On today's episode of Gathering the Kings. She's gonna run this company better than me. So can I step out a 100% if needs be and go sell some solar accounts door to door to pay for her salary? And that's why I told myself. Never had to do Chaz, but if you have the right person, what willing to do? And I I was willing to go knock doors again.
You are listening to Gathering the Kings with Chaz Wolfe featuring fellow 78 and even 9 figure business owners who have real battle scars from business and life, but have prevailed as the king that they are designed to be. We welcome high performing entrepreneurs to the stage in order to reveal the real of the real on what it takes to build a successful business today.
We dissect the good and bad decisions they've made along the way Chaz give a true and accurate picture of the journey of success and how you 2 can get there. Through this dialogue, you will learn the value of growing your network and surrounding yourself with power players and keys like today's guest. Grab your pen and notebook because we're about to dive in. What's up, everybody? I'm Chaz Wolfe gathering King's podcast. Today, I've got Bennett Maxwell on the King stage. My brother.
How you doing? I'm doing good. How are you doing? I'm doing well. You were we were just talking about you spent some time traveling with your family in a pretty nice place and but I'm not seeing any sunburns on side. So you're gonna have to convince me with some better pictures maybe that you've been traveling, but in all seriousness, what kind of business do you have, brother? So right right now, I've had a a a career in sales And in the last 18 months, I did a full pivot to cookie franchising.
So very different industry, but, yeah, that's I have a cookie company. It's called dirty dough. We have three locations that are open. 2 in Utah, 1 in 1 in Arizona, and another 115, 120, right around in that range that we have sold Chaz Wolfe be opening within the next year or 2. Wow. Yeah. And so your name, dirty dough, give us just a quick understanding of what does that mean? Yeah. So when it was named Chaz it it just was catchy, I guess.
This was an existing company that I purchased 18 months ago. It was just a single store location. And I purchased it thinking, hey. If I can figure this out and make it dummy proof, then I can franchise it and, hopefully, I can help a lot of other people jump into entrepreneurship for the first time. So anyways, we spun what the name meant before it was just dirty dough is is catchy. And I I heard an employee tell a customer that asked that question. The dirty dough means the dough is dirty.
So we do more mix sins inside the cookie. And then we just took that to a whole another level. Okay. That's what we are. We dirty dough. It's on the inside of the cookie. So then we started doing more mixins and more fillings. And 3 layer cookies. So I was describing that to you before it was a peanut butter. You look at it. The cookie looks like a peanut butter cookie. But when you break it open and these are giant cookies. These are a third of a pound. So these are big cookies.
When you break it open, there's a chocolate dough in the middle. And in the very center, there's hot fudge or there's Reese's peanut butter coming out. So it's anyways, is that the It's dirty. It's dirty and it's messy. And then that fits right into the branding and the messaging that we have, or it's what's on the inside that matters most. Life is imperfect. It's dirty. It's messy, but it's meant to be enjoyed just like these cookies. So there's a lot.
There's a big mental health behind the company and behind the branding, really, because I'm scared to death of, of the mental health crisis. And I have kids, and I'm You know, what do you do? So, anyway, so so that's what dirty dough means now is that it means the dough is dirty, more mix ins, fillings, multi layers, which leads to the inside matters most. Yeah. I love it, dude. I love the storyline.
As soon as you said dirty dough or as soon as I knew it, and then you told me for y'all fair about the three layered cookie. I'm like, that makes sense. Yeah. He's he's over there. Got some dirty dough. Got a lot of things in it. A lot of things going on. Super creative when it comes to cookies. And so you've solved the problem of of mental health. He could But just the right amount. If you went to me, I ain't helping you either.
Yeah. I just think of I think of the Chick Fil A Science where it says eat more chicken. And I now I see billboards for you saying eat more cookies and dirty cookie. To be specific. Let's just because what what would you do with the chocolate chip if you could have a peanut butter chocolate three layered fudge cookie? Yep. I just this is gonna be a fun conversation, especially since you've got a huge background in sales. I can relate to that for sure.
And then also after my sales career, I got into franchising as Wolfe. There's gonna be some overlap here and some of our topics here, but I wanna know you've obviously built something successful. You've sold a 115 or something locations and Chaz are gonna be opening up soon. That's a big deal to just to launch a franchise number 1, to have successfully sold, to have multiple locations already operating. It's a big deal. So here you are.
A king on the stage, you've been successful, but you're still pushing. From the time that we talked with you a handful of weeks ago, you've since sold another 15 or 20 locations. Why are you why have you pushed? Why are you still pushing? Super good question. Been on this personal journey of figuring that out for the last year to purchase this company last year, and I was I still had a solar company that I was running. I was living in San Diego at the time.
Entrepreneurs, we work super hard telling ourselves once we get X Y Z, then, you know, then I'm gonna have financial freedom, which equates to time freedom, then I could travel. And then it only leads to, well, so I could be with my family. Right? Then I wanna be with my family to be happy. That's what I've been telling myself the whole my whole life. I sell my solar company last year, and I hit those goals that I was going for. Right?
And I feel amazing And 2 weeks later, I'm like, working a freaking weekend again. I'm like, what am I doing? I need to snap out of this cycle. So You mentioned that I went on vacation. I was gone for the entire month. In the last 4 weeks, I was gone. I was in Mexico with my wife and So anyways, this happened a year ago, man, I need to figure out, like, what I'm doing. And so I don't so I could catch myself in these cycles, and I can be like, hey.
Let's how Wolfe I just choose to be happy and successful now rather than just a success so I can have the happiness later. Anyways, I drop off my family on a Wednesday, and my wife and my 3 kids And 2 days later, I'm like, why did I do that? They were going to Mexico for 3 weeks without me, and then I was gonna catch up the last week. 2 days later, I bought a flight the same day. I'm like, I caught myself back in that cycle. Yeah. For me, why do I keep pushing? I guess there's two reasons.
One Man, it's fun. It's fun to have just the competitive drive of, Chaz I build something? The two goals though that I have with dirty dough is 1 is the mental health And it's related to a nonprofit that we're launching right now, building wellness centers in schools. So I've been fortunate that I haven't Chaz much experience with the the anxiety or depression or any of that, but statistically speaking, my kids are twice as likely over twice as likely.
It's a 189% more likely to go to the hospital due to self harm than they were before social media came out. And it's just like, what do you do with that? So that's why I'm trying to target kids and be proactive in talking about mental health but arming them with the tools, guided meditation, breathing exercises, happiness, mindset, things like that, guiding them with that. And then the Number 2 goal is lowering the barrier of entrepreneurship.
So the barrier to entry by providing a low cost franchise very easy to run doesn't require it to be, like, owner operated, things like that. So the those are my 2 big goals as the mental health and the the entrepreneurship. And then, obviously, it's just fun, but I'm always careful to not push too hard at the expense of sacrifice in my family. Yeah. I love how you gave 2 examples there of how you maybe naturally are wired to just go. Right?
But then in the moment you caught yourself, I think all of us can relate to not just being in those moments, but then that feeling of Oh, man. This is I'm doing the thing that I didn't really wanna do or that I know that I need to do, but maybe I should have done it differently, but now we're caught in it. And, not only did you catch yourself in the moment, but they took action in both of those. You said, you know what?
I'm gonna I'm gonna just do business for the next 3 weeks in Mexico with my family and to just and you just let me just go. And I think that to a more boiled down simple point is that if we wanna make those things important to us, just like anything else, business, a new sale, a new franchise, whatever, We've got to prioritize them, put them on the calendar, think ahead, make it actually speak on our calendar like it does, a meeting or a new business venture or a sales call or whatever.
Anything else you wanna add there to getting it in front of mind? No. It's just a constant. Like, how how many of us struggle with Chaz? That it's always I'm gonna be happy when I hit X Y Z. Then we're always pushing for that XYZ and it's never enough. And that's what creates a large change in the world, but at the same time, you can't do it to the expense of your happiness today. At least that's my opinion. So, yeah, that's what I've been focused on. Yeah. I'm in agreement with you.
It's interesting. I have a a real close friend of mine who definitely subscribes to the let me delay everything Mhmm. So that we can be in a different position in the future. And, look, delayed gratification when it comes to entrepreneurship and future and legacy in our kids, like, we have to do it. Like, that that's just part of being a good steward of what we've been given. But I think that there's also a story that we're writing along the way.
And I think that's the piece that you're referring to that, yeah, delayed gratification is part of that story. So that in the future, we can achieve something or get to a certain place or whatever. But then there's also this in the meantime story happening at the same time, which is where a lot of renewers are gonna and we're just in the vision. We're in the future and that stuff. I think that you bring a awareness to a very hot topic.
Just before we kinda get into some of your story, I'd love to hear some things that you kinda mentioned meditation. You mentioned, you know, how does a listener today take either mental health and or this idea of how do I live in the story along the way Right. The the journey. What would you say to that person who's listening wants some tactical What got me started was, like, a guided meditation. I listened to a guy named Sam Harris. He said, neuro I've just forgot neuro chemist. Okay?
He's a brain guy. He's a brain guy, and his meditation is a lot more in-depth than why you're thinking and how you're thinking. And anyways, he's got an app called waking up. Before that, there's another app called Headspace, some guided meditation. I guess that's been the big strategy. There's a guy named Wim Hall off, w I m, and he's runs marathons in the freaking Antarctica with shorts on. And he's just crazy.
He does a lot of breathing exercises, and you can actually change your physiological state with breathing exercises. So that's another one. But, man, I'm Still need to figure out a lot more. But those are the 2 that I'm mainly going after. And what's when I sold my solar company a year ago, and I caught myself within a few weeks of what am I doing? Like, why did I tell myself I'm gonna be happy when X Y Z happened?
And then now that it happened, I'm still working past 5 and I'm working the weekends and all that. So I started seeing a therapist, like, never thought in the world that I be the one seeing a therapist because I'm like, oh, that's if you're gonna commit suicide or something, I don't know. But I've been seeing a therapist for a year, and that's been Awesome. Just, like, diving into my psyche and, like, why do I say one thing and perform a different thing?
So I guess those are my three methods that that I've been using, some guided meditation, some breathing exercises, and then good old fashioned therapy. Yeah. Love it, man. Okay. Let's talk about your story. You obviously cook the cookie business isn't your first business. Tell us how you kinda got started. I know you said in sales, but have that translate into solar and kinda give us a little bit of the journey. I'm in Utah, and there's a big, like, everybody knows Chaz summer sells is.
And it's door to door sales. You go out for 4 or 5 months. They some other state. And the pitch is you get all these college kids, and they're like, hey. You can make enough money in this 4 to 5 months to pay for your school. And so you could focus on your school, and you don't have to have a job during school. Because you could make pretty high commissions. And I growing up, I was selling candy bars in freaking elementary school and knocking doors selling lawn aeration.
Yep. And, like, junior high. And then for any sports, if I wanted to pay for the sports, it was, like, you go sell what the team was selling cookie dough, that's when I got into cookie, you know, is when I was doing wrestling and rugby and then, like, the discount cards. That's what I did for football. I got it into all of Chaz, and then I started doing pest control. That's what I started. It went to California. I only did it for 2 months, but it went really well.
Then the next year, I'm like, I got this. I recruited 30 dudes. No. 40 dudes that actually showed up. 40 dudes. We all moved out to Charlotte, North Carolina from Utah. So it was me and forty people, and it was or the blind leading the blind. No. It was a blast though. It was a super fun summer. Like, you moved your whole fraternity. Oh, yeah. For sure.
We we broke the it was smaller company, but I broke the all time sales record personally and as a team, like, very successful summer, but that kinda got me. It's, like, that door to door stuff. You can make multiple six figures knocking doors in a few months, and most people don't really know that. But it if you're good at it, so from there, Now you're working for a company, but it's 1099, 100% commission.
Even all your recruits and your it's here's what you're gonna make recruit people, but only if you recruit people and only if that recruit sales, a 100% override based. So you're an entrepreneur. Right? You're running your own pay skills and your own programs and incentives within that other company, and it's a 100% based on commission. So you get that I don't know, that grit and that grind Oh, yeah. That comes with it.
So after I did that for 2 years and then I did security sales, smart home sales for 2 years, and then 2019, I moved to sa no. Sacramento to do solar. I'm like, hey. I'm gonna give this solar thing a shot. And if we like it, Let's try working for a full year because I was only working 4 or 5 months of the year. So we did it. We loved it. Solar was way better than the other things. We're great, but solar is just awesome. She's like, if we're gonna do year round, I wanna live in San Diego.
So I was like, done. So we moved to San Diego and started a solar company, and it was pretty short lived. Started, like, we had our first accrue. It was me and my brother January of 2020. So right before COVID hit, and then we ended up selling it June of 2021. So we only had it for 18 months. But that's that was being a sales manager with a 100% commission based and everything. I got me in the mindset. Then I teamed up with my brother who's thirteen years older than me.
A lot more experience in business. So I I was lucky to learn from him. Yeah. What that's an incredible that you would have that many points, that many cities, but all it really is, and you said you just threw yourself out there door to door. It's like cold calls. Yeah. Bro. Put your hair on your chest. Figure some stuff out, get your face kicked in. Yep. And you realize that you're still living. You're still alive. Yeah. It's not really that bad. I've gotten tens of thousands of noes.
And, yeah, I'm I'm here. And 100 of 1000 of dollars. May maybe millions at this point. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely in the millions. Yeah. I think that all of that can be taken into every business that you've got. Now you're trying to build a franchise system, and so there's obviously sales into Chaz. But there's a lot more things that go into building a franchise system as opposed to just a door knock. And I am curious since you're into the realm of this franchise system, what's been the struggle?
Far, sales has obviously not been a struggle. What has been the struggle? Man, the rapid growth of just you don't know what you don't know. Right? Like, we there there's a store opening supposedly this week, and I was just hanging people are like, when's that gonna open? You've been telling us every week for the last few weeks. I was like, yeah. That's because that's what they're telling me. We're waiting on one part for the freezer that gets delayed and delayed.
A lot of that just jumping into a new industry and not knowing industry standards, like, sales. It's like, I'm gonna I'm gonna sell this alarm account. And as I'm walking out of this door, the technician, you're high fiving the technician, and he's on his way in to install it. That was the handoff with these other cells. And construction and all of this, it's a different world. Yeah. It's just a lot more complex.
So trying to predict all those complexities and what we've been doing to mitigate some of those. We opened up a store, our first franchise, 2 months ago, and then we didn't open up anything else for a month. And then we opened up another store, and then we get in a few weeks, and we're opening another 2 this week. And I and then 1 next week, I think. So trying to pace a little bit slower and know it's go shit's gonna hit the fan. We just need to have time to to be able to adjust.
Yeah. Yeah. 100%. What what have you found? This is more so for just kicks and giggles here. I'm curious to know what's the timeline from getting started on construction to build out? And are you seeing if that's, like, once that's been, like, systemized, that that'll go pretty smooth, or is still in the figuring it out stage, give us a little information there. After the first one, even in the second one, was a lot quicker. And they these other ones have been going a lot quicker.
The build out once you have your permits and, like, you start construction 60 to 90 days, it's pretty quick. These are small little stores. Very simple to to get up and going. That first one was closer to that 90 days. And then once we opened it, it was like, oh, we didn't think of that. Oh, we forgot to think of that because we've never addressed that issue before. Exactly. Yeah. You're building the systems as you go. What would you say to a person listening today?
They're not obviously building a franchise system, but what you just talked about is take an action. And through the process of taking action, I'm realizing that, oh, I do this thing all the time. Or, oh, this is gonna happen, but I didn't think about you're creating the system as you're good. Like, you're building the ship at sea, as they say. What would you say to the person listening right now who's not at the 7 figure mark?
But that's really what they're doing is that they're in the process grinding it out. They're doing the marketing. They're doing the sales. They're doing the fulfillment. They're doing the finance, and they're not necessarily creating systems. How would you suggest that they do that? The midst of all that. You're going to make mistakes. Everybody's making mistakes. The key to somebody successful and not is how many times are you making the same mistake? You should only make it once.
And then not only you should only make it way once your organization only needs to make it once. So I can't make a mistake. Not communicate that to the team, and then the team makes the same mistake. So the systems are beyond important to make sure that you are fixing all of that. I have a few different ways. We we do finance meeting a week. And I hire CEO as Wolfe. And then plus have a partner. So we have a meeting with all of us.
We have a marketing meeting, and I just keep running notes and just my iPhone notes. Right? And it's these are all the things that I'm gonna go over per meeting rather than just showing up to the meeting. Oh, what do I remember at that time? So coming to all of those meetings, like, hey, you guys, I solve this problem. Make sure it never happens again. And then I expect them to do the same thing. Anyways, that that's, I guess, one answer, another answer that just came.
Company policy, one of our company policy is if you have an issue, if you have a problem, you have to write that problem out and define it and then come to me or whoever you're porting to with 2 to 3 solutions. So it gets them already thinking and them used to. I'm gonna write it down and then I'm gonna write down a few responses and then I'm gonna come to that you know, come with that to Bennett or something, and then we're gonna work out a solution together.
So it's training them to get in that mindset, and it's really just writing down because, man, especially coming from the sales world. Like, salespeople are not that organized, typically. It's like, I wanna knock a door and rather than go back I forgot to get the credit card information or that. I'm just gonna go knock the next door because that's easier. So get Which is crazy to think about how that would be easier. But Yeah. No. It's We're dumb, but we do it.
Like, we don't follow-up with anybody a lot. We're always waiting for the next one. And so just writing everything down and having a system and then training your employees to do the same. Yeah. That's huge. K. What would you say has been a good decision that you've made? I mean, it can be in your entire business career, but you can think of one in the last 18 months while you've been building this, that'd be great. Well, just a good decision that you can think of the moment in time.
Boom. I did this. It worked out great for me. The I did a startup course. Based on you talk right right after I sold my solar company. I'm like, what's the startup course gonna teach me? I just built and sold the company in 18 months. Literally didn't know anything. So that just jumping into Chaz, I'm doing it anyway. That changed my whole business of Okay. Going and learning from somebody who haven't done it.
Like, the guy who was giving this course He started a company, and then they went public and it was valued at 30 plus 1,000,000,000 at its peak. So, like, to learn from a guy like that versus myself, but selling a little solar company, like, that was just a huge difference, and that was probably in September of last year. And that really got me going. We took him on as our senior advisor in this building and advisory board. Anyway, that's best thing that I feel like I've done in the last year.
Was go to that course and then take action on what I was taught. I was gonna say the action piece obviously goes along with it. And so what I'm hearing you say surrounding yourself with guys like that and advisory boards, board of sorts that you've started to build, is gonna continue what decision you placed in that moment because you learned some things.
You took some action on it, but now you have access to him or other people, of course, that are gonna continue to get you out of your own way, it sounds like. Yep. Okay. What about a bad decision? What have you done that's just been like? Hires. Okay. I'm overly optimistic. Sure. And overly trusting. So if anybody's gonna tell me something, like, I'm not gonna well, I'm just gonna take your word for it, hire you on, and I'm like, wait a second. You don't know how to build projections.
Like, you don't know how to use formulas and Excel. No. So we've hit some roadblocks with me personally, and I know this. And I don't love managing because I'm not a good manager. I don't like the hiring and all of that. I've made a lot of bad decisions, and to fix those. I hired a CEO in December. So she's been way she's way more experienced than me, way better. And then now she does all of that because I saw at it. Yeah. 100%. Okay. Was there this recognition in the moment of, oh, crap.
I suck at this. I need to find somebody, or was it I suck at this? And then later, it was the solution is I need to find somebody. Like, how did that come into your brain as far as a solution? So I've known that I suck at it for a while for years. I'm like, I don't wanna manage. I'm gonna hire a manager because the else is gonna be able to do it better than me. It was really just when I jumped into food, I've never been in food, never been in a franchising, but yet I had this big vision.
So it's I can take the years years to figure it out, or I can go find people that have been there, done that. And the lady that I hired, she had her franchise. She started in 83 It was called Maui Huawei smoothies and coffee. Okay. She ran it for 35 years, grew it to just under seven hundred locations before selling it. So I was like, oh, if you've done that for your company, and then she did it for another company as Wolfe.
She was only with them for a few years, but one, a concept to franchising them to 90 plus locations. I'm like, yeah. Let's bring you on. That's definitely been the key is just finding the people that have been there, done Chaz. Hiring to where we want to be rather than where we're at. That's definitely been the strategy rather than taking the, hey. I don't have 5 years to go learn all this. I'm just gonna hire people that already are more skilled than myself.
What would you I agree with you on all these pieces. What would you say to the listener right now who's thinking, I don't have money to hire that person or does that person exist for me? Why wouldn't they just run their own business? All these concerns, really, that we have or maybe excuses? Of reason why we're not looking for that counterpart that's visionary integrator type partnership. What would you say to that person listening right now?
People always ask me how to hire people because that's I'm very big into working on your business rather than in your business, so you shouldn't have any day to day tasks. Really as a business owner. Like, even that needs to be someone else and then you bill in where you see is fit. So people always pay do I hire somebody? I can't get somebody. I'm like, we put it on an ad. Have you interviewed people?
And they're like, no. People, like, reached out to me on Instagram and they were interested in working, but I didn't know if they were right fit. And I was like, Did you put out an ad though? Put out a free ad. What are you looking for? What are the job tasks that you need them to do? Do you have any minimum skill requirements What's the pay range? Throw it out there and you get so many good applicants because I was the same thing. I was like, why do you find somebody like that.
Like, I felt like I had to know somebody, like, or know somebody that knows somebody. So I'll just throw out an ad, and you Chaz find good people. You just need to get better at interviewing. That's one thing that I need to do, but that's where I'd say we start. As far as the finances to do it, I I I don't know if there's gonna be I'll I'll tell you my story.
Yeah. I don't know if it's gonna be super relatable, but one I had some capital running into it, but the company had no money when we hired her. This was in December. This was the month that we franchise So the first one, we started selling franchises. And what I told myself was she could run this company better than me. Like, even if I step out a 100% She's gonna run this company better than me.
So can I step out a 100% if needs be and go sell some solar accounts door to door to pay for her salary? And that's why I told myself. Never had to do that, but that's if you have the right person, what are you willing to do? And I was willing to go knock doors again. Like, I'll I'll go knock doors for a few months, and I'll pay for a salary in the meantime. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's such good mentality. I don't like you said, you haven't had to.
And, really, you could probably go sell some franchises. Inside the core business that would probably pay for her seller as well. That that's what we ended up doing, but it was like, if for whatever reason we can't close deals, like, I'm just gonna knock some doors. Yeah. Yeah. Because you were just going back to your the most baseline confidence of, okay, I know I could at least do this.
Yep. And and I also like what you said as far as, like, you're willing because you basically delineated your decision down to, okay. I either do it myself, which I know I'm not very good at, and I'm gonna get it done because I'm persistent. I'm obviously a business. Like, I'm gonna get it done. But if I hire her, it'll get done faster and probably better. And then in the meantime, what do I need to do? I well, I just need to cover her salary. That's it.
Yep. And what's the smallest, easiest most delineated down thought on how I could do that, go knock doors, or whatever it is for the person listening. I think it's incredible advice mindset wise. Of course, if you had to do it, I'm sure you would have. Oh, no. I I for I for sure would have. And the other thing is, like, how do you you have to pay someone like that and it's, oh, you look. They wanted a good salary, but they, it's not like you're giving a sign on bonus.
It's like, you how much value are you gonna get from them in the 1st 2 to 3 months? And how are you going to then increase your revenue? Like, exactly what you just said. Goes out some franchise. And that's what I Am I gonna sell more franchises with myself with no experience at the head of the company or with somebody with lots of experience that has done this multiple times hundreds of times as far as selling franchises.
So it was I didn't need to pay a multiple 6 figure salary today I needed to pay few grand a month why we ramped up sales, and it ramped up really quick. If you had not been good at sales, but you were maybe good operational, Would the same have been true? You just needed to hire a good salesperson? Oh, for sure. Yeah. Definitely a big believer in to what you're good at. And hire people to do everything else.
You should have a basic understanding of everything, but at a surface level, basic understanding If you try to do everything yourself, it just doesn't. I mean, you can't how do you scale yourself? You only have so many hours in a day. Right. Yep. Exactly. Would you say to the person right now who they they're in too many sections of the business. So, like, they had gone down the road that you didn't. Right? They Yep. They went ahead and put the CEO hat on. They put the sales hat on.
They're on they're in all these hats. How does that person best get to where you are now. They need to undo some things. They need to do some new things. What do you think? Yes. So the e myth revisited is an amazing business book and go read that. And if you're lazy, go type it in YouTube and watch the 10 minute summary at least, but I do that right now because that'll change your business. And the the premise of it is what is my business gonna look like in in 2, 3, 5 years from now?
And then you bill out your organization charge. So I do have a CEO and a CFO and a marketing manager and a sales manager and a sales rep. Right? And then it's, okay, where do I and I am all of those. Right? It's just me when you start a business, typically just you, or, like, when I did it with my solar company, that's how we were able to sell it so fast. Like, day 1, my brother taught me this, and it was a stupid activity.
In my opinion, it's like, why are we building this out just to put our names in all of this? Like, this is silly. And then so for the solar business, it's I started as a sales rep. And I started as a sales rep, the sales manager. Right. Every end, the VP of sales, and the CFO, and whatever, was doing all of the and the bookkeeper. Like, I was my hat was in all of that where my picture was in the org chart.
Well, I started with the sales rep, the lowest and then you build out all your standard operating procedures. This is the sales rep. This is the hours that they work. This is the commissions that they're going to get. This is the training that they go through. This is the pitch they're gonna use on the door. Then once you have that built out, boom, you hire your first salesperson. And then that promoted me to a manager. Okay. What does the manager do?
I hate being a manager, but I know how to be a manager. Okay. The this is the override structures for the manager. This is how they're gonna do incentives. How they get people to meetings. This is the training format that they're gonna use. This is how often do training. What type of trainings. Right? Okay, boom. I built that out. Now I'm in a higher manager or promote my salesperson to a manager and Chaz as I hire more salespeople, then that promoted me to the VP of ops.
So full circle is that's natural. Focus on one position at a time, build out the system, and then plug somebody else in, and then boom, go work on the next part, and then go work on the next section. Then go, I cheated a little bit with dirty dough because I didn't figure out how to have just still never I've never mixed cookies. Like, I don't know how to bake or anything. I just hired somebody to do Chaz.
And I feel like I need to understand how it was done, but I also didn't feel like not everything you have to build out yourself a mixture of the 2. Replacing myself position and position. I've done that, but I'm also sometimes taking the shortcut and just hiring somebody out. Yeah. And I think that that what you're saying, it makes perfect sense. It's not that before isn't the shortcut. It's just that you probably didn't have as much capital then.
As you do now, and you didn't know then what you know now. And so now it's okay if I can find someone who knows how to do this, they can build the SOP, the system, and then I can build a team around them. Yep. Where before it was, I don't know. So let me start doing it. Let me then create the SOP. Let me then be able to move myself out of the everything that you just described.
So you're doing the same thing, but you just now you understand the flow, and so you don't have to actually be the one moving through the bubbles especially since you have the capital, you can just put people there. What's the, I wanna say, run rate or what's, like, you're obviously willing to spend money now to make this go a little faster. But all it all that money for you now, all it's really doing is just speeding up, filling the bubbles. And so just like you just said, you hire it.
You you wrote out the CEO bubble, and then you filled it. But then what that did for you is it probably in your brain. It just like, I know when I hand things off to her, things are great, and so then now I can focus over here. So it enabled you to give more of attention to that other spot. Like, I'm trying to set you up here to give us some more information. Yeah. That mean, what do I do? Is that what you're asking? Yeah. No. No. So, like, what are your tasks now?
But what's you obviously have a a game plan. Right? Like, you have a game plan. You've got the bubbles, you know, your org chart out. And you've already filled some of them, but what's the trajectory? Is it 700 units? Is it, like, what does it look like in a year? Just give us a little bit what this where you're going with all Yeah. A a 1000 units at the end of 2026 is what we want open with a 1000 wellness center.
So a wellness center is a k through 12 it's converting an old classroom into a spot that kids can proactively work on mental health, not to be a safe space to escape life because I'm not a believer in that. I'm a believer that life's gonna kick your teeth in, but how about figure out what to do when that happens proactively? So that's the big goal. I'm on this podcast right now, and I have a another handful later today and another handful tomorrow.
And I'm I can reach more people on this podcast than I could baking cookies. Right? Like, the this is gonna be a bigger impact on my company. So I've freed up my time And my goal and I've reached that goal, but it's I'm not responsible for sales. I'm not responsible for operations. I'm not responsible for opening up stores. I'm not responsible for construction. I don't have any direct responsibilities that fall on me and only me. It's just I'm overseeing and helping anybody who needs help.
And then doing the big vision stuff that I can really get my name out. Like, I've been working on social media a lot because, man, you could post and you get a 100,000 views on that post. And I need to build up that even more because I can see that's gonna take me a lot further than managing a store here in Utah. Yeah. 100%. Yeah. People need to know Bennett. Yeah. Okay. Great. Let's transition here to the speed round. I'm a come at you in a in a little different direction.
I love a different angle, maybe. I want you to take this cookie business, and I want you to dwindle it down to one trackable metric. If you can only pick 1, what would it be? Man, profitability. So that's not my goal. Right? My goal, I just told you, it's the mental health. That's primary. And number 2 is allowing more entrepreneurs, more people to be entrepreneurs. Sure. Why am I doing cookies? Because it's profitable, and I can't achieve either of those unless it's a profitable model.
So that's what everything is built up around. You were asking me for, what am I willing to invest? But that's what in my opinion is realistic over decades, and that's what I wanted to build. So anyways, we invested. I we're probably into it. 2,000,000 of what we and we have 2 stores open. Right? Like, it's been a big investment because what we've done is we've taken out all the hard things that a franchisee would have to deal with ordering the raw ingredients, and we've centralized all that.
So now we can get larger discounts. And then we have a few professional bakers that makes hundreds of cookies at a time rather than 60 to 70.
Then rather than weighing them all by hand, we throw it through a machine that's way more accurate, precise, and it gives a more unique cookie So now what I'm setting up my franchisees for is a lower breakeven point, but a much lower breakeven point have the labor that they could run off their store and that's going to give them a more longevity, the potential to have this store just like our CEO. She had her brand for 35 years. And she had people franchisees for 35 years. That's incredible.
So have been rambling. I'm like, what was the question I could ask you? Dude, I'm you've been giving us gold. That's why it feels Oh, the the investment. Yeah. So it it was a very big we're going to invest whatever it takes to make this the most simple franchise model. So that franchisees don't have to deal with, oh, what do I do with my leftover blueberries when the blueberry cookies out of rotation? We throw them away. What do I do with my when my employees don't show up?
So now you have to have a lot half the employees. But what do I do when my employees are balling the dough and it's taking all day? And it's you don't have to deal with any of that. So that's what we've done is we've really invested in that to make it as easy as possible to franchisees. So it's all been front heavy for sure. Yeah. That's incredible.
I think that, I think you're on to something, especially the low barrier to entry, and because there's a lot of people out there that wanna be their own boss, but just a lot that goes into it, especially when you think of a franchise. Yeah. There's a lot things been taken care of for me. That's why I went with the franchise to begin with, but you got a big cost and you got a big labor and all this other stuff that she still gotta figure out inside the system.
And it sounds like you guys are taking take taking some of those things down for your franchisees. I look at it as for you need a if you wanna be an entrepreneur, you need a game plan, you need time, you need money, and you need experience or expertise. So the game plan comes with a franchise. Right? That's what a franchise is. Here's your game plan. We still need money. Now we're building these stores. They're half square footage. You don't need mixers. You don't need all the equipment. Right?
So we're less than half the cost of a competition. So we're greatly reducing the barrier to entry on the money side. Plus there's SBA loans out there specifically for franchises. And then what up the time required? Now you're half managing half the employee. There is no quality control as far as, oh, did you make the dough? Is it fresh? Well, that's all done at a corporate site. So you don't need all the time, which leads to the expertise.
I'd already admitted that I've never made a batch of cookies and neither do any of our franchisees because you don't need to be an expert baker because we've taken that out of their hands. So those are those are my four areas that I see that you needed to have to become an entrepreneur and how we're tackling them out. Yep. I love it. Okay. What book would you recommend? You've already mentioned the email. Are you gonna stick with that one, or do you have another one?
Maybe do you wanna throw out? We'll put in the for business, I would say E Myth for sure. K. Just in general, I guess, a a sales book never split the difference. It was probably one of my favorite ones. The Wolfe of Wall Street 1 with it. I forgot what that one was called, but Yeah. Both of those are very applicable. Not it's a lot more deeper. So maybe you start with a more general sales book, but those are the ones I'm like, man, like, he's talking about voice inflection on the phone.
That's this is cool. Yeah. I'm trying to sift through my audible because the it's been several years since I've read it, but we'll find it. We'll put it in the show notes. It's a great book as well. I never supposed to be able to listen to that one That's what it's called. There you go. There you go. But, yeah, never split the difference. I actually it's funny. I have a a unique story with that one.
I I Chaz listened to that book maybe once or twice, and then I was in the process of buying my first small apartment complex, and I I relistened to that book on on a drive that I had, like, a 3 hour, 6 hour drive, something like that. So I re listened to the entire thing, like, right before my negotiation. And I used some one liners straight from that book Chaz to get a phenomenal deal on that first apartment complex. It was pretty incredible. I so recommend that.
Okay. What it from a from an operations If you only had 1 hour, maybe you're already here because you've already put in your team in the right place, but if you only had 1 hour each week to successfully run your business, how would you use that 1 week or that 1 hour each week? Just checking KPIs probably with each of the department heads.
So, like, we have a killer guy over production, over logistics, and then obviously our CEO, it would just end in the marketing team and the finance team would say, this is where you're supposed to be. Are you there and having them be measured against the goals. Typically, and, ideally, that they've set for themselves. Sure. Yep. Love it. K. And last question, Vincent, if you lost it all, what would you do? A good knock.
And, you you'd be listening to me knock on your door and selling you something, dude. It's given me a very big even though it's freaking scary, everything, you're like, what what would happen? But it's like, I can go work for any company on a 100% commission base, and I can make multiple 6 figures with any company because the skill of this and the profession of cells that I've acquired.
Anyways, any anytime you can go to companies, they don't pay me unless you make money, and, man, it's not a big, bad gig to have, especially when you're so confident that you're gonna sell whatever you need to sell. You know, obviously, you need to find a great product, a great company that you believe in, but that gives me a lot of Chaz that's what I'd be doing. I'd be knocking doors.
Do you think that gives you a lot of runway in today's world the confidence to make risky decisions knowing that if I did lose it all, then plan b is it's already something I've already done. I've already conquered. I've already been successful. Yeah. Oh, 100%. That I would have hired our CEO unless I knew that I could go knock doors and pay for her salary because it would have been too scared. What do I do?
What if I hire and we don't the franchise sales don't pick up, then what I do with let go? Do I let her go and let's know I'm gonna go knock freaking doors. So it's allowed me to make way more risk decisions and given me the capital to be able to invest in better teams and everything. So it's been a bit of a big blessing that the summer sells bros. That's what they're called They're like, dude, come out and sell. Make a lot of money, drive a Corvette. The dream. The dream became real.
For a minute. It's a stereotype here in in Utah for sure. The summer sells bros. That's a hey. That's okay. And I think I there's a lot of the things that young kids can be doing in the summers. That could be way worse than learning skill set that could literally change their life as you've already described. Bennett, how can someone find you? The listener connect with you. Maybe they're interested in the brand. They wanna buy 1. They wanna I don't know. How can they find you?
Yeah. Ben@maxwell.com, b e n e t. The ma x w e l l. So there you can there there's a link to the website, dirtydohcookies.com as well to inquire about franchising and, like, a little podcast kinda intro to learn a little bit more, but I I try to put out content on social media daily, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, all of that. And then on that website, you can follow me on all those links Wolfe. We'll put them all in the show notes as well. You've been incredible here today.
Thank you for giving, back to other entrepreneurs and making a way for new entrepreneurs who wanna have low cost to entry Chaz well as a plan and, expertise. You're all these things you're given to them right away. So we just so appreciate everything you're doing in the market. Thanks for being here. Appreciate it. Thanks for listening to Gathering the Kings. We hope you got a ton of value today and learned a thing or 2 about taking your business to 7 figures and beyond.
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