Cullen Raichart, Founder & CEO, GreenBroz, Inc.
Cullen Raichart, Founder and CEO of GreenBroz, Inc. has more than 12 years of experience as an entrepreneur and inventor. A Veteran of the United States Armed Forces, Cullen is driven to create American-made products that offer solutions to the growing agriculture industry.
Prior to founding GreenBroz, Inc., Cullen worked in the corporate world for a Fortune 500 company until realizing his passion for creating innovative products. His goal became the streamlining of the harvesting processes and, in turn, reducing growers time and costs.
Cullen is considered a distinguished inventor whose drive has earned him a reputation as a pioneer in automation in emerging agricultural markets.
Cullen’s vision for end-to-end harvesting technology has led GreenBroz, Inc. to become a world leader in automated harvesting solutions.
https://greenbroz.com
https://twitter.com/greenbroz/
https://www.instagram.com/greenbroz_inc/
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
[00:00:01] You're listening to Thinking Outside the Bud where we speak with entrepreneurs investors thought leaders researchers advocates and policymakers who are finding new and exciting ways for cannabis to positively impact business society and culture. And now here is your host Business Coach Bruce Eckfeldt.
[00:00:30] Are you a CEO looking to scale your company faster and easier. Checkout Thrive Roundtable thrive combines a moderated peer group mastermind expert one on one coaching access to proven growth tools and a 24/7 support community created by Inc. Award winning CEO and certified scaling up business coach Bruce Eckfeldt. Thrive will help you grow your business more quickly and with less drama. For details on the program visit Eckfeldt.com/thrive. That's E C K F E L D T.com/thrive.
[00:01:06] Welcome, everyone. This is thinking outside the bud. I'm Bruce. I'm your host. And our guest today is Cullen Raichart and he is founder CEO of GreenBroz. We're gonna find out a little bit more about his company. He is an entrepreneur.
[00:01:17] He's an inventor, creator of Beautiful Objects machinery, which we're going to talk about. But if you go to the Web site and check some of the stuff out, it's quite impressive. As an architect, I can appreciate the attention to detail on these things. So I'm excited for the conversation and I'm excited to hear more with that. Cohen, welcome to the program.
[00:01:33] Thank you for some. I'm really glad to be here. So let's talk a little bit about let's talk about your background first.
[00:01:38] Like how you got in to this business, how you got into cannabis. You know a little bit about your background and we can talk about the products that you make and how you serve the agricultural industry. And we'll get into some of the things you're doing today. But take us back and give us a sense of the background. And how did you get into this space?
[00:01:53] Well, I mean, I guess you go way, way back when I got a photo about a photo. Tron.
[00:01:58] Yes. So we didn't go that far back.
[00:02:03] And I was always kind of fast and I wasn't any good. I've never been. I still have green thumbs. I have I have brown thumbs. When it comes to handling growing plants. Good with animals, not so good with plants. But I had just, you know, the technology. I was interesting. I murmured, I'll back that. And I thought, wow, this is such a cool little device. And it was all one piece. And it was it was pretty cool, a little machine. But I've always had kind of a passion for mechanical stuff and I've always been really fascinated and interested in it. But I got really into cannabis when I had my dad and actually gotten into it in up in Lake County was in L.A. County in California. And he had had a really successful growing operation. And he was like, I've won to know. You need to want to make a little extra money. You should really look at this thing. And, you know, I I kind of went after it to try and be in the growing and producing side of it. And I really kind of learned quickly that it's a lot more work. It's not just planting stuff in your backyard. But you know that the thing about that moment was there was this whole void in the industry itself. I mean, I was looking at different aspects of it and it was up and coming. And that was back in when I think 215 had Prop 215. I think has just been started. And I think right before the 420, maybe in right out for 20. Also, those guys came in right at the same time frame. But yeah. So I I actually had a friend of mine who is in the industry and he was from England and he is like, you gotta make me a hash machine. And I'm like, all right.
[00:03:39] Yeah, do it. So I just started looking at the machines that were on them in the marketplace.
[00:03:46] And I came up with a design that was completely different, was still a rotational design, but it was it was flat screens that were tighter and created a little bit more product, movement and agitation. It's the first patent I ever got.
[00:04:00] Actually, on our alchemist product, we called the Alchemist Now. But at that time, it was getting game what we called it. It was I invented this machine and it worked so well that I was I had no idea how was gonna work. I had made a box of screens. We put a bunch of kief and or sift in it and start tumbling it. And I didn't have any covers on it.
[00:04:19] And nothing about hold up with Keith does.
[00:04:23] I'm like, yeah, I got my I got my son rotating in language, you know, 20 ARPA abs and all sort of like the whole house full of dust like, well, this is really bad.
[00:04:33] Okay. Everyone out. Yeah, yeah, get out.
[00:04:36] But on the other hand, it was like, wow, that that freaking really, really works. So I learned a lot really quickly on how to, you know, not just design a product, but the iterations of design and design and design design to nail down the details and now and figure out how you can actually bring something out of a garage and into a marketplace. And then, you know, all of the details around pricing and and costs. Yeah. So there was a ton of it, you know, ton of value in that. But I thought I thought I was going to hit the lottery. I thought that's what business was like.
[00:05:10] You invent a product and then you just sit back, wait for the checks to come in. Exactly. So they didn't by the way, just your face a price.
[00:05:20] Yeah, yeah, yeah. It didn't happen. But I found I found that the market was just not receptive to that product at the time either because like. Just when concentrates had really started to just, you know, it was this like, well, that's it. No one was interested in insisting at that point. And I actually end up driving all the way to Northern California with all the machines that I could afford to make. And China's trying to hock my wares.
[00:05:47] You know, as I like door to door salesperson or door to door. But there's still those doors you don't knock. Oh, my gosh.
[00:05:56] So what's quite interesting, I've actually spent many, many nights in national parks with a trailer full of machines. But I did get a company that that was really supportive. And they took a couple of machines on consignment. And the guy was the maintenance tech was like, oh, man, you gotta see this new trimmer machine. It's that thing, man. And they were selling them like they were selling them. They were back ordered and they were selling them so fast. And it was I hate to say the name of it, but it was the mean green. It was back in the day when they were the thing. And that was just like everybody wanted this machine as a first drag German machine. And I saw it and I told this guy that I'll be back in three weeks with better machine.
[00:06:34] I could beat that. I could do that. And it's not a problem.
[00:06:37] And he looked at me like I was I was crazy. But I ended up bringing back a machine that in three weeks actually showed backup with it, with a prototype of what's in our flagship product, which is our drive semi machine. And the owner of that company looked at that machine and watched the demonstration, which is a whole nother story. It's a great story. But I don't want to take up all the time on history. But I got there and everybody got distracted and I had to get everybody's attention and I had actually taken product to test with. I'm from Southern California to Northern California, which is not the way that product flows sagging upstream. Yeah. So anyway, I finally got their attention enough and I showed it to him and he I was watching is kind of just got mesmerized and he stopped because you know, that I sell all these machines. And I got to be honest with you, they're just not impressive, he said. But that's that's impressive what that machine does. And I I knew at that point, because he was the biggest company in the area in the Emerald Triangle area, I knew that if he was saying that, you know, that I was on it. And so we kind of I kind of say we but I had a friend of mine in the business with me at the time, and we kind of just planned out how to do whatever, whatever to do what's next, how what is next? You know, so I built some machines and sold them to them and then went immediately looking for money. You know, like, I can't do this. I don't have the means to do this.
[00:07:57] And we actually found through art view, which is wasn't really cancerous. They're still around and they start really early with cannabis investing. We did get an investor through that and got one hundred and fifty thousand dollar investment in our second year, which allowed me to be I mean, I quit my job anyway at that time working for Hewlett Packard. But I I that gave us capital to get going. And that first year, the year before that, we did like sixty thousand in revenues. The second year we did three hundred sixty thousand dollars and we didn't get funded until August, Katrina and our third year we did three point seven million dollars. And then we went just bing, bing, bing, bing, bing.
[00:08:37] They were just like that. We believe now it's kind of like that. Yeah. So maturity and all the changes that happen as you grow up in a company and a company goes from being in your garage to thing. And now we're in twenty five thousand square foot beautiful facility in Las Vegas, you know, with two and a half million dollars of of equipment so that we're we can stay on the edge of production and make the machines that you see on our website. So yeah, I mean it's just that's kind of how it happened, that one of those things where it never really was envisioned other than it just kept moving. You know, I just wouldn't stop. I just didn't want to let anything get in my way because I always wanted to have my own company. And as it started to move faster and faster and faster. You know, at some point you sit back and go, holy shit, you know, we did it. Look, let's look, let's go out on the town and go right back to work. There's no brake. No brake. Where's my brake at?
[00:09:32] It's not there. So interesting. So I think I mean, I want to pull out one couple of things from from the background that I think are important kind of notes or I think for people. Listen, you listen. We're kind of going through the entrepreneurial journey as that whole original thing of how how do I find problems that are worth solving. Right. So this whole, you know, solving a problem, that is not the most important problem. When I see that time and time again, I mean, I'm sitting down, as I say, in all industries. But sort of picking the wrong problem or picking your problem is not the most important from that. And getting really good at being, you know, through interactions with customers with your market, you know, how can you explore and, you know, either find a better problem or find the next problem that's going to come in eventually your lunch. Right. So this whole thing of people removing the concentrates and also into, you know, the needs shifted, the problem shifted. And it's we call em the Kodak problem. Right. If I get if by focusing on digital or on film photography and I miss the digital transformation and I'm going to get left behind so it's hard. How do you stay on top of that? And then you know that. Growth process, I mean. I'm curious, what for you going from founder, inventor, salesperson, garbage. Take her out her. I'm doing everything on the company to actually growing a business and bringing people in and figuring out how to kind of navigate that process. What have been some of the challenges or kind of changes you've had to make as a leader to grow along with the company? I mean, what are what have you noticed as a company's grown and it sounds like fairly quickly?
[00:10:56] Well, those are two pretty awesome questions, to be honest. And they could we could spend the whole hour or two on each of them. But I think that the hardest thing when you're looking at problems, where you're looking at solutions is, you know, it's easy to get fixated on things where you're either you're fixated on the way something looks or you're fixated on the way that something you're fixated fixated on solving a problem that actually doesn't need to be solved. I think shark tanks full of people like that. Right. Just like we just don't see a need for your product. But this person is given everything in their life to solve this problem. And that's great. But nobody wants one of those. And that's really a key part of it, right? I mean, without a market, there's just nothing. Well, one of my early meetings with a couple of people that I met at my first investor meeting, they kind of sat on an advisory panel for us for a while. But they remember him saying, well, Collin, you know, if you're not selling, then this is all just a hobby.
[00:11:51] Like, oh, yeah, exactly. I love that notion. That's it.
[00:11:55] That's kind of how I've always looked at it as like, you know, because it's a vacuum, right. The cannabis industry, like any growing industry or actually any industry. But it's more visible and in a vacuum or in an industry like this where everything is so new and needed. I never was throwing everything at it. Right. Everybody's like, oh, well, this works over here, so we'll use it here. What's not probably true, but everybody's kind of trying to solve all these issues. There's so many holes, so it's easy to see those holes. But the problem can be that hole doesn't actually need to be filled. And it may just be because that's how they do all the background stuff this week. But next week, maybe they're doing all the background stuff this way. And you go, oh, wow, man, that you could spend all your money all your time and energy trying to fix something. Again, like you said, that just doesn't need to be fixed. So we've stayed true to our flagship, our trimming machine because it's really the core of who we are and what we do best. And then we've never been afraid to branch out. So we've always looked at every other opportunity and gotten into every other opportunity that we feel has viability. We work with some companies to her in the space. We have a great reputation. So we're able to take another company who is new or or burgeoning and be able to bring them into the space much more rapidly because we're we're in, you know, a large percentage of large value grows. So we have a trust relationship with a lot of people. So we're able to bring products in. So I'm not ashamed to say that there are no other products that are worth looking at. I mean, it's just such a open space. It makes sense right now.
[00:13:26] I'm curious how you. What does that process look like? I I spent a lot of time developing working with leadership teams on developing strategy and figuring out markets and products and stuff like that. What does your process look like in terms of sort of gathering insight about your customers and the market in terms of where the needs are going or new needs are popping up and then evaluating if you should develop something internally, if you should, you should look for something that's hurting on the market. And you have this is a formal process for you. It is intuitive.
[00:13:55] What's given say a lot of it's a lot of intuition, but then there's a lot and you have the intuitive part, which kind of spurs and starts the deal. And then you look at it and then you have to look at it go, wow, OK, what's my quickest way here? What's the most rapid way in? And does it make any sense? Can we be financially? I'm like, am I going to be financially rewarded? And by doing this or am I wasting my time putting my company in jeopardy or am I putting my people in jeopardy? And we've made products that never went anywhere at all. So you get. Gunshot. You don't want to do that. But on the other side, you don't want to be afraid to do it because, you know, you run into a company. Well, one of our our great partners, Green Vault Systems, and they make the best patching system in the world for cannabis. It's it's astoundingly accurate, super gentle. It fits right in with all of our motto. And if we hadn't been open to that, we wouldn't be you know, we wouldn't have that partnership. And it's a huge gamble because they're new. We're new still. And you're trying to have a relationship with somebody. And it's just like this huge chaos of things going on around you. So with them, we had informal meetings. We worked on a project kind of together. And then we started to talk about how, you know, how potentially Green Bro's could help them with their success. And and, you know, we we started to talk about formalities and tried to make things really kind of rigid to start and then ended up backing out of all of that and say, listen, why don't we all we agree to treat each other with respect and dignity and start this relation.
[00:15:28] Ship and the see how this relationship starts to move so that we're not confined completely by some contract that puts either one of us in jeopardy. So obviously, you know, as you move down that relationship, you can you can type things up and make things more, more effective for everybody that's involved. But initially it was just like, hey, listen, you know, you guys have a great product. We have a great reputation. We think that your product fits well with our with our business. You know, our whole what we do and we'd like to be a part of it. And this is how we'll do it. And so you come up with a price structure and a representation structure. We fulfill our promises. They fulfill their promises and everything works out well. And then you're you know, this last year we had a great meeting, kind of a relook at everything that we're doing. And you have you have these great opportunities to grow as individual companies and kind of strengthen your relationship because it was so successful the year before. So, you know, there's probably another ways to do those things, but we're just not a capital heavy company. If I was sitting on four hundred million dollars. You know, maybe I'd just buy a.
[00:16:28] I've got a solution, right? Yeah.
[00:16:30] When you when you're poor. When you're cash poor like we are. I mean we revenues are great and we make money.
[00:16:36] But I mean we just don't you know, we're just not sitting on boatloads of cash yet. But most got cash, so.
[00:16:41] Right. Right. So we put everything back in. Like always investing internally and making things better. Making new equipment, trying to grow. Get the company ready for that next stage. So you don't have this. Sell the opportunity to to buy everything that's out there and you don't know what they're going to be and what level that that company is at, because there's no history, that there's no history, there's no financials. I can't look at your stock market ticker for the last 10 years and go, wow, that fucking companies, they look ripe. You know, there's nothing there.
[00:17:10] You're looking at a couple of people and then you're evaluating, they're evaluating, they're there, their product, your value, and you're gone.
[00:17:18] Man, is this you know, it's here. It it's it's crazy from that perspective. So that's where the intuition comes in. You know, you have to have that moment where you just like, yeah, I like these guys go now. I think this is yeah, this is gonna be a this is gonna be a working situation. And we've had some success with that and we've had some failures with that, you know, because things are not always what they're presented to be. You know, people don't always want to come out and lead with their with all of that information. You have to bring to the table in a situation like that. You know, sometimes you're getting into it. You like well, there's just really nothing here, you know, or, you know, you look at it and go, there's it's cheaper for me to do this myself. Yeah. Yeah, you know.
[00:18:00] So there's do that. I think there's an interesting and important and I think very I've seen it in companies a lot did this kind of combination of sort of the logical rational, you know what?
[00:18:12] What is the model say, you know, if I do the wrong way analysis, you know, when's the return going to happen? You know, there's that kind of side of it. And then there's the kind of more intuitive values based like. Or do we have synergy here or not? One of things I I do along with companies, is focused on what Gulf core framework, which is, you know, your purpose, what's your purpose, what's your mission, what are your core values? What are the guiding principles that guide your decision making around how you want to be doing business, who you want to be doing business with, why? And you know, all values are good. There's no right or wrong. It's just that this is the way you are. And the more you can find people that are like you are, the more successful you're going to be, whether they're employees, partners, vendors, customers, like all those things, the more you can kind of align around these core values. And so, I mean, it sounds like this has happened at some level. Do you have kind of formal values or core values that you've identified over time that that help guide your decision making? Or is this been more just kind of the gut instinct by the leadership team?
[00:19:10] I think it's you know, it's just so hard because you have these really strong emotional kind of gut instincts and you can have them around. Shit, I'm pardon me, but I mean, like you can have this moment where you're like, wow, that's the best thing I've ever conceived of. We need to make that. We'll get to work with this guy. And then you realize it's just it's vapid or there's nothing really does nothing substantive. So you you know, but that's the exploration process, right? Like work. I'm not going to see somebody at it at a tradeshow. Look at their product. It can go, well, I've got to have that product and then sign a contract or go into work with them. So it takes six months as we get to know each other and start to understand a little bit more about what they want to do and what they want to accomplish and what it is they want to be doing. Like one of the big things was my first conversations around with these guys was like, you know, if I could do it my way, I would just bring you guys on board. Right. And it was a candid conversations like that's how I would do it. But I would also, because of what I've experienced in my life, what I've done, I would never take the opportunity to be a business owner from anybody. Mike? Yeah, I would never I would never do that. That's what you want to do. I'm never gonna say, Hey, Dad, don't do it because it's been the most challenging and exciting and entertaining. And like, just the best value thing for me is I'm raising kids that I've ever been involved in, so.
[00:20:28] You know, I think that the days back when when we used to see these, you know, I know that's happening still is like these corporate consolidation and mergers and all that stuff going on. But for smaller the smaller companies who are learning how to operate together more synergistically understanding, look, I mean, the needs too big. The market's too big and the needs are too big for one company. There's just not enough for, you know, bandwidth for a company, a startup company to be able to fill all the holes within the market space. But the market space is also not big enough to attract people who could do all of it right then. Now, conundrum, the giant, you know, the John Deere is aren't common yet. They will. Oh, yeah, I would imagine. But, you know, it's just like it's what it is. So it's in this really interesting space. Plus, you know, the hemp thing. Oh, my God. And CBD. Oh, my God. I just changed everything. That was that was an earthquake and a half right there. Yeah. Oh, yeah. So it's like I think. Yeah. I'm sorry. I think that I think that everybody has a way of doing things. And my feeling is always it's always been like people. And this is how I treat people to work with me. And in the company say people work best when they're challenged and when they're pursuing a passion or they're given the opportunity to do the thing that they hate, that that sets them on fire, you know.
[00:21:51] And then you get this this gold mine of productivity or value that gets just flowing out of this person, like, wow, where did that guy come from? I have no idea. You know, but they did. They just caught on fire. They love this thing or they're into. They know this is their passion. And so if you treat company in the same way you get that same thing, you find people who are we're like, yeah, I'm just you know, I want to do this. And it's not that they all have to be passionate about cannabis assertively or or have. It's just that passion of like, man, I I want it. I want to build a business. If I'm down, I'll help you build your business. Let's do this. You know, follows. We can make it work. Right. And it makes sense. I'll do everything I can to make you guys successful, because that's going to just add to our success. So, yeah.
[00:22:34] And that's a very that's a very kind of global enlightened view. I would say that not all CEOs talk to that same kind of perspective.
[00:22:43] And I did notice that your you're talking there and you use the term the people that you work with, not the people that were the people that work with you and not the people that work for you.
[00:22:53] I'm curious how you've gone about finding the people. I think that's one of the big challenges with growing companies. And as you know, things start to scale. And, you know, at some level, it's oftentimes companies get caught up because their sales grow so quickly and the market opportunity grows very quickly. But they can't back it up with actually growing the organization around that or they they take missteps in terms of the people they bring on and they end up with a culture, you know, a team and a culture that's not really aligned and is not really, you know, synergistic. How have you how have you kind of navigated the process? And there's anything you've learned about who you've surrounded yourself with, how you found people, how you kind of interview, how. I mean, you mentioned some of the, you know, tapping into their passions. Is there anything that you've done that has allow you to do that successfully? Talk to me about the people side.
[00:23:36] Yeah. It's the probably the most difficult and hard puzzle, right. Because no matter who works works for me, there's a personal investment and or worse with it for whatever, you know, there's a personal investment because it's small company.
[00:23:54] I know everybody you know, and I can tell really quickly, usually within the first few minutes of a conversation, whether I've got something that's really interesting for them. And if it is, then I can take you know, I can take interest and you can apply interest into passion and kind of go down a direction. If you have something that's like an opportunist strictly, that kind of flip fleshes itself out quickly as well. And in that, there's nothing wrong with that, honestly. There's some very strong people who who are just seeking opportunity. And that's great. And I think it's very it's very valuable. As you said for me, I would weigh outweigh the passion over an opportunity person from just personally because there's something to it, because I'm passionate about something valuable about that. My my marketing director, we had two interviews and it was just conversations wasn't really anything other than just conversations. They're both two hours or hour and a half long each. I was just this kind of connection where you're just like, yeah, all right. And he describes it like like I was flying by on a high speed train.
[00:25:01] I reached out and I grabbed him and he and he got thrown in the back.
[00:25:07] And that's kind of that's kind of it. But he did it. He was like, yeah, I'm ready. He put his arm out. And that's that's part of it, too. But as you grow, you start to see there's a need for tacticians and there's a need for pragmatic people as well, guys who are, you know, not necessarily in it because they're passionate. It but they're brilliant at this tasking. They're brilliant executed of certain things. So you have to have a balance in there. Yeah, can't just have a bunch of passionate people run around. That's like one one one big, you know, one big rollercoaster ride all the time. But but you know, and you need it like you need an accountant who loves numbers. I mean, they need the love numbers and they need to look at it. And, you know, that's the thing. It's like I want an accountant who's like looking at it all the time, trying to make sure it all makes sense.
[00:25:59] I did my.
[00:26:00] My guess is there's a there's a core value here around just being passionate about whatever it is. If it's about, you know, passionate about creating the perfect project plan or the perfect spreadsheet, it's just like we just do things with passion. It doesn't mean that you're out there trying to find the next deal or, you know, the passion can come in very different shapes and forms. But at the end of the day, everyone has to be passionate. I think that's I think that's probably a core value for you and the company, but it certainly doesn't hurt.
[00:26:27] You know, and when you've got that, because there's doldrums and and in growing companies, it's a rollercoaster. The financials are always are always moving. You know, there's banking concerns. There's you know, there's there's marketing concerns. There's I mean, it's just so Wild West that, you know, you need to have something that's going to keep you grounded through it while while while, you know, people like me are sleds and through trying to figure it out.
[00:26:54] So I think it's my which we've mentioned this idea of you as a company grows, you need to surround yourself with balancing forces. And I've spent a lot of time with CEOs doing those, going to figuring out like a coup. Who do you need to put on your leadership team or who you surround yourself with? That's going to balance out some of these things because, you know, it's as you get bigger. There's going to be, you know, you. Yes. You want bring on people that share similar visions and, you know, have similar core values. But you also need to to make sure that you're bringing in new perspectives and diversity on the team. You know, in terms of experience, in terms of thinking, style, perspective, all those things. So it's that there's a bit of an art with that. What I make is, as you kind of look forward, what are the what are the things you're kind of anticipating or gonna be your next changes or as you kind of see the company getting bigger, what are the things that you're you're seeing within yourself or within, you know, kind of your role or your style or your focus that, you know, is going to need to evolve as the company gets bigger?
[00:27:52] It's it's such an appropriate time to have that have this conversation on that specific question, because you I mean, it was very small and it was very intimate, you know, and I was very I was very involved. I'm still very involved in engineering. I'm very involved in the thought leadership and the planning kind of stuff. And I still that's a passion for me. But the company needs something else from me. And and that's. So that's it. That's that. There's a sit down a moment where you look yourself in the mirror and you say, well, OK.
[00:28:27] Do I need to hire somebody to do this job, you know, because they're or is it something that I'm willing to shift over and and apply and be passionate and go after? And that's so that's really when it's kind of come around to me is like this year's like my focus is so different than I was expecting it to be. And, you know, my I was able to bring in an operations manager that can handle the day to day and take all of that away from me so I can go back to growth.
[00:28:59] You know, like not just not just, you know, not just making sure that the bank accounts look right, but actually looking at, you know, getting out in the world. And we're going to England next month in August to do a show in England. And our national international presence is growing. And I'm up here in Vancouver meeting with some really large customers about, you know, kind of going down the road of full processing solutions instead of just, you know, machines here and machines there. So as that focus has shifted, you know, I have to settle into this new role. And I don't know how successful it's going to be because it's it's just different. You know, it's just it's and it's I don't mind being in front of people and I don't mind talking and I don't mind doing presentations and mind all that stuff. But there's there's also when you do when you move, you you have to I have to let go of these other things and trust that the people that I brought in can do and will do those things to keep the direction of the company moving forward. And then I can't really babysit. I don't have that space anymore. I can sit and control those things. So it's it's a major shift and it's all coming with this move. And so I mean that last month. I mean, honestly, I was sitting and sitting at home and I was thinking, can I can I do this?
[00:30:18] I really do.
[00:30:20] I really want to do this. You know, this is this is crazy why I do this. And then, you know, but really, it's just. It's just the same thing goes back to that, I mean, this is what I do. So of course I do it. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:30:33] And the dirty little secret is every CEO goes through that, every single CEO, virtually every single CEO doctor who has this story. You know, where they start doubting themselves or start realizing that, wow, you know what I'm going to have to do in a year as is completely different than now. Am I really up for this change or am I the best person I am? And yeah, it's a journey. You know, it's it's a journey that everybody goes through. So. Yeah. Now you're on it.
[00:30:57] Same thing. I think. I think I called myself a CEO and had no idea what I was doing. Well, you know, I. Why would you give yourself that title? I wish somebody would have told me.
[00:31:07] But actually, I had a great conversation with with a with a man who has taken over one of our one of one of our one of our big wholesalers. And he's very, very successful and has brought. I had asked for his permission. I give you his name. But he's you know, he's become kind of a mentor because they were actually looking at our company as an add on to the bubble. But he sat down with me and he had a script. Frank conversation with me.
[00:31:32] And and I looked at that. They look at it. I'm like, you know, wow. I have to really I really have to change a lot about how I think about all of this stuff. You know, for this company in a move in the right direction to continue to grow. And that was it. And it's been nice. It's nice to have a person who's been there done that and looks at the stuff that I think is impossible. I just do it. Oh, OK. Got it.
[00:31:59] Now, mindset, this whole it's all mine to framing. Interesting. So we're going to hit time here. This has been great for that fascinating conversation. We covered a lot of great stuff. If people want to find out more about you, about the company, what's the best way to get that information?
[00:32:14] Well, I think the best possible way to find out about what we do is through our Web site, it’s greenbroz.com. That's a great place to start. There are some there are some videos out there if you want to see our products in action. We have we have some shifting going on in our social media right now that work. So that's kind of on on hold for the moment. But I'd probably be up by the time the podcast comes around so you can check us out on Instagram and Twitter and all that other fun stuff. I guess there's a lot of people out there who have our products and have experienced that the relationships we build with our customer base. And I think that that's really what's important. I grew up in a company of small business. And so I've always had that kind of idea. We remember we had a paper guy who's come by with a printing guy. He's come by.
[00:33:03] And that was his job. He just come by and say hi and hang out.
[00:33:05] And yeah, you know, I always know that that's absolutely what we build. In that sense, you know, although we're thin and we we're not quite able to have that level of detailed attention. We are still able to have a degree of communication with all of our customers. And I think that that's what's kind of led us to be so successful. Just that personal care.
[00:33:26] So it's excellent.
[00:33:28] I will put I'll make sure that the euro and you'd update me with all the handles for social and I'll put those in the show notes so people can click through and get them.
[00:33:37] Also, like I said, this has been a pleasure. Great conversation. I really appreciate the time. Thanks for being on the program.
[00:33:42] I appreciate your time as well. Thank you.
[00:33:46] You've been listening to Thinking Outside the Bud with Business Coach Bruce Eckfeldt to find a full list of podcast episodes. Download the tools and worksheets and access other great content. Visit the Web site at thinkingoutsidethebud.com. And don't forget to sign up for the free newsletter at thinkingoutsidethebud.com/newsletter.