Month: May 2021

There’s an old Spanish proverb “The belly rules the mind.” While we can almost all agree that is true, sometimes we should think more about what we’re putting in our bellies, the process, as well as people behind our food. 

 

Last year, Chef Andrew Zimmern enlightened me on the way our food supply chain works, and the inequities built into it. For me, our conversation was a real eye-opener. I think our All Business with Jeffrey Hayzlett listeners agreed as the episode was easily one of the most listened to of 2020.   

 

I wanted to connect and catch up with Andrew again to talk about his work helping out restaurant workers during nationwide shutdowns, the trends he’s seeing in the industry, and his sobriety. Andrew also previewed his new TV show, Family Dinner now Streaming on Discovery+ and debuting in 2022 on Chip and Joanna Gaines’ new venture Magnolia Network, which he talked about as in idea during our conversation last year.  

There’s no doubt the restaurant industry as a whole has been hit very hard by the pandemic. With each state having different rules and regulations, it’s been tough for the big chains, but even more so for the ‘mom and pop’ shops. Andrew is one of the voices behind the Independent Restaurant Coalition, a group dedicated to saving independent restaurants and bars affected by COVID-19. Even in Andrew’s adoptive hometown of Minneapolis, MN, 7% of restaurants have closed for good and more could be coming.  

 

“The restaurant community, especially independent restaurant communities, the most creative and vibrant source of phenomenal-ness that I know of,” Andrew said. “No other industry was asked to pivot 17 different times in every state in the union.” 

 

“We (the restaurant industry) did get $28.6 billion from the American Rescue Plan. That funding is absolutely crucial to folks. It’s grant support for restaurants hit hardest by the pandemic and they can be used alongside the PPP and EIDL and the employee retention tax credit so that vulnerable business can survive the remainder of this crisis.” 

 

While it’s been a tough year for restaurants, Andrew is bullish on the industry’s future. With warmer weather and states lifting COVID restrictions, the future looks bright for those that endured.  

 

One way many restaurants of all sizes pivoted to survive was through ghost kitchens. Professional restaurants offering delivery or take-out only service. Some are new. Others are spinoffs of brands you know. Most offer limited menus. Andrew sees the ghost kitchen trend as a footnote in restaurant history. 

 

“Ghost kitchens, by their very nature, are not transparent. It’s a little bit of smoke and mirrors. I mean no one’s lying or fibbing. You know…you know that there’s not a physical space, it’s an aggregated kitchen,” Andrew said. Quite frankly, as a customer I don’t care — if the food is good, the food is good. I just think this ghost kitchen thing may be one of those deals, kind of like Blu-Ray players, is popular for a year or two and then goes into the dustbin of history.” 

 

Through the centuries, there has been plenty of family history sprinkled in the food we eat and the tapestry has been woven at every dinner table around the world. That’s the idea behind Andrew’s new show Family Dinner. You can catch the entire first season streaming now on Discovery+.   

 

“I run around the country and have dinner with families and tell their stories.” Andrew said. “The stories we tell, these families are so fantastic. It is the perfect time, as we’re heading into the spring after this horrific year, to be celebrating American families after we spend so much time with our own. It’s nice to see other families and get inspired from them.” 

 

One thing I find inspiring about Andrew is his candor. While we’ve only technically met twice over Zoom, he is a very thoughtful, caring, and open person. During this chat we talked about his 29 years of sobriety and how it helped him become the person he is today. 

 

Andrew says his parents helped expose him to “all the right ideas” growing up, but he didn’t listen. Instead, he fell into what he called “a horrific hellhole of addiction and alcoholism.” 

 

“When I got sober, I didn’t know how to stay sober,” Andrew recalls. “I could stay sober for a day but didn’t know who I was going to do it for any longer than that.” 

 

“Some of my mentors in recovery and 12 step groups taught me that the secret was doing things for other people.” 

 

“Doing things for other people is the secret of happiness. It creates empathy. You ask anyone out there. I’m not thinking about my own problems when I’m doing stuff for other people. So, on one hand, there’s a little bit of selfishness involved here. On the other hand, I do have a deep and abiding faith that I’m going to be OK. I don’t have certainty, but I have an abiding faith that I will be taken care of.” 

 

I enjoyed my time with Andrew, again. If he ever makes his way to Sioux Falls, he’s got a spot at my next family dinner. 

 

Andrew had great insights why it’s not just the food that makes a restaurant great, how technology could be the biggest disruptive force in the hospitality industry, and how he’s navigating the changing entertainment landscape. Listen to our complete interview here.  

 

 

In a world where cable TV is shedding subscribers, streaming is all the rage — and nobody’s sure if movie theaters will make a post-pandemic comeback, there’s one entertainment option you’re probably not thinking about: DVDs and Blu-Rays.  

 

Redbox is, and CEO Galen Smith says that’s not going to change anytime soon. 

 

“We think it’s you know, a 10-to-15-year tail where consumers are going to continue to do it,” Galen said during a recent interview on All Business with Jeffrey Hayzlett. “Our ability to serve a customer with a low-cost DVD is the cheapest way for any consumer to watch that movie outside of piracy.” 

While renting a DVD may bring back visions of video stores on a Friday night, Galen brought up several good points of why he sees the rental business as a viable option into the future. 

 

One is delivering value, at scale. Redbox has 40,000 kiosks across the country. To put that into perspective, that’s more Redboxes than McDonalds, Starbucks, and even movie theaters combined. Galen says renting movies at $2 or less a night serve “a very value conscious consumer.” 

He adds that value conscious consumer was especially valuable over the last year, with movie theaters closed, Hollywood studios had few options for its 2020 new releases. 

 

“(Movie) studios started to (open) up new windows,” Galen said. “You have this premium video on demand that came out where it was a $20 rental. Now, that may still be a great deal, relative to taking your family to the movie theater, but it’s not a great deal to be thinking about a $2 rental.” 

 

The other is access to broadband. 

 

“We’re able to serve a market where (consumers) don’t have high-speed internet to be able to bring them that content that they’re going to love,” Galen said.  

 

Don’t think of Redbox as being in a ‘buggy whip situation,’ putting all of its faith in outdated technology. It’s getting into streaming as well, and the timing couldn’t have been better. 

 

“We pivoted in February, not knowing we’re going to face a global pandemic. We launched a free live TV service, and so we gave consumers the ability to, watch at the time about 30 channels,” Galen said. “We’ve now expanded that to over 95 channels where they can tune in and watch. There’s no cost to the consumer. It’s ad-supported and we’re bringing them some really great content.” 

 

Galen knows the headwinds are in his favor launching a free streaming service. All the big pay TV companies have shed millions of subscribers over the past few years and the pandemic is accelerating the trend. Cord cutting has become so common that the number of households ditching traditional pay tv could reach 46 million by 2024.  

 

While you might think Redbox might be late to the streaming video party, Galen believes his company has an advantage. 

 

“We’ve got 40 million customers right (now) and we want to introduce them to new entertainment options,” Galen says. “In late 2017 or 2018, we launched a digital transactional video on demand service. As you can imagine, we saw a ridiculous amount of growth. Our digital version, digital service grew 125% year over year last year, despite the fact there wasn’t a lot of content that was coming out.” 

 

He continued, “We’re probably at the first or second inning of this. Long term we think it will have a huge impact to our bottom line, but today, it’s really about making investments.” 

 

One thing Redbox is investing in is content. It’s not just about renting or streaming movies, Redbox is making movies of their own and distributing others. Galen says they’ve been partnering with Hollywood producers and the company has an acquisition department looking for content.  

 

“We have been around for 18 years. We have a lot of information about movies and actors that our consumers want or like,” Galen said.  

 

“The way we think about (content) is we just want to make sure there’s great movies for Redbox. We love making money, right? So, we’re agnostic about releasing in other windows.” 

 

To provide some content, a window is the schedule in which a movie is released. For a movie, it usually goes to the theater first, then DVD/Blu-ray, streaming, and TV. Those windows have been shrinking, especially during the pandemic. For example, with theaters closed, Disney made headlines in 2020 when it released several movies on its streaming platform Disney+ for $30. Warner Bros. decided to release its 2020 movies in both theaters and HBO Max. Now many film fans and industry observers are curious how the studio/theater relationship will take shape post-pandemic.  

 

 For some insight on what Redbox’s “agnostic” release strategy will look like, Galen offered up the example of Shadow in the Cloud. The film won the Midnight Madness Award at the Toronto Film Festival in 2020, urging Redbox to buy the rights to distribute the movie in the United States. With theaters closed, Redbox offered to stream it on demand platforms like Amazon Prime Video for $20 in January. A month later, it was in the Redbox kiosks for $2 and you can rent it on several streaming platforms for just $3, and it’s also free for Hulu subscribers. Galen said at some point it will be streaming on ad-supported Redbox TV. 

 

“We’re really excited about building this library and this offering,” Galen said. “It allows us to be a little bit more opportunistic and invest in these projects to really put together stuff that’s going to work for consumers.” 

 

Galen is setting Redbox up for success by branching out without sacrificing its core business.  

 

We had a great conversation, and this post barely scratches the surface. If you want to hear how Redbox was born out of disruption and how a finance guy ended up running an entertainment company, click here.  

 

If you have never heard of Robert Kiyosaki, there’s a good chance you’ve heard of his book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad. After its release more than 20 years ago, it became an international best seller, boasting more than 30 million copies sold in over 90 countries and has been translated into dozens of languages. 

 

Robert and his wife Kim have spun the success of Rich Dad into a global empire including more books, coaching, and the most popular podcast on C-Suite Radio just to name a few, but did you know it all started with a board game? It’s called CashFlowⓇ and it’s all about business. 

 

“The two most important words in money and business are cash flow,” Robert said during a recent interview on All Business with Jeffrey Hayzlett. “For most people the cash is flowing out and what entrepreneurs have the ability to do is turn the cash flow in.”  

 

“Financial intelligence and financial IQ is ‘can you redirect the flow of your cash in or out?’ The average person without a financial education, the cash is flowing out faster than it’s coming in,” Robert said. 

 

“CashFlow” became a phenomenon in its own right back in the mid-1990s. People around the U.S. formed clubs to play the game and, in the process, learn financial education.  

 

“I always ask people the same question, ‘What does school teach you about money?’ For most people, it goes flat line after that. What they’ve been programmed with is go to school, get a job, work hard, and give your money to Wall Street.” Robert said. “That worked for a while, but it’s not working today.” 

Part of the marketing of the game was a brochure that evolved into the book Rich Dad, Poor Dad. 

 

“My whole concern was on financial education and the story of my rich dad, poor dad,” Robert said. “My poor dad was an academic genius, graduate from university in two years, Ph.D. at Stanford, University of Chicago, and Northwestern. But as you know, they don’t know much about money.” 

 

“My rich dad was a guy who was an entrepreneur, who never went to school, but because his father died when he was 13 and he took over the family business, I became an apprentice to my rich dad.” 

 

He continued, “The education is completely different, it’s the opposite of academics. So, I go home and catch hell (for) not doing my homework. Then I would go to my rich dad, and he never spoke about homework. It’s a couple of different worlds.” 

 

Some of the lessons Robert learned from his rich dad, you won’t find in textbooks. 

Robert shared with me his story of returning from the Vietnam War and asking his rich dad what “else” he needed to learn. 

 

“He (rich dad) says you have to learn how employees steal from you,” Robert said. 

 

Robert couldn’t believe what he heard. Employees steal? 

 

To learn this lesson, he got a job at a bar where he offered up this challenge “if you can figure out how the bartenders steal from us, you’ll be a rich man.” 

 

“I sat there for two years, I still can’t figure out how they stole that money,” Robert recalled. 

 

Lessons like that one from the bar, inspired Robert to expand the brochure into the book. Rich Dad, Poor Dad sold well in the business community. Then in 2000, it even caught Oprah Winfrey’s attention. 

 

“I was in Australia and (Oprah) called,” Robert remembered. “My wife took the call in Phoenix. She says ‘get home now!’ I had to fly all the way from Australia to Chicago. I didn’t know who Oprah is because as Marines, we don’t watch Oprah.” 

 

Robert said he went from being a complete unknown to an overnight success after being on The Oprah Winfrey Show. While the segment is more than 20 years old now, you can find it on YouTube, and plenty of the topics Robert and Oprah covered are still relevant today. 

 

“We just talked about the philosophy of being entrepreneurs, managing money, and not needing a paycheck,” Robert said. “My poor dad was an academic Ph.D, but he couldn’t live without a paycheck or a pension. My rich dad says, one of the goals of being an entrepreneur is you’ll never need a paycheck and a pension.  

 

With all this talk of the power, freedom, and hard work of becoming an entrepreneur, I had to know his advice for those looking to strike out on their own. 

 

“The hardest thing is putting that team around you,” Robert said. “You’ve gotta have great accountants, great attorneys, and it takes a while to find those guys. Because everyone is kind of self-interested if you know what I mean. They’re interested in your money. But today one of the greatest assets I have is my team, you know, my accountants, my stock guys, my real estate guys. It’s a team sport.”   

 

Robert and I talked about his favorite investments, what he thinks of cryptocurrency, and the details of his next book. He also offered up plenty of unprompted political takes. Robert’s not afraid to tell you what he’s thinking, that’s for sure.  

 

Click the player below to listen to our full conversation. 

 

News is everywhere. 

 

What used to be limited to newspapers, TV, and radio has morphed to social media feeds, cable news, and podcasts. While the delivery methods have changed, we are still consuming news.  

 

Americans spend 7.5 hours a day engaging with media, from traditional to new. Of that, we only spend about 14 percent of that time looking at news, according to a study published earlier this year.   

 

Study after study shows that local TV is still the preferred method of getting the news – 4 out of 5 adults, or 83 percent, trust their local news stations over national network news (78 percent) and cable news channels (71 percent).

 

Also, newspapers remain a steady source for news, but there’s no question the landscape continues to change. According to a Pew Research survey, 10 percent of U.S. adults receive their news from a print source often, and 22 percent claim they sometimes get their news from a newspaper. While 60 percent of respondents get their news from a smartphone, computer, or tablet.

With the industry in such turmoil, smaller newspapers have closed, and many of the larger chains have sold, gone bankrupt, or consolidated over the last decade.

Despite this outlook, there are rays of hope in the industry. Local newspaper website traffic continues to rise and 73% of US adults trust their local newspapers, according to Poynter.

“Investing in local journalism, that to me is the bedrock of success for the future,” said Tony Hunter, CEO of McClatchy, one of the larger local newspaper publishers in the country. McClatchy runs news websites and newspapers in 29 cities and staffs a news bureau in Washington D.C.

Tony is an industry veteran and knows plenty about newspapers and comeback stories. He helped what is now known as Tribune Publishing through the 2008 recession. That’s when I met him. He was a CEO with a positive attitude and big ideas. While times have changed, Tony’s leadership style hasn’t.

“This year my motto is ‘expect to win’,” Tony said during a recent C-Suite Network Digital Discussion. “You got to believe you can win and we’re having some successes. But I think getting our folks to come to work expecting to win is so important.”

Tony admits it can be a tall order. McClatchy filed for bankruptcy last year and eventually  purchased by hedge fund Chatham Asset Management.

“We’ve been through bankruptcy, we’ve got the headwinds,” Tony said. “We’ve got all this ‘poor us’ coming from the media as well about our sector. A big part of being a good leader, I think, is going down the path of winning.”

Despite the sunny outlook, Tony knows McClatchy doesn’t have a lot of time to waste “turning that battleship.”

“I could have taken more time, but I didn’t because of the circumstances. Because of my experience frankly graduating from the school of hard knocks. I know what not to do,” Tony said. “What I’ve learned is action is better than talk. So, let’s get started and pivot along the way.”

Tony said while the media landscape is constantly changing, he is calling on his time at Tribune to help at McClatchy. Through the wisdom of experience, he “pulled out his transformation handbook” and got to work in building a business plan and while getting his senior executives on board.

I like to call it getting everyone drinking the Kool-Aid. Tony takes a more business-like approach – in that they started acting like a small company. He says the larger you are the more that fight for everyday survival disappears. Large companies get complacent and aren’t as nimble, allowing for disruptors to come and shake up the industry.

“(small) Companies fight like hell to survive. I think that’s the kind of fight we need to have in our companies,” Tony said. “The larger you are the more that disappears.”

“We’re seeing some good results early,” Tony said. “We’re in the early innings. It’s a long game, but we’re off to a good start.”

Tony credits McClatchy’s move from being a publicly traded company to going private, helping speed up the process.

“We’re not chasing the next quarter. We’re really focused on how to reestablish ourselves in those 30 communities and become the preeminent media player in those markets,” Tony said. “That’s where the value is created. So, so in those 29 cities and Washington D.C., our goal is to create journalism that our consumers value and are willing to pay for.”

Tony and I talked a lot about what it takes to turn around a company and the type of  leadership needed to accomplish that throughout the interview. He’s a talented guy who’s led a successful turnaround during one of the biggest economic downturns yet and I’m sure he’s going to succeed again.

If you want to hear our entire conversation and the insightful Q & A from our members, listen to the complete episode of All Business with Jeffrey Hayzlett with the player below.