Patrick Montgomery is Founder of KC Cattle Company. Army Ranger to Rancher: Forget the Pursuit of Happiness it is All About Happiness of the Pursuit | Ep. 188 | Business Podcast
Summary
Patrick is the Boss man and founder of KC Cattle Company.
He served in the Army in the 75th Ranger Regiment.
His favorite Wagyu cut is KC Cattle Company’s Wagyu Hanger Steak!
Listen how Patrick transitioned from an Army Ranger to rancher, the challenges of building a cattle company and the unexpected product that changed the company overnight.
Links from the show:
KC Cattle Company – Order Online
Hello Friends.
Brandon:
Welcome to the Edge.
Brandon:
Today we’ve got a great episode with Patrick Montgomery the founder and Ceo of K. C. Cattle ranch and he tells the story of how he joined the army came in. Army ranger got out of the rangers which is uh interesting story that you’re gonna want to listen to and then how he decided to start of all things a cattle ranch raising wagyu beef.
Brandon:
One of the hardest things to do.
Brandon:
He shares the story of his struggles and that breaking moment of success that completely change the trajectory of his company, literally going from a few orders to thousands of orders almost overnight because of one thing that you’re going to want to listen to, you’re gonna love this episode.
Brandon:
Patrick Montgomery founder and Ceo of K.
Brandon:
C.
Brandon:
Cattle ranch raising wagyu beef.
Brandon:
Oh and I ordered his hot dogs and they are absolutely incredible.
Brandon:
Best hot dog I’ve ever had.
Brandon:
I’m not paid in any way.
Brandon:
Patrick didn’t even pay us.
Brandon:
After this conversation with Patrick I went right to the computer and ordered them because they sounded so good and they delivered.
Brandon:
I highly recommend them. Great gift for the holidays.
Brandon:
Check them out.
Brandon:
Here we go.
Brandon:
Welcome to the Edge podcast, your weekly playbook about the inner game of building a successful business making you a happier, healthier and richer business owner and here’s your host, Brandon White. Hey Patrick.
Brandon:
Hey Brandon how’s it going? Good. How are you doing this morning? Not too bad.
Brandon:
I think I’m looking at your searing.
Brandon:
Yeah I’m trying to figure out. That’s super weird. It’s a new computer here chinese actress.
Brandon:
What’s that?
Brandon:
The chinese hacked us.
Brandon:
I don’t know seriously.
Brandon:
Maybe there’s a there you are.
Brandon:
Yeah cameras pointed at me.
Brandon:
That’s super weird.
Brandon:
But a minute ago I could see you.
Brandon:
I know I’m like putting my computer screen down so that you can.
Brandon:
Uh huh cameras like pointed up.
Brandon:
What?
Brandon:
Yeah never.
Brandon:
It’s my first time ever buying a thinkpad.
Brandon:
So is the computer upside down meaning that the piece that’s on the ground that’s looking at the ceiling should actually be facing you.
Brandon:
Well I don’t know let’s see her.
Brandon:
I think that’s does that work?
Brandon:
There we go hey there’s another oh there’s a camera on the keypad now you’re upside down again.
Brandon:
Let me see if I can get this while you’re doing that.
Brandon:
I’m gonna put on my uh or a special hat for you today.
Brandon:
Right I got it.
Brandon:
Oh man I got that same one.
Brandon:
The command gave it to me.
Brandon:
That’s awesome.
Brandon:
So what do you do for a regiment?
Brandon:
I work for an agency and work with all the units in J.
Brandon:
H.
Brandon:
Q. So I worked actually to I C. Gave me this he just retired. I don’t know how long ago you were there But I did all sorts of things and I was supposed to go with the regiment to Afghanistan actually and then we pulled while we were pulling out and they knew it obviously before most people and that was that.
Brandon:
But yeah, I love those guys man.
Brandon:
One of my best friends is from another army unit that I don’t know that we should talk about on here but it is unclassified but people freak out when you say it.
Brandon:
But it’s another place in north Carolina starts with the sea.
Brandon:
No, it starts with a D.
Brandon:
Yeah, it’s the season different name.
Brandon:
A different name for it.
Brandon:
Yes.
Brandon:
But uh anyway, he was in the ranger regiment and I think he came in second in the what is the thing that the rangers ranger competition?
Brandon:
Yeah, came in second.
Brandon:
He want to come in first.
Brandon:
But yeah, so I had a good time.
Brandon:
I spent time in Washington D. C. With those guys and when they go up there and do a sort of a here’s how our democracy works and then bend down to the regiments several times.
Brandon:
And yeah, they’re just good dudes man.
Brandon:
Obviously you know that yeah, regimen is kind of like the red headed step child of j sock and use a sock.
Brandon:
You know, we have our special place but you know, it’s like we’re all kind of unique if you’ll, that’s a politically correct way of singing it I guess.
Brandon:
Well you’re also you’re also in a location that is actually pretty far away that doesn’t do you guys a service candidly, you know, there’s other units are within some of them walking distance and some of the other one’s a short little prop plane flight and you guys just gotten forgotten.
Brandon:
But my understanding is Is that you guys actually were moved up to technically tier one status not long ago zone.
Brandon:
That’s, that’s probably true.
Brandon:
They were working on that when I got out.
Brandon:
It was, it was a whole big deal because, well you probably know how this works, but you know, technically we’re part of use a sock and we were trying to join J SAc and there’s like all these, perhaps we had to jump through to do that.
Brandon:
So yeah.
Brandon:
And I worked at J HQ for a while.
Brandon:
I was, I did several things there as well.
Brandon:
But the ranger regiment has always been fun.
Brandon:
The guys are just, I don’t know how to explain it may be because they’re generally younger I think at some regard and they’re just sort of got some energy about it that you’re like this, this could be fun little bit of vinegar and I’m definitely, yeah.
Brandon:
So yeah, I dug this out.
Brandon:
I was like, yeah, I got this hat and I was watching your video and your and your, I think foundation that or a foundation that you donate to at different times of the year.
Brandon:
Right Response Foundation.
Brandon:
Yeah.
Brandon:
Well, thanks for joining. I really appreciate it. I appreciate that. My own Brandon. I read a lot about you and I actually did hear about you. I hopefully you got my video. I did hear about you and I must have just been through the network before your people reached out and I was like yeah we’re going to do this, this is gonna be fun.
Brandon:
So well that’s good. I’m glad you’ve heard of us and that means we’re growing I hope.
Brandon:
Well wagyu beef, you know, it’s not a big market out there. Everybody wants wagyu beef, don’t they?
Brandon:
It’s definitely grown since I started this company back in 2017. Everybody was like, what the heck is wagyu beef and why are you trying to charge me $50 for a strip steak? Now I don’t get that question is often so not anymore. Now that people tasted it, right, that’s right. Well can you take us back?
Brandon:
I know you were talking about the ranger regiment.
Brandon:
How did you get started? I mean obviously, I don’t know did you go to school and then just decide that you’re gonna be a ranger. Did you just join the army and then figure out that the rangers existed. Did you do something beforehand?
Brandon:
Yeah, so my brother in law kind of proceeded me there. He was about five years older than I was. He dropped out of college after his freshman year and enlisted with the contract to go to the 75th Ranger regiment ended up going to first range of Italian, you know, I always knew I wanted to join the military, I just didn’t know what I want to do at that point I was kind of leaning towards the seal teams.
Brandon:
You steered me away from that and convinced me to go with a contract to 75th.
Brandon:
So I did a year of college up at Northwest Missouri state, a small D to college in the northern part of Missouri there did a year up there doing ROTC program, got good grades and everything.
Brandon:
I just still felt this deep calling to to go the enlisted route and I think it had a lot more appealed to me than than the officer recorded.
Brandon:
So I dropped out after that freshman year and enlisted in the army and I shipped out july 7th 2010. So it took me about what, nine months there and then I finally reported to First range of the town and in March of 2011, what do you think drove you towards?
Brandon:
And I have actually a bunch of friends who not only I’m interested two part question, what was the calling?
Brandon:
It sounds like your brother in law was an influence on you, but sometimes that’s not always enough. And then second, what what, what was it in you that really said, hey, I don’t want to do the officer route.
Brandon:
Not that there’s anything wrong with either routes, but what made you go to the enlisted right, I guess it is.
Brandon:
So the big thing for me was September 11 had a profound impact on, on my life.
Brandon:
I actually just did a news interview on Monday about the 20th anniversary. I can’t believe it’s been 20 years since it happened, it’s Crazy, but they had a profound impact on my life, looking especially looking back introspectively on, on the last 20 years, incredibly profound impact.
Brandon:
And so that was kind of the catalyst that led to me, you know, deciding like at this war is still going on when I’m a fighting age, I’m gonna go do my part. And so I was sorry Patrick, did it make you angry? Is that what really let that fire it did, you know, our country definitely has its flaws, but I still was raised with this, just amazing appreciation for the freedoms we enjoy in this country.
Brandon:
We forget that, right, because you turn on any of the five o’clock news or either the 24 hour news channels and it’s just all about how this country is burning.
Brandon:
But when you look at your window, there’s still a lot of beauty going on out there, especially within people, you know, democrat Republican, it doesn’t matter, We’re all, we’re all americans.
Brandon:
So I was kind of raised that way and I had this just profound love for this country and specifically, I had great pride in the fighting men and women that had come before me, my right, a ton of history books, definitely my favorite subject growing up.
Brandon:
And so, you know, I just thought the stories of bravery and the things that men have done to get us to where we are as a country was incredible.
Brandon:
And um I wanted to do my part.
Brandon:
So I did that year out to sea and kind of going back to the original question.
Brandon:
Officer corps is amazing. They do amazing things within our military and without them. It just be a bunch of knuckle draggers running around not knowing what to do, but it just wasn’t for me. I didn’t understand how four years of college was going to teach me how to lead a platoon of infantrymen and there’s some really terrible situations. So I figured I’d always be there if I wanted to go that route. And what I really want to do is be the number one man that was kicking in doors. So you do that through the enlisted route.
Brandon:
And so that was kind of the big reason for why I did it.
Brandon:
And was it when you got there?
Brandon:
Was it what you thought yes and no. I had jeremy to kind of, you know, pick up like there’s all this uncertainty and especially in ranger regiment, right? You look at the seal teams and you can read a million books about, we’re going to go through buds or when you actually get to the teams, it’s not that way for, for ranger regiment, it’s preached the second you get their quiet professionals and they lived that lifestyle.
Brandon:
I mean there’s there’s a few more books now than there used to be written by former rangers.
Brandon:
But back when I was getting in there is none. There’s a couple guys that started out and regiment and went from Delta and some of the other units were talking about before. But you know, there wasn’t a ton of information.
Brandon:
So Jeremy was definitely like somebody I relied on heavily and all my buddies that were going through with me like well what’s next? What do we expect here? And so you know, I call him any time I had my cell phone and the capabilities to talk to him because being a private end range regiment is definitely not easy. We’re the only unit and all of special operations that has private. So that was definitely, it’s one of the things that makes us unique. It’s a blessing and a curse. So I actually didn’t.
Brandon:
I know that.
Brandon:
So how does that work? So like a lot of other units, I’ll use special forces for an example because they’re kind of a sister brother unit type in the army. You go to S. F. S. You do your selection process, you go immediately through the Q course. If you started with an 18 contract, an 18 x ray contract just being in that that’s throughout you’re trying to go by the time you get done with that depending on your language school that can be three months up to a year. You know, you’re normally any five by the time you get done with that. So you’re already in N. C. O. By the time you get to the unit versus for us, you know, you go to basic, you go €2 it or excuse me, you’re a I.
Brandon:
T.
Brandon:
Then when I was in, you go to airborne school next, which is only three weeks and then you go to raft which is eight weeks.
Brandon:
So you’re looking at like six months day one in the army to reporting the ranger regiment. So that’s kind of the difference in pipelines there. So basically they get you there to make sure you do well as a private, you normally do a deployment to make sure you do well in combat and then when you come back you go to what’s called ranger school and once you graduate that then you can fulfill a leadership position within the regiment. Normally once your tab, get a little more respect your, your life becomes a heck of a lot better once you have that tab on your shoulder. So that’s kind of the motivation you go do that.
Brandon:
And does that take that full cycle with the rotation? Take 18, 2 to 18 months to two years? Yeah, it’s about that. So you know, let’s run through this year. So I joined july 7th 2010 I reported regiment ST.
Brandon:
Patty’s day, March was at March, 18 2011. I deployed in May.
Brandon:
I got back early because you know, my brother in law was killed in combat on that first appointment and so I came back early in june left for ranger school in november, graduated that in March and then I left for my second appointment, their following May or april so and that first deployment was actually a little bit less normal.
Brandon:
If there is a normal in this with your, with your brother in law passing away and that really had an impact on you didn’t.
Brandon:
It definitely did.
Brandon:
It was just abnormal altogether.
Brandon:
The day before we ripped out for that appointment was when team six ripped out to conduct the mission in Pakistan to kill or capture Osama bin laden and so we got there, I tell you after that happened or two days after that happened and it was just nuts all across the board.
Brandon:
I mean we were really, really busy and yeah, so jeremy got killed on on july 11th in Paktika province in the direct action raid.
Brandon:
They’re hitting a high value target and a guy with an R. P. K up on the roof. 1st, 1st round from the burst hit him right above the side plate and he was, I mean he was done like that lights out.
Brandon:
I was down in Kandahar because you know, we’re in separate companies there. So I got the news first flew up to bagram and you know, given the honor of being able to bring his, bring his body back to my sister and then what happened after that we’re, I imagine there’s probably a lot of emotions going on in your, in your head giving, you’ve got all this excitement, energy, tension, really joining the rangers, you’re on this verse rotation and the reality of war candidly just smacks you dead in the face.
Brandon:
Yeah.
Brandon:
You know, I was brand new 21 when I left at the deployment, I turned 21 April 16 of that year and I thought I was growing up Now we know, especially men, right?
Brandon:
We’re not fully mentally developed until about 25.
Brandon:
We’re still crazy.
Brandon:
But I grew up overnight.
Brandon:
I mean, you know, I never had anything happen like that in my life and you’re, you’re on a deployment where you’re already working through a lot, just kind of rationalizing the things you’re seeing and the things you’re doing and then a guy that you think is just an absolute superhero.
Brandon:
The best of the best within range regiment.
Brandon:
You know, it’s like just lights out like that, never see him again and led me on a dark path after that, especially, you know, we had three more buddies that got killed within that time frame is a pretty rough couple of years for, for all of ranger regiment and I never like to say things happen for a reason because it’s really tough to kind of rationalize that when you’re talking about death of friends and you know widows and child or fatherless kids, but what you do, what you do realize looking back is that there’s some amazing things that you come out of that and those events are definitely the catalyst.
Brandon:
But being young and dumb, it’s just impossible to have the emotional maturity that kind of work through some of that stuff in your head.
Brandon:
But it’s part of my story and you know, I try to make the best of it and I live every day for those guys that can’t.
Brandon:
So yeah, I think that especially when you’re young and basically death really isn’t dying just I mean your grandparents are still alive.
Brandon:
I mean I’m just setting the tone in general, right?
Brandon:
Maybe you had a dog died or something.
Brandon:
But the the finality of it all just really seems strange when you actually sit down and think about it.
Brandon:
No, you’re you’re absolutely right.
Brandon:
Brandon.
Brandon:
It’s It’s honestly kind of a gift in the same same path, right?
Brandon:
Like it wasn’t at that point lead me towards some really bad decisions.
Brandon:
But this this idea kind of rationalized in my head like I’m probably not going to live to see my 30th birthday right?
Brandon:
Like here I am sitting at 31 but at 20, years old, I’m looking at all this death around me, I’m looking at the things we’re doing overseas and how busy we are.
Brandon:
And I’m like, I mean my percentages of not making it home or drastically higher than if I was still sitting in a college classroom in Northwest Missouri State, right?
Brandon:
And you know, that lead towards some some bad decisions, right?
Brandon:
But looking back on it, that’s something I took away from it on my path moving forward in entrepreneurship is that, you know, this life is finite, That’s the one thing that’s guaranteed in this life is your time on this planet is not infinite.
Brandon:
So it kind of gave me the ability to make sense of if I’m not enjoying what I’m doing that, I need to change it, right?
Brandon:
So that’s that’s kind of led me on this path towards entrepreneurship and where I’m sitting today.
Brandon:
Do you think that the when you said it led me to make some poor decisions, Did you think at that point, obviously you didn’t get out of the rangers, you stayed in the rangers?
Brandon:
Do you think that just made you take more chances that increase the odds?
Brandon:
Because you had already thought in your head?
Brandon:
Like at this point, I think my odds are low, so what the hell will take a bunch of chances that maybe otherwise I wouldn’t have taken yeah, lead towards really risky behavior and you know, things I’m not proud of and you know, ultimately it kind of led towards my dissertation of getting out of the special operations because I, you know, made bad choices and I was like, you know one of these bad choices and it cost me my life in a way that I’m not proud of.
Brandon:
And so you know I stayed my girlfriend at the time that wife and I was looking at this pathway towards staying in and probably going doing something more dangerous like what we were talking about before or getting out and try my luck in the civilian world.
Brandon:
By this time I had already left regiment, I moved to Fort Riley Kansas which is a different experience from the special operations.
Brandon:
And I was training up a unit that was the point out to the Middle East out there and I was setting up a pre ranger program for them and they offered me the chance to go to the selection process for the unit we were talking about earlier and I was like okay now you’re speaking my love language here, but if I don’t where do I go?
Brandon:
And they’re like you come back here for another four years, that was enough for me to be like I’m going to try my chances in the civilian world, you know that I can’t handle another four years here.
Brandon:
So how long were you in the ranger regiment?
Brandon:
I was there for four years, you were in four years and then you had to do another, they rotate you out to go to the bigger army well and I requested I requested the unit I went to because the closest to Kansas city and my, you know my sister after jeremy got killed.
Brandon:
I lived with her, help him take care of her and her son.
Brandon:
Um and she was moving back to Kansas city and I really just needed to get out of Savannah, there was just a a ton of bad memories there and you know just making bad choices just like I said, so yeah I went to Fort Riley Kansas which a man, I don’t look at any of his regret right?
Brandon:
Like every single portion of my my story definitely taught me something.
Brandon:
So so what happens?
Brandon:
You get out, you make the decision, you get an honorable discharge.
Brandon:
You now are in the whole world that not maybe you hadn’t forgotten but didn’t realize operates on a much different set of rules and culture and everything at that point.
Brandon:
Yeah, backing up a little bit.
Brandon:
That conversation with my girlfriend.
Brandon:
Now wife was basically you have this passion for animals like why don’t we explore that a little bit and see if maybe you could go through veterinarian school and I was like, well yeah I don’t I don’t have the money for that.
Brandon:
You know, my my G.
Brandon:
I.
Brandon:
Bill only covering, but I’m definitely a research guy.
Brandon:
So you know I did a quick google search at 10 p.m. When I couldn’t sleep at night and I figured out a pathway and some stuff that Missouri offers for veterans that I actually couldn’t make it through my D.
Brandon:
V.
Brandon:
M.
Brandon:
Without paying any money out of pocket.
Brandon:
So that was kind of the catalyst that led towards my civilian civilian life.
Brandon:
So I worked at a vet clinic there for the last six months I was in that was super cool experiences.
Brandon:
You do a lot of like the conservation department stuff like that so you know getting to work on coyotes and doing just all kinds of cool stuff.
Brandon:
The horses from the cab units and stuff like that.
Brandon:
So I got out, went back to University of Missouri pursuing a path and veterinary medicine and I love the medicine side, I love the large animal side but what I just couldn’t make pencil was the amount of time and money it takes to graduate with your DBM and there’s just no money in large animal.
Brandon:
I mean I couldn’t handle doing neuters in space every day it’s just it’s just not what I was cut out for on this earth.
Brandon:
So I had also has taken a minor in entrepreneurship and kind of the passion for agriculture and the passion for business, Casey cattle company was kind of bringing baby of those two passions.
Brandon:
What was because you haven’t mentioned it and we really haven’t talked about it but what was the passion for animals was that just something that you have a lot of dogs a lot on the farm or what was it?
Brandon:
I just I love hunting, I love being outdoors and I love being around, I love being around branches. There’s just something about that lifestyle that had always been appealing to me. I wasn’t raised in the ag background, I was raised in the country but you know our idea of farm life was you know I would work for a couple of folks and buck hey during the summer that was about it. So I didn’t have any experience, I just loved the lifestyle, loved, I loved the the grit that it takes to make something like this successful.
Brandon:
I’ve been working with your hands and seeing something finished at the end of the day. There’s just all that was very appealing to me and I needed something like that if I was going to get out because I always envisioned myself as a career military guy, I was kind of laying that dream to rest.
Brandon:
So so your wife says hey why don’t you go do something with animals and hey Patrick, let’s go get a ranch.
Brandon:
Well that that last part was my idea, she preferred the comfort of the D.
Brandon:
V.
Brandon:
M.
Brandon:
Job where I get a paycheck. But so I decided my last my last two semesters there, my undergrad that I wasn’t gonna do apply for bet school. And so you know I started looking at corporate jobs in Kansas city here and I I went to an interview for security consulting position at a one of the biggest companies in Kansas city and the interview went great, I killed it.
Brandon:
They really liked me, I really like them.
Brandon:
But the one of the last questions they asked were do you have any questions for us?
Brandon:
And I was like well what do you spend the majority or they actually doing as a security consultant with within this company?
Brandon:
And their reply was convincing corporate or worth the money that they pay us. And I was just like, it just sucked the energy out of me, right? So I’m like I could do this like security consultant, we do some travel to some cool places, I still get that adrenaline rush And you know that that was kind of their answer and I just remember driving home from that and call my wife and being like I can’t do this like I am selling out for a paycheck and I’m gonna be miserable like this does not do any justice, those guys didn’t make it home, like I am 100% selling out for a paycheck.
Brandon:
And she’s like well what are you gonna do because she was definitely in the sugar mama throughout this time period right?
Brandon:
So I was like I’m not doing this forever. It was kind of heard like hey figure it out. So I told her as a startup company and I had no idea what that was going to be or what that would look like or even how to run a business, but that was kind of the commitment I made to myself and I took the leap and spent about a week figuring out what business that would be a week, yep.
Brandon:
So most people spend like longer, How does that work you do in a week?
Brandon:
Did a ton of research, right?
Brandon:
I was super bored during my undergrad.
Brandon:
It’s just way different when you go back at it, when you’re, when you’re older, right? You’re not distracted by by beer and other things when you’re in school there. So, I was taking 18 hours a semester, but I just still really bored. I’m used to working 68 hours a week here I am. You know, working 2030. And uh, so I had a ton of free time.
Brandon:
So it’s wood, just googling everything right.
Brandon:
And I didn’t realize it at the time, but kind of looking back after reading a ton of business books since then, you know, I was looking for businesses that I could cut out the middleman and my company is definitely that, so that was kind of the because the margins is what was attractive or because of the Bs that goes on in between the chain.
Brandon:
Yeah, the Bs that goes on in between the chain, so there’s a ton of middlemen within the cattle market.
Brandon:
My original business plan was to cut all those folks out. Very naive of me, but probably a good thing.
Brandon:
I just didn’t have any idea how much capital that would actually cost. Right.
Brandon:
But yeah, so that, that was kind of, we’ve learned and adapted in our original business plan from, you know, 2016 doesn’t even come close to resembling the company to running today. But it was good about that. So your idea was, was that you would go direct to the consumer from the ranch, raise it, raise the cattle, processed the cattle and store the meat from the cattle and then ship it to the customer and then provide all the customer service and everything else that goes along with that including credit card processing that holds your money sometimes and things like that.
Brandon:
You’re laughing.
Brandon:
But that is that basically the plan? Yeah, that was basically the plan that the part you forgot is I was also gonna Find time to, to go market and sell sell to be restaurants.
Brandon:
Was supposed to make up 50% of our yeah, you’re going to do that is in your spare time and then you’re going to build a website and market that to direct to consumer as well. Exactly. And he’s an easy task. So let’s talk about, Hey, I like that plan.
Brandon:
It looks to me Patrick and if you’re willing to share that, that is sort of what you do.
Brandon:
But what’s the difference in that Delta that you just said between your original plan and where you have effectively had to adapt along the way. Okay, so it probably the Biggest change we made, his restaurant was supposed to be a huge part of our original business plan and so 2017 was our first half-year sales.
Brandon:
It was negligible. It was a very small amount, it was really just kind of trying to figure things out.
Brandon:
2018 was our first full year And I spent a ton of that time just beating pavement, going into restaurants, trying to meet folks trying to network and we’re doing all right right.
Brandon:
Like we’re building a little bit of traction here in Kansas City, I think at our peak we’re in 14 or 15 different restaurants, but I mean we’re losing money, hand over fist.
Brandon:
The margins for restaurants is terrible that you have to sell that nobody knew what the heck wagyu beef was.
Brandon:
And on top of that, you know, we were having to track down people to pay their bills, which for a small business that’s huge. So I sat down with our mentors at the end of 2018 there and keep in mind we didn’t have a website yet, we had a website but we weren’t selling coast to coast yet that started about mid 2018.
Brandon:
So this has been going on for a couple of months.
Brandon:
I’m starting to see a little bit attraction, may be a glimmer of hope that, you know, I’m running a viable business and uh kind of sat down with our mentors there and we had a conversation, a very frank conversation, I was like, you know if we keep pushing with the restaurant business, we’re going to be bankrupt probably by the end of this year we worked through it right, These are a couple of gentlemen that I really looked up to that have been mentors for me and we kind of decided that we’re going to take the risk and we’re going to pull out all the restaurants were selling to and focus all our efforts on the B two C side.
Brandon:
And so we did that in september of 2018.
Brandon:
I want to go back just for a minute because we did skip something which I’m interested, how you figured it out, you actually have to buy a ranch, you actually have to understand how to farm coming from a kid who grew up on a farm with cattle, which is you think it’s just well you put the cattle out to graze and you’ve got, I mean there’s like there’s a million things vet bills, there’s, there’s just feed all the time, you got to feed them, right, especially when you’re doing wagyu beef, which is a specialty.
Brandon:
So and And you’ve got to get some money because you got to buy the ranch and then you got to your cash flow from 2017, it sounds like you’re basically in setup mode and losing money so how do you live?
Brandon:
Yeah, so a couple couple answers to your questions there.
Brandon:
First I had a sugar mama that was paying our actual personal bills?
Brandon:
Right?
Brandon:
So she she was working a corporate job and really being a champ about it.
Brandon:
Well I chased my dream and was losing money hand over fist as far as actual capital for the company.
Brandon:
We sold our house, we took everything from that sale, We moved it into a corporate account for the company, it was about $8,000.
Brandon:
And then on top of that I had a friend from Ranger regiment.
Brandon:
He actually runs part of the response, a foundation to help set up part of the same response foundation there was willing to give me a seed investment and that that was our money. I mean we bootstrapped the heck out of it. What I got for that initial investment was our burn rate for our overhead per month right now. So it’s like man, I have no idea how I made that work for almost a full year with that amount of cash and you asked about the ranch that was probably a little bit of divine interaction and also a little bit of luck there Combined, but we leased the property now now my wife and I own the house and 11 acres on the property but released all of it and you know, it’s all about really mitigating those initial cost when you’re trying to establish a viable business.
Brandon:
So we’re always very conscious of that.
Brandon:
Well, how do you also like wagyu beef, high priced beef got to raise the cattle a certain way.
Brandon:
Is there a manual that you downloaded on that?
Brandon:
No, So that’s, that’s the one I miss. But so my animal science program was huge for, for a lot of the science that goes behind that, right? My focused heavily on the beef side and agriculture side of that. So nutrition and you know, rotational grazing and cattle husbandry on paper.
Brandon:
And in books I was really good at when I actually had a ranch, my own, my own animals as different stories.
Brandon:
I had no idea what the hell I was doing. It was another lesson learned, right? I didn’t have all the answers. So I had to learn pretty quick to kind of check my ego at the door and ask for help. So I reached out to a lot of those professors that I did my undergraduate and it was just like, hey, what am I doing wrong here? Why is this not marbling out or how am I not?
Brandon:
Why is my grass dying over here? Wish I would have taken more agronomy classes.
Brandon:
So can you tell our listeners who may not be familiar with wagyu beef what the magic and specialty is about it? Sure. So it’s two mutations within the genome of the actual DNA of that animal. It’s a breed of cattle that comes from japan. It means black cow and japanese or japanese cow depending on who you talk to.
Brandon:
And The two mutations basically one allows for about 10 times the amount of intra muscular fat that you see in traditional breeds of cattle.
Brandon:
And the second is the melting temperature of that fat is about 20° lower than other breeds. So that’s why you get the much more you mommy buttery flavor when you have a wagyu steak and then you have to raise them a certain way to make sure that that genetic makeup is brought out into the beef definitely high caloric intake is definitely crucial Stress levels for the animal are definitely crucial for for raising good beef.
Brandon:
And then the other portion of that is uh they take a lot longer to feed out because they are small frame animal.
Brandon:
So your traditional breeds of cattle for example in English, you’re you’re harvesting at 18-20 months for Wagyu, that’s almost double, sometimes closer to triple by the time you actually harvest closer to double.
Brandon:
I want to over exaggerate or do any hyperbole. So so so your pipeline of cattle in your supply chain actually is long, which means that you need to have enough space to keep the cattle there.
Brandon:
And then you mentioned um stress, does it mean that they just are grazing wildly and you they have an easy life, so to speak.
Brandon:
It’s more so like when you handle them coming if you’ve been around cattle, which it sounds like you had Brandon, you know that you’ve got to bring him in for vaccines, you gotta bring them in for, you know when they get sick, you gotta take care of them during capping season.
Brandon:
All those are times when you can really increase or lower the stress and stress levels for that animal. So it’s big, you know, just making sure that you understand cattle are herd, herd mentality animals and how you actually move those cattle is actually pretty easy if you know what you’re doing without using things like uh freaking problem.
Brandon:
Yeah, exactly.
Brandon:
I’m drawing a blank on the term there, but and then clearly I don’t use them.
Brandon:
So um or using horseback or things like that, that can really stress out the animals and horseback stresses them out. Yeah, horses and really just anything that’s kind of that violent, like yelling and hooping and holler and there’s a lady, she’s huge in the agriculture community for philosophy on, on animal husbandry and I’m trying to blank on her name as well, but I can shoot you an email with that later.
Brandon:
But she’s big on just like, you know when you do these things, you really higher, making the cortisol levels higher within those animals, which in return results in tougher beef and that was kind of a radical thought even just five years ago and now it’s, there’s a lot of scientific data to back that up.
Brandon:
So it’s sort of funny how that translates into humans and how cortisol levels that go, hye make humans harder to well and it kills you, you know, there’s that too right?
Brandon:
Yeah, I started actually really studying that years ago and it’s amazing the when, how you can control that and if you think about it, why would an animal, humans tend to believe that animals are different but probably not significantly different and that would dramatically affect everything about their body as it does ours.
Brandon:
I think you’re exactly reverend, it’s like the older I get and the more more reading I do and the more time I spend outdoors around animals, it’s like there’s really not that much that separates us from the animal kingdom minus our opposable thumbs and a little more cognitive ability up here, you know?
Brandon:
Yeah, I grew up with horses and cows, but horses are, we actually still have a horse.
Brandon:
It’s, they’re interesting animals at first glance, you’re like, oh well that animals sort of dumb or whatever, but if you spend enough time around, even cows actually believe or not, you know, people think cows are stupid, but horses especially seem to have this even to this day, as I think about it, Patrick, I can’t, it’s very hard for me to put into words to someone how that works until that person is in that environment and understands how that horse can communicate with you and even cows look at you, I know that people are out there like oh man Brandon’s way out there, he he moved to California, he’s lost his mind but you do connect and anybody who has a horse and even you know dogs for sure.
Brandon:
But these bigger animals just seem to have a connection that when you look them in the eye, you know they know and they know you know there’s something there, maybe maybe that’s me or whoever reading it, but that’s how I describe it.
Brandon:
I think you’re spot on brand and it’s and they look at you to see if you’re all hyped up, if you’re angry.
Brandon:
They, it’s almost like they mirror the emotions that you’re feeling right.
Brandon:
So if you’re working cattle and you’re in a bad mood, you’re yelling at them and you’re screaming, they don’t do what you want right there.
Brandon:
That’s normally when you get trampled or run over or whatever else by the cattle.
Brandon:
But if you stay calm and you’re breathing nice and you know you’re not screaming, you’re just kind of using their flight zones to move them around.
Brandon:
They always goes 10 times easier.
Brandon:
So how do you move them without horses?
Brandon:
Because you you got big fields?
Brandon:
I’ve seen pictures of your ranch definitely.
Brandon:
So most of the time you just grab a bucket, put feed in it, shake the bucket, cattle come right to you.
Brandon:
Um every once a while, get a crazy animal and about the breakout four wheelers or whatever else, but we really try to try to make it as stress free as possible.
Brandon:
That that’s something we’ve learned around along the last five years we bought animals, there have a lot of vigor, we’ll put it that way and uh they just, they don’t result in good beef. So it’s just a matter of really kind of dial on that end, are you raising your own cattle now?
Brandon:
Because I imagine buying these cattle can be relatively expensive. We do both, right? So like I was telling you, I was very naive with my initial business plan there, I had no idea how much money that would cost me. So pretty early on, we started looking for a partner with a lot more resources, a lot more established, but with the husbandry that we believed in ourselves and we found that about three years ago, um and they’ve grown with us and it’s been, it’s been really cool right, because it’s really tough for cattle guys to make money just because there are so many middlemen and normally it’s the cattle guys that end up getting screwed in that pipeline.
Brandon:
So it’s been a lot of fun kind of grown with these guys and they’re making money and now we’re making money and it’s just, it’s really awesome to help out folks that believed in, you know, when you were nobody.
Brandon:
So, So you have 18 restaurants, you think that that’s going to be 50% of your revenue.
Brandon:
You’re basically about to go broke in 10 months or eight months, whatever it is, you decide to fire your customers for lack of a better word, go all in on direct to consumer.
Brandon:
And what was the plan to do that?
Brandon:
So we’ve done a ton of guerilla marketing leading up to that point, but we really didn’t have a way to capitalize on those customers that we have been following us for last year and a half. So one we hired a pr firm that was kind of like I had to sit down with this firm is definitely a huge gamble for us is a huge gamble for them.
Brandon:
Told them you got three months to make this whole B two C thing work, right? Or else we’re out of money and you’re not getting paid and we’ll be on the street and you know, they believed in us. Right? So it was kind of cool right within 15 days.
Brandon:
Once again, I’m not sure if his divine interaction or just hard work, but you know, they landed the new york times for us. One of the biggest food writers for the new york times wrote an article compared are I think, I think it was our strip steak to one of our competitors strip steak. And uh you know, we got some pretty glowing reviews from that and that was kind of this glimpse into pr and how that can directly reflect to new customers and sales that I hadn’t seen previous. Because now we had this website where I could ship to uh it was 48 states that point we hadn’t figured out Alaska the light yet.
Brandon:
But you know, we had this huge spike in sales. It fell right back off. I was like, there’s just this little tiny glimmer of hope, but like so we might be onto something here.
Brandon:
So yeah, how long did the sales last?
Brandon:
And I’m asking that question because a lot of business people think that, oh, I’m gonna land the new york times or I’m going to land on Good Morning America or whatever big national show it is. And now I’m made.
Brandon:
Yeah, it definitely was not at New York Times was less than 12 hours.
Brandon:
We still weren’t serving a great product to our customers yet. So most of those people didn’t come back to us. We were still figuring out shipping. So I like almost shiver a little bit thinking about one the quality of the product we shipped out at that point than to how that product arrived because I had no idea what I was doing, shipping perishable products across the country.
Brandon:
So I fell off completely within 12 hours. We had the today show in december of that year. That was huge. And comparatively speaking, even to the new york times, it was huge. And it was the same thing. But we did get, you know, 100 200 customers that came back and became repeat business, right? And that kind of persisted within that path line for Majority of 2019.
Brandon:
And then we landed the food line article about our hot dogs that just blew us up.
Brandon:
Oh wow, you’re hot dogs of all things, yep, I’ll backtrack a little bit because everybody always asked me why I created, you know, hot dogs with wagyu beef, wagyu beef are still like every other cattle you get about 20% stakes.
Brandon:
Everything else is roast and trim and normally things that don’t sell very well. So we’re sitting on the majority of our money, it was in the freezer in the form of ground beef and I couldn’t give that stuff away.
Brandon:
Right?
Brandon:
So one of the, one of the ideas I had was creating some more skews that I could use that trim forward to create hot dogs being one of them, they were our hands down worst seller for all of 2019 and then we ship to pack the food and wine.
Brandon:
Digital never heard anything back from them. So we just as soon they hated him. And then it was august 1st there was a thursday, Not a busy sales day for us.
Brandon:
Keep in mind our shipping volume at this point was about 20-30 packages a week.
Brandon:
And uh, we had 7500 orders roll in overnight and just just shy of a million people visit the website in 24 hours. And so that was 30 packages, let’s just go on the high side could benefit out to 7500 orders.
Brandon:
Are you your wife and whoever out how many people are working at at this point with you?
Brandon:
My wife still had a full time job. She, you know, she was working corporate America. It was me and one part time employee, 7500 orders. How does that work?
Brandon:
Yeah, I think that’s part of the military carry over is like just one, you learn how to embrace the suck is the term we always like to say, right?
Brandon:
And so I’m watching all these orders roll in which was really cool for about two hours and then this kind of like, oh man, how am I going to do?
Brandon:
This kind of starts creeping over me, right?
Brandon:
And it didn’t stop for three days.
Brandon:
It was just orders orders, orders right from the food and wine hot dog article. It was, it was because it was a very Clickbait esque title is called, we found a hot dog tastes like steak and so it was, I know it’s great for both of us because food and wine is not huge either. Right? So it was like, we were excited about it. They were super excited about it. It was the number one article in Apple News there for about 24 hours and then msn syndicated it and it was freaking huge and it was really exciting and also really scary and there’s a couple of things I definitely learned from that experience that, you know, we have carried into the business since then, which are the biggest, is just transparency with your customers, right?
Brandon:
Like people always think like when something crap is happening behind closed doors that you need to like shy away from being honest with folks about it and I don’t think that’s true.
Brandon:
I think people really enjoy the fact that you’re like, hey, I’m a small business and I just got my teeth kicked in with 7500 orders.
Brandon:
If you watch your package, it’s going to be eight weeks and if you want your money back, I’m, I’m here and I’m totally willing to do that.
Brandon:
Just please don’t leave me one star reviews on google because that will kill my business and that’s, and that’s exactly, we were very transparent, honest with folks is we kind of move through that and they appreciated it.
Brandon:
And the good news was, they love the product. We’ve really done a ton of work on making sure we had a quality product. So it took us about eight weeks to get those orders out the door. We hired two more full time folks and a couple more part time folks for that holiday season And it was what put our company on the map and you know, we didn’t make any money on the hot dog deal because my business wasn’t designed for ship and see a lot of dogs across the country.
Brandon:
But what we need dogs, we had, we had people come and buy a $11 pack of hot dogs pay $25 shipping.
Brandon:
And people always think I’m like making printing money, like You’re selling a $38 pack of hot dogs, it’s like, no, we lost $3 on that because we’re built on an average order value and we just never would’ve anticipated that that many people would buy a single pack of hot dogs, but they all came back and bought more.
Brandon:
So that was, that was what we gained out of it.
Brandon:
That’s what I was gonna ask you your average revenue per user, but your customer lifetime value is where you recovered.
Brandon:
It definitely, definitely.
Brandon:
So food and wine and a hot dog when you actually think it’s your steak that’s gonna put you on the map, puts you on the map and that really starts, I mean, I’m a I like lists, list building and you know, you own your customer and you’ve got 7500 customers on top of maybe another 1000 that you had that were on your email list, so to speak.
Brandon:
So now you actually start to have a marketing channel that can not print money but certainly can be your direct to consumer outreach, definitely because we the the other part to Brandon we gained about 25,000 emails out of that.
Brandon:
And so we finally had this outlet.
Brandon:
Whereas like, you know, we get new inventory in.
Brandon:
I’d send an email on that friday to our customer list and we’d be sold out by saturday.
Brandon:
And it was kind of, it kind of went on that routine for a while, which is super cool, super exciting.
Brandon:
It’s like, man, I don’t know what to do.
Brandon:
I’m, I’m not like running around my hair on fire at least because I can’t pay my bills.
Brandon:
I’m running around with my hair on fire for different reasons now.
Brandon:
But So that was super cool finishing up 2019 there and then 2020, we had like all these ideas for sustainable growth and then covid happened and all those, those went out the door and it was kind of just hanging on for the seat of our pants.
Brandon:
Well we try to keep things in stock.
Brandon:
So did you on your emails, did you just send out, hey, this is Patrick.
Brandon:
We just got in 69 new hot dog or three new flavors.
Brandon:
I’m making this up, you know, to come up with what you came up with.
Brandon:
But they’re for sale. Here’s a link. I mean email marketing is, is a thing. So I’m just curious how you dove into going from really no list to a list to managing the list to drive revenue.
Brandon:
Yeah.
Brandon:
People love those early emails and I, you’re exactly right. Breaking I had no idea what I was doing. I’m not a marketing guy. Well I’m beginning to learn that marketing is definitely one of my strong suits, but people love the fact that it was just an email like, hey, you got product back in stock. Here’s some, here’s some stuff that you probably haven’t tried before. You want to give it a shot.
Brandon:
Like it’s kind of cool. Like it’s not some tacky blasted me with from some marketing firm and people love that.
Brandon:
My wife is the one that does that now she, she quit her corporate job and came onto the company summer last year, which was awesome. So she, she handles the marketing, she actually knows what she’s doing to so well, I think knowing what you’re doing, I think one thing that you said that I think people are getting scared about, but I’ve learned as well as there’s this balance where you want to appear to be a big company because you believe this is your story.
Brandon:
This is not necessarily the story, but it’s your story that if you don’t look big, then they won’t buy from you.
Brandon:
But the irony of it all is, is that if you just isn’t this the irony of just life patrick, if you just be yourself, people actually will like you and then you don’t have to take it all time, but in business, it’s this sort of the same thing.
Brandon:
Like, hey, I’m on a ranch.
Brandon:
I have some idea what I’m doing, but we’re really small and here’s the deal.
Brandon:
If you do this, then I probably go broke if you give me a one.
Brandon:
So if you, if you really think I suck and you give me one star, I will go out of business.
Brandon:
So think twice before you do it and if you want your money back I’ll give it back and just be upfront with what’s happening.
Brandon:
No, you’re spot on there bringing.
Brandon:
I still catch myself doing that where I’m like, oh no, don’t tell people how small we are, right?
Brandon:
It’s like we had 22 versions of the customers, one that loved us and two, they were like, did I just get scammed and get my credit card information stolen?
Brandon:
Right because we were small.
Brandon:
The phones were ringing off the hook, There’s no way we can each reach them.
Brandon:
We had like 10,000 emails and contact us and it was my wife and I that dug through all 10,000 of those emails um and responded to every single one of them.
Brandon:
But it was just funny right? Because you’re spot on. Once we responded to people were like, hey, this isn’t a scam, it’s like a husband wife and and one part time employee trying to run this deal out out in the middle of the country. People loved it and they love the fact that we’re honest and I was so nervous about it and my wife was the one that was like stop trying to act like somebody or not and I was like, okay, alright, you normally know what you’re talking about so I’ll believe you, Let’s try it. So yeah, it was a ton of fun and it works and you have, can you talk a little bit, you bring vets onto the ranch and have a model there now that now that you’ve got some cash flow and you’re and you’re making some money to really help people.
Brandon:
And I think that that is worth mentioning and talking about especially because I think there’s something about being outdoors but there’s also something about bonding with the animals that we talked about earlier and the energy that I think people in today’s society that everybody’s walking around with this thing and bonding if that’s a word with this, I don’t know, I seem to have bonded with it because it’s always with me but human interaction and animal interaction and being outside just has an energy that is not replaceable.
Brandon:
Yeah, you’re definitely right.
Brandon:
So that part time employee I was telling you about it was the first veteran we hired he was going through a tough spot in his life.
Brandon:
You know, he’d gotten out of the military about two years before that and had just struggled right and gone through all kinds of terrible things.
Brandon:
I won’t get into the details on that.
Brandon:
But I just really resonated with where he was at.
Brandon:
I did it a few years earlier and while I was still in the military, but it just it was like one of those things where I was like, I don’t see you as where you’re at financially, I don’t see you for the bad, bad things you’ve done since you’ve gotten out.
Brandon:
I just see you, right, and I want to help you and giving people a second chance.
Brandon:
Like that is amazing and it’s a ton of fun.
Brandon:
It doesn’t always work out.
Brandon:
So don’t think like it’s not you doing it, A person has to want to help themselves to be able to be helped.
Brandon:
So that was kind of like this eye opening experience where it’s like, you know, it just makes sense to hire veterans and there’s plenty of companies out there that don’t like hiring veterans.
Brandon:
So why don’t we be a company that does like hiring veterans and so minus my wife, everybody else that works out here all veterans.
Brandon:
And it’s definitely my favorite part about the company.
Brandon:
Yeah, you mentioned the animal aspect, but the other aspect is probably the biggest thing you miss from that transition from military to civilian life.
Brandon:
It’s just the camaraderie of being around folks that have had the same experiences. We can’t talk like we would around each other around civilians because people think we’re more of it in a little bit crazy, which we probably are, but that’s the part you mrs like there’s, there’s this, I don’t know if catharsis would be the right, but there’s there’s this healing power of just being around the folks that have been through like experiences and so that that’s been good for everybody that’s worked out here and it’s kind of fun.
Brandon:
We also help out, we try to help out as many veterans as we can get that are interested in entrepreneurship.
Brandon:
There’s pretty cool nonprofit.
Brandon:
I’ve gotten involved with here in Kansas city that called the Veteran fund, kind of a cool deal basically.
Brandon:
They help veterans by businesses, which I think is awesome, right?
Brandon:
Because I think veterans had a ton of skill sets that they really carry over the business world.
Brandon:
But so do the people that you hire live on your ranch because I can’t imagine everybody lives where you are.
Brandon:
That was big for the location we got, I was pretty important to me to not be too close to Kansas city, but to be in a location that was easily accessible and I’m glad I did that. We’re kind of in the epicenter for like the farm to table movement, Kansas city here, we’re about a 35 minute drive from most of the Northland.
Brandon:
So it’s, it’s a doable commute. So no, they don’t live, they don’t live here. Everybody’s within 15 to 30 minutes.
Brandon:
Well that’s cool and you are in a good spot actually, my dad lives in Kansas city Missouri and I’ve had some great brisket and some great other beef.
Brandon:
I just barbecue right there every known for their barbecue and steaks and stuff. So you’re actually in a great location and I can’t can’t imagine that.
Brandon:
Well, let me ask you do you have restaurant customers now?
Brandon:
No restaurants.
Brandon:
This is the first year we dipped our toe back into wholesale.
Brandon:
We have a sports sponsorship with Sporting KC, the MLS team here in Kansas City. So we serve dogs through their stadium and then we’re selling out of a few grocery stores here locally in Kansas City.
Brandon:
So it’s kind of just like a little test market, we’re trying to dip our toes and be like, how do we do this and still make money and kind of figure this all out. And uh I don’t know if it will ever be huge revenue source for us again, but I think it will probably be necessities. We move forward just to kind of push some of those items that we sit on.
Brandon:
Is the hot dog still your halo product for units sold absolutely for revenue now.
Brandon:
So the kind of cool part was everybody about the hot dogs starting down there. Like yeah, these are really good, let’s go back by some more hot dogs, but let’s try a steak and so that was kind of the cool part.
Brandon:
His stakes are definitely, we can’t keep them in stock. The stakes just kind of play out the door. So, but you know, maintaining quality control is definitely always a struggle when you’re, when you’re doing something like what we do. So that’s been definitely a headache as we’ve scaled here is just making sure we maintain that that same high caliber product that we did have before the hot dog incident do ru shunned in in the industry because you’ve disrupted the model or have other ranchers and middlemen realized that the writing’s on the wall.
Brandon:
I mean The Internet is not going away.
Brandon:
The funny part for me is I feel like I got started the Internet in 1996 and now people are like, well the Internet is just catching on.
Brandon:
I’m like, Huh, well it took 25 years or whatever, but okay, we’ll go with that.
Brandon:
The industries can and I’ve experienced this.
Brandon:
The people in the industry can really get angry at you because at the end of the day, you are taking money out of their revenue stream.
Brandon:
I’m not saying it’s good or bad innovation, but that can have consequences.
Brandon:
Have you experienced any of that?
Brandon:
Not yet.
Brandon:
I definitely see it coming.
Brandon:
That kind of the, I feel like one of the cool things that came out of covid from last year when the silver linings is People woke up and saw that four companies control 80% of the protein in this country and when those companies shut down, there’s no beef in your grocery store, right?
Brandon:
And it was like huh, this isn’t, this doesn’t seem right, right?
Brandon:
So it was, yeah, I’m not gonna poke fingers at those companies are a lot bigger than, than we are and it can squash us.
Brandon:
But I think there’s a lot of room for, for folks like me to go do the exact same thing.
Brandon:
And uh, we’ve helped a lot of those folks go do that because it’s really tough for people in agriculture community to make money.
Brandon:
It’s a good year for them if they break even, right. And uh, that doesn’t have to be the case.
Brandon:
You can go start what I’m doing with the website and a little bit of knowledge on shipping, some perishable goods or you can just go into farmers markets, you make a hell of a lot better money than you would just selling, you’re selling your product on the commodity markets. So I’m big on helping helping folks do that.
Brandon:
Some people are like, well, you’re creating competitors and there’s so much room in this market, right?
Brandon:
And it’s gonna, it’s gonna keep growing like that. People are really starting to care about where their food comes from and how it’s produced. And uh, I think the trend lines heading in the right direction for us and, and a big fan of a good karma and bad karma and I want to pass on as much knowledge as I can to the folks that are struggling that want to do something similar to what we’re doing.
Brandon:
Well, I appreciate you sharing that.
Brandon:
I have one more question for you because shipping is a big thing, especially with fresh foods and perishable foods.
Brandon:
Do your And there can be this hesitation to be like what you said earlier.
Brandon:
So $11, For hot dogs and $25 for shipping.
Brandon:
And there can be this, this belief that again is made up in your head that says, Well, why would the customer ever do that?
Brandon:
That’s not going to work.
Brandon:
But it seems to have work for you.
Brandon:
I’ve experienced it.
Brandon:
I mean we have crabs coming from the Chesapeake bay tomorrow that I’m not, I didn’t, I don’t look because I don’t want to look but probably paid half the price and shipping to get them here, but we’re willing to pay that price.
Brandon:
And I think customers are, but entrepreneurs or business owners are scared to ask it and then eat your margin. I mean at some point you got to make money. What’s been your experience with that?
Brandon:
I think you’re spot on there. Brandon. It’s a heck of a lot easier lowering your price point than it is raising it. And so I wish I would have known that what we have done since then is, you know, at the $25 price point we offered free shipping over my bling back then it was 100 and 50 bucks and we’ve kind of got away from the free shipping.
Brandon:
We offered over 300 down, but we have a flat rate 1299 that we charge customers and that that model has worked out a lot better for us, but you’re, you’re spot on and the fact that people, are are willing to pay for quality products. So if you’re bringing that where people kind of get confused, there is like you have to be bringing the quality product, if you, if you’re serving a crappy product, then you’re charging a fortune to, I mean, the market’s just gonna demand that you exit.
Brandon:
So you gotta have both those two kind of demand the higher price point.
Brandon:
But well, I really appreciate you coming on and sharing your story and opening up about your experience.
Brandon:
It certainly wasn’t easy when you were in the rangers, but you’re a great success story and inspiration for other people say, hey look man, you can, and it’s one thing to say for military people who are vets to say, you can get out of the military and start a successful company, but just as much it’s inspiration for people who have a completely different career and then switch and get into something that can be successful.
Brandon:
So I congratulate you.
Brandon:
It’s a testament of will, I think like you said sometimes, I always said this, I’m either really, you’re either really smart, really, crazy, stupid or just naive of what, what’s happening.
Brandon:
So you just keep going, maybe you need a combination of the boat to to kind of take that first sleep and entrepreneurship that’s for sure.
Brandon:
So what would be three H.
Brandon:
P. T. S. High percentage tips for fellow business owners out there that you would drop on them? I wrote them down before this interview, I did watch the video last night. So my first one is when you’re starting out, I think you heard a couple of times throughout this interview here that I way underestimated how much capital we would need.
Brandon:
So don’t be afraid to ask for devil because that’s probably going to be a heck of a lot closer to what you actually need to start making money as a company.
Brandon:
The second is uh commit to running a successful business, Don’t commit to a specific business plan, right?
Brandon:
I see that with entrepreneurs a lot where they create this business plan, they’re like well this idea that you’re talking to me about is not my business plan, it’s like well it’s your business plan working right now and it’s like well no And so adaptability is huge right like that 2018 where I woke up just completely in despair about like I am running a family business and kind of open it up to my mentors and having them just tear me apart some more and uh what came out of that was a completely new business plan And that that’s where we found success.
Brandon:
I mean you kind of look at that and it’s like, man, if we would have been in the restaurant business, even 50% of our revenue last year, we’d probably be out in a much bigger way.
Brandon:
And then the third is to focus on the quality and the profits will follow eventually.
Brandon:
Thank you sir.
Brandon:
three Great tips. I appreciate you sharing those. Where can people buy your hot dogs and why go, what’s the, what’s the right pronunciation?
Brandon:
Because I’ve probably been saying it wrong the whole time and you’ve been kind not correcting me No, there I say it wrong because I’m from the midwest but the proper way is wagyu beef, right? And I say wagyu beef, that’s what I was thinking. Yeah, it’s like I do a big interview and like fox news or something like that and they vary, they enunciate very well and I’m always like just walk you big.
Brandon:
I’m from Missouri, that’s what I call it. So where can people by Patrick, you’re a wagyu beef.
Brandon:
So if you had to Casey cattle company dot com and you can find more information about us, you can check out our product list and feel free to email us from from our website there, there’s a contact us form, you can also check us out on social media at Casey cattle company on all three of the major platforms.
Brandon:
Well cool, we will put that in the show notes, Patrick, thanks for taking time out of your day on the ranch to come on and talk to us.
Brandon:
Thanks for having me on brand and I really appreciate it.
Brandon:
Thanks for being generous with your time and joining us for this episode of the edge. Before you go, a quick question, are you the type of person who wants to get 100% out of your time, talent and ideas. If so. You’ll love our monthly edge newsletter.
Brandon:
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