Welcome to Barbecue Nation with JT and Leanne After Hours, the conversation that continued after the show was done.

Hey, everybody, it's JT and this is a special version of Barbecue Nation.

It is brought to you in part by Painted Hills Natural Beef, beef you can be proud to serve your family and friends.

That's Painted Hills Natural Beef.

Welcome to after hours, everybody.

I'm J.T.

along with Ms.

Whippen, and Mr.

Furman is with us today.

We've been talking about Bub and Mother's Rubs.

Some great family stories there from John also, and I think some good business advice for people if they're thinking about that.

You know, we've talked about it.

If you listen to the show, John, there's a lot of people that.

We have a lot of them on the show over the course of a year that, you know, they've got a new line of rubs or they've got this and that.

This is not a scientific explanation.

This is more like a government explanation with not much basis behind it.

But I would say probably 50% of them don't make it a year in their business like that.

It's, you know, because they.

Some of them do it as a side with a dream to turn it into something.

Maybe they're going to want to quit their day job, so to speak, but they don't work it very hard.

Sometimes they get hooked up with a distributor that's less than forthcoming with them about what it takes if they're going to try to do, you know, bigger packages through a distribution company.

I ran into that years ago.

That wasn't any fun.

But do you think it was?

It's your tenacity that has made this work for you, or.

I know you.

There's no question about the quality of the product.

That's.

That's.

If you got a crappy product, it's not going to last very long at all.

But, you know, the business side of it is it's not that difficult.

But as you pointed out in the regular show, you really have to stay focused, get up in the morning and do it well.

Yeah, I mean, the easiest way to explain it is it's very simple to be a success.

It's just not easy.

And that's a huge difference.

You know, I was down at the National Barbecue association thing down in Ocean Springs, and we hung out at the shed and.

And you're still able to walk and talk after that.

Do you know, it's, it's, it's really funny.

I mean, I was.

Carrie Bringle was there and I was like, oh, if I get down there, I'm gonna.

I'm going to see if he brought some of his bourbon.

I'm.

I'm a bourbon guy.

You know, he always travels with bourbon.

Yes.

Is that personally verified, Leanne?

I've just noticed it.

Okay.

A few times, so.

And then you have, you know, Brad and Brooke running the shed, and Brad is a madman on steroids.

I mean, this guy, from the moment he gets there until everybody's gone, is still 90 miles an hour.

And part of the event, you know, they.

They had some sessions, and one of them was, you know, kind of like speed day, where you would just pick somebody, go sit down at their table and pick their brain.

And it was interesting because when I first started, Tractor Supply had us come down to Nashville to their buyers day, and, you know, I had no money for this, but I got there, you know, and any of us that have been in business understand what that means.

You know, you're broke, but you go anywhere.

And, you know, I was set for this big presentation.

I.

I literally went to whatever the big supermarket is in Nashville, most popular, and I go in and I get one of those Styrofoam coolers, and I'm like, I'm not going to carry this thing around.

So I bought one of those collapsible trailer things that you can put your cooler on and drag it around like a little.

Got that.

I bought some shredded cabbage because I was going to make.

And mayonnaise.

I was going to make coleslaw because I.

You know, we have what we call our redneck aioli, which we use the honey and heat and stuff to make an aioli for coleslaw.

So I had that.

And one of the restaurants that we supplied up in Maine, I gave them the honey and heat.

And they.

They never.

They still don't use it to cook.

They make margaritas.

So I called it the barbecue margaritas.

So now I got a little airline sized bottle of tequila, you know, a little can of margarita mix.

I'm going to make margaritas for everybody.

And in I go.

One girl, one.

That's all that's in the room.

I got all this stuff.

I had a.

I had an easel and a.

And a whiteboard and one girl.

Anyway, it was a disaster.

You know, they.

They were like, okay, well, if we test you out, we're going to put you in 40 stores to see how it goes.

And I'm like, okay.

You know, the one thing I can always do is I can pretend to be confident in Front of anybody, that'd be great.

And in my head, I'm going, that's more stores than.

You're doing business now, right?

How are you going to do that?

I didn't even know if I can get enough bottles.

So I was like, yeah, that'd be great.

And then she says, and then we give you 60 days to sell through 80%, okay?

And if you don't, you have to buy it back OR rebate as $0.50 on the dollar for every bottle that's left.

And I'm sitting there going, yeah, what?

That's not a problem.

I said, but let me ask you a question.

Who's going to market this?

Who's going to say, hey, come to Tractor Supply?

Oh, you are?

I am.

Oh, okay.

And then, unfortunately, my Northeastern sarcasm came out.

I said, so if I send somebody into my rub and they buy a grill, am I getting a piece of that action?

You know?

And she like, give me one of the.

No.

I'm like, okay.

So I went back to the hotel, and I literally calculated it, and if I had sold 79.9% of the stuff and had to buy back the rest, I would lose money.

So I said, this isn't going to work for me.

And that's what kept me out of going national.

So I'm depressed, and I had all this stuff, like, in my, you know.

So that night, I ate coleslaw and drank a margarita, and I don't drink margaritas.

I don't even drink mixed drinks.

I had a margarita and coleslaw for dinner.

But the next day, I decided I'm going to have barbecue.

So I, you know, I hadn't been to Nashville since the 80s, so I type, best barbecue in Nashville says, go to Peg Leg Workers.

Okay?

I have no idea what that is.

So I get a cab.

You know, it's like 80 bucks, you know, that I don't have.

So I'm at Peg Leg Workers, and I met his wife, and this is like seven years ago.

And I have, I honestly got.

I had two bottles of my rub, one in each of my pockets, you know, and, And I literally, I put them on the bar, and they came over and said, what's this?

I said, and I didn't even know who owned the place.

I said, I'm supposed to give these to the owner.

I pretended like it.

I don't know.

I'm just here, I'm gonna get some barbecue.

But I, I, I promised I would give this to the owner.

And they were like, yeah, we'll take it to him.

So I.

I'm certain they went in the trash can where the bottle caps go underneath the bar, but I ate there.

And then years later in Nashville, I spent an inordinate amount of time with Carrie.

In fact, at the end of the next to the last night, he had to fly out, and his hotel was like a half an hour away.

So he's like, john, you have a car?

I said, yeah.

Would you take me back to the hotel?

And I'm like, yeah, sure.

And it was.

It was a blast.

I mean, we talked about business for half the trip, and then the other half we talked about trucks because we're.

There you go.

That's what we did.

So, anyway, Leanne can tell you about trucks, too, because she just sold hers.

Did you miss it?

I.

I loved my truck.

I had it since 02, and it has been all over the country and many stories.

But there comes a point in time when you have to let it go.

That's.

Unfortunately, the buyer is very sweet, and I took a picture with them, and so it went to a good home.

Yeah.

See, I'm here talking about business, you know, that sell a truck, you're going to get a few more dollars and you get to take a picture with the queen.

I mean, you know, it's.

I almost feel like a kid, you know, getting a crush on Susan Day watching the park family.

It's.

It's like, how much is your truck?

Can I pay more?

Why don't you call him, Leanne?

Yeah, I know.

I'll keep that in mind for all future.

Sal.

Yeah.

Put some barbecue sauce on the seat, you know.

Yeah, Gotcha.

But did you get another truck?

No, I did not, because the truck pulled my trailer, and I know.

Did you sell the trailer?

I did sell the trailer.

Okay.

Yeah.

So I hope it was somebody I put the word out to.

I.

When I saw that, I think I told you I started.

You guys want a trailer with.

Appreciate that.

Yeah.

There was a lot of interested people.

So.

So.

So, John, where do be Bob and Martha's future years?

Three years, five years from now?

Five years.

I hope the next guy is taking this thing through the roof.

I.

You know, people ask me, are you going to Walmart?

Nope.

That's for the next guy.

It's not for me.

Yeah, I, you know, it's.

It's really funny.

I've had opportunities, you know, in.

In previous chapters in my life.

I mean, I.

I spoke in 14 former Soviet cities.

I was at Lehigh university lecturing the 5,000 people.

I wrote 11 books.

And I'm having more fun and actually accomplishing more than I did when I was doing that.

And I loved when I did that.

I love being up in front of people and, you know, watching a eyes light up, going, I, I get it, you know, because just like with rubs, you know, I tell people, you know, I don't, I don't have all the answers, you know, and you're not going to like, you might not like any of my rubs.

I'm not going to be insulted.

We, we all have different palates, you know, but if you do like them, just know that the next bottle that you get, it's going to taste the same as the last one.

Right?

Because we make it the same way.

And I, I'm living, you know, do what you love and it's, you'll never work a day in your life.

And for over 40 years that wasn't the case, you know, so I'd like to think that I could do this forever, but, you know, probably not going to be here for eternity.

Just saying.

But, you know, next two or three years, I'd like to get all these licenses done.

We actually only started announcing that and.

Where can we see that?

You said it's coming out March, March, whatever day it was, the 12th, or.

Yeah, I'll send it to you after you do the Wonder Bread thing.

No, I don't, I don't care about the story.

I just want to see how that woe plays.

It's.

You can go on my Facebook page.

Is that where it's going to be shown?

I mean, no, it's.

So, yeah, so the way I set it up was we're telling people that it's coming on Facebook.

I sent out emails to anybody that I knew who were either business minded or barbecue minded, hopefully a little of both, and said, look, on March 12th, we're going to do an information meeting.

No obligation.

You can't sign up.

Nobody can send any money to buy a life.

We're not doing that.

We're just talking to people, Right?

Because again, unlike timeshares or, you know, selling your company or whatever, just because you cut, you have the ability to cut a check doesn't mean you're going to be a good fit.

Right?

So our webinar is going to be the Good, the Bad and the ugly.

I'm going to tell them, you know, here are some of the pain in the neck things you have to go through if you're going to be in business.

Because nobody thinks about business insurance, right?

If you don't Have a big cargo van and you're going to deliver it in your car.

And I didn't know this until I started.

You better get commercial insurance, because if there's an accident, none of your product is covered unless you have a commercial policy.

Now, it sounds like a minor thing, but when you're starting out, losing a car load means you're not fulfilling an order, which means you're not going to get paid.

You have to replace that product, which doubles your car, you know, all of those things.

So I want to tell them all that stuff.

I want to tell them what they can expect that I want to tell them.

This is not instant pudding.

But we've already eliminated the mistakes that took us from our little illegal bottle to the quality that we're using now.

So you don't have to worry about any of that.

In fact, we're only limiting the meetings to 10 people at a time.

Okay.

And the reason is twofold.

One, because if you have more than that, you know, most of them aren't paying attention.

But if I limit it to 10, those 10 people are going to be serious about being in business.

So we'll talk to them.

And that still doesn't mean that they can get a license.

Right.

It just means they have all the details.

Then they're going to fill out an application and we're going to take a look.

Right.

But the one thing I'm not going to do is I'm not going to make them purchase inventory immediately.

Okay.

They're going to have to pay for the license.

So that's going to be an expense.

But before they go in order, you know, 200 to 500 cases of rub, they need to go have some store site.

So we're going to give them about 20 cases of assorted flavors, going to give them to take them home, go to your stores, get yourself set up.

Because we can deliver what you need in two to three weeks.

So it's not like you're going to be sitting on orders forever.

That's what.

That's why we lined up with the CO Packer.

They can produce a hundred thousand bottles two weeks of all the flavors.

So can you tell us how much the license is?

You want me to tell you now?

Sure, sure.

It's $14,995.

How did you come up with that number?

Dartboard.

Okay.

No, that's fair.

So here's what you're going to get.

Okay.

The license, you know, putting that together, obviously there's a cost and have those protections, but for that, we're going to fly you into South Carolina on our dime, put you up in a hotel on my dime, feed you on my dime, give you five days of training.

Part of that training is going to be included in.

I'm sorry, included in that training.

We're going to start calling stores in your neck of the woods.

Hey, I'd like to stop by and just drop off some samples.

Who do I see?

Who do I talk to?

So on and so forth, just to get you used to start to get into that selling cycle.

In addition to that, we're going to pay for and send to you a choice.

You can either buy a full graphic.

Bubba.

Mothers, you know, those pop up tents if you want to do outdoor events, or if your particular state does a lot of trade shows, we'll get you a custom trade show on our dime.

So all of that you get for that licensing fee now.

And earlier.

Leanne, we talked about, what's the difference between this and a franchise?

I'm not going to make you buy a building.

Okay.

You know, people say can, and we've already had people ask, can you work out of your house?

You can.

I would suggest, however, that you at least line up a storage facility, unless you have a very large garage that's empty.

Okay.

The good thing is they don't need a facility like I have because they're not making any.

They're going to get 1 or 2000.

So what's the minimum order?

So we have two levels, and it depends on pricing they can order.

Their minimum inventory order is 20 cases of each flavor.

Okay.

And.

They can buy all nine.

No, they can buy any combination they want.

I don't care.

But what I'm going to train them to do is give out your samples and find out what your market likes.

Right.

Again, as an example, the bango mango.

You might want to hit up seafood markets because it's a bank.

Jalapeno, mango, citrus kind of rub.

Right.

It's good on chicken, but nobody sells just chicken.

So I would.

I would definitely hand that off to seafood markets or.

Or a.

A market that sells both meat and seafood and that, you know, your neck of the woods is going to be pretty popular.

But take the samples and let your market tell you what you should have.

Right.

When I was in the car business, I was running a dealership.

And this is man in the early 80s.

And the one thing I hated was country music.

Couldn't stand it.

Just.

It made my.

It was like chalk on a blackboard squeaking.

Anyway, in comes and I'm running one of the biggest dealerships in New England.

In comes the guy with the number one country station in the world.

That's what he said.

And I'm like, I hate country music.

There's no way I'm advertising.

So he comes over and he hands me his card and he goes, we're this and we're that.

We sponsor all the country concerts in New Hampshire and blah, blah, blah.

I said, that's great.

I hate country music.

And he goes, you got a minute?

I said, yeah, come with me.

He walks into my service department.

Now, in that service department, at any given time, they were fixing 32 cars.

He turned on every single radio in each car and 30 of them had on his country station.

And that's what I learned.

Doesn't make a difference what I like.

No, it really doesn't.

I mean, you know, and there are times I've used my rubs on stuff that I thought it would be good on, and it was horrible.

You know, I'll never do that again.

And yet people that have had it, you know, I'm cooking for a bunch of people, they were like, man, that was awesome.

I loved it.

So doesn't matter.

So that's what we, we want you to give out.

And that's why we're saying the samples you're taking are all nine flavors.

We're going to give you two cases of each flavor.

That's 18 cases of rub.

We'll ship them to you.

You know, you don't have to worry about getting them home.

We'll get them to you.

But, you know, I tell people, throw a dozen in your car everywhere you go, and we want you to ramp up.

I'm not looking to.

I don't need people going bankrupt the day they leave.

So we give you a 60 day ramp up period.

Don't order your inventory until 60 days.

Now if you sit home and look at 11 cases or 18 cases of rub and don't do anything with it, I'll replace you.

And, and you're going to lose your money.

You know, the only thing that licensing has in common with franchising is you've got to perform.

Right?

And we're pretty lenient, you know, we, we only do for the first two quarters after the 60 days.

So we're almost, you know, a year into it.

The minimum order is going to be 20 cases of each flavor or 180 cases.

If you find out three of my flavors aren't going to work, get 180 cases of something else.

Because one of the Things that kept us successful is when somebody picked up the phone and said, I need four cases of this.

I could ship it or deliver it that day or the next.

Right.

Not everybody's going to be patient enough to wait two weeks.

Bigger supermarket orders are going to be able to do that if you get a big, big supermarket, you know.

And again, Florida Publix is way bigger than it is here.

The public says, we want you in our local program in Florida as an example, and they decide they want 400 cases to start.

You'll never see them.

You'll be able to pick up the phone, tell me, hey, I got to do this.

I can call the co packer and say, drop, ship this here.

So it'll literally bypass you.

And that's when you just get mailbox money.

So, you know, you're not going to have to get everything dumped to you.

And then you've got to get it to Publix.

Our co packer is going to ship it for you.

So we're trying to keep it simple without overwhelming is, I guess, the best way to say it, you know, and that's what we want to cover in the meeting.

That's.

That's the part that keeps it simple.

Here's the hard part.

You have to talk to other humans in stores, and not a lot of people are comfortable doing that.

I get it.

You know, But I can tell you this.

We.

We only announced last week.

I've got Pennsylvania, Kansas, New Jersey, Illinois, and Wisconsin.

I've already.

They've got people coming to this meeting, so we'll get our 10 before the 12 for sure.

The.

The.

The neat thing is that I'll also tell them, you know, just because you came to this meeting and just because you can cut a check for 14,995, that doesn't mean anything to me.

Right.

I only need 50 people.

If I got one in every state to do that out of 350 million people.

So the odds are in my favor that we're going to be able to do this.

But to do it right, I'm going to do everything I can, you know, and I'm.

I'm, like directing this at Leanne, but I'm not.

I'm going to do everything I can to kind of caution you this may not be for you.

And then those that are left standing who are going to argue with.

That's who I want.

We'll have to check back with you in six months and see.

And see how that's working out for you.

Yeah, listen, you need to check up with me in six months just to see if I can still sit in this chair.

Okay.

Well, I am a very old man, and.

And, well, you don't look old.

How old do you think I am?

I'm terrible at ages.

I don't know, 65.

I'll be 70 this year.

See, you look great.

See, you're just getting started.

Don't worry about that.

Anyway, we got to get out of here.

All right, listen, guys, it's been amazing.

Thank you very, very.

Thank you so much for your time and your insight and everything.

Very good.

John Furman from Bub and Mothers.

Go to their website.

You can find out.

Find out more about the program John's putting together there, and it's really fascinating to me.

Anyway, we got to go.

Leanne.

Thank you, John.

Thank you.

We'll be back next week with another edition of After Hours here on the Nation.

Until then, be kind and don't forget to turn it, don't burn it.