Beers with Max Podcast, Episode 83: Looking at the Long Game
Max: Welcome back to another delicious episode of the Beers with Max podcast! I continue on my Guinness diet, uh, that they say it is one of the healthiest beers and you know I’ll just have to take their word for it. Delicious! Now, I’ve got Richard Kaiser and Josh Moody with me and I need to know what you guys are drinking, fellas?
Josh: Well, I’ve got a lovely Elysium Contact Haze. It is an IPA.
Max: It’s a ‘Haze-ay’? Is that how it is pronounced?
Josh: No, I think it’s just haze-y.
Max: Is that French?
Josh: It might be.
Max: Brilliant, and- and Richard?
Richard: I am off the wagon right now, so I am on a, uh, A&W Root Beer. It’s a fine vintage.
Josh: A&W, yes it’s, uh, it’s a good brewery. Well, congratulations! I don’t know if it’s quarantine-related… I certainly need to go off beer, uh, and get my, you know, body mass index down. Do you know what I was doing? I was playing video games and, uh, my dog hit me and I jiggled. And that’s how I knew I needed to stop drinking double IPAs and go on Guinness. Uh, it might be flawed logic, but I think there’s something to it. Uh, tell us what you do professionally, before we rant about, you know, what’s happening during times of alcoholism and quarantine.
Josh: Sure, so I’m our director here at Wilderness.
Richard: And I’m, uh, the founder of Wilderness Agency. And um, yeah, we do a lot of web work and video work, and really just helping clients in kind of a broad sloth of marketing strategies to help grow their businesses.
Max: Yeah, well I wanna know where you came from. Kinda the story of how you two came together. I don’t do a lot of threesome episodes, so you’ll have to work through me, you’ll have to work with me, uh, with that. But I wanna learn, you know, where’d- how did you guys come together and what was like the previous career? How did you end up here, and then uh, we’ll talk about what makes you unique. Because that answer there, uh, that answer there wasn’t it. “We do a lot of things for a lot of people!” Don’t worry, we’re gonna beat it outta you. Don’t worry about that, that’s what the beer’s for. Where’d you come from?
Richard: Well so I, I brought Josh as my, uh, my designated drinker for today’s purposes.
Max: That’s brilliant! See, now you’ve just re- you’ve just recreated the rules of Beers With Max podcast! Because I allow people not to drink, uh, but now you’ve set the tone that they need to bring a designated drinker. That would probably make for better interviews, to be honest.
Richard: So uh, you know, my career – I, uh, was a punk rocker dropout by age 25 so I decided to go to school. Thought I was gonna be a sales guy, ended up hating it and threatened one of my professors that I was gonna jump off the roof and, uh, he said well, you know you’re kinda crazy I think you might be a creative. And, you know, I was like what the hell did you call me? He’s like ‘No, it’s a good thing’ and he gave me Ogilvy on Advertising, I read it cover-to-cover that night. Quit my job the next day and started working in the agency world. Bounced around a couple different agencies and then, uh, when I was getting ready to launch my own agency I took a good corporate job where they gave me way too much to sit around and not do a lot. And that was actually where I met Josh, and so he rolled in as a graphic designer at that company and, when I was getting ready to kind of jump ship, I grabbed him and he came along with me on this ride.
Max: Yeah, and has he always been your designated drinker or is that the new- the new relationship?
Richard: It’s a fairly new role for him, but his qualifications are absolutely exceptional.
Max: Okay, give me the title of your best song in your previous life.
Richard: You may have heard of it, it was called the Happy Birthday song. It was a-
Max: Is that- Is that a cover or is that original?
Richard: It was an original. So the- the premise of the song is it was about a guy who cheated on his girlfriend, on her birthday, with her best friend. And so, the, uh, not to ruin the end of the song for you, but-
Max: Please- please don’t ruin it. No spoilers. I’m hunting for entertainment, it’s quarantine fellas.
Richard: I’m pretty sure all evidence of the punk rock band have been destroyed.
Max: Bless. Uhh, Let’s talk about your business. So you said you help a lot of different people. Now I usually beat people up for not being focused, but we had a really powerful conversation about your strategy work and kind of, you know, your journey from giving it away in the past to, uh, really it being the core of your business. Telling people what to do, as well as doing it for them. Uh, but who would you say are your- are the people that pay you the most? Who are your best customers and the people that you get on the phone with and go ‘Yeah, this is my jam!’?
5:10 Richard’s ‘jam’
Richard: It’s been an interesting road, and like we have, uh, by building that process we’re able to utilize a lot of the same design thinking across a lot of different industry verticals in a lot of different marketing tactics. But, it all kind of goes back to that core strategy when, you know, I think about the biggest names that we’ve worked with. You know, we’ve done content work for, uh, in partnership with another organization locally that- that was used on Forbes Magazine. We are currently doing work for- in conjunction with the University of Dayton and the Department of Defense for the, uh, specific to the Air Force. We’ve worked with Fortune 500 companies and oil and gas. We’ve, uh, worked with specialty chemical companies, hair salons down the street. I mean it’s, uh, it’s a pretty broad swath of companies that we’ve worked with in both B2B and B2C.
Max: Did you end up picking up any business in the industry that you were in for that full-time corporate job? I didn’t catch what industry that was in or what company you guys were working for. You don’t have to say the name of the company, but I’m always interested to hear how people’s background and upbringing and in their previous careers lead to focus or where they can provide the most value when they, uh, when they do their own thing.
Richard: Yeah so, uh, the company that we were both at was- was really in, uh, the logistics world and so a lot of supply chain type work. We haven’t done a ton in that vertical. If you trace, you know, my story back to when I first started working I was, uh, I was 8 years old and I worked in a manufacturing company from 8 to 16. And today, we do a substantial amount of work for and within the manufacturing industry verticals.
Max: Good pause! Well, you know the other side of the coin is when you work, you know when you work full time for a company they can beat the interest out of you, you know, sometimes. So yeah, I don’t always find that people end up, you know, having the most knowledge, uh, or even if they do have the most knowledge they don’t have the- they don’t have the passion, they don’t have the drive, you know, to focus on an industry like that. Ok, industry aside, what’s your special- what’s the special thing that you do? I mean we know that- we know that you’re a fan of strategy work, and we’ve talked about, in previous conversations, that you, like most people, we’re giving it away, uh, in the early days and so what does that strat- what problem are you solving? What, what set of directions or planning or knowledge which are kinda, in my mind, interchangeable with the word strategy. What’s the thing that you bring to the table? What- what’s the… And do you have a name for it? You know, is- is it Richard’s special formula? Was that the name of the band, by the way?
8:14 Strategy
Richard: It was not the name of the band, good guess. So, yeah, what I look at, like, how we’ve gotten here a lot of it was, you know, the issue was that I would, on my own, go out do a lot of the research and then kind of come to the team with like, okay, here’s what I think that the strategy and the path forward is. Ultimately, one of the major hurdles to that was… It’s absolutely not skilled and-
Max: You going out doing research coming back and saying this is what we should do- not scalable?
Richard: Absolutely.
Max: Too much Richard.
Richard: One of the things that I think was huge in trying to develop a process around that, was it forced me to put some contacts around the work that I was doing, and trying to come up with a rationalization for, you know, what were the most important elements of that research that then went into that strategy phase, uh, for each of those different accounts in the things that we were looking at, uh, effectively. Like how we were building out that template for that strategy document and, being able to challenge that thinking. Um, I had some- some really great mentors to help me really understand, like, the importance of process and- and being able to clearly articulate that to the team, because you sound like, you know, that this Village Idiot who’s like ‘well here’s how you do it, you play ABCD LMNOP!’ and, you know, there was always kind of that gap where they were like ‘Woah woah woah woah, how’d you get from D to L?’ and it’s like oh, you do these things. But, being able to like, write that down, and kind of articulate that process in words really helps you to understand what is important and what is not important in that. And being able to translate that to a larger team to be able to scale.
Max: Yeah well, I heard two things, and both are really important. One is kind of the biggest push back that I hear which I just kind of like, you know, that’s the end of the conversation for me and that’s when- and that’s when people say no strategy has to be custom. You know, it has to be totally custom for every client people are like- people are really proud of it and then I just don’t know what to do, I don’t know where to go from there. But, what you said is that it is, you know, this thinking forced you to look at what you did in the strategy process and identify the most important elements. Then, the things that Richard can magically do, and probably will always have a magical power to do, but you know a lot of us to take comfort in in making things complex. A lot of- a lot of us say ‘We do this thing really well and if we add these 8 things to it it’ll be something we can sell!’ and- and then when you think about the scale you go ‘well wait a minute..’ and especially in times of crisis like now. Everyone’s thinking well how do I trim all the things that aren’t absolutely essential? How do I- how do I trim the things that aren’t, uh, indispensable in my client’s eyes? And so that- anyway, it was- it was an interesting, you know, your story about how ‘well I had to look for the things that were ultimately most important because that’s not only going to help yourself be better to leverage in your organization it’s the key to translating a strategic process to people that don’t have the experience that doesn’t have the insight that you do. So they can create similar results. But yeah, I mean I… Here, let me pose this question to you. I get, and you kind of made a face when I was saying it, I get this a lot. The strategy has to be custom. That, you know, I- we’re not… We don’t want to productize. we don’t want to create you know what’s a single process for how we do things because all of our clients’ problems are different and all our clients are different so they need it really special and custom and I’m making hand gestures and, you know, this is a rhetorical question so it deserves a rhetorical answer go ahead.
12:14 Personalized Strategy
Richard: Uh, yes. Um.
Max: Brilliant, moving on! No, enlighten us! Go, go!
Richard: Virtually, you know, when I look at, you know, further downstream in the process, right? When you’re actually getting into the marketing tactic, inevitably to me a lot of those tactics are the same. I don’t really care if you’re using pictures and words on a Facebook ad or whether it turns into a billboard. Like, the executables that you’re delivering against are effectively pictures and words, right? Art in copy, and so when I look at, you know, how custom does every strategy need to be? Is it that, you know, they need to be 90% different? Probably not. A lot of the companies that we work with are all going to have the same challenges. Um, typically that’s going to be they either need new sales or they need more people. And so a lot of that kind of goes into the essence of just storytelling, and so when you’re looking at that process it’s, how are we articulating the right story to the right audiences?
Max: And there’s a system behind that? The system doesn’t change, why should it? The story itself changes.
Richard: Right!
Max: Like I said, rhetorical…Rhetorical question. But that is- that is like the most common answer that I get, and of course, I have to look for people that have industry focus I have to look for people that talk about strategy, uh, that talk about the process that they’ve created. But the best, um, the best way I’ve heard it explained is it’s like an iPhone. iPhone has the same operating system, iPhone has the same hardware as every single phone. But, you can bet your ass that thing’s customized with all the applications and settings, you know, specific to you. So you get the same- same hardware customized for the individual. That’s why those- that’s why they can make those things that scale.
Richard: And it’s mass customization. I mean, it’s the same thing that Chipotle does!
Max: What do you say is your, uh, the secret then? So you’ve got, you know, you bring- you bring together a strategy and, and you went on this, uh, you went on this crusade to find the most important things the most essential things that you do so that you can train your team to follow this process. What were those things? Like if you were on your deathbed and you’re given, and you’re looking at- and you’re looking at Josh and you’re like ‘Josh it’s been a great time, you know. Thank you for- thank you for being my designated drinker, but now you have to continue the crusade, and here are the- as a reminder here are the three things that we learned about the strategy that every client needs.’
Richard: I really really hope that if I’m on my deathbed Josh Moody is not the last person I’m seeing, talking about-
Max: He is standing over you, he is drinking that beer that he is drinking right now and saying ‘Look the root beer has done you in, and how do I continue this?’ What are you gonna tell him?
Richard: I mean that the key to success is making sure that you have a process that can be translated readily to- to others, right?
Max: Yeah, but what are the- what are the nuggets?
Richard: I mean the- the main tenants are really what kind of fall out into that discovery meeting that we have with clients, and so it’s really trying to understand like what are the attributes of that company. Who are their, you know, who are their key customers that they’re trying to target? It’s getting an- a, you know, when you go into the research phase and trying to get an understanding on what is their market share and then what is the, you know, the addressable market? It’s not just saying like, ‘Oh well we can sell to every person who has pulse’, right? But like really getting in there and trying to carve out a niche it’s like, is it a niche within a niche? It’s a lot of puzzle pieces coming together. It’s looking at competitor research and trying to figure out, you know, is this story we’re telling different enough? One of my friends a few years ago did this study where he went on to, uh, over a thousand different service-based companies and every single one of them defines quality and customer service as a key differentiator to their business.
Max: No.
Richard: It’s garbage!
Max: Yeah, no. You know what my favorite one…My favorite one was, um, cause I do this a lot I have this conversation a lot. My favorite one, uh. No, don’t blank out, produce! What is it? Values! Core values! Core values that’s the one! Final answer, that was my favorite.
Richard: That’s what differentiates them?
Max: I literally couldn’t. Like, I’m a talker. I literally couldn’t speak after that. They said- they said the reason that their clients choose them over their competitors is their core values.
Richard: I mean, Walmart has great value.
Max: Well, they’re cheaper than everybody else.
Richard: Right.
17:26 Quarantine Challenges
Max: And they’re located right down the street. So that, you know, yeah. That’s… Anyway, so uh, how you know what- you guys are in quarantine. You’re social distancing in that, you know, Josh is drinking for you. You’ve got like at least 12 inches between your shoulders, uh, how has this impacted your business? How is this whole situation, this- you know a lot of companies are terrified, uh, I talked to agencies in the experiential space and they’re just getting destroyed. You know, these are businesses built on physical marketing to people during events. Every event is canceled. So people are being impacted differently, and so I’m curious as you know how you’re being impacted. And is that changing your approach? Are people, you know, do people want more short-term actionable services? Have you changed things? I’m throwing like eight questions at you, but like this whole situation, go!
Richard: Has there been an impact? Yes, obviously, absolutely. Are there companies who are absolutely terrified? Yes. Right? I think it’s good- the situation overall is not good, but I do think-
Max: It’s okay, we can like… Barrier on PC here. We’re drinking and we can always use that excuse. There’s some good in this situation.
Richard: Yeah, there absolutely is.
Max: Shh. It might turn out okay.
Richard: So one, this- this is not like a, you know, human species ending event right what this is doing is-
Max: This is more like trimming the hedges.
Richard: Yeah, eeh. I’m not gonna go-
Max: Back up, okay? Start over.
Richard: What this is going to do is it’s going to show, honestly, a lot of character of business leaders. And those companies that are freaking out and are slashing their budgets it’s showing how, you know, the reality is that they’re playing this very short game and they’re not understanding the long game, and one of the conversations that I’ve been having with our internal team is if you look at this it’s like we’re, you know, at-at the LeMans race, right? We are currently in a pace lap. We were just running full speed ahead, and so at the end of this pace lap those companies who understand how to play a long game, understand how to invest during a recession are going to come out and overtake their competitors. They’re going to gain market share, and those decisions that are made over the next, I would argue six weeks, are going to have a lasting impact for the next six years, right? Those companies who are slashing employees, who didn’t think ahead, who have this insane concept that this, you know, we’ve been on what, like 11 years without a recession? And in 11 years they didn’t plan for something like this? They’re screwed! They’re gonna get crushed. And so, you know the bad aspects of this, or that it’s completely shaken up the job market we’re seeing unemployment numbers like never before you’re seeing job opportunities that are opening up in those, you know, within some retail spaces that are- they’re different jobs.
21:10 Handling the pandemic
Max: So, what are you doing- what are you doing about it? Like for clients that, I’m sure you have- sure you’ve had clients that have paused retainers almost everybody has that, um, but for clients that are still paying you what’s your reaction to this? Are you- are you proactive about it? Are- are you saying ‘Hey, I hope you keep, you know, paying us and if you don’t like that’s okay too…’ or are you leaning into it? Are you doing something to say like ‘Hey let’s- let’s take a look at what we’re up to and- and let’s find something. Let’s, you know, let’s be vulnerable. Let’s pivot if we have to. Let’s do some- let’s make sure what we’re doing is completely essential, uh, for where you are right now.’
Richard: So we have been very fortunate that I’m an incredibly paranoid person and so for the last five years I’ve been looking at, okay let’s find recession-proof companies. It’s why we never- over the last three years we’ve been ramping up efforts to do more government-related work. Trying to find those businesses that, you know, are going to continue to invest during a downturn. So, you know, knock on wood I haven’t gotten that call from any of the retainer clients so far saying as we need to- need to press the pause button.
Max: Well that’s the important cause’ we started this interview with you said ‘Oh, all everyone under the sun! We can work with anybody!’ but, but you actually had this underlying theme of choosing clients that are recession-proof and that’s paying off right now.
Richard: Absolutely. So, where we were actively pursuing those recession-proof Industries um, you know, were we also picked up some project work from companies kind of outside of that realm? Absolutely. But, you know, we’re positioned incredibly well where we’ve got some great partnerships with some companies that- that are like-minded and understand like, you know, this is an opportunity. We have like when the machine gets plugged back in, when we switch from pace lap back to, you know, green means go those companies who are ready to start filling orders, those companies that, you know, that aren’t are screwed, right? So like when- when that restaurant is able to open their doors again, you know the challenges they have are going to be one, staffing up as quickly as possible. Two, getting inventory back into the cooling system.
Max: Stocking enough Tequila for when I show up.
Richard: Exactly! Right but, the booze on the shelf is not going to go bad. All the produce that was in the cooler? Junk, right? And so those companies that, you know, like, in this example, that restaurant that’s calling the produce vendors being like ‘Hey I need four cases of lettuce today!’ like if they can’t fulfill that order they’re calling the next person, and the next person’s going to be either another vendor that they’re already or they’re going straight to Google. And so the conversations that we’re having with manufacturing companies, the conversations with software companies is ‘Okay when the machine gets plugged back in how are we going to own as much real estate of, you know, Google page one as possible for the right keyword phrases that people are searching for?’ Us, just like everyone right now, is going through all of the expenses and trying to figure out what can we cut, right? So what are the software and- and things that we just don’t really need? Non-essential software, right? How do we get it out. And, from there then it’s, you know, identifying solutions that might be- provide more value at a better price, right? So we’re going through and evaluating those things. Other companies are doing that same thing, so when we’re talking with one of our partners on their business and, you know, they’re kind of early into the start up phase of their game within the United States. Trying to help them understand that, you know, getting on page one today through using strategies like Google AdWords that’s a, that’s an obvious win for me as people are looking at cost savings there but then also what are we-
Max: And it’s gonna be less competitive over the next 30-60 days and, uh, you know obviously recency is… You know last time I checked, that was granted five years ago now I’m sure the algorithms have changed, but you’re going to have silence from a lot of organizations in- in the most saturated of times in terms of content marketing. So the folks- you know, maybe they are cutting their budgets, but maybe now it’s time for the executives to step up and actually write something when was the last time that happened?
26:04 This is going to be a permanent change.
Richard: Right, I mean I might write a blog post in the next 3 months.
Max: Yeah, hey mister executive how about, I don’t know, how about you make a video from quarantine? How about your turn on your camera while you’re- while you’re sitting on your couch drinking your beer.
Richard: Who could-
Max: Or your root beer, your A&W. Press record, see what happens!
Richard: Exactly! Like, every company in the world just figured out how to use Zoom!
Max: Today.
Richard: Perfect. So, you know, just recording that and trying to get some of that content out.
Max: You know what I think? I remind myself of this just to ask questions, but I gotta get this out. There are some people that say like, ‘When we get through this’ and, you know, ‘On the other side.’ I think the world’s going to change forever. You can’t take every employee in this country have them work from home for 30 to 60 to 90 days, realize that something like Zoom or video calls exist and then have them think about the same things while they’re doing their hour commute and sitting in traffic on the way to work. Like, that’s never going to go away. The exposure to that is going to change people forever, and they’re going to go ‘Why the hell am I doing this?!’ And- and business owners that were like ‘We need to maintain our culture and we need to have like a physical office!’ I don’t know if you guys have a physical office, I don’t care. But, you know, and then they’re just going to go ‘Well wait a minute, we were like, able to talk and stuff and people are like happier cuz they can be at home and not sit in traffic for an hour and get pissed off on the way to work!’ Anyway, in short, I don’t- I don’t think it’s going to ever go back to what we had before. I think people’s way of thinking and exposure to alternatives is going to force people to ask why for a lot of things that- that we just bought or did for no reason.
Richard: Right, so the analogy I use is it, you know, it’s 300 thread count sheets, right? Once you- once you experience good bed sheets you can’t go back!
Max: Yeah!
Josh: Is 300 good?
Richard: Yeah. Or 500, I don’t know. Egyptian cotton or-
Max: Yeah, I let my wife take care of that. But yeah, that’s the point! It’s, yeah, it’s once- once you’re exposed to it, it is like ‘Hey, you’re going to live in this mansion for a week!’
Richard: Right.
Max: Then you’re just constantly thinking about it when you go back to your shithole. And then you’re like ‘Wait a minute, I know that exists now, so now I’m going to behave differently I’m going to- I’m going to choose- I might have different life choices cuz I want to get to that thing I was exposed to!’
Richard: Well, I think you’re going to see a shift, right? And so there was a video of someone on the YouTubes and effectively like why work doesn’t get done at work, right? If you ask people where they are most productive-
Max: It’s because people hate their jobs and the people around them.
Richard: Yeah, where they’re most productive no one says the office! Everyone will say Starbucks, at home, anywhere but the office because there’s just so many distractions, right? Like, I all but ordered Josh to stay at home at least one day a week so people don’t bother him and he can actually get his work done.
Max: Multiply that by seven, imagine where we’d be.
Josh: I mean, I even have friends in like, completely different industries that are like working at home for the first time and they’re like ‘Oh my God I’ve got all my work done and it’s only 12:30 right now.’
Max: Yeah, I mean right off the bat you gain- the average commute is 40 minutes, so right off the bat you gain an hour and a half easy. Now, when I used to drive into work I had to- I had to like, basically meditate when I got there because of how pissed off I was with Boston traffic. Like, my blood was just boiling. I couldn’t have a call for an hour, I would just yell at someone. Uh, same thing when I got home my wife would be like, ‘How did work go?’ Just shut up! Where’s my PS4 controller?! So like, we don’t- we don’t realize the… Because it’s- because it’s just expected of us. And what everyone’s doing, ‘How was your commute?’ So, you know, it’s just- it’s just going to be… People are going to realize how- how different, how much better it can be with really simple things. Like, here’s an idea! Let’s not pay rent. Let’s not have everybody crammed in this non comfortable like, bullshit office. And, like, you won’t have to sit with people you hate and then why don’t you just do your work? How about that? What- what do you think?
Richard: You know, if you look at trends like, you’ve already started seeing a substantial increase in the number of folks that are- that are working remote already. This is just going to expedite that curve where people-
30:52 Why people won’t come back.
Max: Why don’t you come on back to the office? ‘No. I don’t think so.’ Five years from now you’re like I don’t wanna get the corona. ‘But it was five years ago!’ Yeah, but you guys don’t wash your hands as much as I do, so… I’m cool. Plus there’s going to be a new bill that you can’t fire people for being… There’s going to be some law that you can’t discriminate against people that want social distancing and don’t want to come into a crowded office. I guarantee that’s going to happen.
Richard: That sounds like it’s good for people. I don’t know that that law will ever get passed
31:19 What is Richard excited for?
Max: Yeah, you’re right I just made that up I don’t know if I can guarantee that, but what are you excited for? This is kind of, you know, personally and professionally and I always ask this question, but in times of now it kind of gets dominated by, you know, changes. Which we’ve been talking a lot about. But, you know, for your business how do you… Like, people measure progress differently some people measure progress on the amount of people they’re impacting, the amount of money they’re making, their personal life. How do you measure progress? Like, you’re going to sit here three years from now and look back on what you’ve done, how do you know if you’ve made progress or not?
Richard: I mean I think that measure is going to be how do we come out of this? And I don’t I don’t think that’s just a- a something that should be measured in terms of revenue or finances. I think part of it is just, as a team how did we collaborate through this? If you- so Wilderness is- is unique in the way that we kind of structure things because one, we do have a physical office and two, no one is ever required to come here, right? This is a place that you can come if you choose to. It’s a place where you can collaborate and brainstorm together on projects. But, we work with freelancers, contractors across the country. We have one girl who one day decided to move to Denver and we were like ‘Okay, cool.’ and so-
Max: All my friends are moving to Denver.
Richard: I guess?
Josh: Sounds awesome.
Max: It doesn’t even make sense, weed is legal here too.
Richard: Oh not where we are.
Max: For a while, it made sense like, everyone is moving to Denver ‘There- the weed’s legal here!’ so you had this like, mass-like, exiting, you know, into Denv- Anyway, I digress. Go on.
Richard: Yeah, weed, and melons. Do you have that?
Max: No, we have hills and slush.
Richard: So, all of those- there are all of these girls posting about Tiger King like, ‘This gay dude got two straight guys, I can’t even find one!’ Like, you’re missing the point he had cocaine and tigers!
Max: Meth, to be specific. Don’t try it with cocaine, you’ll fail! Don’t ask me how I know, but I’m pretty sure there’s something to do with meth. Anyway, digression. Back to progress, regularly scheduled program.
Richard: Progress, um, oh yeah, so virtual, right? People can work from wherever they want, right? And so part of that, what? Part of it? All of it. I’m a selfish person. I want the ability to be able to travel, work remotely from anywhere in the world with Wi-Fi. I saw a growing trend in that, within the market of people wanting that freedom and flexibility and I wanted to provide that same freedom and flexibility to people that work on our team.
Max: So progress means help more people gain freedom and flexibility because you see it.
Richard: Right!
Max: And not, you know, unless you’re… Unless you’re the type of person that starts your own business and it said it’s a- it’s a few of us, but we can- we can have an impact on how many people get exposed to, being where you want to be doing what you want to do.
Richard: One of, you know, our mission statements is to try to inspire others to, you know, develop some of the practices that we’ve been sold into our business. Because I don’t believe in micromanaging people I don’t believe that, you know, you have to sit in a cubicle to get work done. Those are archaic thoughts.
Max: Well, how was your beer Josh, what was that again? Give me the title of it? I’m on it I’m on like kind of a, you know, like a beer. Crusade if you can’t tell. So let me know what you got.
Josh: It is the Elysian Contact Haze, HAZY IPA.
Max: Got it. Love it. Cool.
Josh: I’m not sure where it’s from. Elysian, so maybe Michigan?
Max: Yeah, well look if you needed mine again it’s Guinness or ‘Guinness’ I’m not really sure… I think it’s from Europe. But um, look if you’re listening to the show in quarantine you know, follow my lead. You know, switch out the IPA for a low-calorie Stout. Um, and that’s, you know, that’s what we can do for society. Every- everyone can contribute and uh, yeah. A little more flexibility and a little longer day runs. Uh, a little less sweat on the bicycle and um, don’t don’t binge on Beers With Max podcast, It’s dangerous. That’s all I got! Thank you so much Richard, Josh, the designated drinkers of the world shout out to you guys. Every business needs one, and stay safe.
