Eric Herget was born in Paragould and attended Catholic High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. Eric has a bachelor's degree in marketing from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.
Eric's father may have taught him the most important lesson of business. "You have to give to the community," Herget said. You have to work hard for the community you live in." That philosophy led him to success in business - such as when he finally nailed down the account for a Fortune 200 utility company after seven years.
Herget joined Ramsey Krug Farrell & Lensing in 1999 after working at Sedgwick North American from 1995-99 and Entergy from 1987-95. He became chair of the Workforce Investment Board in July, has been on the board of the Cathedral School and recently joined the vestry of Trinity Episcopal Cathedral.
Herget said working with the community on civic issues instills confidence in people that as a businessman he has integrity and their interests at heart. He also was part of the Vision Team for Little Rock, setting goals for the city's future.
Arkansas Business honors 40 intriguing business and political leaders under 40 years old who bear watching. In 2003, Eric was one of those named for that year nominated by readers and Arkansas Business editors.
As a more than 20 year veteran of the insurance industry, in 2011 Eric lead the effort of bringing HUB International, a leading global insurance broker, to the state of Arkansas.
HUB is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois and is an international insurance brokerage firm that provides property and casualty, life and health, employee benefits, investment and risk management products and services through offices located in North America.
With Eric today is his son Ryan Herget.
Ryan Herget, following in his father's footsteps as an Arkansas business leader, started his path as an entrepreneur as a teenager. At the age of 15 he saw his first opportunity, when he started a power washing business. Ryan secured a $1,000 loan from his parents, got a hardship driver’s license and bought the necessary equipment from Sears to begin his small business. He immediately hit the ground running by distributing 2,000 flyers across town and going door-to-door to promote his new business. In the first summer alone, Ryan sold $20,000, and he doubled the company’s profit within the first two years and quadrupled it over the third. In the winter months, he diversified this business by hauling junk for $100 an hour. He sold the business for an impressive profit.
While attending the University of Mississippi in Oxford, Ryan, in true entrepreneur spirit, saw another opportunity. His concept was simple, poor college students could opt-in to receive local bar and restaurant drink specials via text message. This business was called the Daily Quench. To keep up with the overwhelming success of his new venture he partnered with local restaurants to sell his Daily Quench cards. Before returning home to Little Rock, he sold this business. At the age of 23 he had started and sold two highly successful businessess.
Today we know Ryan Herget as the founder of Chef Shuttle. It’s mission…. to deliver a variety of products in a timely fashion. This Restaurant delivery service has expanded to more than 42 cities across Arkansas and Tennessee.
To date, it has partnered with more than 425 restaurants and 225 delivery drivers. Always thinking Ryan continues to implement innovative partnerships from boat delivery on Lake Hamilton to flowers.
Chef Shuttle's strong growth history is making a good case for moving its current business model towards that of a national franchise.
Up In Your Business is a Radio Show by FlagandBanner.com
EPISODE 14
[INTRODUCTION]
[0:00:03.2] TB: Welcome to Up in Your Business with Kerry McCoy. Be sure to stay tuned till the end of the show to hear how you can get a copy of this program and other helpful documents.
Now, it's time for Kerry McCoy to get all up in your business.
[INTERVIEW]
[0:00:17.8] KM: Hello! You’re listening to Kerry McCoy and it’s time for me to get all up in your business. You may be asking, “What makes this lady qualified to do this?” I’ll tell you, experience. In a minute, you can email or call and ask me anything. My experience is deep and wide and my advice is free. 40 years ago with just $400 I started Arkansas Flag & Banner. Since then it’s morphed into simply flagandbanner.com with sales nearing four million. That’s worth saying again.
I started Arkansas Flag & Banner with just $400 and today we have sales nearing four million. I started by selling flags door-to-door, then went to telemarketing, next, mail order and catalog sales. Today, we rely heavily on the internet. In addition, over the last 40 years, I’ve navigated Flag & Banner through two recessions and two wars. When people find out I’m that woman who owns Arkansas Flag & Banner they often say, “Oh! I’ve heard about you,” and began asking me business advice. I amaze even myself with all the knowledge I’ve gained. So be prepared for the truth. It’s not quite easy to hear.
For instance, you may not want to hear this; in business there are very few overnight successes. Starting and owning a business takes persistence, perseverance, and patience. When I started Arkansas Flag & Banner I supplemented my income by waitressing all while I pedaled my flags door-to-door. After nine years — Did you hear me? Nine years of working a part-time job the company began to grow and solely support me. My first hire was a bookkeeper. My first expansion was to begin the manufacturing of custom flags. The next decade ushered in the Desert Storm War. Flags were scarce, so a screen printing department was hardly built to meet consumer demands.
In addition to sales and manufacturing, Flag & Banner now has a purchasing department, a shipping department, technology department, marketing department, call center, and retail store, and I spearheaded each of their development. My experience is deep and wide and my advice is free. I hope you’ll take advantage of this unique opportunity by calling or emailing me on today’s show.
Before we start taking calls, I want to introduce you to the people at the table, we have Tim Bowen, our technician who will be taking your calls and pushing the button. Say hello, Tim.
[0:02:44.5] TB: Hello, Tim.
[0:02:45.2] KM: I’m lucky to have two guests today, Eric Herget from Hub International of Arkansas and his son, Ryan Herget, the CEO of Shuttle. Everybody is interested in that.
First, I’ll introduce his father, Eric Herget, who was born in Paragould and attended Catholic High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. Eric has a bachelor’s degree in marketing from the University of Arkansas and is a veteran insurance broker. Having worked in the field for over 20 years, in 2011 he led the effort of bringing Hub International; a leading global insurance broker to the State of Arkansas. With Eric today is his son, Ryan Herget. Even as a teenager, Ryan has been a hardworking avid entrepreneur. At the age of 15 he saw his first opportunity when he started a power washing business.
Ryan secured a thousand dollar loan from his parents, got a hardship driver’s license and bought the necessary equipment from Sears Department Store to begin his small business. He immediately hit the ground running by distributing 2,000 flyers across town and going to door-to-door to promote his new power washing business.
In the first summer alone Ryan sold $20,000 at the age of 15, and in the years to come he quadrupled it. One way was by hauling junk mail for $100 an hour during the winter months. He sold his business for an impressive profit.
Next, while attending the University of Mississippi in Oxford, a.k.a Ole Miss, Ryan and true entrepreneurial spirit saw another opportunity. His new concept was simple, poor college students could opt in to receive local bar and restaurants drink specials via text message. This business was called the Daily Quench. To keep up with the overwhelming success of his new venture, he partnered with local restaurants to sell his Daily Quench cards. Before returning home to Little Rock, he sold this business. Now, at the age of 23 he had started and sold two highly successful businesses.
Today, we know Ryan Herget as the founder of Chef Shuttle. It’s mission, to deliver a variety of products in a timely fashion. This restaurant delivery service has expanded to more than 42 cities across Arkansas and Tennessee. To-date, it has partnered with more than 425 restaurants and has 200 and 25 delivery drivers. It sounds like a nightmare to me. Always thinking Ryan continues to implement innovative partnerships from both delivery on Lake Hamilton to floras delivery. Chef Shuttle’s strong growth history is making a good case, for moving its current business model towards that of a national franchise.
Welcome to the table, Eric and Ryan Herget.
[0:05:38.3] EH: We appreciate you having us.
[0:05:39.5] KM: I’m so glad y’all both came.
[0:05:42.4] EH: You know, his bio was 20 times longer than mine, so he’s accomplished much more than I have. I’m a simple insurance guy. He’s done quite a bit more than I am.
[0:05:51.3] KM: I know you’re a proud father.
[0:05:52.0] EH: Yes.
[0:05:53.1] KM: Out of respect to you, we’re going to start with you, and I’m going to ask the age-old question; is it nature, is it genetics, or is it nurture your guidance that has made Ryan so entrepreneurial?
[0:06:05.9] EH: The fact I told him I wasn’t going to give him a whole lot of money in high school kind of forced him to go out and brace his spending money. Then he graduated from college three or four years ago. What? Mid-May, and I told him, “Congratulations, you’re on your own in two weeks. June 1.” Yeah, you got to set it out there for him and let him go succeed, and he’s done terrific at that for sure. He’s an entrepreneur. He things his stuff that most of us would never even go down that path.
[0:06:34.4] KM: I think that’s called tough love dad.
[0:06:35.9] EH: Yeah. I’m a tough love guy.
[0:06:38.1] KM: Look. Ryan is shaking his head. Yup!
[0:06:39.5] RH: Yeah.
[0:06:40.9] KM: We’re going to jump to Ryan. Do all your friends think you’re a rock star?
[0:06:45.0] RH: When they want jobs they do.
[0:06:47.6] KM: Let’s ask the question that’s probably the most important one. Are you married?
[0:06:51.2] RH: I’m not. The startup small business lifestyle, especially in the beginning sometimes limits your opportunity, so I’m not married.
[0:07:02.5] KM: I read where you work 7 days a week, and since you started Chef Shuttle, have never had a day off work.
[0:07:07.6] RH: I actually changed that a couple of weeks ago. I took Saturday off, and it was a good Saturday.
[0:07:11.4] KM: The reason you never take a day off is?
[0:07:14.8] RH: You’ve got your traditional small business, and then you have your startup. The difference is a startup, our goal is not to be in business 20, 25, 30 years from now. Our goal is to build a company as fast as possible and then to position ourselves to potentially be acquired. We’re trying to go from zero to 100 in a five-year time frame. We’ve got a few acquisition targets, whether it’d be an Amazon or a Google that would be interested in entering our business, and so we’ve got to get to a certain point in the next couple of years, and so it requires a lot of work to get to that point in such a short period of time.
[0:07:51.1] KM: What is that point? Can you share it with us?
[0:07:53.3] RH: We want to be in 15 markets. 15, 20 markets is our goal.
[0:07:57.2] KM: Does that mean states?
[0:07:58.1] RH: Market we define as a metro area. Here, starting in 2017, we have new software launching and we are opening one market every two months starting in February. We’ll open, whether it’d be at Tulsa or Oklahoma City or Nashville, and we’re going to grow in these mid-sized metro areas out of the size of Little Rock or Memphis. We’re not looking to go after the Dallas’ or Los Angeles’. We’re going after the smaller metro areas.
[0:08:21.7] KM: I think that’s smart.
[0:08:22.7] RH: We’re looking to get to 15, 20 metro areas and position ourselves —
[0:08:29.3] KM: You said you’re doing software. I thought about that. All these deliveries seems like a logistic nightmare to me. I wondered if you had your own software. If you developed your own software, or if you’re using something out of the box.
[0:08:40.0] RH: We’re currently using something out of the box, and that’s our biggest constraint right now is the software provider we use is apparently the best in the nation out of the box software, but his software was only designed —
[0:08:51.6] KM: For floral. No? For what was it designed?
[0:08:54.4] RH: 10 thousands orders a month. We’re doing 30,000 orders a month. We’ve outgrown the software and so now we’re looking to build our own in order to be able to scale, because the limit on our growth in terms of opening new markets has solely been from a software point of view. We’re going to get rid of that hurdle. Our software launches in the next couple of months and then grow from there.
[0:09:16.7] KM: Making your own software is a nightmare.
[0:09:19.7] RH: It is.
[0:09:21.0] KM: How long have you been working on it?
[0:09:22.4] RH: We’ve worked on it last six months.
[0:09:24.1] KM: And you think you’re going to launch it by the spring?
[0:09:26.3] RH: We’ve got a really good team on it.
[0:09:30.0] KM: Are you using a company in Little Rock?
[0:09:31.6] RH: We couldn’t find anybody in Arkansas. We’re using a company out of Dallas. One of my philosophies is if you want to grow as fast as Chef Shuttle and our dreams are, that you’ve got to find third-parties that you trust in to become the expert for you. We don’t have time to become the expert in absolutely everything. When it comes to our software, we found a third-party we trust to become that expert for us.
[0:09:58.1] KM: You’ve got to have deep pockets to just do what you said.
[0:10:00.7] RH: We have investors and we’re going through a round of funding right now.
[0:10:03.0] KM: You didn’t go to a bank to get investing. You didn’t go traditional banking, did you?
[0:10:07.8] RH: No.
[0:10:08.4] KM: Let’s go back when you gave him — Eric, did you give him the thousand dollars to start his power washing business?
[0:10:17.3] EH: I don’t remember that actually, but he says I did. I did.
[0:10:21.0] KM: I read it. It may be a typo. He did?
[0:10:24.0] RH: He demanded payment for a while, so I had to pay him back pretty fast.
[0:10:28.5] KM: I think that Chef Shuttle is a big deal, but for listeners that are younger and want to just start a business. You just saw an opportunity. You were 15 years old. What made you think you had what it took to start a business and make it happen?
[0:10:45.7] RH: I think being that young, I wasn’t mature enough to look at it that way of what’s going to go in to running this business. It was more out of a desire to not rely on my parents for money. Back when we were 14, 15, our parents would drop us off the movie theater and we go to McDonalds before and go to a movie theater and you’d sit there, your parents give you $20 bill. You might not be able to buy the popcorn you want. I thought to myself, “There’s got to be a better way to do this. I want to earn my own money so I can buy the popcorn I want.”
[0:11:15.2] KM: That’s exactly the reason I did it. I just wanted more the money that my parents would give me.
[0:11:20.3] RH: There we go. Yeah.
[0:11:21.6] KM: That was the motivator?
[0:11:23.0] RH: Mm-hmm.
[0:11:23.8] KM: If you’re listening out there and you want more than you currently have, I guess they call that ambition, you think there’s an opportunity everywhere for everybody.
[0:11:33.8] RH: There is. it takes hard work and dedication.
[0:11:37.2] KM: How did you decide on power washing?
[0:11:40.0] RH: The power washing space was a necessity that I saw consumers needing about once a year, but it wasn’t an area or an industry that had a lot of competition. You see a lot of lawn care companies, but you don’t see too many pressure washing companies. What I did —
[0:11:56.8] KM: Were you pressure washing around your house and thought about? Is that how you came about it?
[0:12:00.3] RH: No. Actually, I had never pressured wash before. I just saw that going through my neighborhood, everybody’s fence was gray and everybody’s driveway was black. Doing some research, how you solve that problem is through pressure washing. Obviously, nobody was hiring pressure washing companies or else people’s driveways went black and their fences would have been gray, and so I started a pressure washing company. One of the things that I took advantage of was I took advantage of my age and I took advantage of I was at Catholic High at the time. On the flyers, I made sure to put I’m 15, 16 years old, Catholic High, and people want to help somebody that’s trying at a young age to make it on their own. I wasn’t technically on my own yet, but if somebody’s trying to start their own business, I took advantage of that, and so that really helped me, because people would get these flyers and say, “I’m going to choose this kid over a professional service because I want to help him.”
[0:12:54.9] KM: Because he’s working hard.
[0:12:56.0] RH: Because he’s working hard.
[0:12:56.9] KM: I’m surprised you knew that young. I didn’t know that till I got older and looked back and thought all the breaks I got was because they were like, “Well, look at this young whippersnapper selling door-to-door. I’m going to help her out. Ain’t she trying hard?” But I didn’t know that at the time. I felt inadequate and embarrassed at my youth. You didn’t feel that way.
[0:13:15.9] RH: You know, when you’re in college or high school, I don’t necessarily know if your youth hold you back. Once you get out of college, and maybe in a CEO of a company going through fundraising. My youth, people say, “He’s 26. He’s trying to raise X-amount of money. This is a young guy. He’s got to prove himself.” Being in high school or college though, I think it’s more to your benefit than your detriment.
[0:13:41.3] KM: I think you’re absolutely right, and I think that was very insightful for you to recognize that so early on.
[0:13:48.3] EH: I do remember the loan.
[0:13:50.9] KM: He’s got to get in there.
[0:13:50.9] EH: I looked at my calendar, there’s a couple of thousand dollars. It was not a thousand.
[0:13:55.8] KM: Oh! We got to edit it. Look. Is that right, Ryan?
[0:13:59.1] RH: There have been a lot happened since then. That loan went on to make quite a bit of money, so it’s definitely worth it.
[0:14:06.4] KM: It was very worth it. Go ahead, Eric.
[0:14:08.3] EH: In high school and through college, he didn’t ask me for any money. We helped him with the necessities, a car and a place to live, but spending money, I never gave him a nickel.
[0:14:19.3] KM: Because you didn’t give him enough.
[0:14:21.3] EH: Yeah, exactly.
[0:14:22.2] KM: So he wanted more.
[0:14:24.2] RH: By my senior year, pressure washing, we were only open three months out of the year, during the summer. We were open June, July and a little bit of August. By my senior year, I think I had $80,000 at 17 years old working three months.
[0:14:39.0] KM: What?
[0:14:40.0] EH: Why am I providing a car?
[0:14:43.3] KM: Did you say $80,000?
[0:14:45.1] RH: Yeah. Business — It grew.
[0:14:47.3] KM: It grew, and there was no overhead. You hired your friends?
[0:14:50.9] RH: I hired some friends. I hired my brother. I hired anybody who could help work.
[0:14:56.6] KM: Did you pay contract labor?
[0:14:59.6] RH: Yes.
[0:15:00.2] KM: Or do you hold out taxes?
[0:15:01.5] RH: No. We were paying independent contractors.
[0:15:03.0] KM: Okay. That’s good. I’m sorry. Go ahead. What were you going to say? You hired your brother.
[0:15:06.4] RH: Yeah.
[0:15:07.9] KM: You have two brothers. You hired both of them?
[0:15:09.6] RH: No. My younger brother doesn’t want to get his hands dirty. Connor. No. Connor has his own passion. He’s a pilot. My younger brother is more business school oriented, Cole. Cole was the one who helped me, because he eventually took it over once I went to college because I moved on to my next company, and he took it over, but then once he was about to go into college, we ended up selling it, because just the time that needed to be committed during those three months, and I was focused on another project and it was kind of getting too much for him, so we ended up selling the company.
[0:15:44.5] KM: What was the name of that company?
[0:15:45.7] RH: Premier Power Washing.
[0:15:47.4] KM: You left when you went to college. You sold it. Is it still going on?
[0:15:52.0] RH: Yes.
[0:15:52.7] KM: Anybody out there that’s listening, that’s wanting to make some money this young, which is when I really started. I was 15 when I started going. I really don’t like same thing. I really would like to have more money than my parents were going to give me. This is a great way — Anybody can start like this. That go buy a power washer at Sears and start knocking on doors. Did you make your flyer? We’re going to move on to the Daily Quench, because I want to show a pattern in Ryan’s entrepreneurial spirit that I think people can learn and grow from. When you made up your flyer, did you just do it on Word?
[0:16:23.9] RH: Just did it on Word, took it off at depot.
[0:16:24.8] KM: Show how simple it is. Did you go around and put it up on corners, on like the street corner?
[0:16:31.4] RH: The key to the flyers I found was I never printed anything on white paper. I always printed it on the brightest yellow highlight color paper I could find so it’d stick out. Originally, what I would do is I would go around and put them through mailboxes. Obviously, I got in a little bit of trouble doing that.
[0:16:49.3] KM: That’s right. For people who don’t know, you can’t use the U.S. Mail Postal Service mailboxes to put flyers in. It’s a federal crime.
[0:16:56.7] EH: They called him. He remembers.
[0:16:59.2] KM: They did?
[0:16:59.6] RH: The gentleman who called me said, “You can’t do this, but we just rolled out a creative solution that I think you’ll benefit from.” He introduced the post office has a programmed called EDDM, or every door direct mail. What you do, I think it’s 15 cents a flyer, you say, “I want this mailman or mailwomen delivers this route. I want her to drop these flyers on every house on a route.
[0:17:25.8] KM: They’ll do that?
[0:17:26.3] RH: They’ll do that. Right when they came out with it, that’s now how I started distributing my flyers, is because this mailman has 800 houses he’s going to. You give him 800 flyers, and so you pay discounted postage of 15 cents, because he’s just putting it in every single mailbox.
[0:17:43.2] KM: Who did you call? The local post —
[0:17:45.4] RH: They’ve actually got a whole website now on the post office. You can just type in U.S. Postal Service every door direct mail.
[0:17:51.8] KM: Ever door direct mail.
[0:17:52.3] RH: They have a tool now — We’ve used some for Chef Shuttle, where you put in a zip code and it will show you all of the individual routes that are in that zip code for the mail and you select what routes you want your flyers to go through.
[0:18:04.5] KM: Is this how you advertised for Chef Shuttle?
[0:18:06.9] RH: It’s one of the ways, but we do a lot more. When we open a market, we’ll utilize every door direct mail to really get the name out there. It’s the best way to blanket an area.
[0:18:17.9] KM: I’ve never heard of it.
[0:18:18.7] RH: Yeah, every door direct mail. It’s a great tool, and I think it was a great compromise for the post office It was hard for them to get mad at a 15, 16, 17-year-old, so —
[0:18:30.1] KM: Once again, using your youth to your advantage.
[0:18:32.3] RH: Yeah, the innocence of it.
[0:18:33.7] KM: The innocence of it.
[0:18:35.2] RH: “My dad told me this was okay. I’m sorry.” Yeah, it’s worth it.
[0:18:40.5] KM: Your dad is going to jail.
[0:18:43.5] RH: Better him than me. No. Wouldn’t that been something though.
[0:18:46.4] KM: Yes. Let’s move on to Eric. I’m sorry I’m neglecting you.
[0:18:51.1] EH: No. I’m enjoying. Rehashing all of these.
[0:18:53.4] KM: I know. You’re greening from ear to ear. You’re having a good time.
[0:18:55.8] EH: Yeah.
[0:18:55.9] KM: Let’s move on to Daily Quench. I want to show there’s this pattern in the way. You’ve even at Chef Shuttle using some of the stuff you learned at the power washing business, at Premier Power Washing. Is that what it was?
[0:19:08.2] RH: Yes.
[0:19:09.2] KM: Now he’s moved to Daily Quench. One of the problems I see a lot of entrepreneurs do is they name their businesses so abstract that nobody can tell what they are. All three of your business names are descriptive.
[0:19:24.0] RH: Yes.
[0:19:24.9] KM: You go, “Oh! Daily Quench. I get it. You want to know the daily drinking holes. I understand that.” Talk about how you saw the opportunity for the Daily Quench and how it came about.
[0:19:34.8] RH: With Daily Quench was when I was a junior in college at Ole Miss.
[0:19:40.6] KM: Oh! One right off the bat. When you first got to Ole Miss.
[0:19:43.3] RH: I had taken an internship at Morgan Stanley Smith Barney. I’ve taken an internship in New York at a company called Marsh & McLennan.
[0:19:50.7] KM: An internship for doing what? Insurance like your dad?
[0:19:52.1] RH: One of them was.
[0:19:54.0] KM: I like it.
[0:19:55.3] RH: Because I didn’t know what I wanted to do at that point. I knew I had something great with Premier Power Washing and it was making oodles and oodles of money for us, but I was trying to figure out what I want to do. I was trying to get as much experience as I can. What I noticed was at Ole Miss we’re known for a party school.
[0:20:12.8] KM: Really? I didn’t know that.
[0:20:15.4] RH: I saw that I could bring traffic to certain bars if they offered me or my customers an exclusive special. I went to these bars and I said, “If your Bud Light, let’s say, is $3 a bottle, if you’ll sell it to my customers for a $1.50 a bottle for only Daily Quench customers, I will then notify all of my customers about this special and I’ll bring everybody to you.” Instead if there’s 15 bars in Oxford, instead of them being dispersed among the 15, give my customers a special —
[0:20:51.7] KM: You target marketed to your really niche market through text messaging, right?
[0:20:56.0] RH: Yes.
[0:20:56.4] KM: Instead of going and advertising in the paper today, we’ve got Bug Light for $1.50. Some broad expensive advertising, which is very expensive to do that sort of advertising. They could pay you a much smaller amount.
[0:21:09.3] RH: Yeah. With college students, it’s hard to reach college students.
[0:21:12.3] KM: Because they don’t read the paper.
[0:21:13.0] RH: They don’t read the paper. They’re typically —
[0:21:15.0] KM: They don’t watch TV.
[0:21:16.0] RH: Yeah. You can’t — Really, email marketing is ineffective because they’re not using their personal email. They’re using their school email that they require to use and you’re not —
[0:21:22.7] KM: Which is blocked.
[0:21:24.0] RH: Exactly.
[0:21:24.7] KM: I never thought about all of that.
[0:21:26.1] RH: The college student is the most valuable customer to a company because that is when preferences and opinions are formed in college. In college, if you’re a Bud Light drinker in college, you’re going to be a Bud Light drinker for the rest of your life.
[0:21:41.6] KM: Really?
[0:21:41.9] RH: But you can go from one drink and then start preferring another drink in college. Now, you’re out of college and that the second drink is the one you’re going to prefer. Being able to grab these customers at a young age and mold their opinions and then be able to profit for the rest of their life off of them, my goal with Daily Quench was to collect this data that I could eventually have this database on the most valuable type of customer out there.
What our plan was originally is —
[0:22:10.1] KM: Originally, you were losing money.
[0:22:12.1] RH: Yeah, because I did was —
[0:22:12.9] KM: Because you just wanted to collect the data and then you were like — I read you were losing $200 a day.
[0:22:18.1] RH: My original business model was the restaurant, 7 or 8 restaurants and bars, were going to pay me a thousand dollars a month and I was going to drive business to them. I created a text messaging service where I think you text rebels to 90999 and every day 5 pm I would send a text message out and let you know, “Hey, this bar is doing half off well drinks,” or whatever.
I told three people at first, “Hey, text rebels to 90999.” Within five days, at over 6,000 in the service and it just kept blowing up. When you use a text message, you can’t just send a text message from your iPhone to 6,000 people. You have to use a special text message platform and it cost you one cent or two cents per person you’re sending that text message to.
[0:23:05.2] KM: What platform did you use?
[0:23:06.7] RH: I can’t remember now.
[0:23:09.0] KM: The service —
[0:23:09.4] RH: It was charging me, and it was costing so much.
[0:23:10.5] KM: It’s like an eblast type of service. It’s a text message service.
[0:23:14.3] RH: If I’m bringing in 8,000 a month in revenue from these bars and it’s costing $200, $300, $400 a day to send a text message out, I’m in the haul. $400 a day times 30 days, that’s $12,000.
[0:23:30.5] KM: Because you’re text messaging —
[0:23:33.1] RH: So many people.
[0:23:33.3] KM: What’s getting to be so many people and they were charging you a penny a person or whatever they do, how they do it.
[0:23:37.6] RH: I knew I had a great idea, but a month into it it was this thing is going to go upside down pretty fast. I was sitting around with one of my buddies one evening and it was to his credit, it was his idea. He said, “What if you still use the text message,” because, before, to get that special to bar, all you had to do was just show your phone and show this text message. He said, “Still send a text message, but instead of showing just a text message, flip your revenue model. Make it free to the restaurants and bars and have customers pay $25 for a Daily Quench card.” Now they show a card to get the special and you can make your money from the card.
[0:24:16.2] KM: Is the card just a one-time fee, $25?
[0:24:18.8] RH: $25 for six months.
[0:24:21.9] KM: Oh, for six months, and you had 6,000 customers.
[0:24:24.5] RH: Yeah. What happened was we send a couple of text out, said, “As of this date, text message will no longer work. You got to buy Daily Quench cards,” and I’m partnering with one of my bars — Bought a printer offline, a card printer where I could print these cards offline. It’s a $3,000 or $4,000 printer.
[0:24:39.7] KM: I didn’t know you can do that.
[0:24:40.3] RH: I told a bar owner, I said, “If you’ll pay me a thousand dollars plus give me and a couple of my buddies a free bar tab for the night from 8 PM until midnight, we will stay up here selling Daily Quench cards, and this will be the first that Daily Quench cards are sold. I think a lot of people come and buy them.”
We sent a text message out and I showed up at about 7:30 and there was a line almost around the block. We were nonstop. We didn’t leave that bar until 1, 2 AM, and we were selling the entire time. On the first night — Most of our transactions were cash,$25, $20 and a $5 bill. Most everybody was just paying cash. As we were packing up, I looked around I’m like, “I’ve got $25,000, $30,000 on cash on me from just one night.
[0:25:28.4] KM: Oh my gosh! This guy is just a money machine.
[0:25:30.7] RH: It was scary, because I was like, “I’m getting robbed. Who’s not going to rob me?” I’m walking out with all these money on me. Everybody’s seen me with this money.
[0:25:39.6] KM: What did you do with it all? Put it in the safe in the restaurant?
[0:25:44.5] RH: I called a bunch of fraternity brothers and they helped get me out of the bar, and I went back to my house and sit in my bedroom all night just looking —
[0:25:52.5] KM: With a gun on your lap?
[0:25:54.0] RH: Just looking at the door, like, “At any point, somebody’s coming in.”
[0:25:57.8] KM: It’s paranoid.
[0:25:58.1] RH: No. It turned out to be a great success.
[0:26:01.2] KM: The next week you went to another bar and then another bar. Did you just moved around from bar to bar till you ended up with how many bars that were selling Daily Quench cards?
[0:26:08.9] RH: Yeah. We moved around from bar to bar selling them, and then what we eventually started doing was pre-printing Daily Quench cards and giving them to the bars, the bars could sell themselves.
[0:26:17.4] KM: Then they get a kickback, the bar?
[0:26:18.9] RH: Yeah. They got, I think, $5. Then we started going to these fraternity and sorority presidents and giving them $5 a card to promote them to their members. Then 6 months later we decided to open Starkville, Mississippi, which is Mississippi State. What we did is 6 days a week, every day except Sunday, I would drive, 5 PM I would leave. I wouldn’t come back till midnight, but six days a week for almost a year I would go down to Starkville which is an hour and a half, two hours south of Ole Miss, where Mississippi State is and I started selling in Starkville as well.
We had really good reception from Starkville. Similar to what we had in Ole Miss. After I graduated, I had an investor approach me and say, “Let’s blow this up to multiple cities, because we found they key to it was going into a new market getting these fraternities and sororities on board. If 30%, 40% of a population are a member of a fraternity or a sorority, it’s an easy way to hit pretty fast. With this new investor onboard, we hired quite a few people and we’ve expanded from two colleges to 10, 15 across 7, 8 states.
[0:27:26.2] KM: Does Fayetteville have —
[0:27:28.2] RH: Fayetteville — We had it in Fayetteville. We had it in Texas A&M. We had it Georgia. We had it at University of Memphis. We had it everywhere.
[0:27:37.1] KM: Is it still going?
[0:27:38.0] RH: It actually has wound down a little bit after I left. I left the company and decided to go do Chef Shuttle, and it wound down a little bit. It needed a lot of hustle behind it and I think I was kind of the heart and soul of it. It’s hard to separate a company from the owner.
[0:27:55.6] KM: It is.
[0:27:56.6] RH: If you don’t prepare for that transition, you’ll run into trouble. I don’t think we did a good enough job preparing for that transition, and all of these people I’d hired, they were loyal to me. When I leave, all these campus reps — If you don’t prepare the correct way, they’ll wind up in disaster.
[0:28:15.3] KM: We were just talking about that two weeks ago with Barry Corcoran about succession and how they have a loyalty to the original owner. Then when it often changes hands, you get a big turnover and you need another strong personality.
All right, I’m going to talk to you, Eric.
[0:28:29.8] EH: I’m ready. Actually, Ryan’s story is pretty amazing. Everything he’s put together.
[0:28:37.7] KM: You’re so proud. I can see you glowing over there.
[0:28:39.5] RH: I have told people this story with my father in the room and without my father in the room. If it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t have done this.
[0:28:48.5] KM: How come?
[0:28:48.9] RH: Because if he would have given me everything I asked for and everything I wanted, I would have never had a need or desire to try to get what I wanted if he provided it for me. When he took the approach of, “I’m going to provide you the essentials. You’re not going to starve. You’re not going to go without roof over your head. You’re going to have a good life, but you’re not going to be a spoiled kid. You’re not driving the brand new car. You’re driving a very old car. It’s your first car. You’re not getting $100 a month. You’re not getting my credit card. You’re getting $20 a weekend.”
By him being disciplined, I had two choices, either I figure out how to budget the money or I figure out how to earn more. That’s what I did. I figured out how to earn more. If it wasn’t for that decision, then we wouldn’t be here.
I think the second thing is he would always preach do the right thing. No matter the situation, it was do the right thing. Doing the right thing is not always the easiest thing to do. Doing the right thing is very often the harder of two choices. He’d always preached do the right thing. I think that is one of the primary reasons for the success that I’ve had is I’ve always tried to do the right thing. Sometimes, it was unpopular. At some times, it costs us money. Sometimes, my employees didn’t agree with it. Sometimes my investors didn’t agree with it. By doing the right thing, you always come out ahead. I’ve trusted in that, because he instilled that value in me. I thank him for that, because it’s a big reason for everything we’ve done so far.
[0:30:37.7] EH: Yeah, I told all the kids that your reputation is all you got at the end of the day, and if you squander that in any way, everyone around is going to remember it. 40 years from now, they’ll still be talking about what you did.
[0:30:49.6] KM: Did your father instill that in you, Eric?
[0:30:51.4] EH: Yeah. Dad worked hard when he was in the insurance business. You bet it was fun for my brother and me to both watch him and how he did things.
[0:31:00.6] KM: You brought HUB International to Arkansas and then you sold it.
[0:31:04.7] EH: No, actually in 2011.
[0:31:08.3] KM: Tell everybody what HUB International is.
[0:31:10.4] EH: HUB is the largest, privately held commercial insurance brokerage in the country. We have offices in 330 cities, and 8,000 of us were very, very good risk managers. By far, the largest broker in Arkansas with the exception of one, but they don’t do all the lines that we do here in Arkansas.
[0:31:29.1] KM: You’re talking about Blue Cross Blue Shield?
[0:31:30.6] EH: No, commercial property casualty. We do have benefits and all that, but I’m primarily a property and casualty guy. We started in 2011. I started an insurance agency. In 2015, we sold that to HUB International.
[0:31:46.3] KM: I see. You’re an entrepreneur that started your own agency. What was it called?
[0:31:50.1] EH: It was the Homes Organization of Arkansas, but my partners were out at Tulsa, the Homes Organization there. We started ground up scratch, opened a new organization here. It was a lot of fun.
[0:32:02.6] KM: When did you start that one?
[0:32:04.2] EH: January of ’11.
[0:32:06.1] KM: Then, HUB came in and —
[0:32:08.8] EH: Purchased homes May 1 of ’15. They liked what they saw, obviously.
[0:32:15.7] KM: This is genetic.
[0:32:15.7] EH: Maybe.
[0:32:18.4] KM: Build a business and sell it. I have never done that. Both of you have done that. You’ve done it two times, and you’ve done it best.
[0:32:23.9] EH: This is my first time. HUB is a great company, and there are times that I do miss calling the shots a little bit.
[0:32:32.4] KM: You’re still working there?
[0:32:33.4] EH: Yeah. I wouldn’t be anywhere else.
[0:32:36.1] KM: What else are you going to do?
[0:32:37.3] EH: It’s all I know. I do have two Ryan stories.
[0:32:40.1] KM: Okay. Come on.
[0:32:40.1] EH: What happened was he’d taken an eight-to-five job out of Ole Miss with a competitor of mine in New York City.
[0:32:48.4] KM: What?
[0:32:50.6] EH: We were on the plane in New York and move him up there. We were taking off and he said, “Dad, I’ve already quit my job.” We’re taking off and I said —
[0:32:58.2] KM: You mean a job that he was going in New York City for?
[0:33:00.4] EH: Yes.
[0:33:00.7] KM: You’re on the plane, moving him up there thinking he’s going to a new job, and he tells you, “I’ve already quit that.”
[0:33:05.5] EH: I’ve already quit. He said, “I can’t do —“
[0:33:06.7] KM: Like, “What are we doing on this plane?”
[0:33:08.0] EH: That’s exactly what I said.
[0:33:09.3] RH: I had quit three months earlier but I was afraid to tell him.
[0:33:12.2] KM: What? You let him pack everything up and move you all up there?
[0:33:15.6] EH: Yeah. He had a lease for a year.
[0:33:17.2] RH: I signed a lease.
[0:33:19.1] KM: What happened? You went there in silence, I guess, in the airplane. Right?
[0:33:23.3] EH: I understood it. I knew that it’s not in my genes either to do the eight-to-five sit at a desk thing. He wanted to go start this new company, and that’s what he did. My other story is he had a little legal issue sometime in college, nothing major.
[0:33:40.1] KM: Besides putting mailers into the mailboxes.
[0:33:42.4] EH: He called me and he said, “Dad, I’ve got a problem. This is what’s happened.” I was like, “Son, all right.” He said, “Don’t worry about a thing, Dad. My lawyer’s already got it taken care of.” I said, “Your lawyer?” He said, “Yes, I’ve already had a layer and he’s taking care of.”
[0:33:58.2] KM: Was it a friend of yours?
[0:33:59.5] RH: No. He’s a good lawyer. I may have had a little drink or so underage.
[0:33:59.5] KM: Ole Miss. I figured that’s what it was.
[0:34:08.3] RH: Yeah, I thought it was legal at Ole Miss.
[0:34:11.2] KM:It kind of is.
[0:34:10.3] RH: I said, “If you’re handling it, then it’s your issue. Let’s move on to the next step.”
[0:34:15.8] KM: That’s a candid kind of spirit that every entrepreneur has. They just call up they’ve already got the problem. They tell you what it is. They’ve already got a solution. I got to hear, when you got to New York and you didn’t have a job, what was the first thing you did? That’s my very next question. You graduated from college, moved at New York to follow your father’s footsteps at selling insurance, and boom! I’m guessing you saw an opportunity and the wheels in your brain started to turn. What was it you saw and how did you act on this hunch?
[0:34:40.3] RH: That was after Daily Quench went to the investment. I was still working for running Daily Quench. Now, I was just having to fly out of New York every Monday and come back on Friday.
[0:34:40.3] KM: You were flying to Mississippi?
[0:34:54.2] RH: I was flying to the south. The reason I say that it took me so long to tell my father is — I think this has a bigger meaning. First, insurance in my family is what we do; my grandfather, my father. I think most people who have been in Little Rock for quite a while will tell you commercial space that Dick Herget and Eric Herget are two of the best, if not the best commercial insurance brokers in the state. My degree was in insurance at college. I thought that I was going to fall on his footsteps until this entrepreneurial bug got into me.
When I knew I wasn’t going to take this job in New York, I had trouble telling him because 99% of the population has always looked at their career as a graduate college. I’m going to work for 40 years or for 50 years, and I’m going to save up until I become 65 or 70, and I’m going to retire, and I’m going to live out the last 10, 20 years of my life with the retirement. For over half of my life, I’m going to spend only two out of seven days enjoying my life so that the last 15 years of my life I can spend seven out of seven days.
[0:36:15.2] KM: He’s a numbers guy all the way. Isn’t he?
[0:36:19.1] RH: I think with the younger generation that I’m included in, some of has a different thought. My thought is what I’m going to do is I’m going to work 110 hours a week. That’s why I work. I work 100, 110 hours a week and I’m going to try to make enough money to where I had the ability to retire by the time I’m 30. It’s to take a lot of work and it’s to take a lot of great people. It’s going to take a lot of luck and it’s going to take a lot of breaks. That’s what we’re doing right now.
It’s hard for somebody to comprehend, “What do you mean this is what you’re going to do? This is not the norm. This is not what you’re taught. This is not what everybody else does. What do you mean you don’t have a 401(k)? What do you mean you’re not putting a little bit into retirement?” It’s because I want to invest any money I make into start-ups. What I’m going to do is if I don’t have enough money to where I can retire by the time I’m 30, I figure I still have 30, 40 years in the workforce to catch up with everybody else.
[0:37:21.9] KM: Exactly.
[0:37:23.3] RH: This startup like cycle that I’m in right now is let’s do this until let’s see what happens. I think right now with Chef Shuttle, people would be surprised with our revenue numbers. We’re doing several, several millions of dollars a quarter.
[0:37:40.5] KM: When did it start? When did you start it?
[0:37:42.2] RH: 2014.
[0:37:43.1] KM: From when you had the idea in New York City to when you got if off the ground, how long did it take to come fruition?
[0:37:50.2] RH: Three months.
[0:37:51.3] KM: That’s pretty darn fast. You’re sitting in New York City, how does the idea come to you? You didn’t go up there with this idea.
[0:37:57.8] RH: No.
[0:37:58.3] KM: You’ve got this idea when you were in New York, didn’t you?
[0:38:00.1] RH: Yes. You’re getting food delivered every day to you.
[0:38:03.4] KM: While you’re in New York.
[0:38:04.0] RH: While you’re in New York. It’s a lot easier. Most of the restaurants offer delivery, because all you have to do is put somebody on a bicycle. They can hit quite a big part of the city. I looked at the south in particular and looked at my hometown of Little Rock and I said, “There isn’t a service that can offer convenience to customers.” That’s when I decided I’m going to come back and I’m going to start Chef Shuttle.
We started February 3rd, 2014 at my living room couch with seven restaurants, a couple drivers, and chaos.
[0:38:40.2] KM: I love that chaos.
[0:38:41.9] RH: In the first eight weeks, we did what we thought we’re going to do in revenue for the entire year of 2014.
[0:38:49.2] KM: Really? Everyone of your job has been like that. Every one of your ideas has blown up instantly.
[0:38:55.3] RH: It’s luck. A lot of it is luck.
[0:38:57.1] KM: I think it’s intuitive opportunities.
[0:38:58.4] EH: It’s hard work.
[0:39:00.6] RH: With Chef Shuttle, with rapid growth comes a need for cash.
[0:39:05.8] KM: What was the first thing you sold when you were doing Chef Shuttle? You went to the restaurants first? How did you get it off the ground in three months?
[0:39:11.7] RH: I went to the restaurants.
[0:39:13.7] KM: First to sell them.
[0:39:14.7] RH: First to sell restaurants.
[0:39:14.8] KM: Would you like for me to deliver your products because you don’t have anybody to deliver your products, and they said yes.
[0:39:20.9] RH: Yes.
[0:39:21.7] KM: It wasn’t hard sale?
[0:39:19.4] RH: No, we’re bringing them incremental business. They wouldn’t have gotten — If a customer wants to go eat out, Chef Shuttle stands in view is then go, but go to one of our partner restaurants if you want to go eat out. However, if you want to stay in, instead of cooking or instead of ordering from any restaurant, order from one of our partners restaurants.
For the restaurant, our business is based upon them. We try to push them as much business as possible. In turn, they’ll let us deliver the product, because 95% of a restaurant’s customers are going to fall within a five-mile radius. With Chef Shuttle, we can expand that radius to 10 or 15 miles. Now, a restaurant has the ability to serve customers—
[0:40:08.2] KM: 15 miles?
[0:40:09.6] RH: In some cases.
[0:40:10.4] KM: Is it an app on your phone?
[0:40:12.0] RH: It’s primarily right now the website, chefshuttle.com.
[0:40:14.8] KM: You got to chefshuttle.com and you’d have a list of the restaurants that you will deliver.
[0:40:19.8] RH: Yup. You put in your address, and it’ll show you all the restaurants that are delivering to your address.
[0:40:25.6] KM: How did you get consumers to know about your website to go there? You’ve gone to the restaurants, you’re told them again about the service. Now, you got to get consumers to know about it. The restaurants are telling their consumers or how?
[0:40:37.2] RH: Yeah, a lot of it is partnership with the restaurant. Now, we’ve got a marketing director, Carrie Yang, who does a really good job with our marketing and getting our brand out there. For a while —
[0:40:46.7] KM: You did the flyers?
[0:40:47.9] RH: We did flyers.
[0:40:48.6] KM: That would be great when you do regional to do that.
[0:40:50.1] RH: We did restaurants and then we did yard signs, and people driving past the yard signs every single day.
[0:40:56.4] KM: Three really pretty unpredictable ways. You went to the restaurants. Did you give them something to put on the counter?
[0:41:01.2] RH: Yes, in the door.
[0:41:02.5] KM: In the door, and you trained all their employees to say we can deliver?
[0:41:06.1] RH: We would rely on the tip with the restaurant owner, general manager to do so, but it’s a partnership. Ever since the words they would —
[0:41:11.9] KM: Does the restaurant get a kickback or they just get increase to sales?
[0:41:14.7] RH: We take a commission from the restaurant off everything we sell for them. It’s how we make our money with Chef Shuttle.
[0:41:20.4] KM: The person that’s ordering the food on your website does not pay anything extra for the delivery, or do they have a delivery price?
[0:41:27.5] RH: We use the same menu and same price as you find in the restaurant. You only pay a $4.95 delivery fee. The tip is optional. While most customers add a tip—
[0:41:40.2] KM: Does that go to the driver or to the restaurant?
[0:41:41.1] RH: It goes 100% to the driver. Our pricing model is same menu, same prices as the restaurant. We make our money, because the restaurant’s going to pay us commission off everything we sell. We process everything to our websites, so when you check out and put items in your cart. You know you’re paying the same menu prices. There’s a $4.95 delivery fee added. The tip’s optional. We do encourage you though, because that’s how our drivers make the money. It goes 100% to our drivers.
[0:42:05.1] KM: You went to the restaurant, got them to buy-in. I think you probably did that yourself, right?
[0:42:09.8] RH: Yes.
[0:42:10.3] KM: Then, you took advantage of the postal service? What do you call that?
[0:42:13.5] RH: Every door direct mail.
[0:42:14.4] KM: Every door direct mail, which I think is wonderful. Then, you did yard signs. Where would you do yard signs?
[0:42:20.2] RH: In front of the restaurant.
[0:42:21.3] KM: In front of the restaurants.
[0:42:23.2] RH: Our big thing with Chef Shuttle is if you look at most of the advertising we do, we include our restaurant logos in there, because Chef Shuttle, s a stand-alone brand, what does Chef Shuttle do? Are they chefs? Are they pick-up? Are they delivery? Are they an ordering process site? What is Chef Shuttle? When you associate Chef Shuttle with our restaurant partners, then it becomes clear; restaurant delivery, and here are the restaurant I can get my product deliver from.
We really try to use cobranding strategy with our restaurants and with ourselves in order to really drive home our message that Chef Shuttle is restaurant delivery. We took that model in May of 2014. We went through our first round of funding with LaFrance family. We went through another round of funding in 2015. We’re currently going through a pretty big round of funding right now, primarily out of the West Coast.
[0:43:21.2] KM: You’re going to be in how many states did you say at the beginning of the show? You had a goal to be able to sell it in five years. To me, it seems like you got to be able to franchise it.
[0:43:28.3] RH: We’ve had the opportunity to franchise.
[0:43:29.9] KM: That seems like the next thing to me. You remind me of the guy from the storybooks. You do the right thing, take care of your employees. Those are all the things that Howard Schwartz —
Is that his name? Is that Schwartz from Starbucks says about his company? Sometimes, it was against his board. His board would say, “No, you shouldn’t be providing health insurance.” He was like, “It’s the right thing to do.” You’re not into the franchising. You’re more into selling it?
[0:43:57.7] RH: I agree with the franchise, but Chef Shuttle is just stage one. Our goal is to have an infrastructure to be able to deliver all types of products. Chef Shuttle —
[0:44:10.6] KM: What’s that new software you’re going to build?
[0:44:12.8] RH: We’re talking we’re going to roll out grocery delivery. We’ll eventually roll out a dry cleaner delivery, and we’re going to have this infrastructure that can deliver all types of product. Until we do that, we’ve had franchises approach us. Until we know how to operate multiple sides of our business at once, we don’t feel comfortable selling a franchise if we can’t say 100%, “This is what your model going to look like in the future.”
Right now, we know how to deliver restaurant food and we’re really good. We’ve delivered almost — I think we’ve actually passed 500,000 orders we’ve done. We’re good at that, but we’re rolling out other delivery options that we want to make sure we have down before we sell people on them.
[0:44:53.4] KM: When I first started looking at your bio and stuff, I thought, “Well, he’s going to go franchise and then he’s going to go to publicly trade it.”
[0:44:54.0] KM: When I first started looking at bio and stuff I thought, “Well, he’s going to go franchise and then he’s going to go to publicly traded.” Now, after our conversation, I think you’re going to sell all of these and you’re going to become a software salesman. If you can get a delivery software working that can work across all those platforms, to me, software is where the money is. You have to do those upgrades and maintenance contracts. They just drive me — I’m just like, “What? They put in a couple of new fields and charge you $5,000 for a maintenance contract.”
[0:45:28.3] RH: That’s a potential. I think having this infrastructure will be valuable for us. The shift in consumer demand, 10 years ago it was more about, “I want customer service is my first priority and convenience is second.” Now it’s shifting towards convenience is my first priority. Customer service is second. When you order a product, you want to do it online so you can do it fast and you want to get that product as soon as you order the product.
Consumers are going to continue — The shift is going to continue to be more and more towards when I buy it, I want it. I want to buy it when I want to buy it. I don’t want to have to go to a store. Chef Shuttle I think presents this great opportunity where we can be the one with our infrastructure to be able to get that customer any product whenever they wanted in the last mile sense.
[0:46:17.7] KM: Is it hard to qualify your drivers? I see you synergize with Uber also. There’s a whole other college nation.
[0:46:24.1] RH: The biggest thing that sets us apart is we try to be not only a convenience-driven company, but a customer service driven company.
[0:46:33.0] KM: How do you get your drivers and qualify them?
[0:46:34.6] RH: We have quite a few drivers that come whether it’d be our restaurant partners, whether it’d be their friends telling them, because they’re making on average $8, $9 an order.
[0:46:42.8] KM: So it’s word of mouth.
[0:46:43.8] RH: It’s Word of mouth. Then we preach, “You’re the face of Chef Shuttle. You’re the voice of Chef Shuttle. The customer is relying on you. You treat our customers the way we’re going to treat our customers,” and it’s been a good partnership.
[0:46:58.5] KM: Yeah, I just love — I could talk to you for an hour. Please come back. Eric, thanks for coming in even though we didn’t talk very much.
[0:47:08.0] KM: I could tell. You just grin. This is for you, Eric. I know you’re a cigar smoker. These cigars come from the Humidor Room at Colonial Wine & Spirits on Markham. That’s for birthing a business.
[0:47:21.8] RH: I appreciate it.
[0:47:22.0] KM: You’re welcome. I should give you three. You birthed three. You birthed there business. Eric, I should give you three for your three sons that you’ve done a great job with.
[0:47:31.5] EH:Good boys.
[0:47:31.8] KM: They are all great. Thank you to Ryan and Eric Herget for my guest today. They are smart, handsome, and successful. Father, Eric; and his son, Ryan. Next week will be a holiday week, so my tech, Tim Bowen and I will be playing excerpts from previous shows. We have the best of the Barry Corcoran show. He’ll be talking about succession, passing on a business, and the best of Matt McLeod who shares how he melded his passion for painting into a business called McLeod Fine Arts Gallery.
If you have questions or you have a great entrepreneurial story that you would like to share with me, I would love to hear from you. Send a brief bio and your contact info to —
[0:48:20.8] TB: Questions@upyourbusiness.org.
[0:48:23.2] KM: And somebody will be in touch. Finally, to our listeners, I want to thank you for spending time with me and my guest; Eric and Ryan Herget. Thank y’all so much for sharing your great stories. I think you’ve been a great inspiration to a lot of people. I really do. I hope you’ll come back.
If you think this program has been about you, the listener, you’re right, but it’s also been about me. Thank you for letting me fulfill my destiny. My hope today is that you’ve heard or learned something that’s been inspiring or enlightening, and that it, whatever it is, will help you up your business, your independence, or your life.
I am Kerry McCoy, until then, be brave and keep it up.
[END OF INTERVIEW]
[0:49:05.1] TB: You’ve been listening to Up in Your Business with Kerry McCoy. Want to hear today’s program again or want someone else to benefit from it? Jot this down. Within 48 hours the podcast will be available at flagandbanner.com. Click the tab labeled “Radio Show”, there you’ll find today’s segments with links to resources you heard discussed on this program. Kerry’s goal: to help you live the American Dream.
