Embarking on a Sweet Endeavor: The Chocolate Therapy Story with Pam and David Griffen

Join us on a delectable journey into the world of handcrafted chocolates as we welcome the founders of Chocolate Therapy, Pam and David Griffen. Leaving behind their corporate jobs, they embarked on an exciting culinary adventure that you wouldn't want to miss. Pam and David unfurl their story of transformation into successful entrepreneurs, diving headfirst into the rich, velvety realm of chocolate. 

What sets a thriving business apart from the rest? That's the question David answers, with his insights into the sustainability and profitability of the chocolate industry. Pam opens up about why the world of chocolate was a more luring prospect than other potential business ventures. We uncover the enduring popularity of chocolate, making it a choice that's not only delicious but also sustainable. From attending trade shows and finding a mentor to conducting extensive research- learn about the vital steps they took.

David and Pam aren't just creators of mouth-watering chocolates; they're innovators. They've crafted unique truffle flavors and forged relationships with cocoa bean growers to ensure quality. The pandemic brought challenges, but it also sparked innovation as they began virtual chocolate tasting classes. This power couple has also imparted valuable words of wisdom, emphasizing character, love, and meaningful life. So, are you ready for an episode that's as sweet and captivating as a box of truffles? Tune in and satisfy your entrepreneurial, and possibly chocolate, cravings!

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hi, this is George Cremling with the Crouchy the Old man podcast. Gary Smith, Paul Clements and I will be taking off the month of December. This will give us an opportunity to replenish and recharge and get ready for 2024. We hope you have enjoyed many of the 75 episodes we have produced over the last two years. Our goal for 2024 is to continue to bring you our audience, wealth building as well as health building tips. We are just wishing you a happy and safe holiday season. As we always say on the Crouchy the Old man podcast, if you didn't know, now you know.

Speaker 2: 0:49

Welcome, welcome, welcome to another episode of the Crouchy the Old man podcast. Well, good morning, good afternoon or good night, wherever you are in the hemisphere. This is Gary Smith, and in the studio we got a packed house today. To my left is George Cremling. Welcome back, george. We were remiss last week. We didn't mention him last week. He chewed me out about it this morning. The PC. I put it on you, man, I put it on you Paul. I'm telling you, man, it's a shame, it is a real shame.

Speaker 4: 1:23

I guess having the closest one in the room you got to put it on somebody you got to put it on somebody, man, so I'll put it on you, all right.

Speaker 2: 1:31

So anyway, welcome, gentlemen. We back in action today. What's going on, george?

Speaker 1: 1:36

We got a full house today, man. It's really good to have all of us back together at Crouchy the Old man. It's been a minute. We got a good show for you today. We've got two super-duper guests in the audience there. That's going to really help us share this message. But before we get there, pc what you got.

Speaker 4: 1:55

Oh man, it's just a beautiful day, man, I'm glad to be back with the Crouchy, the Old man and our guests for today. I'm really curious about this chocolate that we're going to talk about.

Speaker 1: 2:08

Without further ado, let's go ahead and get started. All right, we've got Pam and David Griffin from with Chocolate Therapy. They have a very unique story, both from corporate emeritus David, 25 years, pre-release president of an automotive manufacturing company and Pam with Starbucks for over 17 years, and I think their story is so interesting. But what they've developed is a company called the Chocolate Therapy. It's a handcrafted chocolate shop specializing in chocolate made with therapeutic ingredients and innovative flavors, focused on providing an extraordinary and unique chocolate experience. Welcome to the show, pam and David.

Speaker 3: 2:51

Hey, hey, hey hey thank you for having us.

Speaker 5: 2:53

Thanks for having us, george. Good to see you, absolutely.

Speaker 1: 2:56

Absolutely so, hey, I've got to start off and ask you know, we talk about, you know, starting a business and we, you know, typically it's a hairdresser, typically it's. You know, it's something that's so that you know cleaners on the corner, something that we see on a day to day basis. But tell us, how did you come up with this idea?

Speaker 3: 3:20

I'll let you take that one.

Speaker 5: 3:22

Well, there's a lot of research that went into it. When I left my last assignment, I was actually commuting from Boston to Ohio. I was doing that for two years, literally flying out every single week. It was a great opportunity, great job, had a lot of fun, but very taxing on the marriage, very taxing physically on me and so kind of decided to do something, you know, for ourselves.

Speaker 5: 3:51

So when you think about going into opening up your own business, especially coming from industry, you know I understand the goal is to make money. Okay, that is the absolute goal is to make money. How are you going to do it? And I looked at different franchises. I'm into fitness, so I worked with a franchise coach. She directed me to a supplement store kind of a franchise and boring stuff. Yeah, Hydraulic Hose Company I mean, actually fittings for hydraulic hoses is a thing because of industry and manufacturing and everything I looked at that. And then I ran into this guy who had chocolate franchises and so I flew down to Fort Lauderdale and he, the thing that really stood out in my mind is that.

Speaker 5: 4:44

I was at the hotel. He came to pick me up because he wanted to sell me one of his chocolate franchises. He came to pick me up in a triple white Bentley which we do not have, by the way, just saying.

Speaker 5: 4:55

But I mean, he just kind of explained the chocolate industry to me and I learned a lot in that. One day, spending time with him as he was trying to send me a franchise, I picked up and absorbed a lot about chocolate and so I walked away, given the fact of you know, looked at how profitable it was for him he had several franchises, you know. It certainly piqued my interest. It's something that you know might want to investigate and get into and so just started doing a lot of research and so when I thought about it the topic of chocolate, the product of chocolate, first of all, it's sustainable, and that's very, very, very critical for a business.

Speaker 5: 5:36

The thing that I come up with and I liken it to, if you think about frozen yogurt, that was you had frozen a little bit of places all over the place for about five years and then they were gone. Okay, it was a fad. So you didn't want to use something, you don't want to pick something that was a fad. Chocolate has been around forever. Women love chocolate. It looked like it would be around for the foreseeable future, so I thought it was something that would be. It would be a product that would be sustainable. So that's kind of like how the the beginnings and kind of pointed me in the direction of doing chocolate.

Speaker 3: 6:12

Yeah, when he came to me about it, that was a lot more interesting than hydraulic tools and all that other nonsense. So that got me when he said chocolate, and so that's how we started looking at me, I mean she wasn't even on board initially.

Speaker 5: 6:26

I mean, it's like chocolate, you know. So it was. I had to, you know, convince her. You know, I had to convince myself that, you know, this is something that made made sense to get into, and so I started doing the research and took some classes in chocolate making and, coming from a manufacturing background, the key to this was making sure that there was equipment that could produce this product, because that's the only way you're going to be efficient enough to make money. Um and so it wasn't like we had a lifelong passion for chocolate or anything. Yeah, it was more so trying to find something that was functional, something that was sustainable, something that we could make money on, and those were the determining factors that allowed us and Steered us into the chocolate.

Speaker 1: 7:18

Let's, let's roll it back just a little bit, because that was basically my second question is okay. So now, david, you come up with this. You know pretty good, I'm not gonna say great idea, but I'm gonna say a pretty good idea of how to, you know, move on from corporate America. Like I said, you had been in corporate America at this particular President of a company of over 25 years. So then you, you, how, how did you convince Pam? I'm okay, I mean that's because one of the things that you know a lot of people don't examine in starting the business, it's going into business with your wife. You know it's, it's, that's not something you see all the time. So, just kind of and I'm maybe this will come from Pam, it's, how did you convince me that this?

Speaker 1: 8:00

was the way to go.

Speaker 5: 8:03

You got to keep. You know, I was not working, she was working. Okay, she had a job. And so I'm trying to, you know, get this business up and going. And the thing is, yes, how do I convince her? How do I, you know, get her on board with the chocolate train? And it was just more so the research, you know, we would go. Actually, we started having fun. I mean, we went down to New York to the chocolate show. I think that was the first thing that we did. We went to a Fine chocolate show to deal with fine chocolates and it was just interesting, at the Chronicles that were there, the level of enthusiasm for this product of, you know, high-end, you know wine chocolates. We did come across a guy actually who turned out to be our mentor, who was second generation chocolate. He was called a Fifth Avenue chocolates at the time, so he got sued by Mars because of Fifth Avenue bar. Okay, but anyway, he was second generation and he just kind of took to us.

Speaker 5: 9:11

I mean basically we told her we were thinking about getting into the business and I think he was kind of like he had. He wanted to go down to franchise route also. So I think in the back of his mind is thinking, well, these would be good franchisees, you know, to get his franchises up and running. But his chocolate wasn't good. There was, it was just me, and they thought this whole process, you know, we just it was Average chocolate is, even though the franchise guy that I talked to you, the name of a franchise was called Shackalot. This chocolate was Miller. The road wasn't. Nothing outstanding was decent, but it wasn't anything that you know Wasn't outstanding. So it was that type of thing. I took classes, I did the experiments, I, you know, and I don't want to get too geeky and technical about the chocolate making process, please. Oh, I Know.

Speaker 2: 10:07

I'm glad you offered that, because what I really want our listeners to take away from here's this because you guys are something, some very key things that all black America needs to understand and hopefully you're taking notes. First of all, you call it research, and nothing wrong with that word. Well, from the beginning up, from from go, you did your due diligence. You immerse yourself in the process because, see, if you know, too often We'll run out here and try to start a business from scratch. Why do that when there's a business model that's already proven, there's a customer base, is already established, and then, as you continue to grow that business model, don't try to recreate the wheel. All right, follow the process and master the mundane of building a business. That's what I'm hearing. All right, because had you not done the research, you wouldn't have known good chocolate from bad chocolate, you wouldn't know the process from a good one. But now you guys go ahead on man Cause I'm loving this right here.

Speaker 3: 11:15

It's really. It was a challenge, though, because you know we would. He, he went to classes. He went to an actual six week like a course. I took little independent classes with, you know, real like Individual chocolatiers. So I was like really standing next to the chocolatier and she's making her stuff and david's, you know, making stuff and bringing it home, and we had the fortune of taking Samples to the people that I was still working with. So we needed an audience besides us, like thinking, you know, is this really good? And the people were going Bananas over it.

Speaker 5: 11:50

So we were on to something and I think that's a very valid point. That's a very key point. When I was, when I was taking those classes, you know she was taking her because there was some chocolate snobs at Starbucks and uh, they were they. They would every Wednesday. I would have class Tuesday. Wednesday she'd bring the samples that I made and they got to the point where they were like where the samples I mean, they were anticipating these samples coming, yeah, so at that, that was that's a very, very, very important point, because then at that point it's like we were on to something here, because the Chef that I studied under was our chef delfine. I remember, maybe I had this class at the kambush culinary school, um, and the thing, the other, analysis, and once again A little bit into the weeds, but you know, we look at chocolate as an experience.

Speaker 5: 12:42

So you know, uh, it is. You look at the melt, melt rate of chocolate, the mouth feel of chocolate and the overall experience of chocolate. Uh, and that's how we evaluated whether it was good or not. So there's a lot of engineering factors. The melt rate you know, the way we design our truffles is that you go through the shell of the of the truffle first, it melts very easily. Then you get access to the center which has more of the flavor, and so this is all process. You'll. You'll get some chocolate where you'll. I have to chew it, and chew it, and chew it and no flavor comes out. I mean, it takes a lot of effort and energy to get any kind of flavor out.

Speaker 3: 13:23

Most people don't even think about any of that. You get a piece of chocolate, you pick it up, you buy it and you, you know you're done. You chew it up and you're done, and so it is. Also, you know, when we do classes or when we talk to people or have audiences to help them understand how you actually eat a truffle, or to let it melt, and you know, you can even smell it. You may get certain aromas, you know, based on what the flavor is. So it it has been. That is where I, you know, once I started taking classes, became excited. Um, but I still was nervous. And that first year we did, you know, you mentioned very earlier about quitting your day job and I was like, what in the hell did we do? And so, um, it's been a journey, it's still a journey.

Speaker 5: 14:04

Um, every day, every day is a hustle. How are you gonna make money today? I mean that that's that's when it's not for the, or your own business is not for the faint of heart, because there are exceptions to the rule of people that just you know. Open up a store and hit it big and you know it grows and grows and grows. Yeah, those situations do happen, but they're few and far between Right, I don't know the question you know, you know, you know.

Speaker 4: 14:31

What I'm interested in is, dave, you come from the automotive engineering uh area, pam, you've come from you, you you've you've had experiences in chocolate by dealing with starbucks, um, and the two of you were able to amalgamate both of your backgrounds and and I'm curious as to how that occurred for the two of you being husband and wife- Well, it is still occurring.

Speaker 3: 15:05

We've been married 37 years. Um, and it is not easy. We do not agree on much of anything. David, always, you know this is his role. He'll come in and say someone has to be. What's your word?

Speaker 5: 15:20

Flexible.

Speaker 3: 15:21

He is not, but he says it to the public. Um, and so, yes, I am, it is just really um. You know, we, the one thing is that we have the same goal, right. And so how do we make money? How do we grow this business? You know, david has a different way of I doing it, I have a different way, and so we just somehow, sometimes we both do our way. And then it's like, okay, two people in here just doing their thing. And then we realize okay, we've got to figure out how to do it More in think.

Speaker 3: 15:54

But it's challenging. We have some kids that have worked with us for as long as we've been in business and they kind of laugh, they're like, oh, they put their earbuds in, mom and dad are fighting. And these are not our real kids, these are our work children. But it takes a lot to just like keep, bring yourself back to focus. And then, as I said earlier, small businesses have been glamorized. So people looking outside in, I mean we are successful, black owned business, a married couple doing chocolate, and that's good, and we do. We have had some amazing highs, some hellish lows, but you learn to just make it work and you just you got to keep moving, because at this point we can't just stop.

Speaker 2: 16:42

Absolutely.

Speaker 3: 16:43

You know and quit.

Speaker 2: 16:44

Absolutely, absolutely. And you know what is worth it. You have freedom. Ok, it's worth it. So let me share something with you, except for David thinks he's the boss. That's all right. You're all the bosses, you've got a process. But here's what I want to know.

Speaker 3: 17:04

I do want to share something with you.

Speaker 5: 17:07

That is the positive side of owning your own business and doing this for 10 years. A lot of times it's seven days a week. Ok, I'm making chocolate seven days a week and I've never, ever ever had a hesitation about going into my business. You know, when you're in corporate America, monday morning comes around after the weekends, like I got to get in my car, I got to drive into work. You know it's like, oh my god, you know the weekends I've got to go back to work. Never, ever, ever, had that feeling and I don't do this as work. I just don't do this as work. I mean, it's, it's, it's.

Speaker 3: 17:43

I'm holding back so many jokes, but I'm going to hold them.

Speaker 5: 17:46

I'm holding back my business and you know it's very rewarding. It is very, very, very rewarding.

Speaker 3: 17:53

OK, Gary, ask your question so that I don't say anything.

Speaker 2: 17:58

Well, I talk. You know margins. You know we talked about the chocolate business. There's a lot of franchises out there. Let's talk margins, it's all business. Ok, you talked about the product and all. I want to hear the numbers. What's the margins? How you know, there's other people listening out there and say, hey, that might not be a bad idea to get into a franchise or start one. What is your point? What is your take on that?

Speaker 5: 18:24

Well, the thing is, margins are key, and so what we've done, we've actually, over the years, we've accumulated equipment that puts us in a position to where we're very, very, very competitive from a pricing standpoint. I don't know if it's.

Speaker 2: 18:42

When you say that, dave, I got to pause right here, because when you say competitive from pricing, I mean in terms of market share, because you could be the price, you could be the most expensive chocolate out there and make boo-koo money, all right. So I'm sure you're not the cheapest out there either, and from what I'm hearing from you guys, you look sound like you're more. You base your product on quality, and so if it is yeah, yeah.

Speaker 5: 19:08

So I would say that our price point is pretty similar to the Godiva price point. We did that research. Also, when you talk about Russell Stover's and just to put this in proper respect when you talk about Russell Stover's, which is low end.

Speaker 5: 19:25

Ok, you're probably going to pay somewhere in the vicinity of $8, $9 a pound for the chocolate. When you talk about Godiva now, you're talking about $45, $50, $55 a pound for chocolate, and when you talk about some of these in the higher end, there's a toy shares out here. So, european, they're really, really high end. You get into the $80, $90 a pound of chocolate Somewhere around 100. Yeah, somewhere around. Yeah, I did sampling of chocolate. That was basically $100 a pound.

Speaker 2: 20:02

Wow. So unless you've got a large volume for that, that'll sure slay your margins, oh yeah.

Speaker 5: 20:10

Yes, that is correct. But the one thing that I notice is that there's a limited clientele that's willing to spend that amount. I know you've got to come up with a sweet spot where you have a broader audience, a broader clientele that's comfortable Coming in and people are comfortable coming in and spending too much. Most, a lot of people are spending $2.25, $2.50 for a chocolate. That's our per piece price on average. But then some people walk in and say, ooh, I could get a Hershey bar for that. And then they walk out. We say, fine, go ahead and sell.

Speaker 3: 20:48

Right, that's absolutely correct.

Speaker 4: 20:53

I've got a question for the two of you. I was looking at your bio and you were talking about therapeutics. I'm a holistic doctor, so I'm kind of interested in how you arrived at the therapeutics and what kind of therapeutics that you add to the chocolate, because chocolate is therapeutic in itself. It affects the hormones, especially for women with the estrogen, and I'm curious as to the other kinds of therapeutics that you put into your chocolate and what it does for us.

Speaker 3: 21:26

So it's funny because we do have to be careful when we are addressing that or when we talk about it, because a lot of times so chocolate it makes you smile, it warms your soul, it makes you happy getting a nice, good piece of chocolate. When we did, I forgot who it was with, but we advertised one of our Specific truffles. It was called the cure. It's made with cinnamon, bailey and cayenne in a dark chocolate truffle. It's one of our best sellers. But when we had this on it was on some local show.

Speaker 3: 21:57

This lady called and was gonna buy pounds like just wanted so much of it because cayenne is good for arthritis. So what we have? To let people know that yes, we use cayenne and some we have some with sweet potato, pomegranate, olive oil, sea salt. There are many different, unique things that we make Our chocolate with, but it's not going to cure or assist in any, you know, aiding anything. But if you, in moderation, have a nice piece of our chocolate, it is very different than eating a bonbon or some sort of cream truffle from another competitor or a Hershey bar right, let me ask you this.

Speaker 4: 22:39

Let me ask you this as you guys are chocolate tears, do you ever have a chance to deal directly with people who grow the, the cocoa beans, let's say, from Peru, south America, west Africa, central Africa, and how does that affect your business if you do have those connections?

Speaker 5: 23:01

No, we don't, we've had. You know it's interesting, it's you people. People have come through. One person was in Jamaica, haiti, haiti, ghana, and so and we also we had a regular customer and got. Now he's supposed to be getting back to us because Ghana is interesting. Just a little tidbit and you take one of our chocolate making classes, you'd learn this. But Ghana chocolate is actually 65% of their GDP in Ghana and so they basically were. The Ivory Coast in that area supplies 70% of the world's chocolate, and Ghana has always just been supplying beans. They're making a conscious effort now to start making chocolate. They were just basically known as a bean supplier, shipping all around the world, but now there's money to be made in chocolate, so, and I can say that's 65% of their GDP, so it's big. I mean, it's their biggest form of income In Ghana and we're not being too far.

Speaker 3: 24:01

So when we get it we do use a Belgian chocolate Because we like just the profile of that chocolate and it goes well with our troubles. But there are companies, small chocolate companies, that get the actual beans and they grind them and they heat them and make the chocolate occur and do the whole nine yards. We don't do that yet. We get it in a form of bricks or Little Calais and then we melt it and then we, you know, make our troubles and things with it. But one of our bucket list which I say we better do it before we get to dang-ole is to go to a chocolate producing country because it would Just be a really great experience. You know, pick the pods off the tree, wash the cocoa beans, let them dry and, you know, really go through the whole experience, because that's some, you know that's where it all happens. And so, yeah, we don't have that yet. We've had a few close, but not not quite.

Speaker 1: 24:53

I just want to make sure that our listeners out there understand that this is a successful Black business. You guys have been in business for over 11 years and I've had the pleasure of actually coming to your store and watching the process. I Kind of always think back to that episode of Lucy and and. But You're to be Fred, okay, but the my point is you know you, you've changed your model a little bit. You're now getting out of the customer facing, you're moving into a new facility and I just want to talk about how, how are you, how do you scale a business like this and how did you make a decision that you know customer facing was not necessarily our key. Let's move into a different building, obviously changing our model a little bit, changing how our money is going to be budgeted. Talk to our audience a little bit about that.

Speaker 3: 26:00

I'll take the first part of that and then David can pick up. But so we're not. We will still have customer facing, it will just be less of a footprint. So we will have a small retail space. So we're moving to a new spot. People will still be able to come in, you know, because I've got to get their gifts. You know our we're going in getting ready to go in our busiest season, which is the holidays. But it's just main.

Speaker 3: 26:22

Most of our space will be for manufacturing, because we pivoted in the pandemic and so the pandemic. We had to change our model. And so People were home but they were ordering chocolate Like crazy for themselves or for family or for co-workers. And then we started doing our chocolate tasting classes, which really saved us pretty much. We, you know, we were close for four months. These chocolate classes allow companies to bring employees, employers all over the country. We've had some from Canada and you know, all over, you know across the US. So that is also why. But we have a wholesale business, we have the, you know, retail and then we have corporate. So you want to talk about it all the pivoting in the pandemic. That's why this changed us.

Speaker 5: 27:13

Yeah, well, the bottom line we had a lot of space, dead space, sitting there, and this is something if you open up your business, especially retail operation. We had sit down, we had tables, we had chairs so people to come in and sit down. That business never materialized for ten years. It just never materialized. So we made this move. It is a smaller footprint. There is no sit-down chairs or anything like that, it is just walk-in, walk-out retail and that was the business. That's the way our business model evolved.

Speaker 5: 27:44

You have to adapt to the market. Okay, that's that. That is also a Key to survival. You got to adapt to the market. Pandemic hit. We adapted. We created these classes, these virtual classes, and Corporations found themselves in a position where they could have, you know, employees, get together and have an hour of fun, and that turned out to be very successful for them. There was a big market for that. Now, pandemic over, that market is kind of falling off. Wholesale business seems to have picked up. Corporate gift business seems to have picked up. So the the footprint, the business model, is ever changing and I think that is something that is Necessary and expected when you do have a small business if you're doing the same thing over and over again, year after year. That's not a healthy situation, a healthy you survive.

Speaker 5: 28:33

You yeah, you have to adapt as the market changes, and it will change every single year. Those are one of the challenges of owning your own business. You.

Speaker 1: 28:44

Good stuff, really good stuff. You know you guys are really Hitting home. What we talk, you know to our audience about all the time, which is, you know, Exposing yourself and taking advantage of an opportunity, and you guys are really hitting up. You know home run with that. You know, like I said, I've had the opportunity to be enjoying your chocolate. You know my wife loves it. I ordered, you know, a couple times a year Because it's just, it's a great product. So you know we don't. We want to obviously expand your audience by having you on this. So can you want to give your audience how to get in touch if they want to order it, how they can order and give them some of that information?

Speaker 3: 29:23

Absolutely so. Our website is the chocolate therapy store, com, and we have you know, you'll see us on there and information about our classes and collections and how you can shop Um, and our email. If you just want to shoot us an email as well, that's chocolate therapy 2011 at gmailcom. Answer and, you know, ask us any questions. We are also all over social media. Chocolate therapy is on Instagram, facebook and Twitter and I always tell people you can follow us and then you can keep up with the lifespan of my husband To see how long he survives.

Speaker 5: 30:02

Check in and make sure I'm alive right.

Speaker 3: 30:04

That's important. But yeah, we're. You know the chocolate therapy storecom is. That's our website.

Speaker 1: 30:14

All right, I'm gonna end it with this. So I'm sure there's a lot of people out there listening and trying to, you know, find businesses. How can we get away from corporate America? Two things share. As far as. If you're thinking about starting a business, what would you tell those young entrepreneurs?

Speaker 3: 30:34

My first thing I would tell them is have a solid plan to you know set up so that you can have some sort of you know Format of what you want to do and where you want to go and and have some, some capital, because it changes. Every time you blink an eye, something happens, or you know You've got to be able to kind of change with it and so, and it is, you know, for minority businesses it is very hard to get capital, it is almost impossible. But don't give up is the one thing I would say.

Speaker 5: 31:08

We did it. I would not suggest people do it the way we did it, which is just basically take a gigantic leap and leave your job and jump into it.

Speaker 3: 31:17

I would not suggest that and don't work with your um spouse, I would. I have to add that in. I know that's a third thing, but you know, maybe not start there, let's just put that out.

Speaker 5: 31:27

Well, I mean, I mean if you happen to have a spouse that's on the same page. Then it would work right. If you have opposing views, then it adds another dimension of challenge. But that would be the biggest thing, I mean, if you can ease into it and develop a clientele, that would be the best thing do the research?

Speaker 5: 31:48

It jump, just jumping into it, just based on ten years of having done it. We did it, but I don't know necessarily, if you know it would work for a lot of people. We lucked out, I think, just because we picked a product that would allow us to do it. Yeah, sometimes people pick a product that it would not allow you to do it yeah, so well, thank you for that.

Speaker 1: 32:10

You know, and I'm just gonna add that you know, even though you're saying you don't, basically it what you did and how you did is the way of business is actually formed. You know, sometimes it's the mistakes that get us to where we want to be, because without mistakes we can't succeed. You have to fail, fail, fail and then you succeed. So, even though you're saying that, don't do that, you know it's. It's actually a feather in your cap to. You know, take that leap of faith, have a plan, work your plan, stick by your plan. Sure, you're gonna have bumps and scrapes and fall downs and gets up, but that's the the tenacious Attitudes you have to have anytime you're getting to a business.

Speaker 1: 32:56

I applaud both of you. I've known you for years. You know, like I said, I think I put on Instagram your God's in. You know, I'm glad you got. You know I say you know God puts people in your life for a particular reason. He definitely did that for you two, for me and Sharon. So I just want to say that publicly. But you know, I think I wish you guys all the success in the world. Continue to do what you do, continue to influence people. I hope this brings you much success in a thousand more customers, because I want to see nothing more than I want to see. Is you guys successful? So, with that said, as we always in our podcast Smitty or PC, which one of you guys gonna put those words of wisdom out there for us? I've got a little something that I've put together.

Speaker 4: 33:41

I'm not it put together, but I've pulled up here and and it's kind of in keeping with the, the husband and wife duo, and and the kind of Attitude that they've had toward life. And here we go. At the end of life, what really matters is not what we bought, but what we built, not what we got but what we shared, not our competence but our character, and not our success but our significance. Live a life that matters. Live a life of love. Alright, that gives you some chew on.

Speaker 1: 34:19

Hey, as we always say on the crotch it old man podcast. If you didn't know, now you know. Now you know very much. Take care.

Speaker 4: 34:31

Hey, please, and my success and love to the both of you.

Speaker 3: 34:35

Get you guys some chocolates. I'll make sure to do that too.

Speaker 4: 34:38

Oh absolutely.

Speaker 5: 34:40

Alright, please take care, he's.

Speaker 1: 34:46

Hi, this is George with the crotch it old man podcast. Hopefully you enjoyed listening to the crotch it old man as much as we've enjoyed making each episode. If so, send us some feedback. We'd love to hear from you at the crotchity old man Podcasts at gmailcom. Let us know what you enjoy about the show, what you'd like to hear more of. We'd love to receive your feedback. Remember that's the crotchety old man Podcasts at gmailcom and, as we always say, if you didn't know now, you know peace.