expect. They know what they expect of them. We know what we're trying to do for our customers, how we want our employees treated, all of those things. And and so we've kind of come up recently that, look, if you want to manage a black bear, you better have worked for us for at least a year, because it takes a year to understand what we're trying to do. And we found our greatest success with them. Some of our greatest failures have been where we get behind the eight ball. We haven't developed people enough. We hire from the outside, they don't understand us. And we've taken this $2 million investment and handed it over to somebody who doesn't know us, and they can learn the basics of our business. Learn how to write a schedule. Learn where to buy our groceries. Learn the basics of the business. But it takes time to learn the culture of the business. And that's the key to success. Is that so we've learned the hard way that we need to grow people within. We need to get ahead of it. We need to grow what we call a bench of people that are ready. If I lose a manager somewhere, I've got to have somebody ready to go to fill that position. I can't just say, oh, I need to go out and hire somebody. Well, there's a restaurant. I've got a restaurant in Missouri right now that lost a manager, and it's kind of an outlier. When you have an outlier, which it's far away from the closest one. Can you lose a manager? It's hard to to keep that place going because it's hard to get people there to run it. It's hard, you know, all of that. So we sit there and we need to get ahead of the game as far as getting people ready that that can run our business. And so we're going to invest in that. You know, we're going to identify a group of people within the business, and we're going to train them. And we're going to make them ready to to take a job somewhere, wherever it is. And we will pay them well and incentivize them well to do it. And but it's a constant issue. So that was going to be my next question. And in fact, he just touched on it. But so I understand that there's um, different markets have different cost of living. Right. LA has a different cost of living than Mount Shasta. So, um, but 

Speaker 1

[00.52.30]

 in general, how do you, um, what do what is kind of the pay ranges of managers? And then how do you incentivize them when you say that you do incentivize 

Speaker 2

[00.52.40]

 them? Yeah. Well different markets again, different levels of it takes more to hire a manager in the Bay area or the high cost of living, high housing costs, all that. And in Southern California, high housing costs, um, travel costs, because everything's kind of spread out. And sometimes people have to drive to their, to their work. So the, the managers pay is kind of predicated upon the living costs of the area, that which, which we do believe in, um, the competitive environment in that marketplace may cause cost. Say, look, if I'm going to I'm going to hire somebody here in this market. It's competitive. We're going to have to pay more to get somebody to to make a move, and you got to pay them significantly more than where they're at for them to make a move. Right. Because it's a chance for them to they we talked about culture. And again that's why I like growing people from within. Right. They know. And uh, but the pay scales are predicated really on the cost of living. In each of the markets that we're in. It's the same way around what we, you know, charge for fruit. We've got different, different levels, the menus the same across the whole system. But we can't charge the same price for that food across the whole system because there are different cost of living, different minimum wages. All of those things are all part of the scenario. So we'll have, I don't know, 10 or 15 different pricing schedules for the same food predicated on the cost of living in the market. So yeah. Yeah, 

Speaker 1

[00.54.19]

 yeah. Okay. So you know, let's talk about minimum wages a little bit. So you know California is kind of gone crazy with that. Right. And I know you're multi-state, but most of the listeners are familiar with reading. So you know I know McDonald's is advertising 20 bucks an hour to kind of work at McDonald's. When you're entry level person, you're trying to get, you know, a dishwasher, you know, um, that basic entry level person, how are you recruiting those people and being successful in retaining them and growing them in your business? 

Speaker 2

[00.54.54]

 Well, you know, in California passed a minimum wage law for fast food that was $20 an hour, right? So, um, it didn't that didn't cross over into our realm, which is full service again. So it didn't cross over into that. Many of our employees are tipped our service attempt, they make California minimum wage and then they make a hopefully a significant amount of money. Beyond that, we don't have a lot of turnover in our servers because we're busy and they make a pretty good living. Um. But somebody in the back of the house, a dishwasher or a prep cook or even a cook is really predicated upon, you know, what you can find. Who wants to come to work, and you pay them what you have to pay them to come to work. We provide them. If somebody came in and worked as wanted to work as a dishwasher, which is really the the beginning rung on on in the restaurant is dishwasher in the back of the house, kind of a host in the front of the house greeting guests. So and so what I would like to tell the people in the back of the house, you come in as a dishwasher and hopefully within a certain amount of time, we'll start training you to to prep food. And after you do that, we'll train you to cook food. Well, the, the the pay scales go up exponentially as you come through the restaurant. I started in the restaurants as a dishwasher when I was 15. I made $1.78 an hour. I'll never forget that number. I made about $15 in a day and I thought it was the greatest thing in the world. I was like $15 a day. And when I turned 16, I bought a car. And you can put gas in your car back in 1971 for $0.25 a gallon. So a dollar an hour wasn't too bad. Yeah, yeah. But that's how you do it. So we bring people in. They work hard, and we and we, we will train them to do more and to help them grow in the business. We want people to grow in our business. We want people to to end up wanting to be a cook. And then we want people to start taking supervisory and manager roles. We move them into a supervisor, then into an assistant manager, and then hopefully into a manager, because they know us and they know they're for their hard working. They're going to they're going to be successful. So 

Speaker 1

[00.57.18]

 this is great. Thank you. I want to touch on why you joined, uh, a bank board and kind of what you learned through that process. Because you're, in fact, your bank just merged with another bank, right? So just kind of that seems like a, like a departure from restaurant business. But I know a lot of very successful business owners end up joining bank boards. So kind of talk me through that and why and, and what you accomplished through it and um, kind of your decisions to do it in the first place. 

Speaker 2

[00.57.50]

 Well, I love business. I think about 55 years of experience in business may just be the restaurant saved the last 25 and just solely the restaurant. But before that, I, I ran, I was a CEO of a company that built convenience stores and gas stations, and I incorporated great food into a convenience store environment. We owned the restaurant. We had the motel. I was the CEO of that. Back before that, I was in banking. I came out of I was in graduate school in Chico, and, uh, my, my daughter was born at the time. And so I had to get out of graduate school. I went to work for Bank of America, which was a great. Background for business, just to learn how to how to control cash and the controls that you need in any business and all the things that customer service and managing employees. It was a great first step for me. But to this point, again, I like helping people. You know, we'll probably talk that we're in this vintage group, um, at some point. Well, the same way I'm envisaged for those of you who are out there that don't know a vintage Perry, probably explain it to you, but it's basically a CEO group that helps each other, uh, weather issues and and talk problems and all of that. I love helping other business people. I love helping people. I've been lucky in my career. That was my time to start paying back and helping. Helping other people be successful too. So that fit right into this bank board that I was on in that we really helped people. We really help them grow their business. And that's just not handing out money left and right. It's helping them be successful by helping them understand the profitability of their business, understand the basics of how you grow a business and the financial stability. You must have to be able to grow it and then to reach out for for debt, to add into your business that, you know, the bank just wants to make sure when they lend you money that they're going to get repaid. I mean, that's the deal, right? That's how they make they make money on on the interest they make. And the fact that you're going to pay them and it's not going to go south on them. So I love that. And I love to, you know, being on a loan committee and talking and analyzing business and helping people grow their business, that's that's what gets me going today. I help other people in in business all the time. Uh, I've helped other restaurants all the time. I never charge a penny for it. I just want them to be successful. And if they sit there and avoid some of the problems that I had as I grew my businesses over the last 50 years, that it's something that I should be doing. It's just paying back for the success that I've had. So that's why I liked the bank board. It was challenging. I like being challenged. I look at, I like again being a positive force in the community. So yeah. So now 

Speaker 1

[01.00.58]

 now that the bank's merged, are you still on the board or are you are you off the board 

Speaker 2

[01.01.02]

 now? I'm off the board, you know. Okay. Bank. Board of cornerstone Bank and reading Red bluff. And we just sold to Plumas Bank, which was a much bigger but local bank too, that started in Quincy, California. And, uh, and so it was a good mixture. It was a good time for us to do that. But they they wanted only one board member at a, at a, at a time to come from cornerstone into their board. And I'm still chairman of the board of Black Bear. And much of my time is taken up on BlackBerry, so I felt it was in the best interests of of the new entity that I that I just concentrate on this. Yeah. Awesome. Awesome. 

Speaker 1

[01.01.47]

 Yeah. That's great. Well, so you touched on this stage a little bit. We have touched it on, on past podcasts. But I do want to say just for the people might be listening to this one. Um, God, what a tremendous organization that is. And it's helped me so much because, you know, it's so funny. I've told the story a couple of times, but when I joined, visage was really looking for mentorship and really help on how to be. We're all trained to be whatever we're trained. On my case, I was trained to be a project manager. Travis Corder is trained to be a farmer. Um, Paul Rudder was trained to be an engineer. We're not trained to be CEOs. Right. That's a that's kind of a there's no I haven't seen any maybe at Harvard, but I haven't seen many, you know, Chico State or Stack college uh, programs to be a CEO. Right. You have to go learn in the real world, but really looking for that mentorship. But I remember joining and so excited to have some mentorship and and really thought just came into that with this thought that my business was harder than anybody else's business. That was the I just like, I am so dumb for being in construction. It's a low bid. The only way you can get work is being cheaper than everybody else, and it's so much harder than everyone else's business and and probably the greatest thing. And obviously I'm exaggerating that a little bit, but I really did think my business was particularly difficult compared to most. And then when you get around all of these other very successful CEOs running very successful businesses, you realize, holy cow, I, I, 

Speaker 2

[01.03.21]

 I don't have 

Speaker 1

[01.03.22]

 half the problems that some of these guys deal with. And every business is hard. And that's that's probably the biggest takeaway. And you've got to be diligent. You've got to be passionate about it. You've got to pour into your people. You have to continue to reinvest in your business. Um, and it's all about getting the right team members in place before you get anything else going. And I just to you in particular, you have been just an incredible mentor to me and to our entire group. You are so really well-respected, Bruce, and you're so selfless with your giving. You're just you're never what's in it for me? I think that's true of the whole group. But you're you're one of the original. In fact, you're the number one member. I think that went into the Vista group to get started with Martin. And you just set the bar for everything that's good in in our Vista group. And I just want to say take an opportunity to thank you for being so 

Speaker 2

[01.04.14]

 spectacular. So appreciate that. Again, I like helping people. I like helping businesses. Uh, and it's whether whatever business you're in, I've learned that that many of the problems are the same. You know, most of the problems that we have around are in vintage or in any group is how to build the team, how to get the right team around you. As a CEO, we're only as good as the people we have around us and putting the right people in place at the right time around you and and and building the team that will then execute your dream as CEO. And if you if you don't have that, it's going to be hard. And and so much of the time we spend is is that very issue building the team around you? I've become a much better CEO after all these years as being part of this stitch, because one of the benefits that I've seen is I give a lot of advice in this. I mean, sometimes I think I talk too much in the group because I just had years of experience. Right? Yeah. Um, but it's it's good for me because I can quickly see the, the results of the of the advice that I give. And if the if they take my advice and take other people in the group's advice and actually execute that, it's remarkable what happens. And we've seen great successes within this group of people that were involved with here in reading, really around the table, we probably got 16, 18 members that sit around the table and, um, and we talk about these things and then the you go and execute it in your business. And it's remarkable. We've seen remarkable results. So it's made me better because I can see the results of of what I'm, of what I'm preaching. It's also different when you're, when you're helping somebody else versus yourself. You know, sometimes yourself, you do not have the confidence or am I doing the right thing? Whatever you need to talk about it. Um, I often say to a CEO of a company is the loneliest job in the world. Because you can't go to your fellow employees or to your board of directors, or to whoever. Not to your banker or whatever. And sit there and say, I really don't know what to do here. I the crossroads, should I do this or should I do that? Well, the one thing maybe it's not. Maybe it's right. Maybe it's wrong. But as a CEO, we have to exude strength. We have to do decision making. We have to be us. We have to provide an example for our companies and how we're moving forward. And sometimes you're not sure, but you surely don't want to go to your board of directors and say, I don't know what I'm doing. I don't have an idea because guess what you'll find? I'll find somebody else who will. Right. So we sit there and and and talk about all these issues, and we kind of come to a common direction that we give and advice that we give in visage. And I think, Perry, you've learned that the advice has been good, and I think you have shown remarkable growth over that seven eight year period. Personally, I think your business has shown remarkable growth over that period, and I think that's the same around the table there. So it is really something I advise CEOs out there that could be listening to sit there and say, look, it's time to invest in myself. I need to invest in me. Um, we're oftentimes not don't want to spend the money to do something, though. It's always budgets, always tight, blah, blah, blah. Um, but you have to invest in yourself as a CEO to make to, to, to ensure that you're doing the right things, to learn to, um, to get some confidence in yourself. So yeah, 100%. No, it's literally been, I would say, one of, if not the most important and best business decision I've ever made. And it was just, uh, you know, 

Speaker 1

[01.08.34]

 really kind of lucky how it fell into my lap. I, 

Speaker 2

[01.08.37]

 uh. As 

Speaker 1

[01.08.39]

 a guy named Lee Nabhan. He doesn't mind me sharing this. And he bought the Dixie Valley ranch up here, where we live up in eastern northeastern Shasta County, and it's a huge ranch. I want to say it's, you 

Speaker 2

[01.08.51]

 know, it's more 

Speaker 1

[01.08.52]

 than 10,000 acres. So it's massive. It's a big, big ranch. And he, you know, he flies in and a citation for and lands and heads out to his ranch. And I'm like, I've got to get to know this guy. So Linda ended up talking to him and a graduation party of common people we knew. And he was just so transparent with every mistake he'd made and what he'd done right, what he'd done. Horrible. And just that that's kind of that same theme that you were just so giving with. I'm telling our whole audience about. Everyone thinks that business owners that are successful have just been success after success after success. A lot of people have that misperception, and they don't realize that that we make horrible mistakes along the way also. And the difference is, I think for a lot of people and entrepreneurs that really push is, you know, are do you get discouraged and, and really talk mean meanly to yourself? You shouldn't be doing this. You don't know what you're doing. Or do you say, wow, I just learned a really valuable lesson and it costs me a lot of money, so I'm never going to forget it and not make that mistake again. Pivot and continue. And you know, he was so transparent in this telling me every mistake, you know, and just some some things that I won't share because they're pretty private but I, I, I went, hey, 

Speaker 2

[01.10.14]

 I'm. It's great talking to somebody that's so willing to say, here's the mistakes I've made, here's the things I've done right. Here's the best advice I would give you moving forward. And I said, I'm looking for that type of mentorship. What would you suggest? And he goes. 

Speaker 1

[01.10.30]

 He said, well, let me tell you a story. I was, uh, 

Speaker 2

[01.10.32]

 I was he has a 

Speaker 1

[01.10.34]

 whole bunch of very successful construction supply businesses. And he had a development going on the side. He was pulling all of the cash from this development, um, out of to and he knew it was going to be successful. But the bank at the time, the economy was doing this and they were moving in to foreclose on his business. And they told him, hey, we will withhold foreclosing on you for six more months if you join this stitch. And he's like, you know, I said at that time, I would have told them, I would have cleaned their toilets, you know, for six more months, whatever, whatever I got to do, you know. And so he said he kind of just did it because it's what the bank was forcing him to do to keep the the development going. And as it turned out, he said it was literally the best thing I have ever been involved with. He goes, there was probably one in Renton. You should look it up. And that's how I. That's how I found you guys. Found Martin on the phone, signed up online right over the right over the phone with Martin. And it's just been a tremendous, tremendous thing for me. And I think for a lot of the people that are in our group. But like, like all things, you get out of it what you put into it. You need to show up. You need to. You need to engage. You need to ask for the advice. And most importantly, then, you know, there's a lot of different. What I love is you get a 360 of advice from people. Some of it you agree with, it resonates with you. Some of it it doesn't resonate with you, but you. But other times I'm like, oh my God, that's most of the times I didn't even think of that. That's a brilliant idea. And you take you take the good with it and go and execute. And then of course, next month they're saying, what did you do about that, Perry? And there's that built in accountability as well, which has just just been phenomenal. So I want to thank you for your 

Speaker 2

[01.12.18]

 rolling decisions and the advice we gave. We need you coming back in a month or 2 or 3 and saying, oh, it worked or it didn't work. You know, it helps us to to ensure that our advice is good. So yeah, yeah, I like I mean, I like helping people and I like giving advice that, that that helps them grow their business. And so I just my word to other CEOs and business owners out there is, you know, we're not an island and you're not an island. And if you know this, this kind of group visage is something that could really help you in, in running your business, no matter what business you're in. Again, because I said there's commonality of themes across the across the board of what people's problems are, whatever business you're in. Yeah. Yeah, well, 

Speaker 1

[01.13.10]

 that's really well said. Um, Bruce, I think we're we're doing great on time. I, I want to be respectful of your time. I really want to say thank you for not only just to join, you know, this podcast for for being just a great friend, uh, to me, being such a great mentor to me. Um, the advice that you and the group have given me has completely transformed our business in some very positive ways, and I have a debt of gratitude that I'll never be able to repay to you. So. But anyway, I just want to say thank you for being so gracious with your time and your knowledge and your expertise. 

Speaker 2

[01.13.46]

 Yeah. Thanks again. Now I've enjoyed it. You know, enjoyed enjoyed our friendship. Enjoyed you being willing to share with me the challenges that you had early on. And and let me help you and advise you and which again, has made me a better CEO, knowing that the advice actually was solid and that it didn't, it bore fruit for you. So again, thanks for that and thanks for the friendship and thanks for allowing me to be on the podcast.

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