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Are you a business owner? Or are you on the verge of taking that side hustle to the next level? Or curious about the world of entrepreneurship? Join Vivian Kvam, Co-Owner of Tandem Works, each week for a behind-the-scenes at small businesses and what it takes to succeed.
Each episode is full of inspiration, education, tips, and great conversation with people like you, people who are figuring it out. Take your business to the next level with insight from expert guests in business, leadership, and marketing.
00:00:00
You. Welcome to Riding Tandem Works, a podcast about building businesses, leadership and creating positive impact for our communities. I'm your host, Vivian Kvam, and I invite you to ride Tandem Works with me as I have candid conversations with inspiring business owners, leaders and experts who are building on their dreams and creating impact. Get ready to be encouraged and learn practical tactics to help us build successful businesses, become incredible leaders, and have positive ripple effects. Let's go.
00:00:33
Welcome, everyone to this episode of Tandem Works Works. So lovely to have you here with us again. Just tuning in to hear a really fabulous story today. And who I have with us today is a very interesting type of business, one that I love. A little spin, different than a business I thought about starting.
00:00:49
But who I have with me today is from cup and cone. And this is Amber and Jeremy kochek, and they are proud members of the Bennington community, which is in Nebraska. And the Kochecks really wanted to create a space to bring people together through their business, cup and cone, which you're probably already thinking, OOH, cup and cone. What might that be? It sounds delicious.
00:01:08
And it is so coffee and ice cream and so much delightfulness. I did stop in there and had an avagado, which we will talk about more because I love an avocado. But cup and cone is a family run, community driven type of business, which is awesome and part of why we wanted to have them here on the podcast. And one of the things I loved in the official bio on your guys'website is that you just said you're ready to serve happiness to you. And I was like, oh, that is so delightful.
00:01:33
But a little bit more about Amber and Jeremy. And I'm going to jump in here. They've been married for 19 years, which applause for that. That alone. Thank you.
00:01:40
Super cool. 19 great years. Awesome. And you've been in the Bennington area about 15 years. So long standing community members there in that area, in Nebraska.
00:01:51
And I love you have in here. You both lead busy lives. Amber, you're a full time realtor. Yes. Is that right?
00:01:56
And Jeremy, you're a firefighter. Correct. Is that full time? Firefighter? Full time.
00:02:00
I actually work in the city of Lincoln, which is in Nebraska, the capital of Nebraska. And, yeah, we work 24 hours shifts and we get 24 hours off and we do that for a number of days and then we get kind of a longer stretch, eight days off once that work sets over in a row. So it kind of gives me the flexibility to do a crazy business venture like this. Yeah, which I'm excited to talk about. The crazy.
00:02:22
Yeah. And you just added an element of crazy. So for people who may not know geographically the area because they listen from all over, bennington and Lincoln are not close. About an hour drive. Yeah, but we're up there for 24 hours at a time.
00:02:34
So I drive up in the morning, do my 24 hours shift, and then drive back the next day. So it's not really that bad of a commute. I leave the house at 05:00 in the morning. Our shift starts at seven, gives me a little bit of time to wake up, and then when my 24 hours shift is over, it gives me some time to drive home and decompress and kind of get ready for family life after my firefighting schedule. That's highly interesting you say about getting up super early and then waking up on your drive.
00:03:04
I also used to drive from Council Bluffs, so it'd be a similar distance, but the opposite direction of Bennington. So it was about an hour, 15 minutes, door to door to Lincoln. I used to drive to Lincoln. Yeah, it's a hall, but yeah, some people like it and some people don't. I couldn't do it.
00:03:20
He loves it. I'm not a driver, so yeah, I couldn't do it. And also, living in Bennington or working in Lincoln, I kind of disconnect. When I'm not in Lincoln, I'm not in Lincoln. It's kind of different than working in the city that you live in full time like that, so you're not running into somebody that you just took to the hospital the next day or whatever.
00:03:41
So kind of gives you a little bit of disconnect, which is nice as well. That's really interesting insight there because I know, especially myself, but also for my business partner, Michaela. She is from this community and her family's been from this community, and we work in this community a lot, and she can't go anywhere without running into something, which is delightful in many ways. But I do think there are times where you're like, I just want to have my you're almost want to have my coffee and ice cream and left alone. Yeah, I understand that.
00:04:08
So speaking of coffee and ice cream, cup and cone, coffee and ice cream. That's where it is now. Yeah, it's a great combination. When we were thinking about this, our dream was always ice cream shop. And then as we kind of talked through it, ice cream is very seasonal.
00:04:22
You still have people who eat it year round, but we're thinking, okay, what else can we do to kind of offset that wintertime where our ice cream will drop? I'm like, Why not do coffee? It just makes sense. So I think a lot of people looked at us a little strangely when we said that. I don't know, almost like they thought it was too much.
00:04:45
Almost kind of like that. Oh, cool, good luck with that type look. Just because it's, I want to say almost two separate entities. When you think of an ice cream shop or you think of a coffee shop, there's not a whole lot of businesses that we've really run into that do both and like, I said, it's two separate beasts, and we're able to kind of complement each other. And like I said, it kind of gives us the ability to do a year round offering as well.
00:05:11
Year round business. Yes. That seems so strategic with what you're saying. So, if I'm understanding, ice cream was really the first love and then coffee came in as second. Yes.
00:05:21
But I would I mean, there I love them both. I'm a huge ice cream fan, but I drink coffee every morning, so, yeah, they are two of my favorite things for sure. Get to come together. Yeah. And it makes such a great name.
00:05:34
Cup and cone. Yeah. And we went back and forth. I mean, we should have brought the list of all the crazy names that we came up with, and just, for whatever reason, cop and cone just kind. Of like it's simple.
00:05:45
It sticks, it's to the point, and it worked. And we're glad that we went with it. It is a delightful name, and I think that's important when choosing a name is, does it fit the vibe? Right? And not every company needs a delightful name.
00:06:01
They need something strong or they might need there's, like, so many different ways to go about a name, but having been in your shop, it fits beautifully. Right. And I think that's super important. Thank you. Now, I think we tried to be very intentional with the vibe, the way we decorated the place, the name, our colors, and even, like, the type of ice cream we're serving custard, and we serve a higher quality espresso.
00:06:29
Just all those things we try to be very intentional about, because I think we're just picky about what we eat. So it's like, why not put something out there that is a great quality. Product, and it kind of makes it a destination trip at that point. It's like, you can go get an ice cream, cone, McDonald's, a gas station, whatever. But we tried to up the game a little bit to, like I said, make it something that people go out of their way to come come to visit us.
00:06:59
How do you choose things like the ice cream? Are you making the ice cream? Do you go out and taste test a bunch of different ice creams? How do you choose the beans, the flavors? What does that process look like?
00:07:10
Yeah, so, when we first started, we had four or five different vanilla. I mean, you wouldn't think that vanilla ice cream is that plentiful of variety, but there is. So we had some friends and family come one night, and we opened up the store and just kind of ran a bunch of different flavors and had everybody write down what they wanted, and it was pretty much hands down the one we're doing right now. It was, I'd say, a superior product, but everybody thought, as well. So it was kind of a blind taste test, and no names, no, nothing.
00:07:41
And just, hey, give us your best, give us your favorite one. Yeah, I want to be in on the next taste test. By the way, I love ice creams. I mentioned this a little bit in the introduction, one of the ideas I've always had for a business and I'm more than happy to put this out there because I probably am not going to start this one, but it was ice cream first related and I was like, what could go? It was ice cream delivery because I love ice cream and I usually want ice cream about 1011 o'clock at night and I don't necessarily want to go drive and get it.
00:08:13
And I'm like, I am not alone in this. There are many. At the time I was a single woman and I'm like, I don't know, maybe I'm stereotyping. It was me, though, and I wanted ice cream late at night and I was like, what could I pair with this? Because it seems strategic to pair something, right?
00:08:27
And it hit me and I was like, you know what I'm always standing in the aisle with when I'm getting ice cream at 11:00 at night? Cat food. So I'm going to do cat food and ice cream. I mean, if we got weird delivery for coffee and ice cream, I think you're definitely going to get some really strange looks for that. It's just one of those, like I said, bizarre.
00:08:47
It hits you when you're in the middle of the aisle, like you said. But hey, cat food might work. Yeah. I'm like looking around and what do I see on the aisle next to me? Some young woman, colleges age and what is she buying?
00:08:59
Ice cream and cat food. Either cat food or toilet paper. Toilet paper. The cat litter can wait. You could stretch that for a while.
00:09:07
Yeah, that's fantastic food. I mean, they will wake you up. They're like, hey, wake up, we need this. Which is interesting about ice cream and coffee, I feel like is so universally needed. Similar to what I was talking about.
00:09:19
There's our people and I say needed. Like, do we have to have it to live? Probably not. But it's so universally loved. Yes.
00:09:27
And it's such a great combination. Yeah, it really is. And I'm glad we kind of took that leap and gave it a go because it seems to be working out so far. It's a great pair. When I came into the shop, I just loved the atmosphere and it just felt welcoming, bright, delightful, just everything you'd want in just a great atmosphere.
00:09:52
Being there, not pretentious, still classy, just fabulous in that regard. One of the things I noticed is it's not big. I wouldn't call it big. Like, there's the counter as you come in. There's a little bit of a kind of a bar, if I recall.
00:10:04
Bar stools. There's the counter you're greeted right away. And there's a couple of tables on my right and there's a little patio out the back. But I was just curious how you are combining two things together and was there any intentionality in the size of the space in wanting it to be smaller and intimate, or are you working within parameters that were available? Talk to me a little bit about that.
00:10:26
Right. 100% working with what we had. Yeah, the building was what it was. It's less than 800 building had been there for 50 years, and it was in pretty good disrepair. So we did a ton of renovation just to get to what it looks like.
00:10:44
When you walked in the front door, we have some pictures of what it was, and you'd probably turn right back around and grow right back out. But ice cream here? Never. It was a rough little building, but we're kind of landlocked side to side. The adjoining buildings are basically to the property line, so we couldn't go left and right, but we could go back a little bit.
00:11:05
But then we were just like we're just trying to get the doors open. Maybe down the road we can look into addition or something like that. So in that 800 sqft, we had to have a bathroom, an ada bathroom. It's set in stone, what that has to be size wise. And then our counter space with all of the equipment.
00:11:25
And then you throw ice cream machines in there. Two sets of equipment. Yeah. I mean, it's hard enough to do ice cream, but then you throw coffee on it and it's like you got to have the brewers and the espresso. And so that's where it really started to get I think we redrew and redrew and redrew dozens and dozens of time trying to measure out things, and it's like, this just isn't going to work.
00:11:45
And so we wanted to have indoor seating. We wanted to have that kind of come type on your computer, study, whatever, so we really had to get creative. How is it working out in because there's always putting it on paper like you're saying and drawing it out, measuring all that, and then it's in action. How is it working out and how are you addressing anything that's come up? And have you discovered anything that's been actually delightful?
00:12:08
Where you're like, oh, actually this has been great because of XYZ, they're like. No, like you said, those 19 years we've been married, these are probably the past two years have been probably our biggest arguments over yes. Where we're putting construction machine. Yeah. No, when he says we redrew it.
00:12:26
We spent a lot of time planning out the floor plan and where we would put everything. And even now, we found ourselves moving things around. Jeremy's already rebuilt a wall to move our ice cream machines to the back, just because we didn't know what we didn't know. So we didn't realize how loud the ice cream machines were. Going to be.
00:12:47
And so, again, this whole coffee and ice cream thing, it sounds great and it is. But it also comes with challenges because you think of coffee shop, you think of kind of a quiet, maybe a little more intimate, but where people can meet and chat. Well, then we had these noisy ice cream machines running in the background and I'm like, I'm not feeling this. So we ended up just moving all that back. And I feel like we're always changing things and learning as we go.
00:13:16
But that's kind of the beauty of it, that we are flexible, that we can kind of change things, move things around a little bit. I mean, again, we have 800 sqft, so we can't do too much. But we've been pretty flexible with rearranging. How's your staff handling that when you change? Because I would imagine I know a little bit, having worked back in kitchens and things, like there is a flow from taking the order to getting it prepared to getting out the door.
00:13:41
There's a flow to that. How have they been adapting with you as you are figuring that out? Well, I'm glad we have small employees. We have a lot of high school kids, but they're small in stature, so they kind of like buz by each other. But it's kind of a back and forth acrobatic moves.
00:13:57
Somebody's coming with a coffee and somebody's coming the other way with an ice cream cone and it's just kind of orchestrated chaos. But it's been a pretty good pretty well received, I would say. Yeah, I would say overall, I think. You probably don't get back there too much with your broad shoulders, right? No, he has to stay out of the back.
00:14:13
I do. And I feel like I'm always in the way. Yeah, no, I think they've handled it quite well. And if anything, they get kind of excited about it because it's kind of an upgrade. We'rearranging and we ask them for feedback as well.
00:14:26
Like, what do you guys think? If we do this, if we move the machine here, how should we take a ticket? Where should we put it? And just kind of walking we have to walk through all the steps each time we make a change. That boots on the ground feedback is huge.
00:14:40
Every client that we talk to and consult with, whether they're doing something like this or something completely different, having that feedback from your people is well, and. I think they feel like then they're a part of it. They can buy into it. They get excited about it. They feel like they have a little bit of it.
00:14:57
They had input in it. So it does it's nice to have them engaged and like I said, give them a purpose more than just being an employee. They feel like they're part of the decision making team. You said earlier that this has always been a dream and with that in mind when somebody says it's always been a dream. I know.
00:15:16
It's like a burning thing, right? You're thinking on you're pondering, oh, we could you drive by every building you're like, it could be there. How did you know it was the right time to go ahead and leap into that dream? We had looked at a building in downtown Bennington for this purpose, and we looked at it, and for whatever reason, it just wasn't the right time, it wasn't the right building, whatever. Well, we ended up we shared that with Jeremy's parents and just kind of told him, hey, we went to check out this building.
00:15:42
We really do think we're going to move forward with something like this, with some sort of business, and just kind of left it as that. Well, it was probably a few weeks later, I think Jeremy's parents were on a boat ride with their neighbor, and they told the neighbor about what we had shared with them. And long story short, the neighbor said, well, why don't you buy my building? And they said, well, where's your building? We're now in that building.
00:16:06
So the timing, it all kind of worked out. So they bought the building and we're like, okay, I guess we're doing this. Which is funny because the building that we looked at was two, three times the size, you know, so it was a lot bigger. And then we walk into this place and it's like, this is small, this is the one. So I think it was it worked out.
00:16:29
Yeah. Did you feel ready when that happened? I would say no. Well, that's kind of a two sided question, I guess. Good thing I've got two sides here.
00:16:39
Exactly. So up to this point, we had done Amberson Real Estate, so we did some investment properties, we did some rental. We did a flip, just trying to make some extra money. And that's always the fun part, is kind of the demo, kind of the, hey, let's start tearing stuff apart. Well, this to me was just that it was just another kind of flip, if you will.
00:17:03
And it really didn't start setting in that this was a real deal till we were like, oh, wait, this isn't. We're just going to turn this building around and sell it. This is like, we're just starting the journey. And at the time, the real estate market was crazy. So it was like, well, I think the best time to do it right now.
00:17:19
So we just went for it. And like I said, as the paint was drying on the walls, we're like, well, we need to start really coming up with some solid things to keep moving forward. Now. It became real fast, put it that way. When there's a building involved, I've noticed that when people are starting businesses, because not everyone needs a building or chooses to have a building, it's not part of the plan.
00:17:41
When there is a building involved. There is this interesting element that you're describing of you can see it becoming real in a very different way. It's very tangible. When I had a previous company, a video production company. And we moved into a space and then outgrew it and realized we needed different and like you walked into a space in a cool kind of historic area, really awesome building, yours very historic looking and that and similarly we walked in and the building was a wreck, like pigeons flying around inside.
00:18:13
There was a hole in the floor that went down in the basement about the size of a car. It was a wreck. When I say a wreck, it legit wreck. And we walked in and we were like, yeah, I can see it. And it ended up being a beautiful build out that we worked with.
00:18:28
It was a very difficult build out. We had a very difficult relationship with the person who owned the building and the build out and all that, and that's another story for another day. But the build out ended up being really beautiful, and there was something really cool about standing in it and just going, okay, yeah, we had had our business, but it changed a little bit in that moment, for sure. Just to stand there and look at it. Yeah.
00:18:52
You sometimes just have to stop, just look around. And I think that's when it hits me, because otherwise you're just so busy all the time. But yeah, when you stop and you're like, oh, my gosh, yeah, we're doing this, it was just still pretty crazy. I don't even know if it's set in quite yet that we are doing this. It's been a long, long journey.
00:19:14
I mean, we've only been open for two, three months, but it's been years and years in the making. And like I said, to wake up and be like, well, we own a coffee and ice cream shop. It's still like, you're like driving, put. Some fires and save some people day, and I'm going to go back into my coffee and ice cream ling coffee and ice cream? Yeah.
00:19:31
And you're walking through houses. Do you do house residential? Pardon me? House. Real estate.
00:19:36
Residential real estate. Commercial as well. Not too much commercial. It's kind of its own beast. So I stick with residential.
00:19:42
Yeah. Do you meet people at your coffee shop? I do, yeah. Yes. That's good.
00:19:47
Yeah, you got to use it. Absolutely. I'm working hard on both sides, so I have to kind of meld the two together somehow. So let's talk about that a little bit, the melding the two together somehow, because you're melding together. Well, we're going to, of course, have to talk about how does this work?
00:20:05
Married and all of that, too. We'll save that for a minute. But how are you melding this together? What's working? What's been a challenge of you commute, that gives you flexibility, but that also takes you away, quite literally away for at least 24 hours.
00:20:19
Correct. 24 hours away, out of town. You're doing real estate. I know within that, especially with how markets are, you have to go when needed, show a house or do a closing, et cetera. And you're running a shop that's open regular hours with employees, customer service.
00:20:36
You were talking about ice cream machines, fail, things like that. Plus, you have some kids. We haven't talked about that. Right. And are they teens or teenagers?
00:20:47
The oldest is 25, the youngest is 14. And what does family life look like? I mean, they probably just sit at home and help with the business all day, every day. Right. Well, fortunately, two of the four work at the coffee shop, so both are our daughters.
00:21:01
We have four kids, two boys, two girls. The two boys are the older ones, the two girls are the younger, and they come and work probably four to five days a week. Okay. And the younger one, obviously, is in junior high, so she's labor laws pay her an ice cream so she doesn't complain too much. No, they've really been very instrumental in the success just because they pick up on things very quickly and some of their friends work there and I mean, it's just a great bunch of kids that we have working for us.
00:21:31
And really, it's strange as it sounds, we've been together more as a family since we opened, just because we're pretty much you out of free minute. Something needs to be done down the store, and if they're working, then we're stopping by and we're goofing around and having fun. So it's better than being at home and them in their rooms on their phone and you out doing something. It's like we're all in the same place, but we're literally doing four different things. Right.
00:21:58
So when we're there, we're forced to talk to each other and we don't have phones out. Like I said, it's been cool to kind of reconnect with the kids. Yeah, I would agree. Expecting that. Was that a hope or has that been a delightful surprise?
00:22:14
It's been a surprise. Yeah, it really has. And it's nice because it's instant feedback. If they're working and we're not there, our older daughter Will, I mean, she'll give it to us straight, like, what's going on and what do we need to change? And have you thought about this?
00:22:29
So it's great having them there. It really is. Yeah. What did they think about you starting everything? What were those conversations like before it actually started to manifest?
00:22:40
They were excited. They obviously knew about as much as we did going into it. Maybe more, sad as that sounds. Yeah. Our oldest daughter, like I said, she worked at the local ice cream store.
00:22:51
Okay. Just a little experience. Maybe get a little, hey, we need to have somebody be able to make an ice cream cone. Right. So we had her out there hustling and she loved it.
00:22:59
Learned a ton. Like I said, just a bright girl, just smart. So she picked up on a lot of things and helped us with our POS system that she was familiar with. So I mean she's only 17 but she brings a ton to the table. And just clarify POS point of sale.
00:23:16
Point of sale, right? Yes. So that's where they're doing all the transactions. Do you have to run like inventory? Are you running inventory and things like that through there too?
00:23:24
Not through our POS system. We kind of keep a separate which that's something we're tweaking right now but we keep a separate almost like Excel Doc that we kind of keep a running tab on everything. I would say too. Not only have the kids been huge help but we hired a manager before we even opened the doors. Her name is Tandem Works and I wouldn't have been able to do it without her.
00:23:48
She has been such a huge help. Like if we ask her to do something she does it. She had a little bit of restaurant background as well and so she's been huge for us and she's there Monday through Friday every day from seven to 330. So she's in it. She's keeping the shop running which is huge because we cannot physically be there all day every day.
00:24:10
Was that strategic to hire her before you opened? Yes. We wanted her to again just be part of this and be there from the get go. Yeah. Just to kind of see through the same lens.
00:24:23
We are not here's what we got going. Get up to speed. We had a lot of ideas between all three of us that were implemented from the very beginning.
00:24:34
She's growing along with us. I say we're going through the growing pains and yeah, she's right there with us. How early did you hire her? We opened February 1 and I think Tandem Works came on full time in December, December, December 1 or so. She was actually one of my she was my real estate assistant before that.
00:24:55
I was just going to ask like how do you find somebody like that? I mean it was kind of crazy how it all happened. We had been praying like, please God, send us someone that we can trust and who can do this with us. And in the back of my mind I always thought about Tandem Works but I never wanted to ask her. So we just kind of kept praying and finally one day she was like, hey, what are you looking for?
00:25:18
And we're like, you right. And yeah, here we are. May I ask your hesitation with asking. Was it was kind of one of those things where I don't know, I didn't want to ask her. I don't know even why.
00:25:33
I just think I wanted her to I guess for me I didn't want to pull her away from the real. Estate assisting stuff because she was helping another agent as well. So that was probably a huge part of it is I didn't want to take her away from that if she really did love it. But yeah. So when she finally reached out, I was like, this is great.
00:25:53
The reason I ask is it made me think of a similar situation for me where there was a woman in mind, it's actually Jenny who helped coordinate you all being here and loves she lives in Bennington, loves cup and cone. So she's like, you have to have them on. I was like, ice cream and coffee. I am down. Let's do it.
00:26:08
Perfect. Jenny's. Fabulous. Jenny also was a very good, close, dear friend prior to us bringing her on the team. And I asked that question because I think this comes up a lot for people where you have that name of that person.
00:26:21
It's Tandem Works, right? Tandem Works. Yes. You're thinking, okay, Tandem Works, Tandem Works name keeps coming up. They would just be perfect if we could just find a Tandem Works.
00:26:28
Right? And that was what was happening in my head. I'm like, if we could just find a Jenny. We just really need a Jenny. And I talked to my business partner a lot, Mikayla, and I said we need and I'm going to explain this because I think it might come across wrong.
00:26:38
I was like, we need a mom. And I mean that with 100% respect as a profession. We need a mom because we needed somebody who could help guide us with all of those skills, which are high level executive director skills that I believe mothers have. And there's this extra level layer that you moms bring to the table. And I had noticed that with people who'd been on our team in the past.
00:27:05
I was like, what is it about them? They just seem to anticipate every need. They seem to have schedules together, even under pressure or even with a difficult client. They seem to know how to negotiate this. And I was like, it's because they're a mom.
00:27:15
Absolutely. They do this all day. All day, every day. Anyway, so this name I keep saying, Jenny. Jenny.
00:27:22
And Kenneth goes, Why don't you just ask her? And I was like, because she's my friend and I was worried. I was really worried. And Michaela, then she looks at me, she goes, but we were friends. You're right.
00:27:33
Perfect. But the hesitation was there of I was saying no for somebody right. Rather than letting them say no themselves. Right. It's a big learning moment for me.
00:27:43
Yeah. And I would totally agree with the whole mom thing. Tandem Works is a mom and she can juggle a lot of balls in the air, so it's been great. She's very positive, too. So I think when we're kind of in the weeds and getting down a little bit, she can kind of bring us back to the ground and be like, we're going to figure this out.
00:28:03
Which is and I don't want to. Say people who aren't moms I'm not a mom, can't do those things, but I have to raise my hand and admit there is something special about that. And as all people have, you look for certain attributes, and in certain roles, there's some attributes that really pop out there that I was like, moms tend to have those skills. Yeah. I always like an Amber's life to if you open up her laptop right now, there's 50 tabs open.
00:28:28
Oh, yes. And she can pop from one to the next to the next to the next, and I've got one open. I can do one thing. I can do it really well. And when that tab is done, I can close it and I'll start doing with another one.
00:28:38
But, yeah, females just they're incredible. You guys are awesome. You can multitask. You can listen and talk and do things at the same time. And I'm just like, give me one thing I can do that.
00:28:49
There's an efficiency to that as well, though. There is, but like I said, I try to help out at this shop as much as I can business wise. I'm kind of the construction guy. Have me build something, I'll do it, but I'll work behind the counter and try to take somebody's order and give me blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, hold on, slow down.
00:29:05
I'm trying to find buttons on the computer and remember what she told me? And I'm like, and they're just over there bing, bing, bing, and making the drink before I even got it typed in. So, yeah. You guys are awesome. Yeah.
00:29:15
No, Jeremy speaking on the construction part, it is amazing. Basically everything in our shop and the patio Jeremy has built. So that was a huge just savings for us, too, to start a business and you're not bringing in any money, so that was huge for us to not have to be paying out all that help to get the building built out. He built a fabulous fence in the backyard for the patio. It looks fantastic.
00:29:44
So super lucky that he is skilled to do all that stuff. We all have our own little niche and we play to each other's advantages or play to each other's strengths for our advantage. Yes, it works. So everything just sounds lovely and delightful. The whole family is working together.
00:30:01
This is like, I'm thinking some of this old classic now, what was it? Maybury well, maybe ice cream and coffee. Shop and the family's all work now. Spend it on a good but you're juggling a lot. Yeah.
00:30:17
How are you making that work and how are you making the marriage work and the business partnership work? Good questions. I would say my point of view is we're both hard workers, so we're both usually working well into the evening, and I'm okay with that. I like to work. I don't think it's a bad thing that people like to work.
00:30:39
I enjoy what I'm doing, and so for me, it's okay sometimes. There was about a month there where it was very overwhelming. There was a lot of real estate stuff going on the shop. There was a lot of decisions that we need to make, and I was almost on overload. And for me, it's been good for me because I've had to change the way I do my real estate business.
00:31:00
I've had to ask for help. I've brought on someone to help me with buyer's showings, and then I still write up offers and keep the contracts moving from there. But just that piece alone has freed up a lot of my time, so then I can devote it back to the shop. So you don't really know. In the beginning, I think you figure things out, and if they're not working, then you try something different.
00:31:21
So again, it's that whole kind of being flexible and pivoting has been instrumental. And I also think that our kind of makeup is very good for what we're doing. She's not real needy. I'm not real needy. Like, we see each other every day except when I'm at work, but we can be at the shop for 1012 hours, not have a meaningful conversation.
00:31:42
But we're together, so we're getting stuff done. She's not hanging on me. I'm not hanging on her. But kind of gives us we're still together, but like I said, we have to be content with just being in the moment that we're in, which is. And it's not all roses either.
00:31:59
I mean, we have had our arguments where we haven't talked for a week or so because I asked him to move the ice cream machine or whatever it is. Here it comes again. Yeah, I mean, there are times where you get tired. I mean, he works his two week shift, and by the end of it, he's exhausted, and I'm doing my thing, and I'm exhausted. So there are definitely those days where you're at the end of your rope.
00:32:25
So sometimes our marriage well, I wouldn't say suffer, but there are days where we may not get along so well, and we just have to, again, figure it out, talk it through. Usually one of us will come to their senses and kind of come to make amends. Have you found anything through those that now you use as a tool, or do you recognize when things like that are happening, or are you still just sifting through it? Have you found anything? Maybe let me actually ask a question this way.
00:32:54
So I was convoluted. If you were to give some advice to others, what might you help them out with? If they're like, we're thinking about going to business together. We're married, or we are in business together, we're married, and sometimes we just really hit the rock. What do you guys do?
00:33:05
How can we work through this, right? Well, I think communication, as generic as that sounds, communication is huge. And also for me, timing is huge. Like, if I just got back from a rough shift and we were up all night and I'm half awake and I'm hungry and I'm irritable and she says, hey, we need to move this. And I'll be like, she might not have a head, I'll bite her head off.
00:33:30
But if you let me take a nap, get some food and approach it from a different angle, I'd probably be a little bit more willing to listen and have the conversation. And there's times where, like I said, I'm just irritable and I'm just a bear to work with and that's just the nature of me. And she's learned how to navigate that in the last 19 years. But that really kind of to me is key, is just timing is important. Yeah.
00:33:54
And I think prefacing things too. Like, hey, I just need to vent because sometimes if I say things that are maybe going wrong at the shop, he thinks I'm blaming him. So I think just to prefacing, I'm just venting. This isn't because of you, let's talk this through. Because I have found for me, what is best is to talk things through because we can't anticipate what's going to happen, but if we can talk it through and just try and avoid future problems, to me, that I think it's definitely worth it.
00:34:26
I was previously married. You guys got to meet my husband. He was in here before we hopped on here. But I was previously married and in business with him. And though we divorced, which has nothing to do with your business or anything like that, I just want to make sure to preface this.
00:34:40
But to this day, I will say there was a lot of good that came out of that in that we almost were on a fast track to have to figure some things out that some married couples maybe wouldn't have to address until kids moved out or until a situation rose. And we were constantly dealing with money, employees, a build out, pricing philosophy, marketing opportunities, mistakes. I mean, we were going through all these things and I remember talking with somebody and they were like, you've dealt with more through your business in the first few years of your marriage because we were actually early on in our marriage than most couples do their entire marriage, right. And so I always thought of it. I was like, hey, what a blessing.
00:35:25
It was insane. Yes, but what a blessing to have to work through things like that. And so that's always stuck with me. And going into the new partnership I have with Michaela and Mikayla are not married, but I've carried a lot of that over. And I will say having a business partner in general has made my marriage better because you have to work through really hard things, and money is one of the big ones.
00:35:49
Yeah, money, tough conversations. I would say none of it is easy, and it's not for the faint of heart. I wouldn't say if you don't have a strong marriage, don't go into business together because it's going to make you or break you. So I guess if you want to find out right, find out. It's like the fast track.
00:36:09
Yeah. Roll the dice. Here we go. Do you lean into people or community outside of your family unit to just help encourage you in any way? Is that a piece of the structure?
00:36:20
Or have you ever considered that mentors, coaches, or just friends, family? What does that look like? I would say through my real estate stuff, I've worked with mentors and coaches in the past, so that's definitely helped. But for us, I would say we're not private, but we have a small circle. I have a big family.
00:36:37
He's got a pretty big family, and we love our families. So I think for us, it's just we're limited on time, so our circle is maybe a little bit smaller, and we just spend a lot of time with our family. It sounds like a quality circle. Yeah. In many ways.
00:36:52
Yeah, definitely. Quality over quantity. Yes. That's an interesting thing. A number of business owners, I think, encounter as they launch in, is sometimes your circle shrinks a bit because of the time, and you really start to evaluate, like, this is a really strong friendship and I need to keep it.
00:37:08
And not that you're just discounting others, but you may spend less time with them. You really do have to evaluate that, right? Yeah. It's all been such a great learning experience, and we will continue to learn about not just business stuff, but yeah, relationships and the community, just all sorts of things we will continue to learn about. What about the business side of this all, though?
00:37:31
And we've talked a lot about buildings. You've been in real estate, so is there some background there? You talk about flipping homes, so the building and the construction was certainly new and a challenge, but you had a little bit there. What about just the raw business side of the financials, a financial model, hiring all of the HR things that go in, the taxes, the setup, the legalities. Was that something you had background with?
00:37:54
And what's that been like? We had zero background, zero total blindfold going in. We had no clue. Yeah, no clue. We thought we had a good grasp of what to expect, but let me make your head spin.
00:38:09
I don't want to say a frightening couple of months gearing up towards opening the doors and hiring people and interviewing, and then what do we pay them? What about insurance? What about taxes? What about product? And what's our price point?
00:38:22
What are our vendors? Like I said, it's like the second you think you got it all figured out. Ten more things come out behind you. Which cup are we going to put the coffee in? Well, 100%.
00:38:32
It's like, what size cup are we going to do? A plastic cup? What color of spoon are we going to use? I would say that month of December, probably halfway through January. Tandem Works and I and Jeremy was there working on the building.
00:38:48
But Tandem Works and I spent weeks upon weeks just sitting, and we were at our computers, like, all day, every day, just trying to figure all this stuff out. The main thing was the pricing. I had no clue. Where do you even start? How do you price things?
00:39:02
Kind of look at what are the big companies doing? Where are they pricing it at? But we didn't know. Like, well, how do you price it? You have to take in overhead costs.
00:39:10
We didn't even know what our overhead costs were. Honestly, we probably still don't know what that is. So if you're looking for someone who's doing it the right way, we're probably not the right people. Sometimes we wing it, and sometimes we wing it. Yeah, sometimes it works out for us, and sometimes it's like, wow, that hurt.
00:39:26
Yeah, it was valuable experience. Definitely a lot of winging it that went into it. And too, we reached out to I have a family member that is in the restaurant business, so I asked him a lot of questions, and I'm not afraid to ask people, and neither is Tandem Works, so we did a lot of asking, like, hey, how do you do this? But there were a lot of hours spent on the computer in Tweaking recipes. How much espresso are we going to use in our drinks?
00:39:50
And how many pumps of syrup? It's a lot. Like, there were definitely times in that month that I was just like, man, what did we do? Hadn't even opened the doors. And I was like, I don't even want to open the doors.
00:40:03
Honestly, I'm so overwhelmed. Yeah. What was opening the doors like, the. Day of frustrating as all get out? It wasn't even our first money making day.
00:40:14
It was kind of a soft opening. And we did it for our neighbor, Earl and Gray. She was having a Customer Appreciation Day, and she's like, hey, do you want to just open your doors for a couple of hours so people can come over and get coffee? And we thought, oh, yeah, that's easy. We made the mistake of putting it on social media, and the place was packed and our espresso machine was not working, so we had a line out the door.
00:40:38
We had cups lining our counter, and people were just staring at us. And we're like, we didn't even know what to do. We're like, oh, my gosh. It was probably the best thing and the worst thing that could have happened. It was great because we got it out of the way.
00:40:53
It's like, well, it can only go up from here because this was an absolute disaster. But everybody there might have been one or two people that were kind of upset, but everyone's like, hey, this is why you do the soft opening. We know how it is. Thanks for being vulnerable because we're just like, hey, here's the deal. We're having some machinery issues and it's going to be just a little bit.
00:41:12
If you want to go next door, we'll bring it over when we're done with it. But it was humbling. I think at one point we couldn't even make espresso drinks anymore, so we were like, okay, we can't do espresso, but here's what we have. We'll get you this instead. So it was a very good learning experience.
00:41:31
Looking back, it's almost like, yeah, you're thankful that it happened when it did. In the moment, though, feel painful. It was a hopeless feeling. I think we all wanted to just go in the back and cry. Just walk out the door and just keep walking.
00:41:45
Yeah. Give the keys. Coming all the way out. Here you go. We're good.
00:41:49
It's built out. It's ready to go. Just when you think you got to figure it out, that's a slap in the face. But it was good. It was a good experience to have.
00:41:59
Yeah. And looking back, it's like, now, I understand you have dreams and hopes of these businesses, but most people don't follow through on them because it's so overwhelming. Like when you get to the end of the nitty gritty, it's just so overwhelming of all the steps you have to go through. And it gives you a whole different perspective and a whole different appreciation for people that have done it before you, because how many times you've been out to a little mom and pop restaurant and it's like but until you are in their shoes, it's a huge sacrifice. Thank you for sticking with it.
00:42:33
And it's also funny how many people have walked in the door and said, oh, a coffee and ice cream. We were going to do that. Like, well, why didn't you? And it's like, well, that's a lot of work. No kidding.
00:42:42
So it's kind of funny to see both sides of it. What kept you going? I don't quit. I mean, once I make up my mind on something, there's no if brands or buts. It's just you just got to do it.
00:42:55
And that's probably part of my stubbornness and a lot of her, too. It's the competition. She'll turn in anything into a competition.
00:43:06
I think between the two of us, it wasn't an option. Yeah, I would say, yeah, it wasn't an option to quit. We had come so far. I think if we would have quit, we would have had to move out of Bennington because it would have been so hard to walk by there and know that we gave up on ourselves. So I just don't think it wasn't an option.
00:43:29
There's a lot people talk about grit. Yes. And that grit is it is the knot. You don't give up. Yeah.
00:43:37
So that made me think of that as you're talking about just having that greediness of we're not sure, and I want to cry right now, and I'm thinking about walking out that door, but I'm just not going to do it right. It's too easy to quit. I mean, like I said, quitting is the easiest option, but you never get anything when you quit. Starting also is one of the hardest things. Absolutely.
00:43:58
Getting it started, right. Yeah, for sure. I was seeing about this a little bit. You mentioned the community, and the community poured in. I want to talk about your social media here in a minute, because that stuck out to me, and I've been on your social media, and so I have some questions there.
00:44:13
But that community piece stuck out to me, and it's something that you guys have brought up on the blog or on the blogs, on the website and social media. You're community driven. And Bennington, for those who wouldn't know, it is a small community. It's butted up next to Omaha, which would lend itself to that metro, the larger metro. But Bennington has a very small town community feel.
00:44:36
It's very charming, but I've lived in small towns, and I've lived in very large and there's a difference in a small town. You've brought up that that community piece is important, and it sounds like in many ways, they supported you. Yes. What do you think? The impact cup and cone.
00:44:52
What is the Impact Cup and cone has on the community? Right. What does that look like? I think it's huge. Like I said, it's been something that's kind of what our driving force was from the very beginning, was we had kids in Sports 1015 years ago when we first moved there.
00:45:07
And it's like, what do you do after a baseball game or after a soccer game or after a concert at school or it's like, let's just go and be together. Well, that piece was always missing, and that was something that kind of, like I said, was a driving force in our decision of we love this community. We've raised our kids here. We've seen it grow from an elementary and a middle school to a high school. Now there's six elementary schools, and, I mean, the place is just grown, but people move there for the same reason we did.
00:45:37
And to have a family come in and sit out back, sit inside, grab an ice cream cone, grab a cup of coffee, and just be together, that's kind of what we set out to do. And like I said, that's what the community is all about. And to be able to orchestrate or facilitate that, that's what keeps us going. Right. I love it.
00:46:00
Yeah. I think back when we were younger and our families had a community, we lived out in the country, but yet we had a community of our parents, friends and their kids. That was our community. And we hung out and we did things together. And as society changes and people don't live maybe close to their families or whatever it may be, I just feel like we're kind of losing that sense of community as cities get larger and people just get lost.
00:46:25
So I think having this shop and it's just fun too, to see people come in and then the next thing they're like, oh my God, hi. And their friend comes in and it's almost like a party every day and it's cool to see everyone kind of coming together and having a conversation and enjoying life, slowing down for a minute and being able to enjoy life. That's been huge for us and something we really wanted. There's things that we want to do as we kind of go along, to just have more of those community nights and be able to bring more families out to have fun together again. Life, I feel like we're taking life way too seriously lately.
00:47:03
We need to bring it back, have some fun, slow it down and just enjoy life. The slowing down piece, I love that you brought that up because when I came in, it was a Friday, we tried to take Fridays off, I would say 99.9%, we're not open on Fridays. So I came out on a Friday with Jenny as a friend in this instance. But I was in real need of slowing down. And though I would take Fridays off sometimes it had packet full of other things.
00:47:32
And I called up Jenny, I was like, that cup and comb place, we should go there. And she was like, that's good because they're coming in for podcasts if you're a student too. I was like, great. But it was this desire to slow down that really drew me there and wanting to hang out with her and go somewhere. And when I drive down the street and she parks everything, we walked in, I was like I felt like I could slow down again.
00:47:54
It had that delightful feeling of it felt restful and enjoyable and fun. And I had to have an avocado because they're hard to find, by the way, in town. Which for those who don't know, espresso and ice cream. It's delicious. So simple.
00:48:07
Yeah, but it is. It's so delicious and they're just tiny little it's all you need. It's a little spot in a cup. And there was this sense of slowdown and the hurriness is something I've been thinking a lot about in my life. And so I love that you brought that up and just wanted to core late there.
00:48:20
That was exactly what happened and exactly what I was seeking when I came in. Well, that's good. I love to hear that feedback because that is what we want for people. And even though our lives may not reflect that all the time because we are very busy. We try to be intentional, or I try to be intentional about taking a day off, maybe not scheduling appointments on one day.
00:48:44
You have to be flexible sometimes. But yeah, life is crazy for everybody anymore. So good to slow down. Okay, so we talked about my favorite, which is Yascado favorite things on the menu. Must try it.
00:49:00
It's the best. What do you guys think? I am pretty plain. I like vanilla custard, and once in a while I will throw some Oreos in there and maybe some chocolate hard shell. Nice.
00:49:13
And my go to coffee, again is pretty boring. Well, I mean, I have a latte, it's a caramel sauce late, but that's usually my go to. I'm as simple as it gets. I have black coffee. I mean, we drink coffee at the firehouse by the gallon, and it's black, cheap black coffee.
00:49:31
So we have a higher quality black coffee. But yeah, I'm not real fancy as far as the lates and all that stuff, so keep it simple. We have a blended latte, though, that we use our ice cream base to make, and it's basically an avagado in a cup. It's delicious. That is probably my favorite, but I got to be careful with that one.
00:49:57
Come try that out. Yeah, it's pretty good. Okay, so you mentioned about social media. You put a post out. The floodgates open.
00:50:04
Yes. What are you finding with social media? Because I've been on your social media, it's clearly a piece of your marketing. What's not to love about photos of ice cream and coffee? But how are you using that?
00:50:18
How have you strategically used it? Or is it more you're trying things out? A lot of people I know out there thinking, like, how can I market through social media? And so it's one of the things I love to ask other business owners. What are you doing?
00:50:30
What's? Working? What's not again. Just do it. I don't know if you can really go wrong.
00:50:35
I watch and study a lot of social media stuff just for real estate as well. But you just got to keep posting. Again. I keep saying it's no different than when you see a Burger King commercial of a hamburger and then next thing you can't get it off your mind. So social media is no different.
00:50:54
We put pictures of ice cream out there because who doesn't want to see that? And then I want people to not get that off their mind and then they come in. So it's funny because Tandem Works will joke around. She'll be like, did you put this on social media? Because everybody's coming in.
00:51:09
I'm like, yeah, I forgot to tell you I put cinnamon rolls. And now we're out of cinnamon rolls because everybody came in and ate them all. So she's always like, can you give me a heads up what you're going to put. On social media because people will come in after we post. It's pretty powerful.
00:51:23
It's quite amazing. It is. It's almost one of our necessary evils. I mean, you can't not put something on Facebook or Instagram or whatever just because that's everybody's go to so we post all the hours and it's like, free. So it's not like we're advertising in the Yellow Pages back in the day or it's a powerful tool.
00:51:48
Are you managing that all yourself? Yes, I am. He's pointing at you. I'm not very techy. Yeah.
00:51:56
I walk by with your black coffee, though. Right on. Black coffee. What's going on? Well, we posted a picture.
00:52:01
Exactly. Yeah. It's a lot of work as well. I mean, you got to stay on top of it. I do my best.
00:52:08
I do my best. Yeah. One of the things that's great about the industry you've chosen is that it is very photogenic. Yes. Very photographable.
00:52:18
And it's yummy. Right. So between coffee, ice cream, puppies and kittens, you can't go wrong on social media. I agree. And so that's one of the things that's great.
00:52:28
However, what you can go wrong with, and you just noted was not posting and just assuming. And that's true of any industry. Yes, because I think I know for myself, if I'm going to go somewhere that I haven't been before, I always check their Facebook or their Instagram, whatever social media they have. I always go there first. If they don't have a presence there, I mean, anymore.
00:52:52
If you don't have a social media presence, people are wondering, are you really legit? I mean, I would say in real estate is no different. Like, if you don't have a website or social media presence yeah. People have to question you. So, yeah, you got to do it.
00:53:06
Whether you like it or not, you have to do it. I think it's a no brainer. I'm with you. And even being in marketing, social media comes up a ton and people will ask us all the time, like, Do I have to? And the answer really is yes.
00:53:26
But you can find a way that you can enjoy it or pick the channels that work for you and you don't have to do it all yes. And I think that's important to know is that you don't have to be on every single channel, certainly not right out of the gate. Focusing, picking something and then creating content that you really do enjoy goes a long way. So there's trends out there and people all the time ask, should I be using this trend? Should I be using a trend?
00:53:50
Should I be using this trend? If it piques your interest, yes. Go jump on board or give it a try, even if you're not sure. But if you find that, it just grates on you, either you've got two options, hire somebody, which is there's nothing wrong with that, or find something else. There's so many trends that there's something out there that's going to resonate with you.
00:54:09
And so what does that look like for you? Is important. Yeah. And don't get into your head too much about it. Don't worry about the algorithms.
00:54:18
And should I be writing this hashtag, or should I have four hashtags or seven? Yeah. To me, I don't worry about it too much. You just do your thing. Just keep your head down and do your thing, and I think it will work out.
00:54:32
I love it. Yeah. You can always optimize it later. And that's where I'm, like, pull in an expert when you're ready to optimize it, but when you're starting or you're just maintaining, like, exactly what you're saying, just do it. Just get it done.
00:54:44
Yeah. Don is better than somebody has that tagline. Just do it. Well, as we're kind of wrapping up here, I have what I call rapid fire questions. Boy.
00:54:54
I know. And I guess if you guys want to since we've got both of you today, if you want to go back forth, if you both want to answer, I'm open flexible here with these, and you already answered one of them that I think I'm have to just add from now on. What's your favorite ice cream? I don't usually ask people that, but the first one is what do you think is the biggest misconception about owning a business? That's a tough question.
00:55:17
Biggest misconception? I would say that you're just going to be rolling in the dough. So exactly where I was going was money. Yeah. I think that's probably the biggest misconception, that it's going to be easy and that you're just going to be in.
00:55:32
The back room counting money all day long. You're driving Lincoln. Dollar bills are just flying out the window. Right? Exactly.
00:55:38
It's definitely we'll call it a labor of love, I guess, for this point in time right now. But until we get kind of the ball rolling, it's a grind. I think we put in more hours than anybody, and I haven't got a dime from it, and either is Amber, so it's a lot of sweat equity. I'm sure that we'll get paid back in the long run, but for now, it's just you just got to, like I said, put your head down and keep moving. And I think, too, what makes us a little unique is that we both do have full time jobs.
00:56:11
If we didn't, I'm not sure what this would look like. Yeah. It would look a lot different. Yeah. But we're fortunate enough to be in the position we are, and it was something that made sense to us, but yeah.
00:56:24
Any other situation, I think it'd be a tough go. Yeah. That is an interesting one. I have always started businesses self funded. You are your own investors, I'm guessing, from what you're saying, you're kind of cash flowing between the jobs, and that certainly is an interesting way to do it.
00:56:47
Because then you have that security. On the flip side, you have to maintain those jobs. Right. And so this is a question I get asked a ton. Should I quit my job and go 100% in or do I keep my job and straddle?
00:56:58
And there's no real right answer. There's different approaches there because when you're not 100% in, you're not 100% in. Absolutely. But if you are straddling, then you have a little bit of a safety net. And so I usually find if you are going to make the transition, usually you straddle for a bit and then you know your numbers and if you don't know your numbers, you're going to straddle longer.
00:57:21
I was going to say. And we went into it too, sorry. We were not going to be owner operators. So we went into it with kind of that mentality as well. So we knew this wasn't going to be a cash cow on day two and we were okay with that because we knew we couldn't be there 24/7.
00:57:46
So yeah, our situation is little unique because of those couple of things and. Being the we call it the three wheel machine that we are with Tandem Works being the third between us three, we can get a lot of stuff done with all of our unique schedules and talents and strengths and weaknesses and we play well with each other. Without that third wheel, it'd be really tough. Very strategic hire for your situation. She can't put a price tag on what she does for us.
00:58:19
What would you say is an important piece of advice that you've actually been given and you have actually applied to your business? I want to say just keep it simple. And we really have tried to keep it simple and when we keep well, we should add this. We should do this. I always Jeremy too.
00:58:39
We just kind of bring it back to okay, let's keep this simple. Like let's not let the wheel fall off on the place. So I think that's been one of the biggest because it's always in the back of my mind, well, do we need to do this? Do we need to have 17 flavors of syrup options? Sometimes simple is more.
00:58:56
Just keep it do something and do it well. I would rather be an inch wide and a mile deep as opposed to a mile wide and an inch deep. You know what I mean? Do what you do and do it well. All right.
00:59:09
What would you tell your 18 year old self or maybe even thinking about kids coming up on those ages, knowing what you know now? Take the chance. Yeah, take the chance. I mean, we went back and forth and back and forth. Even as we're opening the doors on the first day, it's like, do we make a mistake?
00:59:28
Is this the right decision? And it's like, I don't know. We're not going to know until we do it so take the chance. Yeah. I always kind of think, what's the worst that can happen?
00:59:39
Because if you start there and work backwards, like, if we do this, what is the absolute worst thing that could happen? If we lose everything, what would that look like? That usually takes away some of the scariness. Sure. Like, yeah, we might have to live with your parents for a while, or.
00:59:55
We'Ll move in with the kids, maybe verdances. But I'm going to ask him, what is your favorite kickback and relax beverage? To me, it's Arnold Palmer iced tea and lemonade. Yeah. Neither one of us are big drinkers, alcohol drinkers, so I like a drink.
01:00:12
It's called a bumbler. It's just a little caffeinated drink. But now a little plug for the shop. We're going to be carrying refreshers. So I have one with me today that's quickly becoming my new favorite.
01:00:24
Pretty good. Yeah. Awesome. Is there a song, a book, or a podcast that's inspiring you right now? You've got a long drive.
01:00:32
Are you podcasting on the way or blaring the music? A little bit of both, actually. Yeah. So cleared hot. Andy Stump is his name.
01:00:40
He's an ex Navy Seal, kind of turned podcaster, but in the last six months has opened up a coffee shop. Oh, really? In Montana. True love. Yeah, really.
01:00:52
I have a bromance. He's a cool dude. I just love listening to him. He's much like yourself. He has these guests on, and they'll talk for 3 hours.
01:01:01
I mean, there's not never a pause. They just keep rolling. And he talks about anything and everything. So that really kind of passes my time. We've talked about making this 3 hours because sometimes I just can't stop.
01:01:11
And then I'm like, I have to get to another meeting. There's always so much to talk about. Yeah. Anything for you. I don't know why, but I'm into 90s rock right now, so I've been blaring that in my car.
01:01:23
I don't know what that's about. Honestly. I used to listen to a lot of podcasts, and I have kind of fallen out of that for the time being. I think I need to just let my brain relax a little bit. So I've kind of taken in all I can take in right now.
01:01:39
I've done the same. I really enjoy consuming information, but there have been times where I'm like, vivian, give yourself a rest. Just listen to some music. This is your favorite podcast, though, by the way, so you have to mix it in there on the way. Yes.
01:01:53
Well, what excites you about the future? I mean, options. I feel like we're going to have options in the future, whether that's keeping cup and cone. If it's selling, it staying in, Bennington, moving out. I'm just excited for what our future looks like and maybe the excitement of not knowing what it looks like.
01:02:15
Our kids are getting older, and they might move away, and if they move away, maybe we'll follow them. So we keep saying we're kind of that, though. Yeah, exactly. We keep saying we're on the back nine with our kids. We're on the tail end of high school and school in general, so we're just at a different point in our life, and I don't know.
01:02:37
For me, I enjoy getting older. You're getting more comfortable in your skin. You're wiser. We can have conversations with our kids, and we enjoy being around them. So life is good.
01:02:52
So I'm excited for whatever happens in the future. It'll be great. Yeah. I just think every day that you wake up, accomplish something, go to bed. To me, it's just another day that you got under your belt and everything gets easier.
01:03:10
It seems like every day at the shop, it just seems like I was there every day, available. Every waking moment that I was free, I was down there. Not that I did anything. It was just like you felt like you had to be there to be there. Now it's like, we've got employees, we've got good employees, we've got a great manager in Tandem Works, and there are still times where it's like the phone rings and it's like, I got to go be down there.
01:03:33
But there's also those, like I said, every day it just seems like it gets a little bit easier to let your people do what they're hired to do and give them some freedom, and it just kind of is nice to see the fruits of your labors, I guess. Yeah, absolutely. Any hour we're not there, it feels good sometimes. Yeah. To know that we've set this up, we've been intentional about who we've hired and how we want things to be run, and it's doing its thing.
01:04:03
You've really empowered people, it sounds like, in a lot of way, and even yourselves, which is really neat. All right, two questions. Two last questions here. What's something people often get wrong about you? I don't even want to know.
01:04:18
That. We are very serious people or take things seriously, maybe. Yeah. I don't know. People are intimidated by me.
01:04:27
By my looks, yes. But firefighter look? Yeah. I don't know. I guess I've got that.
01:04:33
My whole life, people are just like, Is he mad? And I'm like, I've been able to great mustache. It must be. I don't know. It's kind of funny because kids will come in and look at me like, what can I get you today?
01:04:48
I can kind of turn the corner with people, and I love interacting with if I could sit and be the greeter at the store every day, I would do it. I love meeting people. I love chatting with people, and most of the time, the kids give me a high five on their way out, and I've kind of won them over, I guess. Yeah. People are intimidated by me for whatever reason.
01:05:09
But back to that point about him being a greeter. It was so cool to see throughout this process things that we hadn't seen in each other before. Like, I noticed when he was at the shop, he was super good with the teenagers and training people. He was super patient. And I'm like, man, you are so good at that.
01:05:29
You're a good teacher. I am not. I am the one on my computer figuring out what we should price things. And he always thinks he's a background person, but I'm like, I don't know if you are. I think you're actually the front ground person and I'm the background person because I get overwhelmed.
01:05:46
You talk with a lot of people and sometimes I need to just back off and be quiet and be alone. But it was interesting to see that dynamic as we were going through this. It was something I had never seen before, so I thought that was super cool. That's insightful, for sure. And interesting how people sometimes flip roles, right?
01:06:04
They make assumptions and you're basically saying something people might not know is that I'm actually kind of the background person. Mikhail and I get the same. I'm the extreme introvert. She is very much an extrovert and people all the time nail me as the extrovert or as the introvert just because the way our roles play out when we're with clients and things like that. And I'm like, no, actually, you exhaust me.
01:06:25
Yeah, I love you, I love being with you and I love working with you, but now I got to go home and Mikayla's like, man, I'm revved up. Like, let's go out. Where's the next client meeting in the party? And I'm like, no. Yeah.
01:06:38
So last one here for you. What do you feel like business owners can do to make the world a better place? I would say treat your employees really well. Like, have respect for your employees because they're human and they deserve that. So I think if you start there and you respect your employees and you treat them really well, they will only reflect that back onto the customers.
01:07:03
So I think it starts there. We just actually had a conversation about this last night, about another business that whatever, wasn't treating an employee very fairly or whatnot. And I'm like, people, it doesn't matter if you're the boss or if you are the cashier. There has to be a two way respect going on. Amen to that.
01:07:28
Yeah. That has been something that I'd say we've gone out of our ways to try to be different than another business, and I think that has been very apparent in our employees. I've been on jobs where it's just like, I don't want to be here today. And that shows to the people walking in, it's like, oh, 100%. You can tell you don't want to be here today.
01:07:57
So it's like, if you can get the kids excited about coming to work and that's going to just, like, I said that's going to come out to them, to the people that walk in the door, yeah, this kid's happy. He's happy to be here. We made it a point too about a month ago to send each of our employees a handwritten note and just express like, hey, we're really happy that you're part of our team. And a few of them responded back. They're like, hey thanks for that note.
01:08:24
That was awesome. It does make all the difference. And I'll tell a very brief story, but I was in a chain restaurant and never had had terrible service there or anything, but nothing that overly excited me either. Wasn't having any real expectations. And it was in an interesting situation where had just been through a pretty rough day afternoon with a friend of mine and was along with me.
01:08:48
And I was really worried, actually about how the interactions were going to go just based off of the day. And it had just been high stress and I wasn't sure this was a new place for them. And I didn't know how that was going to go over and all that. And I was like, this could go one way, it was go another way. And there was a young fellow behind the counter and I would guess, I probably shouldn't guess but he seemed high school to early college, very young appeared.
01:09:14
I appear super young sometimes, especially when I was a lot younger so I should be careful about age profile people. But a young man and this was a new experience for my friend and some spicy foods were involved sometimes that can trigger things. And that young man was so delightful I literally was like I nearly cried over food as we went through the line. And I mentioned to my friend, I said just explain you don't love spice. And he took such time to explain every single one of those where there's compartments, all these ingredients.
01:09:50
He explained every single one, even the spicy ones. So that it was truly a decision that she my friend got to make, right? And I was like, you literally changed the whole trajectory of this day and this evening and it made a huge difference and you're like was that management? Was it him? All these things that play in but I think it's just so important the employees, the people who are behind the counter, they make we talk about world, changed our world for that day which then changes so many other things.
01:10:21
And so I was like I went up afterwards, got a lid and I'm like looking for a name tag. I got to write corporate absolutely about you. This person needs to be recognized. And I said I was like thank you so much. Oh no big deal.
01:10:33
People don't know. And I was like, no I don't think you understand. Right? Like thank you. Not everyone will take the time.
01:10:39
Yeah, it was huge. Yeah, it is huge. And we get posts on social media or Google reviews that just say how wonderful the staff was. So I love hearing that, because I truly think we have some great employees. We got really lucky.
01:10:56
Well, I don't know if luck is really certainly luck can play in, but I think a lot of hard work and that grit and you guys have poured into people and made that a point. And so nice job with just bringing some delight to the world and for bringing that here today and serving a little happiness. Serving a little happiness, exactly right. And thanks for serving some happiness here. I think this was super encouraging for people and fun, and I'm coming in to try what was it again?
01:11:21
The blended latte. I'm coming in for a blended latte. Yes. Well, we'll see you soon. Yeah, absolutely.
01:11:26
Now, if people want to find you, is there a best social media channel? We'll link to everything, of course. Anywhere. Yeah, I would say Instagram is probably our best. I think it's at cup and cone underscore Bennington.
01:11:37
Perfect. And then there's a Facebook page, too, that I usually copy things on. Excellent. Yeah, we'll link to that. And I always say, too, even if you're in a different state, reach out to these people.
01:11:46
If you're trying to open something or do something, you guys are awesome. So thanks for being here. Anything that we can share with someone else, we sure will. Absolutely. We went down that road with a couple of people.
01:11:57
It's like, man, I wish I would have reached out or asked the question. Just a simple, yeah, don't do that. Do this, or you're. Here's my experience. I want to try this.
01:12:07
Just a little olive branch goes a long ways. Well, thanks for extending that today. Absolutely. Thanks for having us. Thanks for inviting us.
01:12:14
Yeah, it's fantastic. Thank you. Good. I'm glad.