Roadshow Part I: Grow Where You're Planted, but First Go Where You're Wanted

Earlier in the pod we introduced the BUB Roadshow, Bottoms Up Bagels (BUB)'s way of busting the water myth and testing new markets for expansion. Part bagel pop up - part traveling circus - at its core, "The Roadshow" is about bringing good bagels to more people with local communities at its center. 

Today, Joan, Amanda and Michelle pull back the curtain on the how, and the why (oh, why?!) of doing an insane thing on top of the already questionable thing of running a small business. Because when you know your customer is everywhere, you go find them.

In this, the first of two episodes about the Roadshow, we explore: 

• #Bozangeles
• Why is there an "it's the water that makes a great bagel" myth? Who does that serve? What does it say about people who don't live in the NJ, NY, CT tri-state area?
• We learn about pay-what-you-can restaurants - and serve breakfast and lunch out of one.
• Michelle rises to the occasion of high altitude baking.
• Our crazy extensive menu leaves us asking #whatthehuck were we thinking?!
• SPOILER ALERT: The decision to be the culinary "away team" doesn't suck. 
• SPOILER-ER ALERT: There's no hero's welcome when returning to Baltimore.
• Hold up, is anyone else hankering for a Sailor's Club right now?

CW: Adult language

Videos

- The BUB Roadshow (1 min., 30 seconds)

- Tales from the Roadshow (1 min.)

Faux Sponsor, "Mickey 2-Thumbs' Water Service"
- written and performed by Joan Kanner

Theme music by Thorn Haze

Additional music by: VITOVI (via Pixabay)

Additional music by: SergeQuadrado (via Pixabay)

Artwork by Lisa Orye

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Chapters

• 0:00 The Roadshow
• 10:24 Mobile Bagel Business Challenges and Benefits
• 15:04 Exploring Startup Opportunities and Community Engagement
• 21:37 Operating a Startup Food Business
• 25:42 The Challenges of a Bagel Roadshow
• 33:37 Nonprofit Kitchen Challenges and Goals
• 37:52 The Importance of Food and Teamwork
• 45:51 Challenges of Leadership and Employee Expectations
• 51:49 Challenges and Commitment in Business Growth
• 57:59 Reflections on Future Roadshow Plans

Transcript

Amanda 00:00

The views and opinions expressed on this podcast are our own. The pod also contains explicit language and occasional references to mature content and themes. To review our full notice and disclaimer, please visit our website at Proofingstage.com. 

Michelle 00:18

Welcome to Proofing Stage. I'm Michelle Bond. 

Joan

And I'm Joan Kanner. 

Amanda

And I'm Amanda Schwarz. 

Joan

You're in for a good one today, folks. 

Amanda 00:25

You are correct. We are in for a great episode. We're going to start talking about the Roadshow and this idea of going where you're wanted, right? Or growing where you're planted, but going where you wanted? Where did this idea come from? Where did you say to yourself you know what the commissary kitchen is “great.” We've got this buildout going on. Let's take the show on the road. Why? 

Joan 00:50

Certainly, the challenge of it. One aspect to the Roadshow is just the creativity piece and the degree of difficulty involved with taking a really difficult menu line-up to reproduce wherever you are and then doing it in different places. Oftentimes, you'll see the same business multiplied in the same community, the same city. Perhaps you'll see it in Baltimore City, in Baltimore County, and it's the same entities - like a smaller local chain. And that never really appealed to us - to saturate a market with just us. 

Amanda 01:22

But that almost seems insane, because you've got something that you're working on and you're building it out and you're like, well, why don't we go someplace else? I mean, what's this itch? You've got a formula, you know how the flour works, you know how the people work, you know how it goes and you're trying to spin this out. Then why are you taking it to other places? 

Joan 01:42

In some ways, it also involves knowing that other places could use Bottoms Up Bagels. And knowing that there's certainly space for us in other municipalities across the US. It's a way of doing market expansion in a way that's not like how a typical chain would do it. That's more of a national chain who would look into the stats on how many cars pass by a place, what people make in a certain area, and they wouldn't care if they’re the Burger King across the street from a McDonald's, which is saying people want to have burgers and nuggets here. So that's not the way we think - it's not conventional. All the while, outside of the customer piece, there's also the idea of attracting investment or getting other eyes on the business and to be able to generate some earned media in a way that's very different. 

Amanda 02:34

But then, I'm going to bring this up now because it just seems like the natural place to bring it up. Y'all are from New Jersey. I'm from New York. You're telling me you want to travel with a bagel business. We all know that New York water is what makes a bagel. It's what has been told to us. It is what we understand. You want to take. It's bad enough. You're making bagels in Baltimore. You're making it work, but there's no New York water. When people talk about shipping New York water to different places to make pizza dough, and all of this, are you bringing? I mean, what are you going to? You don't have the terroir of the New York metropolitan area. How is this going to work? 

Joan 03:17

At some point I realized that the thinking that you're talking about is a multitude of things. It's scientifically not correct. It's like too simplified. It's elitist. Because part of the messaging when you say that's about the water is that also you motherfuckers outside of New York, new Jersey, Connecticut area do not deserve such things. Your palates are not refined. You don't get it. 

Amanda 03:42

I'll die on that hill. 

Joan 03:43

But how come other things can be produced and be delicious in different places? What would be so important? I think it also points to how we use the word “lazy,” or certainly not creative, people are when it comes to using the existing ingredients, the water, the different flour of the area and tweaking it to make it something that is appealing to people like us. So, the idea of being able to reproduce what we do again, again, again, in different parts of the US is also a way of taking away that myth, just completely destroying it. We're mythbusters, Michelle. 

Michelle

Yeah, I think it comes down to…

04:20

I mean, this certainly has become a more nuanced response over the time that we've had the business, but you just got to put in the work. I mean, water is a. Maybe there's a little bit of truth to it, but I think from the beginning even in Baltimore to your point, Amanda, we were like we're just got to follow the steps and do this from scratch and get up at two in the morning and do all the things it requires to get the product that we know and love and that we're used to. And if you follow the steps and you do the work, you'll get the result. 

Joan

It's a convenient excuse. It's also a convenient way of saying people in these other parts of the US “you don't deserve this.”

Michelle 04:55

Well, this goes back to I was going to comment on. The actual genesis of the BUB Roadshow to begin with, on that point because, if you remember, this is Joan’s brainchild, not a surprise coming out of this spirit of Karmic Messenger. This idea I mean, this is Bottoms Up Bagels doing it, but this is, this idea of really looking at who your audience is, who your customer is. What have they expressed wanting? What do they miss? How can I help provide to them something that is missing? Along with BUB always just being bigger than we were. I mean, this is something we talked about early on. We always saw ourselves as a national brand, not a typical chain. We wanted the spirit of passion and engagement that we have with our customers to come through in every community, not to just feel like you're walking into something and it looks exactly the same way it looks in every other city and town across the United States. 

And so, this was the beginning of that and it really came out of that idea of seeing ourselves as bigger thinking. Hey, you know what? There are people all over the country who might be hankering for a better bagel. How do we reach them? Doing something unconventional? But is it crazy? Yes, it's absolutely insane. It makes everything that is already super hard, much harder, which again - a theme here. But it's what we've been about and it allowed us to be creative. It allowed us to push the envelope even farther. It allowed us to, over time, like involve our team in a different way to where, day in and day out, we all get bored with what we're doing. How do we spice it up a little bit? How do we give them a different scenery to look at? How do we help them feel excited about being a part of something a little bit bigger? So, these are all the early kernels of this idea, even back in 2019 when it started. 

Joan

Because even now, we're a lot more accustomed to people working from home or working remotely or being a digital nomad. When you're in food in the production end, that's not a possibility. So, to Michelle's point, we thought I would also incentivize being with us because, if you think about it, with BUB locations across the US, you can then retain people by nature, be able to say, okay, your spouse or loved one is moving to Dallas and you want to move with them. You like your job. You currently live in Ohio. What do you do? Well, you apply for the BUB job in Dallas or will we somehow help you. This was already part of a larger way of looking at how do you enhance the experience of somebody who works in food. 

Michelle 07:29

At this point in 2019, we are still in the shared kitchen. We have a large enough team where we're doing multiple events, certainly on the weekends, and oftentimes at the same time. So, we have the capacity to be able to somewhat duplicate our effort. We're being able to take advantage of more locations because at this point, we're getting offers to sell everywhere that had either a festival or a pop-up ability but, given the intensity of the lift, couldn't always do it. If we could keep up with the production demand during the week, then at least on weekends we could be in multiple locations. 

08:04

We were doing that - doing a pop-up bagel shop - we had gotten very good at [that]. By the time the roadshow comes into play, it's like okay, well, yeah, we got to figure out the logistics of it all, but when it comes to putting eyes on a place once or twice and then doing an event there, we got that. We can do that. In that way, too, what sounds initially like pure insanity, it's only just a little bit of insanity, because it was an extension of the pop-up model. It was just outside of our area.

Amanda 8:36

And so, you packed up a food truck and outfitted the food truck to make bagels. That's the only way you do this, right?

Joan  8:42

There are so many assumptions that we have ran into with this business. And with the Roadshow, the assumption is that you can do all the shit that we fucking do - production-wise and execution - and do it on some truck that we take across the US. To me, I just want to walk them through - without being terribly insulting - as to what that would look like. 

Michelle

But can I go back to the water myth, because this relates. Which is - put in the effort, do the work. Most customers don't understand or know, because why would they? All of the work that goes into making a product fresh every morning in a certain way with only five ingredients that makes it taste the way it tastes. It's just easy to get on-board with the water myth because that's an easy answer. When it comes to the food truck [assumption], too. Food trucks had become trendy over the last, over the prior 10 years. When you talk about taking the shop on the road, I think you just assume - because you don't know what goes into the making of it - that you just have a food truck and you're slinging bagels like people are slinging pizza or gyros or anything else.

Amanda: 9:50

Or perhaps people are assuming that you are stocking this food truck with a giant hatch on top with a thousand and one bagels that you've already made in Baltimore. 

Michelle

Even that yeah. 

Amanda

And you're schlepping them this way, because how do you make a bagel in another place if you don't know how to do this? 

Michelle

No, that's very true. 

Amanda

Or you haven't experienced it yet. 

Michelle

That's very true In fact, yeah, more than once people have been like “wait, so you bring the bagels from Baltimore?” We're like, “no, we don't bring the bagels.” But how would you know? I mean, you're not involved in the steps of the process A lot of bagel shops that people are used to… I can't even say I was going to say particularly in other parts of the country, but this is true now everywhere. It's like you're getting a parbaked product and you're baking it in a “location,” in quotes, but you're getting it either frozen or partially, you know, and I mean it's not shade, it's just it's a different product. And so, we literally show up with flour and yeast and sugar and whatever water is in the place that we go, we make the thing, and you're absolutely right. I mean, I think there are different ways of thinking about it.

Amanda 1: 10:51

Yeah, because I'm imagining either you've got a thousand and one bagels strapped to the roof of your truck or you're carrying a water container with New York water on the truck. And you're like, these are like the assumptions that you would maybe build into it when you say “I'm going to take a bagel business on the road.” And neither of those things were true.

Michelle: 11:18

The genesis of this idea comes from. You know, what do people want, what do they deserve, what are they looking for? How can we help get that to them and also be creative and have a little bit more excitement for us and our team. Like very much, you know, obviously a shared value. But in line with Joan’s vision and approach to the world. And then we brought in this community piece, right? The idea that by not being in a truck, we have the opportunity to make relationships with people in other places at a much more intimate and functional level to make this happen. So instead of it just being BUB Roadshow and a truck that's rolling through the city - stop here, stop there, collect the money, and - pew! pew! move on our way; we get the opportunity to actually learn about an area which is helpful if we want to open a shop there. We get to make relationships with people who we need to help make it happen, like health department or economic development or nonprofit or other food business. And all of a sudden it's a whole other thing. 

Joan

Food trucks, the things that break down, and also sometimes you'll get your tires slashed competitively. 

Amanda

Ooo…

Joan

So, if you're in parts of, you know, let's say I'm just… multiple cities, like DC. You know [when you’re] not the right place, or…

Michelle: 12:35

That's what I was gonna say too.

Joan: 12:36

People like… so I mean there's that. So, like we both like, I especially like having multiple plans to be able to execute. I don't wanna say we're gonna be somewhere and then like completely shit the bed. So even when we did like farmers markets and other events up to this point, if one sedan breaks down or one SUV use somebody else's, throw it in somebody else's car. You know? It's so much easier to be able to like just move something somewhere else that's been prepared that way. So, no food trucks for us for that purpose as well. 

But there is a physical barrier when you're serving up in a food truck. You can have like a pithy conversation, but you're not prepping alongside other people in the community. And again, physically you cannot do what we do on a typical size food truck in terms of making the dough, curing the salmon, having appropriate temperatures to control all these environments, to keep things sanitary. So, for us, by nature of having to find a rental kitchen wherever we are in different parts of the US, that also means that generally you're not renting a whole kitchen by yourself. That wouldn't make sense for the people who are renting them out. So, you interface with different food businesses in that community as well as the people that run the space. So that, for us, has been incredibly colorful and fruitful. 

Michelle

Yeah, absolutely. 

Joan

And we were used to it, so it's not like at that point we weren't used to working alongside different businesses.

Amanda: 13:59

We've already established that you tend to do things the hard way, and we also know - and I'm not saying the hard way, the hard way. I mean, what I should say is to clarify that you don't mind doing difficult things. If you know that this is what the process is going to be, you don't mind doing difficult things, and you're talking about getting to know different jurisdictions. 

One thing that I understand from government workers and I think that this is just the nature of the job due to the level of bureaucracy, usually these people are not on board to do things that they don't normally do. And you've got somebody from out-of-state who wants to run a pop-up bagel shop, which that doesn't sound like a cookie cutter - “I've already got a form for that. Let me send that to you.” Did you encounter any issues, or did you have issues where that may have decided where you ended up doing what you were doing? Because there are people who just were not capable of breaking through that mental barrier, or bureaucratic barrier, as it might be?

Michelle: 14:56

No, that's a really good point and absolutely. And so I'm going to kick it back to Joan, because this is also part of us thinking differently. We started to really think about this as its own startup, think about it in more the spaces where that kind of creativity and “out of the box-ness” would be a better fit or be more accepted. It takes like eight to a dozen sites to get a spot to make this work. So, there's a lot of research and before even getting on the ground to look at a location - before scouting a location to see if it will work - there's already been half a dozen to a dozen other sites in the mix to find - exactly for the reasons you're talking about - the person who wants to be bothered, gets it, thinks it's cool, is going to be on board. 

Joan

When it comes to site selection, we have had moments in which case something will leapfrog. Like you're in talks with multiple communities - to Michelle's earlier point - and “the yes” you thought you got for like a February becomes like “the yes” for March, and that's perfectly natural and we were able to handle that quite well. 

Michelle

We reached out to economic development offices which, to Amanda's point, are government entities in some cases and maybe not as quick to jump on board with somebody outside of their own jurisdiction wanting to come. But that's why our first hook - even though you had been researching other restaurants, other partners in different parts of the country - the first place that we landed was Bozeman [MT], because you had made some connections there during Boulder Startup Week. 

Joan

Yes, for 2019, Bozeman was not our only target city, but it's the only one that came through by year's end. So one of my learnings was just to make sure I cast a wider net concurrently, and talk to multiple people sooner. So that was a learning that we brought into future years, to be fair.

I was at a Startup Week event in the Mountain States and I was there with my app, Fugue, but I was also talking about Bottoms Up Bagels at the same time. And I was doing things like podcasts there, just like being interviewed as somebody in like these two different worlds. And in the course of that, I also was going to different events, including a reverse pitch - in which case the presenters were talking about their cities relative to their communities for startups; with being good environments. And then there were some representing Bozeman [MT]. And in hearing their pitch, I thought, “well, this would be quite the way to test out but then potentially break a Roadshow concept by nature of being so different culturally but then also so different physically.” In terms of the physical environment, Bozeman, Montana has an elevation of 4,820 feet, which is very different. The three of us come from essentially sea level, if not below, sorry parts of Jersey.

17:44

And then we're also, at this point, used to like boiling and baking in Baltimore, so knowing that would be so different. So, I followed up with that contact that I had made at that event and then it ended up being a bunch of yeses after yeses, which is not always the case. Because the person I talked to at their startup organization, this guy's boss, was a trained chef who decided to work in academia to support the startup community there. 

We really cared about not renting to traditional shared kitchens whenever possible, even though they're outfitted a certain way. Generally, there's some of the bullshit we discussed in the Shared Kitchen Confidential episode. And just throughout this, we know it, but if we can avoid it, that would be great. Additionally, giving money and being able to support nonprofit kitchens whenever possible makes a lot of sense for us. Generally, there are also less activities going on or, at the very least, less businesses in them, in those kitchens. 

So, through that initial contact that I made at that startup conference, we connected with a pay-what-you-can restaurant in Bozeman and at the time even Bozeman was becoming, a place that people referred to as “Bos Angeles.” A lot of people of higher income were pushing out and using the resources of that area. So, things like a pay-what-you-can restaurant became even more essential. But it's also already a restaurant and the only served dinner. So, then that also presented an opportunity for us to be able to provide breakfast and brunch. 

Michelle

because Joan had already been looking actually at other pay-what-you-can restaurants in other places as a way to again be additive. So not only that extra step of, oh, making relations with people and getting to know the community that you're in, but also, “hey, wouldn't it be great if, since we are from outside, that we can be contributing in some way?” Right? Because one thing that was really important to us in all contexts, but especially this one, is to not be seen to, but also just not to be taking, not to be taking away anything, not to be taking business from local places, not to be taking, you know. “Oh great, let me use your kitchen, get a like a publicity or cash grab and move on.” Like we've really wanted to as much as you can.. Right? It's the difference between traveling for a week or two, and you know you're by no means part of a community, but it's like as much as you can within that time, being intentional about the way that you enter and also the mark that you leave, the contribution that you make.

Amanda 1: 20:11

Quick clarification. I'm assuming I know what pay-what-you-can restaurant is. But I'm making an assumption. Can you just give a quick definition of what that is?

Joan: 20:20

I will try to do it in the most simplistic way possible, not because you need it to be simple, but because there are different flavors of it, from what I realize. And I am not from that world, I'm just someone who appreciates it. But the menu items at such a restaurant, there is a price associated with it, but they accept money that goes below that. There are also situations in which folks who do have means can say, “oh, the sandwich is 10 bucks, but I'll actually pay 20 so I can pay it forward,” which is also a concept at the place we started out of. 

Michelle

And I think also part of the premise about this is not only about the practicality of - “do I have enough money to pay for my food today?” But getting rid of stigma, like we have in more recent years in terms of like labeling, people or what. So, getting not rid of but combating this idea of a soup kitchen or a food pantry. It's also anonymous. People don't know when you go up to pay. I mean maybe the cashier, but the rest of the people there don't know if you're a “payer forward” or if you're a “recipient” quote, unquote. So, like there's also getting rid of a lot of the shame and the stigma around just needing a little extra support for getting fed.

Amanda: 21:32

So, are you serving out of this space or just cooking out of the space?

Michelle 2: 21:36

Great question. So, this case it was all-in-one, which was great. This was, I think, the first and maybe only location that we actually flew to. So, we were limited because of how far it was and because we were just getting started, like we weren't in a position to, you know, rent a van and load it up and go out there Just the two of us. Part of identifying this location was really valuable because it was a fully operational restaurant kitchen that also did allow space for other people to rent from time to time. That had this mission and, essentially, since it didn't have breakfast, we were their back at the house breakfast provider, for, you know the I think it was a long weekend. This event was that we were there, so we prepped all the stuff there, but we weren't serving the stuff ourselves. In this case, like they had a fully operational process, they had their own volunteers who also came in. So, we prepped the food and then, on the days that it was like a live event, we made the orders like we would a chef in a restaurant. The order came in, we prepared our bagel, bagel  sandwich, hash, whatever we were making, and then it went out the door by one of the people who was affiliated with that place.

Amanda: 22:42

I don't know how much you're looking to gain financially from a trip like this. I mean, it sounds like the main point of doing it is to test a market out and not really make a massive profit or anything. But if you're working out of a pay-what-you-can restaurant and you're paying for supplies and all that, do you see that money getting recouped? Or do you just say: “you know what? We're just expecting this to be a wash and whatever happens happens?”

Joan: 23:08

You're making this sound like a business podcast, Amanda.

Amanda: 23:10

I'm curious, I'm not.. [I’m] so curious.

Michelle: 23:12

No, it is a business podcast. 

Amanda:

I mean yeah, it is. I mean yeah. Because if somebody is listening to this and trying to think this is a really great idea. 

Michelle:

How the hell can you make it work?

Amanda: 23:21

How the hell do you make it work? And how the hell did you make it work? Yeah, you got to ask these questions, right? I mean, are you looking to make a profit or not? It’s business. 

Joan:

Yeah, I’m always looking to make a profit.

However, there were other things to gain from the specific experience. At the very worst, we break even with these events. And when I say break even, that also means that we are paying for the scouting trip that proceeds it. So, get your minds around that. So, if you weren't scouting, that would just be, for the most part, profit. So there always had to be that element. And then there's the other things that the promotional pieces and the amplification of your voice that don't immediately - you don’t immediately see - as being something that can be contributable in terms of like, or just comparable, to money or income or profit. That earned media. We didn't pay for like one damn ad for that event, for example, and we didn't need to. 

Michelle:

And we've learned over time that you know you have a budget for a certain event depending. Part of the beauty and the curse of these events is that they're not cookie cutter right. It depends on where you're going, it depends on what facility you're using, it depends on who you're working with. We learned over time that our budget is your budget. But then you know, like anybody managing a budget, like, oh, in this location we're going to have to rent equipment, so that's like a huge expense that maybe we didn't have when we were in Bozeman because we were using the kitchen, so that money then can go towards, I don't know, like paying them a rental fee, or, you know, in the opposite case, like hiring staff or making a donation to some places, like where we haven't had a flat out rent but we've been able to donate to the kitchen in some way in other locations. So, you take those bubbles within the budget and move them around, based on what the circumstances are. You know, and to your point, I mean, it's about learning, it's about getting ourselves out there, yeah, and it's about trying to make a little bit to make it worthwhile.

Amanda: 25:09

I think that the explanation of the startup was really interesting because you've got a city [Bozeman, MT] that is actively looking at themselves as a startup. There are cities in the United States that are doing this and it's smart, I think, to put together a presentation in front of startups. They were probably expecting, yeah, “let's make Bozeman the next Silicon Valley, or it's becoming the next Silicon Valley of the mountains,” so. But you're just like, “yeah, but I've got this bagel shop.” You know, I love that. You kind of turned it on its head Like that was probably not what they were expecting, but they were cool with it anyway. That's a very serendipitous thing where you know, the person who was there just happened to be picking up what you were putting down.

Michelle: 25:48

Yeah, they said yes, I mean right. How many things just need a yes to get started? 

Amanda:

That's right.

Joan:

But how can you attract people to your city and not have amenities? I think that's really smart on the part of the people who are part of this startup, in this case, part of the university there. I think they were practical enough. Also helps the person running it, again was a trained chef. 

Amanda:

Yeah. 

Joan:

Or at least like knows our world enough. Also knows himself enough to not be in that world anymore. 

Amanda:

[laughs]

Michelle:

Yeah, but you didn't know that when you pitched the person who had presented. You didn't know his boss was a trained chef 

Joan:

Not at all. So, I enjoyed his energy and I enjoyed what he was saying. I enjoyed it came from a place of like humor, humility, but also like knowing what you had to offer.

Amanda: 26:31

I love that. There's not enough of that in this world. Seriously.

Joan: 26:34

Shout out to Connor.

Amanda: 26:41

You've done all this planning. You know what you're walking into. You've contacted all these folks. This is going to be a breeze because you've overthought everything and you're set, right?

Michelle: 26:52

I mean, it did… Again, in retrospect, it was definitely simplified. At first it seemed crazy to fly out there, right? Because we literally have luggages that have like our seeds and things like that. But it was simple in that we were working with a restaurant, so they already had accounts with places that they ordered ingredients from and they're like “oh, just give us what you need by this day and then we can put it in with our order and we can figure it out in the back on.” And it was Montana. They have their own wheat production companies that were like we're going to use local flour, so as much as we could source locally, we did. So, we weren't bringing out a lot and we couldn't because we were flying. So, the logistics piece, I think, was a little bit more streamlined than it came to be over these other stops. But yeah, there's always stuff, right? From getting used to a new kitchen to bumping into the other people who are working there even if they're lovely. Like figuring out your schedule, figuring out your space, learning where things are, what the trick is to getting the sanitizer to work, like all kinds of things. And then, oh yeah, making bagels at almost 5,000 feet when my recipe is for sea level. So, we knew to plan a little head for that.

Amanda: 28:05

What was the trial and error for a bagel? That you know how it functions, you have a process, but now you are thousands of feet higher - sea level wise. That was a real interesting way of putting it… What does that look like and how long did it take?

Joan: 28:24

We thankfully already had been doing this type of work for years and we also knew what we wanted to get to, thereabouts. And I think that to me was essential to know what we were aiming for and for people who are home bakers and also people who are professionals listening to any of this, you know that when you look at a box of brownie mix, there's a section that says “for higher elevations.” If you're from where I'm from and where I currently live now, you just know that exists and you just kind of read the parts that you need to know. We not only did not have those directions, but had not previously trifled with making these things happen, even like something as simple as a brownie mix in the higher elevation. 

Michelle:

But like anything, your effort expands or shrinks based on the time that you have. So we had I think the event was like a Friday, Saturday, Sunday and we allowed ourselves two days for prep, which were probably 16, 20 hour days. And so the half a day prior to that was just about like Joan was doing some basic prep, but it was about me just saying, okay, “I have today, I have this afternoon and, based on the schedule of the kitchen, I have these like six hours to tinker. So I can basically do two test batches, and by three it's got to be like close enough to what we would want to like make this happen.” 

Amanda:

Yikes. Yikes…

Michelle:

And that's what we did. And so, the and I mean I had done research ahead of time… 

Amanda:

Okay.

Michelle:

And like about basic principles of things to you know, essentially affecting either the amount of yeast you're using or the rise time you're allowing. So those are the very basic levers that can be pushed or pulled to make this work for you. And so, yeah, we did the first batch right off the bat, like I was, like “I got to get in there and get to dough started.” And that's the thing with any Roadshow really, because you don't know how it's [the dough is] going to behave. And there's, it takes time. Some folks might still be unpacking the van and I'm like, okay, let's get some flour in the mixer, because this is our main, this is the main event. Right, it's the bagels. If bagels aren't there, like that, nothing else matters. 

Joan:

It was just the two of us for this event, which we never did that way, ever again, for a number of reasons. 

Amanda:

[laughs]

Joan:

So, Michelle was saying this she's working with two mixers, one of which is missing certain parts because this pay-what-you-can nonprofit restaurant got this secondary mixer from where? From a prison. And because was in a prison, they wanted to make sure certain parts could not be used to, I don't know, shank people. I have no idea what. 

Michelle:

I did not remember. 

Joan:

So, yeah, I remember that it's what I was missing. Rick told us like it was missing certain parts…

Amanda:

Wow.

Joan:

…and that's the case. At this point in the shared kitchen [back in Baltimore], Michelle was already making dough and the team was making dough in a 60-quart mixer. In both the options that we had in Bozeman the one that was “non-shank ready” and the one that we ended up using was a 30-quart. 

Amanda:

Okay. 

Joan:

That's a volume challenge. 

Michelle:

So that's the first thing, like half the recipe and then see what that does. And yeah, I mean the first batch as expected, were pretty flat, pretty wide and flat. And you know, I mean, the good thing about partnering in a place like this too is, though, nothing's going to go to waste, right? So, it's fresh baked bread. Well, it's not by any means like a bagel I would be proud to serve. They could use it for different things. People took them home and enjoyed them, like they didn't go to waste. But then in the batch two was a little bit closer, and I was like, okay, I think, based on the way that batch two is handling, if I do XYZ, it can be as close as we're going to get in the amount of time that we have. I think if I could have done another, like one or two batches, maybe we would have gotten it, but it's also. They're also different elements, right? Like, we're using different flour. We're using Montana wheat flour, which we've never used before, you know? And…

Joan:

So different protein, different concentration in it. 

Michelle:

So, there's all those factors too, which you know. And then the water. The water is I mean, it might be a myth about New York water, but water is different in different places, and so you have to see it. Is it soft, is it hard? How alkaline does like, how does that impact what you're doing?

Amanda:

How close did you get?

Joan:

Pretty darn close.

Michelle:

I’d say like 90. Like 90-ish percent.

Amanda:

That’s not bad. That’s not bad.

Joan: 32:22

Bozeman, also given the season that we were in, like the air was also not as humid…

Michelle:

It was winter.

Joan:

… as the DelMarVa region, even with snow. You know what I mean?

Michelle: 32:38

It's very dry.

Joan: 32:40

Or even just the humidity feels different. If it feels different for you as a person, it definitely feels different to the dough, so I also want to share that with the bakers.

Amanda: 32:48

Well, I'm thinking about also the complaints of steam on the windows of your rented… 

Michelle:

[Laughs]

Joan:

I swear to god…

Amanda:

… like, right, how you had… You know, if you had a landlord who had a lot to say about steam and you're in a dry atmosphere, I suspect that that would have a very big impact.

Michelle: 33:08

One other thing - and this is evident. We'll put this in the show notes in our little like Tales from the Roadshow little video that we did last year. But another thing is just also, you know, getting to learn different equipment and what its quirks are. If I make brownies at your house, it's going to be different than my house, and so just learning. Does it run hot? Is there a hot spot? Do I need to rotate all that stuff? But then there are things like lighting the pilot lights and stuff. 

Joan:

This falls under the things that we really recorded well about any roadshow. We kept the challenges we shared to a minimum, in part because that wasn't completely like what on the outside people needed to know. It's a fantastic video of me having to hit the stove. This is per the staff there. Hit the stove in a certain place to get to light. So, Michelle will regale you with that by uploading that video, which is part of a one-minute jobber. That just gives you highlights of some of the challenges. 

Michelle:

This is also when we really started to also think about wouldn't it be great if, as a part of this process and we're still not there yet, but hopefully someday, we can help to outfit some of these kitchens with better equipment? [Kitchens] that have opened their arms to us, so that the Roadshow is a thing we can make a little money, or we can get sponsorship that would then give this place a new oven or give this place or like secondhand or whatever. But a lot of the nonprofit kitchens that we've looked at they make do. And wouldn't it be nice especially if they're pumping out meals twice a day for the whole community that they could get a better or more reliable piece of equipment? And so that was, I know, something that was near and dear to you [Joan]. 

Joan:

Yeah, just that idea of like not a handout. These are extremely proud, very talented people doing so much with what they had. [They just need] like a help up. I mean we're going to go a lot more into that when it comes to other sites, particularly Cohoes, and I would love to be able to highlight these well-loved spaces that are well-loved to the point of being a little bit broken down, not unsafe, because I think at this point folks may know that we really care about the quality of the food and its safety. But there are some places that we had to pass up in places like Cohoes because I wasn't confident in refrigeration.

Amanda:

Mmm, hmmm.

Joan: 35:31

Period. 

Amanda:

That's a big deal. That’s a big deal.

Joan: 35:34

So that's something I would love to be able to partner with. To put some shine on these places and then, because by nature of our menu and what has to happen, we really do stress test the kitchen. So, you can even tell me what you think the quirks are in something and I guarantee you we'll find something new. We'll push it to its limits of how long it's on and the intensity with which it's being used. 

Joan:

Food is a place and the people within food, more so than any other work I've ever done, really care about what you demonstrate, not what you say, in a way I really appreciate. So, whether it's the shared kitchen in Bozeman or I should say, like the pay-what-you-can restaurant kitchen in Bozeman or other places that we went to that were shared kitchens, in places like, let's say, Ohio, people will kind of sort of be courteous or maybe dismissive and will pay attention to you and to your team members and how you do things. And based on that, they begin to thaw and may begin to interact more. At the same time… 

Michelle:

Yeah.

Joan:

I'm telling you I do the same shit and I was super impressed by…

Amanda:

Yeah, see how people work.

Joan:

…how the kitchen in Bozeman was run and it was really to me like overwhelming. I think an unintended consequence of that trip specifically. Just, I was just so emotional one night and it's like so it's me and Michelle working solo together doing a sick volume of work, that I never need to recreate ever. And we went to a brewery and with like one beer, like I was sobbing and it's really. I do not quite cry frequently, but I was just like just recalling what I was seeing in that space by having the tours come through of the people who were, who had Down syndrome, who were developmentally disabled, and they were able to get a tour of their kitchen and learn how to make things in their own homes, in their own communities. And that was being fit in between different catering orders that that kitchen was doing and the general upkeep of what they had going on. And I just thought, I just could not like keep my shit together when it came to that unintended consequence of being an experience like that. But generally, yeah, I think it's important to say that in food there is a lot of show me. 

Michelle:

Yeah, and it's not all superficial, right, when you say something like “show me,” it sounds like fluffy, but this is where we start to see that like even though we had been doing this for a while, like our backgrounds right? You think of nonprofits as not being innovative sometimes or not being creative or not being open to new ideas because they're under-resourced and they're like and here you have a perfect example of all of the I mean start-up culture, with constituencies that are being served with outside program, with other revenue streams to keep things with a board you have to answer to. 

Amanda:

Mmm, hmmm.

Michelle:

I mean, it was like all of these elements in the same place and we came to see in other places as well, but that's the food was our entry point for that, and food is such a basic thing and that goes back to like even just the founding of BUB. 

Michelle:

Since we haven't really had many episodes where we talk about the actual food, it might be fun to either read off those menu items or just talk about a little bit about what was on that menu. 

Joan:

You're good at reading off stuff, Michelle. You should read off the menu. 

Michelle:

I'll just cherry pick a couple things, just… So, Joan, you mentioned making way too many things [in Bozeman], and that was definitely true. We had our standard, you know, bagels, lox and spreads. And I think we didn't do like every spread on our thing. But we did, you know, four or five spreads from our regular menu and probably same thing, like maybe six types of bagels instead of 15 or something. But then we also went in for the specials. So, we, we did our smoked beef brisket hash. So, Joan is outside in Bozeman, Montana, in late November getting a smoker going to smoke a brisket so that it could be diced and made into a hash. We put our Sailors Club on there, which involves making lox cakes, so basically salmon cakes. So, you're not only doing some then, you're going as far as to do all this shit to make it into a cake that goes on top of… What was on top of the Sailors Club? 

Joan:

So, the Sailors Club was named that in honor of one of our hosts. That means you, Kate. I know you're no longer in Bozeman, but I appreciated how much you cursed…

Amanda:

[laughs]

Joan:

… and I appreciated you're referring to yourself in some ways in that regard, specifically as a sailor. That club was for you. 

Michelle:

That's where it was born? It was born in Bozeman?

Joan:

The name was born in Bozeman. 

Michelle:

So, a take on like a seafood club that has like bacon but also seafood and stuff. But we made lox cakes. 

Joan:

Lox cakes and then there was shrimp salad. 

Michelle:

That's what it was. 

Joan:

On top of that… 

Amanda:

Yikes. 

Joan:

And it's very hearty and very delicious, but I don't need to have that [on the menu] in addition to the smoked brisket hash. 

Michelle:

I mean that itself is like a half day's worth of prep. I have no idea how we did it. And then one other thing I'll put so. We also had been doing for a while a stuffed French toast, where we take our cinnamon raisin bagel, we batter it, we put cream cheese in there and we put whatever seasonal berries. But Joan Kanner being Joan Kanner was like… 

Joan:

Who?

Michelle:

“I know what I'm gonna do. We're gonna use a local huckleberry, because huckleberries are local to [Bozeman]… 

Amanda:

Oh, geez…

Michelle:

…and we're gonna make a “What the Huck? French Toast”.

Amanda: 41:15

Wow.

Joan: 41:15

I remember it's selling quite well, guys… 

Amanda and Michelle

[laugh]

Joan:

I'm just saying because we already in that case we were being smart in using an existing menu item, because we're already gonna have cinnamon raisin bagels, no matter what, for the community. And then, by doing the stuffed French toast, if you've already done before, you just have to change the fruit and/or drizzle, and there was just incredible huckleberry syrup that paired really well and finished that off, and then you just rebrand it. “What the Huck?” selling like HUTcakes. 

Michelle:

And then one more because literally we pulled out every like. If you take each of our brewery events where we had one specialty item, we've already listed three or four of those. We also did patty melts. 

Joan:

Why?!

Michelle: 41:55

In addition to… 

Joan: 41:56

What was wrong with me?! 

Michelle:

So old school patty melts on, like our pumpernickel bagels and stuff, so… But each of those is its own ingredient, has its own prep, not to mention trying to figure out bagels at that elevation. You know, that's that.

Amanda: 42:13

So, you said brewery events. There were events outside of the kitchen then?

Michelle: 42:17

Oh, sorry brewery events that we had been doing in Baltimore at like that's pop-ups… 

Amanda:

Yeah, okay. 

Michelle:

…because usually breweries. They open later so we would always try to add some less “breakfast”, one or two more lunch-like items to those events. So, we carried those over to Bozeman.

Amanda: 42:33

I've got some store-bought lox in my fridge and even though I had some for breakfast, now I'm gonna have to have some for lunch too. And I understand that it's not gonna be as good as what you guys produce. But yeah, now I can't. Yeah, thanks.

Michelle: 42:48

Scratch that itch, girl. 

Joan:

I do appreciate that you saying that but I'm sure it's true. 

Joan:

We're packing up from the event at Bozeman and generally meeting or touching base with the folks there. There was like no team meeting on our end, necessarily, because Michelle knew that and I knew that we would have like the flight back to be able to write some notes down from our perspective to see how things went and keep in touch with people as we settle the bill and make sure that people have what they need. Again, to Michelle's earlier points, it was easier to deal with extra food like “oh, we have extra bacon.” I mean like for an open, for a working restaurant. That was like no problem to unload. Or we have some extra bagels so the team members can enjoy it. The idea is to like spread that and continue on with people who are able to enjoy. But coming back home, we came with knowledge but also some Montana wheat flour…

Michelle:

Mmm, hmm.

Amanda:

Oh.

Joan:

… which we end up using in Baltimore, which was super neat. It turned them [the bagels] slightly yellow. The dough is like slightly more yellow. 

Michelle:

Yeah, the actual flour product is just, has a more yellowish color to it than the wheat out here.

Amanda: 43:58

That's interesting.

Joan: 44:01

And the whole time we were away, our team members were still… 

Michelle:

Holding it down. 

Joan:

Holding it down. There are events… 

Amanda:

How long was the trip again? 

Michelle:

I mean the trip itself was a week, I think. 

Amanda:

Okay. 

Michelle:

Yeah, I think we were doing different stages of things, but yeah, maybe like nine days or something.

Amanda:

So, kudos to them. 

Michelle:

Yeah, it was the first time we had ever. I mean the fact that we felt comfortable enough to do that and had, you know, still a full week schedule, I mean we had gone. We had other times where, like, production continued and maybe one event, you know? But not a full week’s of production, and multiple events, and even at the last minute, like a catering gig came up and you know, we talked to the team about, like, should we take it? That you're gonna have to do this, you know. But it was definitely a big step for all of us to… 

Amanda:

… because they're still at the commissary kitchen, too.

Amanda: 44:52

They're not even in their own space…

Michelle:

Yeah, exactly.

Amanda:

… at this point right so they're navigating the politics that you've talked about within that space without the two leaders of the business that they're working for. That's something.

Michelle: 45:03

Yeah, it was huge. 

Amanda:

Yeah. 

Michelle:

And, I mean, I think also in retrospect, I mean we knew it was a big ask and we did everything that we could to try to, like you know, I went out and scouted the locations ahead of time and like went over with them, you know, just to kind of like make it, make it less of a burden, make them as prepared as we could. But you know, it's, it's still I don't know. I think that in retrospect, like it certainly made us aware of how many hats that we were wearing that we didn't even realize that we were wearing… 

Amanda:

Yeah.

Michelle:

Because things do fall through the cracks, or just you know they had legitimate pushback for us at our staff meeting following that event. We were expecting, like, oh, like we like yeah, it was Joan and I, but like Bottoms Up Bagels did this we had our first Roadshow event. It was a success. Here are our learnings. Like we were bringing the team along with us or at least debriefing it. But you know we had very organized and open meetings and you know they also took the time to talk about how either they didn't feel like they had what they needed or they could have used more support covering for things while we were away and that was tough because on one hand it's like bursts a little bit of a bubble, you know, like we're exhausted, but it was like Joan's like crying over her beer for good reasons and we're, you know, we'd accomplished not only something we wanted to do, but we got so much more out of it that we're trying to convey to people and they, you know, they felt put upon to a certain extent…

Amanda:

Mmm, hmmm.

Michelle:

… and they were willing to do the work. It wasn't, you know, but there was a tinge of like almost, almost, as if we had been on vacation and they were stuck holding it down. And, like you know, we've all worked for places where we've had that feeling too. 

Amanda:

Yeah.

Michelle:

Like, we've been in their shoes, and so it was a very mature, like a good feedback session. But it was tough because it made us feel like maybe we weren't ready for the level of growth that we thought we were. Or that we just had so many other pieces to put into place before we could be ready to do something like that again, or we needed to bring people along in a different way. 

Joan:

And for me it was triggering personally, just based on my family history where here I was like having a very tiring but fun and interesting experience to be, in very much shorthand, knocked down for having it, or made to feel like ashamed or uncomfortable. But, being an adult - flawed as I am - it was super important to like just swallowed that a bit while getting the team’s feedback.

Joan: 47:32

And I think I need to just be practical about this or I will never do this Roadshow again based on this feeling.

Amanda:

Yeah, I could see how having an experience like that, if you're not coming into it with some sort of either professional or emotional maturity, could really send you into a death spiral where it'd be like, “Oh well, fuck this. How is this… It's kind of like how do we continue doing this if we're going to be working for people who are not going to be pleased with that?” And it becomes more of a, I mean when we tie work into morality, the way that we do in the United States. All of a sudden, you have been someplace else and you had an experience that may not have been the grind that your, your employees may have felt like they were experiencing, and how - not only is that poor leadership - but now poor moral. That can get really, really and I'm not saying that that's correct… 

Michelle:

Mmm, hmmm.

Amanda:

…but it's it can get really messy and really resentful. And how do you even come back from that? That's hard. That's really hard. You could see it.

Joan: 48:31

I mean, and these are folks who…. I mean, these are compassionate people and I think if something interpersonally happened back home, they could be very compassionate even though we were their bosses. But I feel like not understanding how I mean I'm talking about. We're talking about the challenges, but things were like tough some of these days [in Bozeman] in terms of like a lack of sleep and just the physicality of it was a totally a choice and I understand that. I think when it comes to being the boss in a capacity, people may not realize that you can also have a tough experience, and this is like one of the lessons for me was that I shouldn't really expect people to be too compassionate if something non-personal and difficult happens to me as the boss, by nature of my choices as the boss.

Amanda: 49:22

No, that makes sense. I think that exploring a reality beyond your own perception can open you up to being incorrect. Or you know, there, there is so much that we build around our own perceptions of reality that to, to leap on the other side of that all of a sudden. Now I don't have an argument for the way that I feel. So, it's, that's just a mess. That's just a mess. That's like holding multiple realities in one place and just everybody being able to say, “okay, we're holding these multiple realities.” And who wants to get into a conversation about perception when people are just pissed because they feel like they were treated in a way that they didn't you know, they didn't expect their week to go like that.

Michelle: 50:10

And they, you know, to their credit too, I will say, and this is like really, this is part of the when we were talking about like kind of the honeymoon period in a prior episode, about, like putting things together and getting ready for the shop. This is many of the same folks and, and we really were like a family, and I know lots of places say that. But what was distinguishing to me about this group was we had like a couple of really tough conversations about it, like right after we got back [from Bozeman], but then we moved on, you know, and we all learned a little bit. And I think they were even able - and these are mostly young people - like able to hold the fact that like, “but I wanted this responsibility. I was excited that you trusted me, and yet I'm feeling conflicted, right, because, oh god, like the schedule said, I worked till three and I actually ended up being here till five and I just had other plans.” Like and I'm thinking, well, like “you do what it takes to do the job”, you know? And I'm like, well, no, like, if you had plans and you already allowed time, this is like you know, in retrospect, of course, you're going to be pissed that you didn't. You had an expectation that you felt was unfair.

Amanda: 51:08

Right.

Michelle: 51:09

But you know, to Joan’s point, when you are having your own feelings about it, you really need time and space to process that, to be fair and also to be fair to yourself, and that's something that we've learned in subsequent years. Right? It's just the extreme of that is not just then not allowing anything for yourself and being always about everybody else in terms of team, taking care of them, making sure they're good, giving grace to them and getting none of that back. Like that's also not the answer. But on the metaphysical conversation, that's what we tend to do as humans right? Overcorrect, if we correct it at all. 

Amanda:

Yeah. Yeah.

Joan:

Did they [the BUB team working in Baltimore] have enough information to like support, what was more on the lines of a stretch, let alone like a dream for the business? I do wonder about that too. If you were able to pitch the idea a certain way, that would have made a difference, but it's been so many years at this point the shoulda, woulda, coulda… I feel like it's now been applied differently and better in different locations and when more people can come with you, that also takes away some of that discomfort. “Well, we're actually we're closed at the shop or close doing whatever. You're either with us or you're off and getting paid.” “Okay.”

Amanda: 52:22

Yeah.

Joan:

All those hard feelings. 

Amanda:

Yeah, well, yeah, and it's hard to ask. It's one thing that I'm really impressed by certain entrepreneurs, though sometimes I think it gets a little culty - how certain entrepreneurs are able to get a group of people behind their ideas, because that's, you know, when an employee doesn't necessarily see the what's in it, for me, straight up to back up somebody else's, you know, kind of like launching a rocket into space and well, you know, I'm, you know, great, you'll be. The joke that was going around was, you know, he's up there for 16 minutes. Well, we all get to pee. This is great, you know yeah. Y'all know what I'm talking about? 

Joan:

Yeah. 

Amanda:

I'm assuming that, yeah, this is so, and but yeah, when, when people have these perceptions, it's, what do you do for them to help you grow your business and get them on board? How much can you do?

Joan: 53:20

The option to not do it [the Roadshow] was never going to be on the table for us and even with that initial sting happening. I was just - I need to do this better. But I refuse to tamp down what we - the limits of this business by nature of like one uncomfortable meeting or a few people who may not even be with us in the next two months.

Amanda: 53:38

And you know. A good on you, because not a lot of people would do. A lot of people would just say you know what this was an issue. I'm not even going to bother back. I get it. Seriously, right? Good on you.

Michelle: 53:47

And I also think, you know, and this is said objectively, but I think also being a couple that are the quote unquote bosses. I think that's tough too, because it's like we're, you know, more than once have walked into people talking about us as “the parents,” you know? And there's a…

Amanda:

Oh, fuck. Yeah. 

Michelle:

Yeah, and there's, that's loaded, right? Like that brings different expectations. That also we're also women, like we've talked about many times on this pod. But I mean the ability to push back is different when we're seen that way. Like the people's ability to push back on us. Like I think they feel more comfortable doing it frankly. And I also think it's - and I'm not saying they shouldn't - but you know it comes out differently and I also think that it's easier to see something that we're doing, especially if we haven't done our job in bringing them along with us through various steps in the process. It becomes easier to also dismiss it as us out there, like “Michelle and Joan are on vacation.” like not like working as co-founders of this business to introduce a whole other part of business growth for us. But you know Michelle and Joan have time. You know they're not here and they're together. And I think it just it muddies the water, and I don't think a lot of that was conscious. I think it's just how some of this pushback came about. What made it clear that those are some of the things at play, which you know we learned from, which is I'm glad they were brought to our attention, but it was tough in the moment, for sure.

Amanda: 55:17

Well, speaking of yourselves as employee one and employee two as well, when you're, when you're in a situation, where do we move forward? Do we back down? And Joan says “well, you know, there are people who may not even be here in three months.” Y'all aren't going anywhere, right? Like there is. There's a Michelle and a Joan and a Joan and a Michelle, and that's what the business is. So, I wonder if part of that strength may have also come from you know, the commitment of course, relationship-wise, of course. But this commitment to your business and growing it. I don't know it's, it seems like, you know, it just makes the foundation of it stronger. It has it. Man, that's what a knot. 

Michelle.

Yeah, yeah. 

Amanda:

A knot upon a knot

Joan: 56:00

And there's a commitment to our Baltimore customers specifically…

Amanda: 56:04

Yeah.

Joan: 56:04

…during Roadshows. So obviously our first customer or team members, no matter what business you have, they're your first customer. If you think otherwise, we can debate that, but I will still win. 

Amanda:

No, you’re right.

Joan:

Because they are your first customers. And then for the Baltimore customer, it was important for us to also stay open. Maybe I need to say that because without them, and without the learnings we have from working with them, you couldn't have gone to a Bozeman. So, we want to, if possible, keep them happy. But lowercase H. I mean, they're just bagels and lox people. They can do a lot for you, but you know like. So, it was important for us to care about, to care about them when we were away. So that's why we still had activities going on, not to put that, and also making sure people had hours, obviously for their bills and their living. Hello, it's a business.

Amanda:

This episode of Proofing Stage, brought to you by the following sponsor…

[Commercial for Mickey “Two Thumbs” starts]

Hello, I'm Mickey “2 Thumbs” (she/her/youse).

And I'm here to douse your dreams of startin' a bagel business outside of the NJ/NY/CT tri-state area.

Because, science, astrology, and I will tell you that it's the water that makes dem great.

Maybe you're thinkin', "Mickey, you're right. Why botha tryin'? After all, where I live is mediocre and I don't 'de-soiv' such things."

While those are some salient points, fear not! For Mickey's got da' gallons.

That's right! I've made bringin' the best water to your business my business.

Whether you buy it by the case, the truck load, or sketcky subterranean network...

[Mickey is now singing]

Don't be an H2-HOE! 

Workin' with 2 Thumbs is the way to go!

[Said in a clear, gentle disclaimer tone]

We acknowledge and honor that our business plan stands on the shoulders of decades of negging. Any connection to actual science or reality is on you.

[Commercial ends]

Joan: 58:14

So, in this part one of the roadshow parts one and two, we leave off with Joan and Michelle having some reflections about how to do a potential Roadshow in the future and, in case it wasn't clear, you would certainly do it again, despite of having some rough spots with returning back to Baltimore and our team members who were left behind. What happens next when we wrap up this Roadshow event in November of 2019 will stun, amaze and delight you.

Amanda: 58:48

You don't want to miss that. This is how you don't miss it. You go over to your favorite podcast application, wherever you get your podcasts, and you hit “subscribe” right there for Proofing Stage, you will get it. If you're driving and you can't do it, just simply remember proofingstagecom. Go to our website, get all the information that you need.

Michelle: 59:10

If you're following the show or subscribing to the show. We drop episodes, bonus episodes, almost every week, so there's a whole bunch of bonus content in addition to this, our seventh episode that you can find if you're following the show. It'll just pop right up in your feed when it comes out, usually on a Monday. So, another reason to get on board with Proofing Stage if you can.

Amanda:

For additional information, including Notice and Disclaimer, music credits, episode notes and more, check out our website, proofingstage.com.