[00:00:00] Speaker A: One, you can't need the money. And two, you have to be passionate about it.
[00:00:03] Speaker B: If I can do this for family, why can't I do this for strangers?
[00:00:08] Speaker C: There is no block. There are so many things to do.
[00:00:11] Speaker D: I'm Richard Gerhart.
[00:00:12] Speaker E: And I'm Elizabeth Gerhardt. You've just heard some snippets from our show. Do you want to know more about starting your business? Stay tuned.
[00:00:20] Speaker A: Ramping up your business. The time is near.
[00:00:23] Speaker B: You've given it heart, now get it in gear.
[00:00:26] Speaker D: It's passage to profit with Richard and Elizabeth Gearharthe. I'm Richard Gerhardt, founder of Gearhart Law, a full service intellectual property law firm specializing in patents, trademarks and copyrights.
[00:00:38] Speaker E: And I'm Elizabeth Gerhart. Not an attorney, but I do marketing for Gearhart Law, and I have my own startups and podcasts.
[00:00:45] Speaker D: Are you one of the two in five Americans wanting to start your own business or already a business owner? Stay tuned. This show is about starting and growing your business. Welcome to passage to the road to entrepreneurship, where we learn why and how ordinary people, just like you, started and grew their businesses. And we also talk about the intellectual property that helps protect your innovations. We have Tom and Tara Gollop, owners of Beverly Hills toy, share a chocolate shop. And you may recognize Tom from some of his tv and movie appearances.
[00:01:17] Speaker E: And after that, we have Michael Harvey. Do not put a new roof on your house until you talk to Mike or look at his website. I'm not kidding. And then Llewellyn Gannon Munsing. She is a poethen photographer. She has a couple videos on YouTube we're going to talk about. That blew my mind. So please stay tuned for that.
[00:01:34] Speaker D: But before we get to our guests, it's time for your new business journey. Two in five Americans want to start one. And so we want to find out from our guests today about their business journeys. So the question that we're going to ask is, what was your biggest business mistake and how do you fix it? We're going to go to the Gallups first. Tom, welcome to the show. Tell us about your biggest business mistake.
[00:02:00] Speaker A: Oh, you know, I would say that for us starting our chocolate shop, it's so important to know that you got the right seats on the bus filled. And that starts with your architect, and it starts with those people that are going to help you get through planning. And it helps with logistics and just making sure that you've got good teachers, good people who have been there before, done that and can walk you through. And we unfortunately, it was a tough mistake, but we hired someone who we thought was a licensed architect.
[00:02:34] Speaker F: Did you think he was a licensed architect?
[00:02:36] Speaker A: I did, sweetheart.
[00:02:37] Speaker F: Okay.
[00:02:39] Speaker A: We drew plans up, and let's just say that we lost probably a month.
[00:02:44] Speaker F: It was valuable time because our business, we wanted to be open in time for Christmas, a huge chocolate holiday. It's the biggest time of the year for most retailers, but particularly for chocolate. And time sensitive is like an understatement. And the city of being in the city of Beverly Hills is where we're located. It's quite a labyrinth to get everything permitted and approved up.
[00:03:05] Speaker A: The code.
[00:03:06] Speaker F: Yeah.
[00:03:06] Speaker D: So what does he screw up?
[00:03:08] Speaker A: For instance, one of the things it's really important in our shop to have the plumbing. Plumbing has to be, you know, you've got to have a three compartment sink. Health department inspectors are always coming through. And so I think in an effort to try to maybe cut corners, instead of having an actual wall to separate the front of house from the back of house, he had kind of designed almost like a giant armoire where the plumbing was going to go through that, and we were going to be able to save money and cut corners. It was going to be aesthetically pleasing. And at the end of the day, it was, you know, I think the city looked at us and said, what are you guys doing?
[00:03:44] Speaker F: What are you trying to pull here?
[00:03:45] Speaker A: So that was a bit of a hiccup, and it somewhat costly, but I will say, going forward from there, we found the guy. We found the guy.
[00:03:53] Speaker F: The guy who just knew the right people to talk to and exactly how to get it done. And we were open by Thanksgiving.
[00:04:00] Speaker A: Yeah. And we got a contractor. He's still, to this day, a very good friend of ours, but he was tireless. It was almost like he was opening his chocolate shop because he would work till 10:00 at night.
[00:04:10] Speaker F: Amazing.
[00:04:11] Speaker A: Yeah, he was really fantastic. So that's why I talk about the right seats on the bus. Knowing that you've got people that kind of share your vision is so crucial.
[00:04:19] Speaker F: And people like, especially in a food situation, people who know what the codes are and even, like, even the lighting had, the city has very specific details about your lighting. And if somebody doesn't know that, it can set you way back.
[00:04:32] Speaker A: So I guess that the lesson learned is don't hire a friend, hire a professional.
[00:04:36] Speaker D: There you go. Well, that's great. And like you said, the moral of the story is getting the right persons to do the right things. That's, you know, so important. Mike, tell us about your biggest business. Mistake and how you fixed it.
[00:04:49] Speaker B: Well, it's very similar to Tom and Tara. It comes back to people, and it's really picking the right people. When we started to franchise, we had so many people coming to us organically that were wanting to franchise. And the vetting process is so very important to get the right people, and it takes time. And so you've got people coming at you and throwing 50, $60,000 at you. While money's great, there's assumptions that, hey, they see the business, they know what it is, they've done their due diligence, and, hey, this person is going to do it the way that you did it. And so we had to really hit the pause button towards the end of 2023 and recalibrate our whole vetting process. And so that probably took us about a month to do and different types of tests that we have, as well as more questionnaires and then getting to know them more. I just. Getting to know the person is so very important, and because it is a seat on your bus, but for ten years, you're getting married, in a way, in franchising for a long time.
[00:05:56] Speaker D: You know, I really have to pick up on something you said there, because there's so much truth into getting to know the person that you're hiring. You can't really get to know them like you've known somebody for five years, but getting to know them as much as you can before you make a commitment to them is so important. And I can say a lot of the mistakes that I've made personally has been being too hasty in hiring somebody and maybe being too trusting. And it sounds to me like one of the things that you did was you really didn't get to know some of the people that you were working with. So now I'm very cautious about hiring people. You know, I hire slowly, and I make sure I get to know them before I make a final commitment.
[00:06:37] Speaker E: I don't know if any of you ever read any of the books about McDonald's and how the McDonald's franchise started, but it's really funny because he gave one of the first ones to one of his friends, and the guy would not do what he told him to do. He did it his own way. So that guy only ever got one franchise while other people got, like, ten or 20 franchises and got rich. So, yeah, it's a little bit of both, right?
[00:06:56] Speaker D: Yeah. Llewellyn, welcome to the show. Tell us about your biggest business mistake and how you fixed it.
[00:07:03] Speaker C: Our biggest business mistake was so big we really couldn't fix it.
So I guess I would caution anybody starting a business not to expand too quickly because we saw we had an opportunity to grow our space larger and to take on this more space. What we were doing wasn't where it was projected to be yet, but it was definitely moving in that direction and all was well. So when this other space opened up, that was going to cost us more than we could afford. If it wasn't going to start producing quickly, then, you know, so we went for it because we didn't want to miss out on this, but we were paying like 20,000 extra dollars a month for two years when we tried to permit the space. There's just so much to be learned about, like not pushing yourself beyond where you're ready to go and knowing where that is.
[00:07:54] Speaker D: It's really kind of about taking business risks. Right? Because at the time you made the decision, you probably projected that this space was going to be the right size and you were growing at a rate where it probably made sense. You probably got cheaper space because you were able to negotiate a longer term term deal on a larger place. But if everything doesn't keep up like you project, then you were either a business genius or it was a business mistake.
[00:08:22] Speaker E: So, Elizabeth, I think I did something really dumb. So I had wanted to do this website, I'm still working on it. It's a directory website and I had actually done it myself with this one piece of software and this one theme and kind of dug into websites a little bit. But I think my biggest mistake, I'm redoing it now was not knowing enough about websites and how they really work and how they're really put together and what's possible. So now I'm going back and watching videos and reeducating myself just on WordPress, because most people do their websites on WordPress. So I'm trying to really learn WordPress and how everything fits together and works because I have somebody working on a website and I don't know how to talk to him and what to expect, but watch out.
[00:09:03] Speaker D: So I have made so many mistakes, I can't even count them all right? But the one that I think is most instructive is I hired a COO, which is a chief operating officer. And it was one of those situations where he sounded really good and I fell for his line, hook, line and sinker. And it turned out he didn't really know what he was talking about, but he was able to b's his way with me for six months. We ended up going through a software transition that he recommended. He hired the person who was supposed to do it, recommended the software, and it was a complete and total disaster. We have an intellectual property law firm where we rely on deadlines and we have a lot of invoices to be sent out on a monthly basis. We didn't send out any invoices for two and a half months. Well, we weren't getting paid and I was losing sleep. Most of this gray hair I didn't have before that experience. Now its very gray. So I think that we eventually we did find somebody. It ended up costing us hundreds of thousands of dollars, close to $200,000 to get this person to fix everything. And everythings fine now. Everythings working great, knock on wood. But looking back at it, I just wish id been a lot more careful. So now im like scared to hire.
[00:10:28] Speaker A: It sounds a little bit like the takeaway from all of this is vet out your future employees and vendors, even if you feel like you've got a good take. It's like, oh, I can read people. They seem like they can do the job. It's like there's a reason that employers ask for references really come out, because it's going to save you in the long run.
[00:10:47] Speaker D: I think you nailed it, Tom. I think that is a great takeaway.
[00:10:50] Speaker E: Especially if they're on upwork, Viber or one of those gig economy places. They're on there for a reason. Some of them are really good and some aren't so good.
[00:10:59] Speaker D: I once had somebody tell me that hiring, you never really know what's going to happen. You can hire people that have great resumes and they'll be a disaster, or you can hire people you're not really sure about, but they turn out to be superstars. So I guess the moral of the story is make sure you vet the people that you hire. And now it's time for our distinguished guests, Tom and Tara Gollup, owners of Beverly Hills toy shirt, a chocolate shop. Tom is an accomplished actor. He's been in lots of stuff that you've probably seen, like the Bourne series of movies and Will and grace and the X Files, and we love all that stuff. So thank you very much for your great work there and his charming wife Tara. Together they have a podcast. It's called for love and chocolate. And they have this amazing chocolate shop in Beverly Hills, and they're really just the nicest, sweetest couple, and they're bringing a lot of romance back into our lives. So welcome to the show. Tell us why a chocolate shop.
[00:12:03] Speaker A: Well, thank you again, guys, for having us on and why a chocolate chop is a great question. And I'm going to defer to my wife on this one because this is all her doing. Honestly, I'm just. I'm like Robin in the Batmobile. I'm just walking for the.
[00:12:19] Speaker F: Well, yeah, that's not exactly true. He's not always open to my ideas, but when I have a good one and he knows it's a good one, he makes it happen. He is amazing that way. As you mentioned, he's an actor, you know, and with actors, sometimes they work and sometimes they don't. We thought, well, wouldn't it be fun to have a little business together? We were looking for about a year. We looked at all these different meetings, we thought about all these different things, and then this just fell from the heavens. My middle daughter was working at the toyshear chocolate shop in Beverly Hills. Been there for 40 years. And the family decided to go a different direction. Make their own chocolates. Who were running them? Well, let me just say, these chocolate shops are franchises out of Switzerland. The chocolate's all made there.
[00:12:58] Speaker A: There are eleven in the world.
[00:12:59] Speaker F: We fly the chocolate in on Lufthansa Airlines. People are emotionally attached to this chocolate, not to mention all the Europeans who live in Beverly Hills or in the area. Like, they have to have good chocolate because it's just amazing. So anyways, this opportunity just fell into our laps and I really pushed him to do it. But man, he took the ball and ran with it. It was just meant to be.
[00:13:20] Speaker A: The franchisee was actually across the street in Beverly Hills from where we are now. And she ran it for 36 years. And then she retired and left it to her adult sons. And they got this idea that they could do it better. They didn't want to pay the export fees.
[00:13:35] Speaker F: I think they just really wanted something they could mass produce more easily.
[00:13:39] Speaker A: But it's literally like if someone were to wake up out of a dream and think, you know what? The wheel. I can do better. I'm going to reinvent the wheel.
[00:13:48] Speaker E: I have to ask you guys about this, though. I went on your website. Oh my gosh, the packaging. We need to talk about that packaging that is beyond anything I've seen from any chocolate company.
[00:14:00] Speaker F: We have a lot of different choices for packaging. And they're all extraordinary, and they're all designed by this man named Felix Dateweiler, who's been working for Mister Teutscher in Zurich since 1961. And he is just such a creative man. And so we have gorgeous floral boxes. And so it's a gorgeous floral on a box. And then we put whatever chocolates inside you choose, and we have them down from one piece up to like a pound and a half. They're amazing. Then we have the little character boxes and it's reminiscent of the small world at Disneyland, right? They look like that. And they hold chocolates inside and they're all like these little paper and silk and ribbon. Everything's handmade in the factory and we import it. Even the coffee we serve is from Mister Toyscher's factory. We're strictly an import business.
[00:14:45] Speaker A: He is the real life Willy Wonka.
[00:14:46] Speaker F: He's in his eighties, and his father started the factory before he was born. So he's literally done nothing his whole life but chocolate.
[00:14:53] Speaker E: So can you ship those across country? I mean, I know it's real.
[00:14:57] Speaker A: You can't imagine. Just to give you an idea, in the business, I'm the shipping magnet, so to speak. And so over the holidays in December, I sent out 863 boxes of chocolate. So the long answer is yes. We ship all over the country in.
[00:15:12] Speaker E: A refrigerated truck because it's like 90 degrees here.
[00:15:15] Speaker A: I put it in a thermal bag. Ice packs.
[00:15:17] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:15:17] Speaker E: We want to give it to our granddaughter.
[00:15:19] Speaker F: Oh, no.
[00:15:19] Speaker D: Where is she?
[00:15:20] Speaker E: She's in Maryland.
[00:15:21] Speaker D: Okay. We're here to talk about business. I wanted to ask, are you making any money or are you eating all the profits?
[00:15:27] Speaker F: It's a little of both.
[00:15:30] Speaker A: Yes. We get high on our own supply that does. That does.
But it's, you know what? When I first spoke to the franchisee in La Jolla, lovely woman. She's a Swiss American. Karen Bacon is her name. And when I was just kind of trying to figure out if this something we really wanted to go for, she had two conditions by which this would be successful. She said, one, you can't need the money. And two, you have to be passionate about it. If you're passionate about it, the money will come. If you're doing it for the money, you're doing it for the wrong reasons. Because it's not a get rich quick scheme at all. It's a lifestyle choice. We ride our bike store, chocolate shop every day. Right? It's not the worst way to go. It's a lifestyle. We've gotten down to where we can work three days a week during the summer, and then during December, we work nine days a week. So it all balances out.
[00:16:20] Speaker F: And the golden triangle of Beverly Hills is just. It's a real community, you know, like we're one block west of Rodeo Drive. And all the little shopkeepers and owners know each other. And it's just, it's like a little family in Beverly Hills amongst the shopkeepers, isn't it? The little village here? And we are the best chocolates. And although it's funny, it is known in some corners as the chocolate triangle because there's so many chocolate stores in Beverly hills. But it's widely recognized that our chocolate is far superior.
[00:16:46] Speaker E: Spell the name quickly.
[00:16:48] Speaker F: Yes, it's T e u S c h e r. It's the family name of the chocolatier in Zurich.
[00:16:56] Speaker A: And the way to remember it is it's called Toyscher. So, want a toy? Sure.
[00:17:00] Speaker F: That's how you pronounce it.
We're right next door to William Morris.
[00:17:05] Speaker A: Kind of a funny story. This was a few years ago. Adam Sandler. Adam came in and bought some chocolates for his daughter. He couldn't have been nicer.
[00:17:12] Speaker F: He couldn't have been nicer. They were very sweet. No, we do. We get a lot of celebrities. We have, like the studios will call us to send gifts.
[00:17:18] Speaker D: Tom and Tara Gollop, owners of Beverly Hills toy share. What is your favorite chocolate?
[00:17:24] Speaker F: Oh, the champagne truffle is what we're famous for. It's about 80% of what we sell. And it is the only truffle in the world made with Dom. Pairing yarn to we are told it was discovered in a dream. So Dolph Teutcher Sr. It was one of the hottest summers on record in the 1940s, back in Switzerland. And he was having a heck of a time. His chocolates were melting all over the place. And we think he maybe had a little too much bubbly before bed. And he had this very lucid dream, and he woke up with this amazing recipe in his mind to make a champagne truffle. It was the first time that anyone had ever made a champagne truffle. And to this day, it's still the only one made with Dom Perignon.
[00:18:03] Speaker A: Yeah. And in fact, there are only two people in the world that know the recipe. Mister Teutscher Junior, who's 84, and the, I guess the lead chocolatier. And they never fly together.
[00:18:13] Speaker F: People use it for their weddings, their anniversaries, Valentine's Day. There's a line around the block that's extraordinarily romantic.
[00:18:19] Speaker D: This truffle sounds amazing. We have to take commercial break passage to profit with Richard and Elizabeth Gerhart. Our very special guests today. Tom and Tara Gallup will be back with more right after this.
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[00:20:33] Speaker D: Again, Richard and Elizabeth Gearhart and our.
[00:20:36] Speaker E: Special guest, Tom and Tara Gallup, all the way from Beverly Hills. And boy, have they got a podcast for you guys. Tell us about your podcast.
[00:20:44] Speaker A: Our podcast is called for love and chocolate, and this was the brainchild of my wife, misses truffles. We're known as Mister and misses truffles.
[00:20:56] Speaker D: Sounds like something out of a children's book.
[00:20:58] Speaker A: I don't know.
And so just a little background. I don't know if you guys have seen broadcast news, but there's a scene where Holly Hunter is talking to the head of the news division and she's just a know it all. And he says, it must be terrible. It must be hard knowing that every time you're with a group of people, you're the smartest person in the room. And she says, yeah, it's awful. And I feel like, that's my wife. She's so brilliant.
[00:21:26] Speaker D: I know the feeling.
[00:21:27] Speaker A: I usually come along kicking and screaming with her. And so this has been going on for a year where she said, sweetie, we've got to do a podcast. We've got all these stories, these romantic stories of people that come in and they just, you know, they coming to toy show, whether it's in Zurich or New York or Chicago or Beverly Hills, it's become a fabric of their lives. It's kind of, they mark time with events based on our chocolate. And these stories have to be told. People are falling in love, first dates, all of these things as a gay podcast. Anyway, smash cut to last February, like, right after Valentine's Day, we brought my best friend, Tim Decay, and his wife on the show, who I've known for 30 years. And it was really. It was an experiment. We didn't know how it was going to go. We had so much fun. They had so much fun. They had, in that hour, had created an audio file for their kids to listen to about how they met and fell in love and how they keep love alive. And so now we're 15 episodes in, and we broke the top 50 comedy podcasts on Apple. It's not something we expected. We were doing this.
[00:22:35] Speaker E: I thought this was about love. This is comedy.
[00:22:37] Speaker F: It's both.
[00:22:38] Speaker D: They're intertwined.
[00:22:39] Speaker F: It's a little bit of a variety show, too. We started adding a musical element because Mister Truffles here has a very pretty voice.
[00:22:46] Speaker D: How did you meet?
[00:22:47] Speaker F: How did we meet? We met getting takeout food in Beverly Hills.
[00:22:50] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:22:51] Speaker F: We were both getting a kale salad to go. Well, I was getting a few for myself and some friends, and he was getting one for his daughter. And we were at the honor bar, which is a Houston's restaurant, if you're familiar with that chain. And it was just a really, like, I'd been ten minutes earlier or he'd been ten minutes later.
[00:23:08] Speaker D: It was kismet.
[00:23:09] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:23:09] Speaker D: Then lightning struck.
[00:23:11] Speaker A: I saw Toro was in a little black dress sipping what I thought was champagne out of a champagne flute. And she just looked so beautiful. The light just like, hit her. Felt like I'm that faint Dunaway. And, you know, a screen test the.
[00:23:26] Speaker F: Way you remember this.
[00:23:27] Speaker A: And she was just kind of listening. She was giggling at something I was saying to the manager, and I turned around and I stared at her and I stared a little too long. And she finally said, she said what?
And I said, I have to say I'm a fan. She said, what are you a fan of? I said, I don't know. You're sitting here getting takeout alone, sipping champagne, little black dress. I'm a fan. She said, yeah, it's not champagne, it's sparkling wine. I said, it's sparkling wine because it's not from champagne France.
This kind of fun banter and this little love that keeps percolating every day ever since.
[00:24:06] Speaker F: Yeah, we just keep finding new, fun things to do together. So we opened the chocolate shop. We got two dogs, we have podcasts, and we bought an airstream trailer. So we like to go camping along the beautiful California coast. And it's just, that's part of our inspiration for like, endeavors is just finding things we love to do together.
[00:24:25] Speaker A: Yeah. In fact, we just bought, we invested in a mobile podcast studio. So we've been recording couples on the road.
[00:24:32] Speaker F: We look for couples who have been married, like yourselves, a long time.
[00:24:36] Speaker D: Seems like yesterday, though, for me, we.
[00:24:38] Speaker F: Find out how you met and fell in love, and then we ask for your advice of how to make love last. Because you guys obviously got it right.
[00:24:45] Speaker D: Guys, just do everything your wife wants and it'll last forever.
[00:24:48] Speaker E: It's all very good. One day at a time.
[00:24:52] Speaker A: We also, we end every podcast with a giant moisture swag bag that usually has champagne. It's got our chocolate, and it also has misses Truffle's body butter.
[00:25:04] Speaker F: Oh, yes. This is another little side business. So I make this amazing, like natural body butter that's just been making it for myself for a very long time. And I just started adding it to the gift bags. And now you can buy it in my shop too. It's for leaven chocolate body butter by misses truffles. It's all the best things for your skin. You could order it from our store.
[00:25:24] Speaker A: Yeah. On beverlyhillstoyshire.com, you can get misses truffles body butter.
[00:25:29] Speaker D: Tom and Tara Gollop. Why don't you give us your contact information one more time just to make sure that people have it.
[00:25:35] Speaker A: Our chocolate. You can find our chocolate at Beverly Hills toy shirt. And that's t e udden.
We do ship all over the 48 contiguous United States. And then our podcast can be found on for loveandchocolatepodcast.com. we're on all the streaming services, we're on Spotify, we're on apple, we're on Amazon, and it's a fun romp. And another thing, if you do go to our website, if you listen to a podcast and like it, if you write a question into our mailbag and we use it, we send you toyshare chocolate.
[00:26:07] Speaker D: Sounds amazing. So now it's time for IP in the news, and we have a very interesting patent from none other than Ford Motor Company. It's a patent application, but it's all about monitoring your fellow drivers. So this patent talks about technology that allows your car to monitor the speed of other cars. And if the other cars are going too fast, they get reported to the police.
[00:26:34] Speaker E: Yes. And we found this on car scoops. It was written by Stephen Rivers. Police can then decide whether or not they're going to go after you.
[00:26:42] Speaker D: My first thought was that you're either going to be tagged or all the other cars around you are going to get their information sent to the police. Right? Because who travels the speed limit? I guess some people do. But I'm also a little upset that somebody would think of something like this, because they really are kind of ratting out your fellow drivers.
[00:27:02] Speaker E: Good luck using it on the Garden State Parkway here in New Jersey.
[00:27:05] Speaker D: I wanted to ask our guests what they think about this patent. Mike.
[00:27:08] Speaker B: Well, you know, hearing about it, I'm like, there would be a barrage of reports coming in. There's a lot of people that are Leadfoots. But I also do know that the insurance companies have these little modules that they want you to put in the cars, too, to track all of that data. So it's just kind of like, who's thinking of this? And why are they trying to figure out how to monetize. They think it's a big breach.
[00:27:29] Speaker C: Llewellyn, I would have to say this isn't serving anybody. Like, what is stacks of data going to do? If I'm on the road and I don't like it, I want to turn my camera on you, you know what I mean? That will satisfy my road rage and be like, oh, you know, I feel like this is what this is doing. This is satisfying the Karens of the road.
[00:27:45] Speaker D: There you go. Karen's of the road.
[00:27:48] Speaker A: Tom, I'm going to play a little bit of a contrarian. What I like about it is if it does get that one psycho who's going 110 in a 65 off the road than on Ford. But how do you mitigate it from just being a free for all where every single person is?
[00:28:04] Speaker F: You can't.
[00:28:04] Speaker D: They had another patent that we talked about where the car would turn itself off if you fell behind on your car payments so it would automatically allow for the repossession of the car. But they let that one go. There was enough of a public outcry that they just abandoned the patent because people got upset about this idea. So technology can be used for good and evil. You're listening to passage to profit with Richard and Elizabeth Gerhardt. Our very special guests, Tom and Tara Gollop. Back right after this. And stay tuned. We have secrets of the entrepreneurial mind coming up.
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[00:30:23] Speaker A: 4105-9148-0041-0591-4800-4105-914 that's 804 10 5914 paid for by the health insurance hotline. Passage to profit continues with Richard and.
[00:30:42] Speaker D: Elizabeth Gearhart, and it's time now for Elizabeth's project. So tell us, Elizabeth, what have you been up to.
[00:30:50] Speaker E: I'm still working on my website, which I had called Fireside and then couldn't get the trademark for, so I made it blue Skyd. And that's why, as I alluded to earlier in the show, I'm really digging in to figure out exactly how websites work so I can get this right. And Richard and I have been remodeling our podcast studio in Summit, New Jersey. And it's coming along a little slower than we'd hoped, but I don't see a huge rush to it. I still am running the meetup with Stacey Sherman, which is podcast and YouTube creators community. We're doing it hybrid in person and on Zoom, and we're got quite a bit of interest to that. We've done six of those, and then I'm still doing my Cat podcast called the Jersey Podcast with Danielle Woolley. We have a lot of fun talking about that.
[00:31:31] Speaker D: Can I just interject here, because I'm reading over the show notes and our program coordinator, Alicia Morrissey wanted me to say something, so.
[00:31:39] Speaker E: Oh, yes.
[00:31:40] Speaker D: So, passage to profit is heard on 36 radio stations across the United States. No matter where you are, you can find us or just check for our podcast, recently ranked in the top 3% globally on listen notes. And we've also been recently selected by Feedspot podcast database as a top ten entrepreneur interview podcast.
[00:32:04] Speaker F: Very nice.
[00:32:05] Speaker B: Congrats.
[00:32:05] Speaker D: Thank you.
[00:32:06] Speaker E: If you want to find out the best business podcast, go to Feedspot. Check them out. Maybe you should apply if you have a business podcast and you want to get on there. So now, enough about me and all of our accomplishments. I was blown away by both the people that are coming up next, but we'll start with Michael Harvey with the roof resource. I've never seen anything like this, but it is awesome if you have to have work done on your home. So, Mike, please tell us all about your company.
[00:32:31] Speaker B: It's a little bit of a evolution of how I've come to be in the roofing industry. Corporate career, 25 years I was transitioning out of corporate life, and a friend of mine said, hey, do you want to get into roofing? And I'm like, no way. I'm not going to get up on roofs. I'm afraid of heights. However, one of the things that I always tell a lot of the people that I've coached is that you got to get uncomfortable, and you got to get uncomfortable is where you're going to learn and where you're going to grow. And so I said, hey, let's do it like hey, I don't know what, I don't know. But over the 25 years, the consumer and the home and that whole dynamic, I was very familiar with. And in three weeks we went out and we made like $185,000 bucks. And so it wasnt so much about the money, it was really about the experience that I thought that, hey, I could make a difference with this roofing company. And lets try to be a little different. You kind of get into the business, you start learning a lot whats in the roofing industry. And I had a Jerry Maguire moment. I went into a home and late thirties couple, two young little kids, they needed a new roof on their home and $14,000 for the roof. I take $1,000 off, it's 13. I can install that roof for $6,200 all in. I walked off their porch when we were done and they signed with me. I remember looking back at the door and I said, I can't do this anymore. They went in their four hundred one k and they pulled out $14,000 and I'm putting $7,000 of that right into my pocket. And I like to say that it's about the how I earned my living that makes me feel good, right? And so at the same time, I had family members that needed a roof on their home. I did their roofs at cost, my cost. And so I was standing in front of my grandmother's home and I'm looking down the street and I'm like, I just did this roof at Claussen, which by the way, my grandmother did not know that I had a roofing company because I wasn't sure I wanted to tell everybody. And she got two quotes, 14,020, 6000, I did it for 9100 and replaced both of her skylights. And I said, if I can do this for family, why cant I do this for strangers? And so at that moment, I left that partnership and I modeled out the roof resource, which is now a complete virtual experience.
Homeowners get a quote within one business day. Top quality installation, top quality roofing systems, no stress, no pressure, no appointments. We call ourselves now the Netflix of roofing. So thats where were at today.
[00:35:02] Speaker E: And you franchise this, is that right?
[00:35:04] Speaker B: Yes. In the first year, in 21 was my first year with one customer, that 14 and 15, I actually had customers calling me back and saying, what are you going to do with this? Not only did you save me 5000 or $10,000, this process is great. And so I didn't do it to build this nationwide company. I did it because it was just the right thing to do. And it made me feel good that I was saving them money and making the customer experience so much easier than that. And so over that next six months, I would met with some of the top franchise companies in the country, ifranchise group, SMB, Jack McBurney with McGrow growth partners in Bells and Oaks. And everyone was like, you're going to change the whole roofing industry if you do this, and you should do it and you can scale it. And so I chose a company in late 22, because I wanted to continue to model this out for another year, and chose SMB, which is out of Philadelphia, and they took the next ten months to obviously do all the franchising documents and paperwork and everything that we needed to do. And then I remember March 30, 2023, was so daunting because I got the phone call. Congratulations, you're a franchisor. You can now sell throughout the country. Wow. Pretty daunting, exciting, and just a lot in there.
[00:36:24] Speaker D: Congratulations. I'm so impressed that you felt uncomfortable having a high margin on the product that you were selling. What do you think is fair under the circumstances? I guess I'm kind of curious about that.
[00:36:37] Speaker B: Yeah. And I get that all the time.
[00:36:39] Speaker A: Right.
[00:36:39] Speaker B: Because I will have customers and our franchisees will talk with customers and they're getting quotes, and this is no joke. 72,000. 41,000. And we're 21,000. And it's not about the quality, it's not about the materials. We just decided that we would charge a fee and be very transparent with the homeowner exactly where every dollar goes. So it doesn't matter if they get tile, doesn't matter if they want synthetic groove or ash pole. We can still deliver that experience to them at cost. And we charge, as a franchise, we charge a small fee for that. It's small, but it's about scale. It's about, hey, we're not going to do 500 roofs a year. We'll do 40,000 roofs in a year.
[00:37:23] Speaker E: I do have to ask you, do you have a franchise in New Jersey?
[00:37:26] Speaker D: We need several new roofs, by the way.
[00:37:29] Speaker B: Well, I literally had people call me up from Atlanta, Florida, Jersey. And we use a roofing technology software, so it's not Google images. We get to see everything. And I can provide you a market quote typically within one business day. And you have the number. And so that's not in our roadmap right now to get out to New Jersey. But it's there eventually. I mean, there's no brick and mortar. We don't need roofing materials. We have set up all the partnerships for the installation companies. We own the preferred roofing network, which made up of hundreds of licensed, insured roofing companies. We bring all the parties to the table. They all win. But the number one person that wins first is the homeowner. The homeowner wins first, and then they get to see this experience. And thats where all of our Google reviews have been amazing. And they literally tell their story, which is very humbling. Ive had my customer, I went to his home because I wanted to just check on the project. I didnt have to do that. And Rob comes out of his home and hes like, hey, Mike, this is amazing. I was able to learn so much. And this gentleman was going to get a new roof on his home, and he got a bunch of quotes from twelve to $25,000. And then he got a HeLOC because typically what homeowners do is you throw out the lowest, throw out the highest, and you go somewhere in the middle, right? Thats that magnetic metal. They feel comfortable there. We were at 9100 with the top of the line roofing system. And so I'm standing there at his driveway, and he goes, Mike. He goes, this has been so great. He goes, so what I did is I bought that from my kids. And he pointed in the backyard, and there's this huge pool with a deck. And he goes, I bought that for my kids. And at that moment, Richard was like, we're doing so much more than just putting out a roof on someone's huddle.
[00:39:13] Speaker D: Dude, you're going to heaven. That's for sure. Yeah.
[00:39:17] Speaker B: I've had customers say, I'm taking my mom to Hawaii because you were $12,000 less than what I thought. I mean, I'm now putting up windows because we can do windows and a roof, there's so much more. And I truly get moved by it because it's about that. And so as I go into communities until we're there, then they're going to experience the traditional retail model of roofing.
[00:39:38] Speaker E: Well, that was something I want to ask you about, Mike, because I would love to see this around the world, even, like, you know, other countries even besides this, us. But are you selling franchises to people right now?
[00:39:48] Speaker B: Yeah. So there, there's a process that we take everyone through. I mean, right now, we've sold out half of Michigan. We sold out the entire state of Florida. We opened up in Texas, in Denver, Colorado right now, and we get inquiries from individuals and people all across the country that have watched the video, went on our website, and they're aligning with the values of the company, of really just doing what's right for the homeowner. So it is open. And so we daily get requests from different states.
[00:40:13] Speaker D: That's great. Making more money by making less.
[00:40:16] Speaker B: Well, you know, there's a saying, less is more.
[00:40:18] Speaker D: Came from someplace.
[00:40:20] Speaker A: Time, Tara, it sounds incredible. And hats off to you because you're kind of walking the walk and talking the talk. And the idea of putting customer first is kind of an ancient proverb in a lot of businesses, right? They're not really thinking. They're thinking profit margins. How do I reduce my expenses and increase my profits? And the fact that you're out there really helping the common man and, you know, the idea that this customer was able to buy a pool for their kids and other customer took their mom to Hawaii, it's really beautiful. And it goes so far beyond just putting a roof on.
[00:40:57] Speaker F: Or can you just imagine the people who just don't replace the roof because they just don't have that money? And what are they, like, putting buckets out when it rains? Like, what do you do when you can't afford to replace a roof?
[00:41:07] Speaker B: We just want people to know we exist because we say, we don't sell roofs, we're just a service. We just want them to know and be empowered with the information. Then they can say, hey, this roof is not $18,000, it's only ten. And that's a difference. And our customers are so wowed by it, and they're like, oh, my God, I can afford it. And that's such a wonderful thing that we do.
[00:41:30] Speaker A: This doesn't sound like a roofing business so much as a business model for many trades. I love the idea that your franchisees don't need to know the first thing about roofing. They just need to know how to reach their customers, and they need to know how to put their vendors in place. It sounds like you've already got them in place, ready to go.
[00:41:49] Speaker B: Yeah, we put everything together for our franchisees, so the networks, the partnerships are all there. We do take them through training, so they do get a roofing 101. They understand some of the things with the roof and some of the complexities so that they do know that. But the model opens us up. We'll be doing gutters and gutter guards at cost in the fall, and then next fall we'll be doing windows, so we'll be able to represent. Anderson. Hello. Some of the big names out there and still bring the same experience.
[00:42:17] Speaker A: What's the name of the business?
[00:42:18] Speaker B: Theroofresource.com.
[00:42:20] Speaker E: We all applaud you for what you're doing. This is a fantastic business, and it really is making the world a better place.
[00:42:26] Speaker B: Thank you.
[00:42:27] Speaker E: You are listening to the passage to profit show with Richard Elizabeth Gearhart on now to Llewellyn Gannon munzing. And I looked her up on YouTube before the show because I wanted to get an idea for how she spoke and who she was. And I found these videos that blew my mind. I had never really seen anything like this before, so. So I kind of want to start with that, Llewellyn, if that's okay.
[00:42:47] Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. My spoken word, it's visual poetry. It's taking the poems and expanding on them with my imagination. I'm a poet and I act and, you know, create content. So it's like bringing all of these things together and keeping me busy and resting my heart.
[00:43:04] Speaker E: What are the names for those videos?
[00:43:06] Speaker C: Westbound is the one that where I'm on the train and I'm still creating. So I've got quite a few.
[00:43:13] Speaker E: I only saw two of them. They were short, but they are one of the most creative things I've seen. And I have really never seen anything like that before. And I've gone to, like, immersive art galleries and all this other stuff, but I've never actually. So I typed in your name, Llewellyn. L l e w e l l y N. Gannon. G a n N o n. Munsing. M u n c I n G. I know that's a lot. Typed that into YouTube and her videos came up. But if you do westbound and maybe just with your last name Munzing or something, hopefully that video would come up. I encourage that. But anyway, why don't you tell us about everything else you're doing?
[00:43:47] Speaker C: Well, I'm an artist. I've been creating art my entire life. And, you know, I've just kind of been stockpiling it, collecting it. I mean, literally, like, collecting, like, old pieces of envelopes with poems written on them from back in the day. Now I do it digitally, but I still come across these old poems from my childhood and young adulthood. So I put a book together. You know, I wanted to take all of this stuff starting at age 14. I got my old poems, and I edited, edited, edited, and I put it all together, and I published this book in 2018. And from there, the pandemic came, and I was able to just take all this free time and just keep working. And I created another book and had extra poetry laying around. And now I'm a two time bestselling author and I've been self published three times. I'm working on my fourth book, so it's been quite the experience.
[00:44:37] Speaker D: So when you're creating, do you just sort of write when the mood strikes you? How do you manage the content creation?
[00:44:44] Speaker C: I write when the mood strikes me, and that's pretty much multiple times a day, so I don't really have to hold myself to it. And I'm like every artist, if I get writer's block or any kind of block, all that means is it's time to edit. Like, literally, there is no block. There's so many things to do. Generally speaking, when I was creating the music videos and, you know, things like that, I mean, I could be working at it 20 hours a day. I'm not going to sleep. I love it. It's all I want to do. So I'm just doing what I love and I'm taking the steps that it takes to do it and the time that it takes. But to write a poem, most of the time is going to come out in the editing process anyways. I'm just going to, like, put down what I'm thinking. It might be clever and it might not be, but it's going to capture the moment thought that will pass.
[00:45:29] Speaker E: I love the name of this book that you wrote, blue appetite.
[00:45:33] Speaker C: The title actually came from the stone, blue appetite, but I changed the spelling to the hunger because I really loved the metaphor. The poetry is coming from this deep place. The mood's a little blue, and so a lot of people are hungry for that. I am. So I felt like it went just really, really well with it. I actually changed the name to that once I realized how good it felt.
[00:45:57] Speaker E: So, Tom and Tara?
[00:45:59] Speaker A: No, I just. I love that the passion that she is having is something that is not always something that she can share, but that is appreciated by others. Right. I mean, I think the dream in our lives as business people is how do we harness what we do best and have it translate into something that we can actually make a life and career out of?
[00:46:20] Speaker F: Yeah. Lovely.
[00:46:21] Speaker E: What is your marketing plan for selling your work?
[00:46:24] Speaker C: I have the long game in mind, like, just creating as much as I can and being prolific, like having a stockpile of art that I can always go to to put out when the time calls. So marketing my art, it comes to reaching out to the right people to have them help me with these different platforms that I'm not familiar with, like Amazon. And I was able to reach out to this woman, Blair Hayes, who runs a company called Elite Publishing. And she helps people who are self publishing, you know, like self published. But I worked with somebody just as much as I needed to because I can do various things on my own. But it really is about who you know, and it is about reaching out, bringing people in to help you. It's not a normal business, and it doesn't follow a normal business plan. And I do also have a normal business that I am doing. But I don't love marketing myself, and I don't love putting myself in that position and being like, look at what I do. So what I have noticed about art and what you do is, like, your dharma, you don't even pick it. Like, I didn't even know that this is something that I do until I decided to share it on Instagram and got, like, incredible feedback. And, I mean, like, I was humiliated, and I still am. Like, every single time I put it out there, I'm just like, this is so embarrassing. So, no, I don't love it, but I love what it does. I love what it does for me. I love what it does for other people in the long run. And I don't always care. I let go of that moment. But, yeah, there's a hurdle to jump over. And what I noticed is that I'm doing something that's being received. So I'm going to keep doing that. And it's getting received well.
[00:48:05] Speaker E: When I watched westbound, it was so interesting. And I think what it was was it affected a number of different senses. And the way that you spoke the poetry, that doesn't happen in media like that doesn't happen on tv. That doesn't happen in podcasts. Even the way that you spoke the poetry and put the pictures with it was really interesting and really kind of had a far reaching effect for some reason. So I can see why people are very receptive to what you're doing. I think it's beyond creative. I think it's amazing.
[00:48:33] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:48:33] Speaker F: Thank you.
[00:48:33] Speaker C: I'm glad that I reached you.
[00:48:34] Speaker A: Can I ask? So, Lou Ellen, in the same way that Mike has kind of broken the mold on roofing, you seem to be somebody that has a passion for what she does and has a business acumen. My challenge is take that passion and use your business acumen and sell yourself. Check the ego at the door, because guess what? That's what we learned. We're loving our podcast so much but in the shop, we literally tell every customer that comes in, oh, by the way, we have a podcast, and it's kind of a grassroots thing, but that's why it blew up. It's not a sellout to actually sell, and there's a way to do it. I think that is kind of seamless, where it doesn't feel like you're pitching and selling, but the more people that see it, the more will appreciate it. That's just my.
[00:49:17] Speaker C: That's great.
[00:49:17] Speaker B: And let me just share something, too, is that you had talked about engagement and all engagement is good. All the algorithms feed off of that. So that's really good. If you're getting positive engagement or if you're getting a little bit of the negative engagement, those platforms see that your product is engaging and they serve it up more.
[00:49:38] Speaker E: If you watch her YouTube video, I'm going to keep harping on this. I think you should take those YouTube videos. I think you should get somebody to help you with YouTube, and I think you should blow up YouTube with those because they're amazing.
[00:49:47] Speaker C: Yeah, I would love that. And I do plan on doing that and moving forward with this whole project and the new book that I'm working on.
[00:49:55] Speaker B: And these platforms that we talk about, the digital platforms, you just don't know what's going to go viral. I don't know what. When someone sees something or hears something and they go, oh, my God, you got to see this, or you got to taste this chocolate that's got Dom Perignon in it.
Next thing you know, it's viral. I actually did a video, a simple video. It was like 14,000 views, but it was like, I never thought that I could do a video and get 14,000 views. You could do that and share. If you're connecting on deeper levels, that'll get shared out.
[00:50:28] Speaker E: Absolutely. Llewelyn Gannon Munsing. Llewelyn, how do we get a hold of you?
[00:50:32] Speaker C: So I'm on Instagram under the name poet the moon. So poet the moon and I have a bunch of content there. I have a website, llewelyngannon.com, and you can check out my books on Amazon.com. i've got the book blue appetite that I just released a couple months ago. And paperless. Those are the two books that I've really, just really followed my life and let you know who I am. Really excited about those and working on my third one right now.
[00:51:01] Speaker F: Excellent.
[00:51:02] Speaker E: You are listening to the passage to profit show with Richard Elizabeth Gearhart and our special guests Tom and Tara Gallup. We have had such a fun show. But don't go away because secrets of the entrepreneurial mind is coming right up.
[00:51:14] Speaker D: I'm Jack, CEO and co
[email protected]. dot when I left my job as a Wall street banker back in my twenties, I felt completely lost trying to navigate the process of hiring a financial advisor. I thought it should be easy to find the right financial advisor, so I created a place where young families could feel understood and their unique needs would be met with empathy and expertise. That's why I started usehabits.com, where we help you find your financial advisor free of charge. Usehabits.com dot it's passage to profit now it's time for Noah's retrospective.
[00:51:50] Speaker E: Noah Fleischman is our producer here at passage to Prophet, and he just has a way of putting his best memories in perspective. Nobody's diet is perfect, and neither is anyone's vocabulary.
[00:52:01] Speaker B: Even if you speak the most patrician.
[00:52:03] Speaker F: English in our civilization, at some point.
[00:52:05] Speaker B: You might utter a few expletives. It might not be your style by design, but when that fight or flight impulse arrives, those words are there on the back shelf.
[00:52:13] Speaker E: That's how I learned those words as a child.
[00:52:15] Speaker B: Use only as directed a good many of us aren't the profane and certainly don't want to be. But there's no shame in expressing anger, sudden fright, frustration.
[00:52:24] Speaker E: It only proves us to be human.
[00:52:26] Speaker B: Doesn't mean we have to conduct ourselves.
[00:52:28] Speaker D: Like creatures in some Kevin Smith movie.
[00:52:30] Speaker B: Or a contemporary Broadway comedy. But it has been acknowledged by clinicians worldwide that a verbal exclamation of those ugly, forbidden words in such aggravated moments will, in fact, resist and alleviate our stress, maybe in the safest, healthiest way possible.
[00:52:45] Speaker E: That's why I keep those words out of my regular diet.
[00:52:48] Speaker B: When something unfavorable happens. I'm gonna need to know what to say.
[00:52:51] Speaker D: Now.
[00:52:52] Speaker B: More with Richard and Elizabeth.
[00:52:54] Speaker E: Passage to prophet now it's time for secrets of entrepreneurial mind. We are going to start with Tom and Tara Gallup. Do you have secrets that have helped you succeed or helped you avoid mistakes or made you better at what you do?
[00:53:10] Speaker A: Yes, we have. And it took some time to figure this out, but one of the things that I share with our employees is that when customers come in to buy chocolate, they're already on a high. They're elevated. They're happy. They're about to buy chocolate. And what I explained to them is your job is not to sell them chocolate. Today they're going to buy chocolate. Your job is to get them to come back. What can you do? How can you make this experience such that they can't wait to get back? Because they're already here for the product, but you're going to make them feel like they're with friends and family. You're going to make it a go to proposition for them. Every time they think, oh, I've got a sweet tooth, what can I do? I know toyscher. They're so lovely. They're so helpful. I love going there every time and I think that resonates, and that's what I go for. My wife jokes that working with me is like dinner and a show.
[00:54:01] Speaker F: For every customer that comes in, you're dinner and a show. They always walk out the door laughing. After they've been with Tommy, he likes to perform and entertain and put smiles on people's faces. So it's so funny. People will come back on their annual pilgrimage to LA for whatever it is. So they come in and they just have such a happy memory of having been here before. They've already come in this high expectation of having, like, a great time again. So it's definitely not just about the chocolate when Tommy's in the shop, and that's not an easy thing to train people, but I feel like our staff, everybody has their unique qualities that really resonate with our customers and make them feel happy.
[00:54:35] Speaker E: Next time we're in California, we're gonna come by, we'll stop it.
So, Mike, Harvey, what's a secret you can share?
[00:54:43] Speaker B: What is the most beautiful sound to a customer or to you guys? Your name. What Tom was talking about right now was this level of connection. That little tidbit is constantly shared with our trainers. It's the simple sound of someone's name. And when you're using your, your customer's name, that connection is so very key.
[00:55:07] Speaker A: Okay, Mike, you're getting a free box of chocolate.
[00:55:11] Speaker E: Okay, Llewellyn Gannon, what's your secret you'd like to share?
[00:55:14] Speaker C: I'm definitely following along with what I had said earlier, knowing what to delegate out to other people, but what you do and what you don't do. Another thing that I want to add for artists, really keep creating regardless of whether it's for something or nothing. Because what happened to me is I went to a really, really hard time at one point, and so I got to continue to be productive even when I wasn't able to create. And it makes you so much better. So much better. So just create, create, create.
[00:55:44] Speaker F: Excellent.
[00:55:45] Speaker E: I think mine is, you know what? There's always going to be stuff you don't want to do. Absolutely don't want to do, but you got to do it. So I'm procrastinating on something right now that I know I have to do.
[00:55:58] Speaker B: Shame on you.
[00:55:59] Speaker E: I know. And I just have to kick myself in the rear and just sit down and do it. And I'm going to figure out a way to make myself do that.
[00:56:06] Speaker D: Yeah, you have been procrastinating.
[00:56:07] Speaker E: I know there's obstacles. I just have to say, okay, I'm just going to work through these obstacles. It's not going to be that bad. I just have to do it. I want to do it, but I don't want to deal with the obstacles. There's always going to be stuff you don't want to do, but you have to do it. And maybe you can ask for help if it's something you're really stalled on. But there are things in business you have to do that you don't want to do. You got to do them. And sometimes you're the only one that can.
[00:56:30] Speaker D: Very good stuff. Passage to profit is a nationally syndicated radio show appearing in 31 markets across the United States. In addition, passage to profit has also been recently selected by Feedspot Podcasters database as a top ten entrepreneur interview podcast. Thank you to the P two P team, our producer Noah Fleischman and our program coordinator Alicia Morrissey and risikett Busargesthe look for our podcast tomorrow, anywhere you get your podcasts. Our podcast is ranked in the top 3% globally. You can also find us on Facebook, Instagram X and on our YouTube channel. And remember, while the information on this program is believed to be correct, never take a legal step without checking with your legal professional first. Gerhardt Law is here for your patent, trademark and copyright needs. You can find
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