Shakin' Hands
Welcome to 'Shakin' Hands,' the podcast where entrepreneurship meets fascinating stories from the most intriguing minds today. From proven business practices to groundbreaking ideas that challenge the status quo, Shakin' Hands' is not just about the handshake that seals a deal but about the shared experiences and values that unite us all. Whether you're an aspiring entrepreneur, a seasoned business owner, or someone who loves a good story about overcoming odds, Shakin' Hands' promises to deliver compelling content that shakes up the conventional and celebrates the extraordinary.
Tune in to Shakin' Hands' where leaders, thinkers, and doers come to share, inspire, and, most importantly, connect. Let's shake hands with the world, one story at a time.
Host: Jack Moran
Powered by DreamSpear
Shakin' Hands
Ep. 54 | Respect Is the Real Sales Strategy - Ryan Eleuteri
In this episode of Shakin’ Hands, Jack Moran sits down with Ryan Eleuteri, founder of Charleston Beverage Company, the makers of Charleston Bloody Mary Mix, and the executive director behind Charleston’s charity boxing tournament, Battle on the Brick. Ryan shares the gritty realities of building a beverage brand from scratch, scaling authenticity into a business model, and the lessons learned from both entrepreneurship and starting a charity event. They dive into the power of creating products and events that stand for something bigger than profit—emphasizing community impact, brand storytelling, and resilience under pressure. Whether it’s bottling a Bloody Mary or stepping into the ring, Ryan’s journey proves that real success is earned where passion, purpose, and perseverance collide.
Thanks for listening
Host: Jack Moran
Powered by: DreamSpear
Want to connect with like-minded entrepreneurs and growth-minded leaders? Join our Dreamspear community on Skool at skool.com/dreamspear or learn more at dreamspear.com. Whether you're building a business, leveling up your mindset, or looking for real conversations, we're here to grow with you.
Follow Shakin' Hands Podcast
Website
Instagram
YouTube
Dreamspear
Website
Instagram
SEE YOU NEXT WEEK!
Welcome to Shakin’ Hands, where we provide the platform for entrepreneurs and thought leaders to share their stories in order to hopefully influence others to get out of the rat race and chase their own dreams. If you have any recommendations for guests or questions that you want to be asked, please don't hesitate to reach out. Anyways, if you enjoy the podcast, please like, comment, subscribe and share in order to keep the podcast growing. Otherwise, I'm your host, Jack Moran and this is Shakin’ Hands. If you're looking for business mentorship, I have a place where you can get feedback on your unique personal development and business growth challenges. Over the last year, I've brought together a group of impact driven thought leaders where we meet every single day to discuss psychology, communication, mindset, and business case studies. We have people who have made millions of dollars, lost millions of dollars, Harvard MBAs and new entrepreneurs like you and I. Entrepreneurship can be lonely. So if you're looking for a support system, please follow the link in the description below for some more information. As we start our cranking, we're cranking. Oh, God. Yeah. So, I found it in 20. Got me. Think about this 2012, the Charleston Beverage Company. So it's, local cocktail brand. We make, Charleston makes Bloody Mary. Charleston makes Margarita. And, yeah, that's the big that's the big thing. And then a couple of years ago, I met Sam, or sorry, a couple years ago, founded the Charleston Boxing Foundation. So it's like a was founded as a charity to support student athlete scholarships to college. And then it's kind of morphed into this massive amateur boxing event at the arena that raises money for an MSI Warrior Surf Foundation. And yeah, this will be our third, third year or ten days away from it. So let's start with the mics. Yeah. Yeah. That. So funny enough, I went to college. Charleston moved down here from Bucks County, Pennsylvania to northeast suburb of Philly and went to school. Did pretty well in school of medicine, graduated four years. Parents helped out a little bit, but I was an absolute moron with credit cards in college. Like they we never had a conversation about how to deal with credit cards. And so graduate and didn't leave any student loans, but I was $40,000 in debt from credit cards. So I, you know, having a conversation. My parents and, you know, thinking maybe I can talk them into helping helping their youngest out. And they both point blank said, this is your own problem. Like go figure it out. So I had a friend of mine that worked at a local car dealership and she's like, listen, I know you don't want to be a car dealership, but it is. It's a good job. It's a great company. I was with Hendrick Automotive and you're good at it. You can make some good money. So I think I started when I was 22 and just sales guy. But it came pretty naturally. It was I enjoyed it. We were selling pretty good products. Hendrick was a great company to work for, and once I paid off my debt within a couple of years I've tried quitting. So I'm like, I don't, you know, this isn't what I envision my life as. And every time I tried quitting, I would get promoted. So, you know, I go from being just a salesman to a new car or a finance manager to the finance director or the used car manager, the new car manager. But now I'm 27 and, you know, like what am I doing with my life? I'm making good money. And, you know, we we some mean some of the my buddies from college had gone out one night and just got, you know, Charleston 20 year old smashed. Next morning go to the grocery store to buy zinc Zang. That was my my go to brand name. They were sold out. It was at, Harris Teeter and Valley Road. So we get back to my house. We had bought a bunch of like the garbage Bloody Mary's, you know, the, the master mixes, or so I present to the, but like the, the ones that are just essentially it's like tomato water. Yeah. And we get back to my house, start making Bloody Marys. We're day drinking at this point. Kind of get, like, rid drunk, and we, you know, you, there's conversations there, buddies, where you're like, dude, we should open our own bar like we should do. And that's exactly how it happened. So at the time, Firefly Sweet Vodka had just gotten crazy busy. And I knew Scott, who found that, like, just in passing and I'm, you know, drunk in my head of me. If they can do it, I can do it. So we all kind of agree to start this company. It's a Sunday, go into work the next morning, and I'm hung over. I'm miserable. My boss was just being like, you know, a not a great person that day. And so one of my buddies calls me and he's like, hey, did you really want to try doing this? So I was like, let's do it. So six months later, we had our first version of the recipe done, had a neighbor of ours draw all the artwork for the label like it was. It was brutal. We had orange juice in the Bloody Mary mix. It was it was was not a good Bloody Mary mix. And, but I in my head I'm thinking I'm a, I'm going to be a billionaire. Like, this is I'm going to launch this. And so me and the boss one day at the car dealership get into it and I pull a Jerry Maguire. And I was like, if you if you you're cool. I'm out of here and quit the job. And you know, the Bloody Mary mix. I think it was in I think I don't even know your any had any retail accounts like it was literally just, I was selling out of the back of my, my, SUV and. Yeah, quit the job, with a terrible product and an ugly label and just went all in. So what was that like? Like, you know, it was it was for sure. I, I mean, I, I thought when I, you know, I, I bought this big house because I was making such good money. The dealership had a good amount of money saved up from, you know, I wasn't living too high on the hog. And, you know, I thought I had plenty money to start this company. And, you know, it was a, comedy of errors, right? Like I'd never own a small business. I'd the only an experience I had in the beverage industry was drinking at a bar. So we, you know, it launches, my friend that I started it with, he had a really good job he liked. So within a couple weeks, he was. It would just wasn't working right. Like he wasn't in the day to day. I was he wasn't really into it. So eventually he he got out of it. And so it was just me. And you know, the the product wasn't great. I was a pretty good salesman. But there's not that much you can overcome with a bad product. And you're you're burning through cash fast. So within like a couple of months I'm, I'm out of money and you know, I've got mortgage payments piling up. It's the height of the Great Recession. So home values are now 30% less than what they were. And I remember clear as day I was, I went to Triangle Charm Bar and was actually a buddy of mine was sitting there and he's a big old bear of a man. His name is Boris. He's like Boris the Bear, and he's been in the bar business for 15 years and having good friends is great, but sometimes they don't want to tell you your kid's ugly. So I'm going through thinking that the mix is pretty good. I don't know why bars aren't like they'll take a case to try it, but they're not reordering and Boris is drunk as hell. Cross the bar a triangle from me and he literally just yells, hey, you're putting marry me fucking sucks. And I don't know what it was. It was like that slap across the face of sober You up. So I end up bringing Boris on board and we start riffing, formulating the recipe. We're literally, I'm going to total wine every day with a a gallon jug of our, our newest creation. And then the six top brands and we're I'm blind sampling people and do this for like seven months. Meanwhile, though, I'm out of money so bad to get kicked out of my house because I've got I'm I've decided that the only thing I care about is saving this company. And you know, we're still we need to get a new label done and you need to pay for the new recipe batches. So fortunately, I run into a fellow College of Charleston alumni who graduated a couple years ahead of me. Much, much more smart or see exactly. He's smarter and had been wildly successful and so he, you know, he kind of takes me or is weighing and I'm trying to put together, a plan to get into some private equity money. And he's helping me draft and redraft it. And then finally one day he's like, Ryan, why do you think I'm helping you with all this stuff? And I was like, I don't know, you want to help me because we're a CFC alum. And he's like, no, you idiot, I'm going to invest in the company. Well. So he ends up putting in a sizable chunk of money. We relaunch the brand so he, you know, labels the recipe. But with anything you know, especially it's been on the market now for a year and a half. Getting consumers and bartenders to give you another shot is next to impossible, right? They already know that. It's at this point in time, and it's been a year and a half or now it's been a year and a half, and it's been a year now since I launched. Yeah, originally. How long has it been on the market? No. 14 years. Okay. Gotcha. So, you know, it's it's essentially getting to drink like Pepsi. Clear Pepsi. Right? Like, I've already try that stuff. I'm not trying it again. And so, we hired this really good marketing firm, and they call me up one morning and they're like, hey, gardening magazine is doing this new award program called made in the South Awards. We think you should enter the the new version of the Bloody Mary mix. And I was like, cool it, let's do it. So the only problem is the the entries close, today. So you have to have them everything by 11:00. Gardening guns located on King Street, our production facilities and hanigan. So I literally drive up to Hannah and at nine in the morning, hand brew a batch of our new bloody Mary mix, put it in some glass bottles. Our marketing agency, the guys that did our labels hook on, King Street has an office above Garden and Gunn. So I go into their office, they print out a label, and we, like kids, superglue the label on to the bottle. And then the shrink band. I go to the hair salon next to hook so they can heat gun or hair, you know, hairdryer. The shrink band on. So it looks like a real bottle. So I walk the bottle into Garden Gunn's office and, you know, it's the editor in chief and a whole table of people. And I'm thinking I just stand there and pour them samples, and then. Then they tell me how I did, and they're like, no, you have to leave us the bottle. And I'm I'm walking out the door and I can see that the label fallen off like, this is going to be a disaster. So a few weeks go by, they call our marketing agency and they go, hey, you guys have done pretty well. There's a chance you're going to be featured in the magazine. Just be ready for it. So then a few weeks after that, we get another call and they say, hey, you guys will be in the magazine, so be prepared for a little pop. And then about a week before the newsstands, they called and said, hey, you guys have won the best food product in the South. Well, and so Sean Brock wrote the article or wrote the blurb for us about taste profile and how good it was. And I think that literally saved the company like it was it. That was the opening. We needed to go to the bars and restaurants and back to the consumers and say, hey, we're not terrible anymore. Try us now. So yeah, it was it was very it was a huge loop to get there, but it's been great. I mean, we, you know, we we've kind of taken the mantra, you know, go deep rather versus wide. So we try to really own the markets that we're in. You know, we're now in 17 states, but out of the seven out of 717 like our biggest, our biggest, competitors are Zig Zag and Master of mixes. So they're one and two nationally and they're carried in all 50 states. So we're number three in sales behind them nationally. And we're only in 17 because we really focus on, you know, we want to we want to make sure when we're in a market where we're advertising, well, we get in front of consumers because the death knell for, for any brand is if you get on the shelf in a grocery store and you don't, you get a six month window to get that product moving, right. And if it doesn't move and they yank you, your chances of getting back in there are are impossible because it's it's the same thing like, oh no, we tried you it didn't it didn't work. So no, we're not bringing you back in. So it's kind of been, you know, we've had a judge like California, a great state. We do really well, but we're only in San Diego because we don't have the marketing budget yet to support, like a statewide rollout. And, you know, California loves local brands out there. So if we're going to go into market, we need to make sure we back it up. We've got the resources in place to do it because our window there is probably even tighter. But if you get in there and you start doing well, you know, it's great. You just have to. Once we get out of the southeast, especially with the Charleston, name gets a little more challenging. Thankfully, Charleston is really well liked around, you know, around the country. And our, you know, where we've gotten now is we we want people to think of Charleston and think of Bloody Mary. Makes the same way you would associate Cape Cod potato chips, right? Right. Like the brand means premium. It means quality. It means, you know, hopefully it brings you back to a memory of your time in Charleston, right? Like relaxing friends. Fun. So it's, you know, it. It's certainly been a long road, and it's giving me what's left of my hair. This is now gray. So it's, it's an interesting space to be in. Well, it's interesting how when you have that resilience or that relentlessness and the commitment to an objective, you know, sometimes it feels like it's all going to fall apart. And if you just keep that commitment till the end, like those opportunities or, you know, those breakthroughs kind of pop up right in time. When you have that commitment, the universe rewards you. So, you know, I think about that a lot, and I and I, I almost want to like, admit for me, I don't know how much was commitment and how much it was. I didn't know what the fuck else I was going to do. Like when I left my job at the dealership, I burned that like, I, I, I had my Jerry, I literally had my Jerry Maguire like like you've, you know, you're. And so I couldn't go back there if this fell apart. And I was not that I was prideful or boastful about, you know, owning my own company or launching a brand. I think I was too embarrassed to, to fail. Right. Like I am not going to unless I've exhausted everything I can possibly exhaust. I'm not going to let this fail because, you know, I want to say it was like drive to succeed, but it was also like, I just didn't want to. I didn't want my friends and people that I launched this product in front of the guy. Yeah. Ryan filled. You know, there's a ton of businesses that fail. And so I don't know why it was still stuck in my crawl space. But yeah, that was a it was a big part of it was just the, the pride fulness I guess. Yeah. It's like, you know, we used to saying, you know, I'm sure you've heard like, burn the boats. Like, I think that's the best way to enter the entrepreneurial game is because when it is such a mental game, more than anything else, when you have that plan B or that back door to exit, then you know that's always going to tease you in the back of your mind. If you hadn't burned that bridge with the dealership, maybe you get halfway through and you're like, Fort, this is hard as shit. I'm just gonna go back to selling cars. Yeah. But the fact that you went 100% in, like and didn't, you know, created that environment where you didn't have any other choice, like. Yeah, that, you know, inevitably led to the success. Yeah. You know, I think part of it too is, yeah, I did have a say in that. Right. Like there was my credit was shot from Watts with my mortgage. And then, you know, like I said, the dealership, but I would be remiss if I didn't say, like, ultimately there was a safety in that, right? Like I always had. I knew worst case scenario I could see from my parent's couch for a year while I got myself back on my feet. So and when I would talk to, you know, once a year, I'll go talk to the entrepreneurship class at the college, at CCS Business School, and I try to make sure that they kind of recognize as they move forward, you know, a certain level of gratitude, like, hey, even if you think that you're putting it all out there and a lot of us have more of a safety net and we're willing than we admit to, and that does give us a certain level of comfort to burn the boats. Right? I've got an insane amount of respect for all entrepreneurs, but especially for the ones that are that truly have no, you know, no backup plan. Right? They're like, I am burning the boat. I am burning everything that I came with, and I have nothing left to fall back on. Yeah. And those are the ones that like, you know, that really inspire me. Where, like I said, deep down, I know I had a safety net. If things got super terrible and I'm. I wouldn't be sleeping on the streets like, I have a place to go. And I think people, even people that have the safety net, they like, convinced themselves that, like, they don't have a safety net. And that's why they don't ever take the risk where, like, I've always had that peace of mind that it's like, what's the worst that happens? I'm like, I'm homeless. Yeah. You know, and it's like, I have at least some skills or I could get a job, right? Or like, I can go to another country and find a be a surf instructor or seven, like, there's always some avenue out. So it's funny how people kind of create these, like, limiting beliefs in their head where there is this catastrophic outcome that could come from being an entrepreneur, where I think it's kind of silly, like I think that it's there isn't really that bad of a scenario, especially for us, like living in the US, we have so many privileges. Yeah. If you do feel like there's a way out and if you have like at least some skill set, you'll always be able to find a job like. Yeah. And I think, you know, I it's funny, I was actually telling my neighbor the other day and he's getting ready to leave, you know, a pretty comfortable corporate job. And I think for a lot people that have the bug, right. The entrepreneur bug, there's always the what it could have should have. And that's what he kept saying to himself. He's like, man, got a great job. I make good money. I know I've got, you know, I've got a little two little ones. My wife. But if I don't get out and do this now, I'm going to be woulda, coulda should. I mean, yeah. Now the flip side of it sucks, right? You get out and you fail. And it's like I said, it's embarrassing thing. And, you know, explain kind of what happened and it's going to put a financial hit on you. But the flip side of it is you're always going to be the guy that like, man, yeah, she had a quarter. Yeah, I could have I could have been after high school I was an amazing quarterback. I should have gone to college and played pro, but yeah, it's like, dude, then just do it. And it's gets a little bit more like, complex when you have like, kids or something. And that's why it's like, you know, a lot of our audience is younger. And that's the time to take that risk. Yeah. Especially, like I said, once you start having kids and a family and a mortgage into a mix, it gets, then there are some catastrophic outcomes. It's really tricky. What do you think are the keys to succeeding as an entrepreneur? I think part of it is for us, right? Like, we we take incredibly good care of our relationships. So, you know, we we make sure that our partners, whether it's a retail partner, our distributors, we do as much as we can to be as good of a partner to them as we expect for them to be to us. I think level setting expectations, right. You know, when we got into this, know, we would pick up a new distributor. So I like the way it works in our game is every state has a has a different distributor in South Carolina. It's break through North Carolina, it's, Georgia sorry. Empire. So and we originally or when I got into this, you know, my impression of the business was I get a new distributor. They are my sales team, right? I don't need to hire 15 guys to be on the ground. These reps will be going out pushing my product for me. And you get caught in this trap where you kind of you take your foot off the gas and you forget that these reps have 400 other products. They got a rep. Yeah. And that if you're not out there pushing your own product, no one else is going to do it for you. On the other part of that, as far as taking care of like our retail partners and I can't take credit for it. It's actually, you know, Tito's does it probably better than anyone in the business. They you know, one of the things they do, you know, let's say like Charleston wine and food, we we've partnered with Tito's now for I think 14 years. So they provide us the vodka for the Bloody Marys and for a lot of liquor, companies, when you partner up with them, we'd pick it up from distributor, so they'd say, all right, I'll give you ten cases of, you know, whatever liquor, it'll be ready to pick up from break through at their warehouse. Tito's, whenever we partner with them, their reps will go to the liquor store and buy it back. Retail from the liquor store. And his philosophy to his reps has always been, these are the guys that take care of us. They're the ones that sell our product and make us money. What? Why would we undercut them? Like, let's take care of them. And so that philosophy is always kind of stuck with me, right where you keep your your partners happy and your retail partners happy, and you do all you can to do the right. And it's such a corny line to do the right thing as much as you can. And it's funny that my boss from the dealership, who that I had a huge falling out with, used to say, and I still have it's it's not if there's going to be a problem, it's what are you going to do to fix it? So our, our philosophy with like customers that write in to complain about the product or maybe have a broken shipment that arrives or something out of our control, like for if you can keep 70% of your customers happy in the Bloody Mary world, you know, everyone's got different palates. Like you're doing pretty good. So we're not we're not perfect. There are some products people like more and then who knows if some of these customers that write us and say, hey, I order your package off Amazon, it broke. You know, we know 99% of our packages don't break because we've we've gone through the testing like we've got really good outer shells. And we never question that when like send us a picture of the broken bottle. Do you want to check back or do you want us to ship your product. Right. And so every time without fail we do that. And I think the last part of it is we, we, we make sure every time we have a customer interaction, like a, like a retail customer, that somebody that would go to a food and wine show that we we give them the best experience we possibly can because we're a small company. We're not a Coca-Cola. You're not going to see us out and about at all these different sporting events. So for the Food and Wine Show is I'll bring in all of my friends so we don't hire outside staff to do it. I literally get, you know, buddies of mine from college, best friends from here in Charleston, and they get them all signed up on a sheet. And so for three days, they're my bartenders. I know they care about my brand. I know we, you know, they're my best friend. So they're hopefully good people. And and the only role I've got is like, you can have as much fun as you want. You can. I shouldn't say that. You can drink as much as you want, but like from the minute those gates open until the last customer leaves, every interaction needs to be, you know, we're so glad you're here. What can I get you? You know, and it was as basic as we were. You know, some of my guys were starting to report. We were getting so busy they were preparing Bloody Marys and have these, you know, a big, like, hunk of, mix and vodka and ice and cups sitting at the back bar table. Ready? Just hand the customers. And I'm kind of watching the crowd and I'm looking at them, and you can see they're almost a little disappointed because we've gotten so good at interacting with the customers, you know, having fun, making them laugh, asking them questions about themselves that when it became a like a lunch line service and they were just being handed their drink, they're like. And so we stopped it. We, we've set a rule that every time a customer orders a drink from our our bar, we are making it in front of them. We're not handing them pre-made stuff and it takes a little longer, but you get a line build up and then the line gets more excitement. Everyone's having fun. And so yeah, it's just it's for us. It's it's like we want to take care of everyone as well as we possibly can, or small enough that we don't need to be like this corporate, you know, even though we're the third best selling mix in the country, we're still a small company, right? So I'll still respond to customer emails, you know, also, so it's it's never losing sight of the fact that ultimately your, you know, your brand strength is the most important thing out there. Like it's you, you produce a quality product. But people think if you have your brand in a negative light, like, you know, what are you doing for us? It might it might not be for everybody, but for us it's worked. What do you think are the keys to having a good brand? What are those fundamentals. So I think the product's important. Incredibly important. Right. Like my for our first product sucked. Then I think that your positioning in the marketplace. Right. Like mean, we know for our product, we want it to be all natural. We want it to be a premium product. We don't want it to be priced next to like your your mass market plastic bottle Bloody Mary mix. Because we're paying more money for the good ingredients, we're going to charge a little bit more for it, but it's a better product. We know it's a better product. And then I think we're a ton of people go wrong when with their product. And I did it myself. Is branding is so incredibly important. The the way your product looks on the shelf, it's it's mind blowing. What a difference it can make to what the way a consumer perceives its value. I mean, our first label, it was it was so bad, you know, it was orange and yellow and it you know, it was just there was nothing to it. It was great for a first label. But I mean, I'm not going to get that thing further than like, the downtown peninsula, being like, get on the shelf somewhere. I put that in the shelf in like Atlanta or, you know, California. They're going to it. It'll it'll turn black before someone buys that bottle. When does someone typically become a customer? Is it seeing it on the shelf and they pick it up at a retail store? Is that one of your events? Like where does someone first get introduced to that product so quickly? Yeah, I mean it's it's weird. The Bloody Mary space is a lot different than a lot of the other beverage spaces. The challenge for us is liquid lips. Most people have a brand they love. And that for me, that was amazing, right? Like, I love that brand. I think it's something it's a it's a quality brand. So in this space, the getting in front of people, whether that's samplings in stores, food and wine fairs, it's key. We did some really clever marketing in the beginning. They got some eyeballs in the product. Now it's another product. Like let's say we're we're selling like a soda water. A customer would be willing to buy a soda water. Soda water off a retail shelf if they had a cool label and maybe it was on discount, like maybe their normal brand ID, it's less expensive. It just looks good. Customers are usually like, yeah, I'll give it a try. Like it's fun. Sorry, it's soda water, Bloody Mary mixes, and there's a few other products out there. It's more loyalty. There's loyalty. People like, I know that's a good Bloody Mary. I'm not going to risk it on some other brand. We've had a few occasions where, you know, a lot of our retail partners like your big box stores to make more money. They do, like store brand versions of stuff. And so, like, I name names, but one of our biggest accounts decides that they're going to essentially clear out all of the brands from their bloody Mary space and do their own version of the brand of Bloody Mary. They're like, just like labeling someone else's product or no. Yes, they white label someone else's, but they put their own stuff on it and it it absolutely decimated their that space. They did really well with other products. They did really well with like, you know, napkin napkins or so for water. But Bloody Mary's and we, we kind of told them, but you can't tell some of the big guys how to run, you know, run that space where we listen, we, we've been in this space for 12 years now going on 14. It's not going to work. And, you know, we you can see the reports and it didn't work. It's killed it. It's killed her. That mic portion of the mixer set. So it's I think it's knowing kind of knowing what lane you're in and then being the best you can in that lane again. It's like just trying to sound all, you know now I'm a stay about it, but it's the truth for us, for, you know, we really want to to dominate markets that we're in. We want to make sure that we take care of our partners. And then we look at kind of where geographic growth makes sense. So when you talked about that issue before, it's pretty interesting. Like with the distribution partners and them having four on 400 other brands to sell, how do you separate yourself and how do you get them to champion your product as opposed to set incentives. Is it. Yeah. It's so it's challenging right. Like they everybody's throwing money at them like incentivize. So we try to build relationships. You get it. You get a 3 or 4 kind of profits as a brand, right. That are that are your guys or your girls that they're the ones that you know, no matter no matter what you do in a puzzle, they're still going to be promoting your brand. Like they're still thinking about it. They're so offering it up. So you get 3 or 4 of those. That's in our markets, in our states, and then we do the rest. Right. Incentives are great. And it's it can it can move the needle a little bit gets you some top of mind awareness. But everyone's doing all right. Like it's you're not going to win the incentive game when you're up against some of these giant beer brands and some of these giant wine labels. So for us, it's, it's our, our core people. And then we're doing the work, right, like we're going into market, we're pitching restaurants, we're giving we're giving our distributor layups. Hey, we went in. We've we've locked down halls. Greenville. All you got to do is go take their order and they're good to go. And then it's, you know, you do stuff like that. You take care of the reps and then you drive. The other part of it is just driving customer demand. If we're moving off the shelf and we make their job easy, then, you know, it's you become a product. They want to help push. And so it's it's kind of a it's a combination of a lot of things especially it's changing so fast right now because distributors are downsizing. They are changing their portfolios. They're buying other distributor houses. So these portfolio is becoming massive for a smaller number of people. So the other part of it is we're hiring, small little market managers that don't directly work for us. They might rep us and three other midsize brands like a broker. Yeah, noncompetitive, but not like Valheim hundred broker. You know, brokers are great. A lot of them, though, are they've been with a certain retailer for 25 years. And it's always the I know everybody. I was the best man has worked at his daughter's wedding. And oh, meanwhile, his best friend's 25 years in the business and about to get out and all the young ones coming up don't want to hear from old George chain smoking cigarets, talking about the good old days and why you need to bring this brand in. Why you got to be. It's getting really nimble. These guys are changing positions at the grocery store super fast. You know, we've got some retail partners where our buyer now is not the same as it was a year ago. So that relationship I spent a year and a half building and lunches and dinners and golf and it's done. Yeah. And now you got to make the new buyer your best friend. And these buyers, they've got, you know, they've got 25 brands that are trying to become their best friend. So what we've kind of positioned ourselves to do is we just need to drive consumer demand. If we're selling on the shelf, that'll take care of everything else. And so now it's a game of awareness. We know we've got a good product. So now it's awareness, right? How do we get consumers to go into the grocery store, ask for our product, buy it off the shelf? How do we get consumers to ask for us when they go to Triangle Try and Bar and they see the, you know, Bloody Mary options? How do we get them to pick Charles Meeks, Bloody Mary. So the name of the game for us just is awareness awareness, awareness. What is the biggest thing that you have learned from starting this business to now that you weren't doing at the beginning, that you do now that you wish she knew? Jeez, Louise, it's a good question. I really I think, the marketing portion of it, whether that's the the food and wine shows or just driving awareness, we've we've done that in stops and starts, right where marketing is a really expensive thing to do, especially to get eyeballs on your product and things start going well. And you, you take your foot off the gas, marketing because you've got, you know, we're doing great. We can not just spend $10,000 a month on awareness campaigns. We can. We're where we need to be now. We'll you take your foot off the gas and it doesn't happen immediately, but it starts to cycle back down. Yeah. And I think that's where it's always a challenge because, you know you've got a fixed budget like we don't we don't have, you know, Coca-Cola money but Coca-Cola most recognizable brand or at least you used to be in the world. And they don't stop marketing, right? They're everywhere. They are out of sight, out of mind. Yeah, they are in every food and wine show we do. Coca-Cola has got a presence. And so I think that's one of the things that it's really tough to to keep that in mind, that in the, in our space or in the, in the consumer packaged goods space, marketing is so important even if you have an amazing product. But it it's tough too because you got it. You need to change with the times, right? Like we, we we actually so that charity boxing match we run, we, we've had some posts and reels that we promoted that, you know, I think our highest rate we've ever gotten like 75,000 views on it. We partnered with a local influencer. The guy is incredibly cool. Did it for free just to help a charity event out. He did one real and I think within want to say like three hours. It was at 300,000 views on our on our page. So I mean marketing is changing. I think for our team, it's now kind of figuring out where to allocate those dollars. You know, it's not it's not going to be in the newspaper clippings. All right. We're not going to that's not going to move the needle for us. But maybe we spend the money with, a Nashville food blogger that has a big following, that she does some fun posts for us, and it gets people to to try the product. So it's it's a changing landscape. But I ultimately think in our space, marketing is something that I've until recently, I really never focused on how important it was, at least to continue to drive growth. And you think that influencer model is the best way to go now, or I don't know that for a fact, you know, who knows of those real views? We were getting meant anything, right? Maybe it's it's hard to tie it or, you know, bottom line, maybe it's some troll in a basement that's watching his video 500 times in a row. Like, maybe that's not the. But I certainly think it's worth a look right there. There are some partnerships that can just be can move the needle and whether that's, you know, a blogger in Nashville or a new, feature on some article and gardening gun wheel, we just gotta keep trying it right. Like it's I remember the, the and this might be I'm going to be too old dating myself, but Dollar Shave Club, when they launched, they did this really funny, witty commercial and it just blew up. And the I think the company within a year after that, you know, they got bought out by Gillette for $1 billion and the commercial though is is it's heartfelt, it's funny, it's kind of witty and it just goes viral. And like, you can't as much as you might want to write what you think is going to be a viral campaign like, you can never plan it, but those guys just hit it out of the park and, you know, it just goes nuts. And so you're always hoping for that, right? Like we get a really cool partnership with somebody and they feature us in some way that that we hadn't thought of. And that blows up. But it's like winning the lottery. Right. And that's what I'm waiting on. Then, you know, I'm going to be on the clearance rack. Yeah. At that Walmart. Right. You know. So how did you go from this brand into, the charity boxing event. So, you know, I love my time at the college, and I've stayed kind of active with their athletic department. And one of my best friends now is the athletic director at the college. And so, I've always, you know, done a bunch with their fundraising and on, on some of their boards. And I was up in DC and one of my best buddies was fighting in this charity boxing match, and they raise money for childhood cancer research. And it's a super cool event. And, you know, I'm drinking. I feel like all my stories that are successful start with some kind of drinking, and I'm texting my buddy Matt from this event. And, you know, they raised $400,000 in one night and it's all amateurs. It's literally you off the street. They pick you up and say, hey, do you want to do this? They train you for five months, and then you go fight somebody somewhere, eat some similar age, height and weight. And so they hit this $400,000 or I'm drunk texting Matt and I'm like, you got to let me do this. And for about six months he's absolutely not. And then finally we came to agreement. He's like, listen, I'll let you use the arena. You can't do this as a College of Charleston event, like you guys are renting the arena out. But yeah, we'll let you do it. So the first year, Rod Razavi introduced me to, who's now one of my closest friends, Hunter Hunter Brinson, who was in the boxing world, and he, he's like, you should have Hunter help you do this because he actually knows about boxing. Like, I know I look like I'm super fit and in shape, but you know nothing about boxing. And so 100 and I went out and we we partner with some local gyms. We went out and talked to every friend we had and recruited 32 of them, no. 28 to compete. So they signed up. We put them at their gyms and they train for five months. And then on top of their training, they had to fundraise money. So they went out to friends and family. And so I think our first year they raised 180 or sorry, 80 grand. Awesome night. Some issues. You know, the AC broke in the arena. So you know, guys are sweating through their suit jackets like women's makeups coming down. We ran a ice, ran out of liquor like it was the fire Festival of boxing events. But funny enough, we sent out a survey to everyone that came and we had, like, a 96% approval. Yes, we would come back to this event. So the next year, we did an open application thing. We put an application out on the internet and said, if you think you have what it takes, we have 120 people apply for it. And so we we went big last year. I think we had 42 competitors. They raised 180 grand last year. And but we learned some issues too. We went to long public safety to college is going to murder us because we were supposed to be out by 1030 and like it was 1115, you know it. So we've adjusted it now where it's I think we I think we're between the mayo and the mustard on it. Like it's going to be pretty smooth. It's always stressful. No one in this town buys general admission tickets to the last minute. Yeah. So like, all of our VIP stuff is about sold out, but the GA tickets, it's literally the week of is when it goes crazy. But until that happens, because we guaranteed our boxers every dollar they raise goes to our charity partners. So we pay for the event through ticket sales, sponsorships. And that's it. So it's an expensive event put on like, you know, we we do a light and sound package. It looks like Madison Square Garden in there. We do high end food for all of our VIPs. Yeah, there's full open bars for the VIP ticket holders. So it definitely gets expensive. So you know. But back to your point. As far as the boxing thing, it's it's become more like a passion project, right? It's it's been super rewarding. And it's last year became the largest boxing event in South Carolina history. Well, and we've now hit close to 400 grand in total funds raised for the charity partners. And you know, for some of these boxers, it's it's really been cool because the stories they've got as far as some of these guys have had like loss purpose in life. We've had female boxers too, where you know, they're losing ten, 20, 30 pounds are in the best shape of their lives. They're feeling with this renewed kind of commitment and this like renewed passion. And then these boxers become like family with each other. And then on the on the other side of it, you got these gyms that they are like a community hub, right? They've got sometimes they've got at rescues, they've got people that have been going to these gyms forever. And now we're bringing in this cadre of of idiots, essentially, and we put them at these gyms. They have no experience. But then they become a part of this, this family. And it just it's it's super rewarding. I think Zach, one of our top of this year, is telling this funny story. The other day at, we were doing this hot one style interview and he was talking about, you know, he goes into the gym and he's 190 pounds and there's like a 12 year old kid in the gym that it's his first day of sparring the kids 120 pounds soaking wet. And Zach's got all cocky and he's like, I'm going to kill this kid. And he said, within like a round, he is the shippy out of him. He's bleeding like profusely from his face and he's like, and this kid now is like my favorite human in the world. Like, they've just got this bond. He's learned more about himself. So it certainly it's become a passion project. It's, you know, it's it's I'm never going to get rich off of it like the past few years. It's it's cost some money out of our own pockets to make sure we get everyone, all of our vendors paid. But it's it's been a lot of fun. And I think, you know, over time, it's something that especially for Hunter, you know, this is something he's amazing at. And it's even he's younger than I am. And I think my goal for it would be continue to grow it and then allow it to become something Hunter can make into a full time job. And, you know, nothing will ever be as big as like the bridge run. But make it this. Never say never. Yeah, I mean, make it this yearly event that, you know, we've got a small staff like our staff right now is almost all volunteer where you can have a small staff. We plan for it all year. And then we've we started to get approached by some of the, you know, the professional fighting groups about bringing event to the arena because the arena is gorgeous, right? It's 5000 seats. It's beautiful. It's in the middle of downtown. So maybe that's where it goes from here. But right now, I mean, it's a ton of fun. It's definitely the stress has been has been a bit much. And, you know, while this is all going, I've kind of supposed to be slinging tomato sauce myself and actually selling Bloody Mary makes a margarita mix, all while trying to make sure this event doesn't, doesn't fall apart at the wheels. Yeah, I like that. The circus spinning the plates on the sticks. Yeah, exactly. It's funny, when I first moved to Charleston, I came here with my business partner when we moved the business from Florida up to Charleston. And he, in his 20s, managed professional fighters. And so I brought him to that event. And he's like, this is ridiculous. Yeah, the professional fights in Panama don't even get like this. Yeah. You know, this kind of notoriety. And so he's always thought it was a super cool event. I mean, we had a blast that night, so there you go. Year one with no AC or year two. I went two years ago, so. Oh, shoot that I know AC here was it. We were out of food. Yeah I mean it was the fight legitimately I didn't feel like I, I don't remember it being like that hot. I mean hopefully the alcohol helped cool it down a little bit. I don't drink, but, Oh, man. You probably witnessed some insane. But we were on the we were on the floor. Yeah. And it was like, absolutely epic. Like such a good time. Yeah, it's a great night. And we, you know, we really just want people to have a good time, and it's something different, right? Like, you can always go to the bar with your buddies. There's always, you know, a concert or, you know, once a year there's a semiprofessional boxing match in downtown Charleston. You can get dolled up and, yes, scream at people who beat the shit out of each other. And it's like, see, what you know is you in this? Yeah, yeah. And so it really is cool because the one of the other things with, with the event is again, I, I have zero boxing ability. I would never get in the ring. All every single person we have that that is competing could beat the shit out of me like it's, but, you think you understand the sport and I, you know, we don't wager on the. But, like, not outwardly wager on the fights, but I've had friends kind of ask me like, hey, dude, if you were betting on somebody, who would you bet on? And I think I know these boxers, right? Like, I've seen enough fights and it's just incredible because these minute 30 doesn't sound like a long time. Oh, it's three rounds of a minute. 30. There have been some boxers where. But $1,000 a wager. I would have wagered all on them. And they just go in and they get smoked. And it's it's adrenaline. It's stamina, and it's it's just it's mind boggling. Just the mental gymnastics that they go through and then the preparation. Right. Like, the guy may be skinnier than his competitor. He might maybe has a longer reach, but maybe his competitors have been training in a different way or like hitting it harder. And I was saying this the other day that the cool thing about boxing, I think that's why it's so appealing for a lot of people, especially the guys competing, is it's almost like you instantly know how good you've done right? After three rounds, you either won or lost. Yeah. So you, you come out of that ring and, you know, I trained harder than my competitor or I didn't train enough because it's that's all I can. It's a mano a mano. There's one winner. That's one loser. Like there's no ties. You guys had a knockout last year, didn't you? Yeah, we had so insane. He's become a really good friend. His boxing name was East Side Schwartz. He's, local attorney. Amazing guy. Actually raised $50,000 last year. Holy crap. And, he, you know, he's he's a very committed, focused person. And he was a he was a pitcher in college for I forget what the baseball team was, but so he had that talk, he had the talk. And he just like when Ryan commits to something, he just hit it. That's why he raise 50 grand, right? He he's like, it's he had all these chips saved up to call in, you know, maybe somebody, they got themselves in trouble that he he's kind of pro bono at home out of it. And he gets in the ring and the guy you want to get to is amazing guy veteran trained his ass off. And I think ry just hit him. If you watch the clip, like, I think he just hit him in the right spot and poor guy goes down and, you can see like he got right back up almost immediately, but he was down for a minute and he's, he's slamming on the floor. And, and this is what I said, two people have competed and this is why I don't have the cajones to do it is it's one night, right? You're in front of 4000 people. You lose. You've lost. Yeah. Like we're not let it. You're not getting back. We've only had one repeat, battle. But more than likely you're not getting back in here in front of 4000 people in Charleston to compete. All right, so this is on your, like, on your resume now. And so that's really all my friends know for sure that have done it. I'm so incredibly thankful because A you are putting yourself out there in a way most people would never I don't have the balls to do it. And secondly, you're going to have whether you won or lost. And there truthfully, there are some friends of mine that I think our relationships are a little bit different since they fought where, you know, the one of them, you know, they didn't win and it just feels a little different. And it sucks, right? But I get it. I totally get it. Yeah. Because there's always in the back of your mind, you think, you know, maybe the judges for like, not maybe the judges were being unfair or maybe xyzzy and I get it. I totally get it. I would I would do the same thing. Now some of them have said the ones that have lost have been. Some of them have been very much like inward. That was the best experience I ever went through. I enjoyed every second of it. Sucks I lost, but I'm so glad I did it. Now for the guys that won, their hero, right? Like I look like Don King. One of our one of my best buds. He's a doctor at C, and he competed, I think it was the last year or first year. And I remember we went we met up the next day for, for drinks and, you know, he's got a kid. He's a wife. He's a, anesthesiologist. He's working all the time. And so I'm taking two hours of his day, five days a week. He's committed to this event. And I remember we had a few drinks and we're kind of talking about event, and he starts crying and he's like, I'm just so sad it's over because this is this such a big part of my life. And I loved it so much. And he's like, I'm going to miss it. And I remember anyone and you won pretty big. And I like I'm getting teared up and I'm like, you know, it's one of those super cheesy, like, no man like, this is on you. And so it was it's been really cool that part of it. Well, yeah. Well, I congratulate you and your accomplishments. And I look forward to seeing what you guys do with the event this year. So you coming? I can't come this year. I'm already moving down to Panama in two days. Oh, shit. Yeah, I would have come otherwise in this kind of like a last minute decision for with. Sam has promised to get some good pictures for you, so. Yeah, I'll send them my way. If anyone wants to reach out to you, if they want to buy the Bloody Mary mix, or they want to come to the event, you want to plug some links? Yeah. So the, the Bloody Mary makes our websites, Charleston makes.com or CSS makes.com. And so we've got our Bloody Mary makes margarita mix. It's available. You know you can find where it's available on our website. So we've got a Find the mix page. But pretty much southeast Midwest northeast out West and Texas and the margarita mix. You'll start to see pop up more and more. And then the boxing is KCCI's boxing.com tickets are just 25 bucks for students, military and first responders. It's an all ages show. We think it's hopefully most people are starting to realize it's the most electric night in Charleston. All year. Yeah. You're just, you're not going to have more fun on a night out for the for $25, than you will at TD on next Friday night. It's there are elevated packages available. It's almost sold out. But we've got, you know, open bar options and you can get super close to the ring. So that keeps boxing that camera tickets are that benefits, benefits, musc children's hospital warrior Surf and student athlete scholarships at the college. So but my information is available on both those sites. I'm going to reach out happy to happy to answer any questions you might have. Fantastic. Any last word for entrepreneurs? I swear, I think it would be just if you're thinking about it, just do it. You know, I'd rather be filled. I'd rather have no regret knowing that I tried something than being the guy that's always like, oh, I had this idea for something cool. What did you ever do about it? Right? Like, if you can, without jeopardizing your safety, wellness, or like family, I say do it so well. Great advice. I appreciate you coming on. Yeah. Thank you for having me. This has been great. Yeah. For sure. It's a wrap. For.
