How Dominic Hadeed Built Blue Waters by Solving Problems

From building one of Trinidad and Tobago's most recognised brands to developing a philosophy centred on solving problems, Dominic Hadeed shares the ideas that have shaped his approach to business, leadership and life.

In this conversation, Dominic explains why success is often the absence of failure, why every entrepreneur must define their end game before chasing it, and how learning to embrace honest feedback can transform both business and personal growth.

We discuss Blue Waters, entrepreneurship, leadership, company culture, problem solving, Trinidad and Tobago's business environment, the future of Caribbean enterprise and the lessons Dominic believes every leader should learn.

Editor's Note: This interview was recorded before the recent events involving Dominic Hadeed and members of his family. Those events are not discussed during this interview. At the time of publication, Mr Hadeed and his wife had been released after their Preventive Detention Orders were revoked. This conversation is presented as it was originally recorded.

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Transcript

Recording Note And Opening Banter

Corie 0:00

Just a quick note before we get started. This episode was recorded before Mr. Hadid's detention under the state of emergency and does not discuss those events. Enjoy.

SPEAKER_01 0:10

Entrepreneurs are special breed, huh? Real special breed. If you just look at all the things that make you fail and just deal with those every day, what is life a success? I have probably participated in, I think it's about seven elections. I think I voted three times yellow and three times red. Wasn't it practice in school? Yeah, I have ADD. And you know, the thing with ADD people, they say sometimes they take two on two and make 22. The areas I choose to go into in business, it's basically problems I solve better than anybody else. You know, there's a difference between being kind and nice. They don't make you kind. You know, nice. Most people in Trinidad they seem to draw a party line, red or yellow. Again, to me, that makes no sense. The only things that I follow for branding support would be Trinidad Lego football, Western each credit. I'm following them no matter what. I am credit.

Leadership In The Trenches

Corie 1:24

I have with me today. I want to say to Miguel in particular, I have with me today, founder and chairman of Blue Waters, Mr. Dominic Hadid. Are we going to very good? Thank you for having me. Everything is good. I have a man in the comments every week saying that he's not gonna stop commenting until we get Dominic here.

SPEAKER_01 1:39

I don't know why he wants I don't know why he wants to hear me talk, you know. No, normally normally people want to hear me shut up.

Corie 1:45

I don't feel that's true. I don't feel that's true. So, first thanks for taking the time to come. Uh, my assumption is that you're real busy. It's been busy because I I feel like I assume that, and then when I think about what you've achieved, I say, but if I was him, I would not be busy at all.

SPEAKER_01 2:00

Boy, no, I am very busy, and um, I don't know how to be unbusy. Yeah, that that that's the problem. Yeah, it's nothing in nature. I wish I could. I would love to do it, but you have a lot going on in the businesses. You I like to be there in the trenches with the troops, you know, fight any good fight with them. Uh, I'm not the kind of leader that stays home and no make people fight them at war. Yeah. I like to be there with them side by side, you know, for as long as I could. I mean, it's getting to the point where you have so much things going on, you can't be everywhere all the time. But you know, I like to be there when it's important and when is the crunch time for them and basically whenever they need me.

Corie 2:32

Yeah, and that's interesting. So it blue watts, is it their day to day?

SPEAKER_01 2:34

That's your I'm based in the office there um pretty much every day. And as I'm out to the country traveling for something business related. Um, again, that's almost like a head office as well, because the other businesses, the people who run them, are there as well. So um, so pretty much is head office, and depending on the day of the week, uh I'll be dealing with different parts of the business. Right.

Corie 2:56

Yeah, interesting.

Morning Training And Time Control

Corie 2:58

Before I get into some of that, right? When I see you around David favorite coffee spots and thing, right? Your fitness. Every time I see you looking more fit, something you know tell me I come from the gym. Is that time for that too?

SPEAKER_01 3:09

Well, boy, let me tell you the story with that. I never really take on exercise when I was younger. Right? I was a big believer in if I do something, I want to keep it. Right? You know, if you make a few dollars, you keep it, you buy a piece of land, they get to keep it. But I find like when you go and you try to put on muscle, the day you stop, something coming and taking it back for me. You understand? Sometimes, boy, that's not a good return on the investment there. You know, again, nobody comes and take what you have after you earn it, except your muscles. So I when I was growing up, I said, boy, this ain't really for me. I just started getting older, and you know, I think really when I got serious about the exercise was during COVID when you had nothing else to do. So you say, okay, let me start exercising. It was got into routine, you start to see a little bit of muscles you never see before. And you know, you get in the camaraderie in the gym, and you know, I do it very early in the morning, get it out of the way, and it just to me is a good way to start the day. Gotcha. So I got into that routine, and I mean, when I look back at pictures of me now, I'm what 52. I mean, I'll probably look better at 52 than I look at 32. Yes. And that is just uh an outlet for um the stress, and I would recommend it to anybody. It's really, really good. Yeah. So guys, before you go to work, early morning. Early morning, because that is the that's when you have control of your time, right? You have control any morning, right? In the evening, I have I don't know if I get stuck in a late meeting, you have to take somebody off for dinner, some family commitment. You might be exhausted mentally, you can't go and push. But any morning, you go early, get it out of the way, nobody has up, nobody has bothering you, and start your day. So that to me is where you have most control of my time.

Corie 4:54

Makes sense. I see a lot of people talk about it in terms of um getting that me time out of the way before. You know, the uh as you say, the time that you have the most control is interesting. It brings

Mentorship At Scale Through Podcasts

Corie 5:04

me to something I heard you talk about. You approaching several people for quote-unquote mentorship. I wonder how it is for you outside now. I see you're drinking your coffee in a morning. People, a lot of people is coming and ask you for advice and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_01 5:14

Yeah, I mean, a way a lot of my time is is dealing with people helping them. I like to do it. You know, when I was in the early stage of my business, it was something I was begging for, couldn't really find. Um, so I don't refuse people to much of my ability to um help, you know. But the problem is as you get bigger or busier or older, you have more commitments and it's harder to kind of give the time you'd like to give. So that's why when you call and say, Hey, let's have a podcast, or when I did one previously, to me it was the best use of the time where you could get the story out or the messages. And some of the questions you all ask, or the questions other people ask me anyway. So sometimes if somebody comes and say, Hey, look, I want your advice on something. I say, look, take a look at this podcast first. And if there's anything you still want to talk about after, come and talk to me. And nine out of ten times it's covered in what we were selling ready. Yeah. And they're very happy for that.

Corie 6:05

Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. It makes sense because when I see our focus, I still look. I tell David, I say, David, better we don't ask him. You know what I mean? Let me give it some time.

SPEAKER_01 6:11

But everybody keeps telling me that they say I have this look on my face unapproachable. But to me, it's really, I just thinking about the million things I have going on. I've heard that before. And I was like, I'm I I I don't think I'm unapproachable. It's I don't want to give off that uh value, but it's just so much things going on in my head.

Corie 6:27

Yeah, I think it's less unapproachable and more locked in. You'll still be looking very, very focused on things are happening. It's just the brain does switch off. Yeah, gotcha, gotcha. I want to read

Root Cause Thinking For Real Solutions

Corie 6:35

something you sent us early, right? When we ask you about coming on here, right? I ain't the greatest reader. Yeah. But you said my true success skill is problem solving. I have a unique way of seeing the world and coming up with self-reinforcing solutions to problems. Uh, the issue, however, is that they are so good, people don't like to implement them sometimes. Because if they do, they could get away with some more slackness, you know, in terms of the way people approach problems.

SPEAKER_01 6:59

But when you when you think about, okay, even in a business opportunity, you know, is a customer wants something. A customer wants something because it's some problem that they have. You know, whether it be a thirsty, I want a beverage. Yeah. A hungry, I want a food. Um, you know, uh, I won't go by a doctor because I have this A campaign or whatever. So, really and truly, to be successful in business, you have to really identify a problem that people want solved and then solve it better than anybody else. Um, and that's always been my knack. Um, I was in the brightest in school. Yeah, I have ADD. And you know, the thing with ADD people, they say sometimes they take two on two and make 22. You know, they they take you know two pieces of something and they make something else with it. Because that's just how the brain works. It can't really focus on one thing. So for me, you know, the areas I choose to go into in business, it's basically problems that I solve better than anybody else. And when people come to me for advice, it's basically I have this problem. So, okay, what is your problem? They they explain the problem. Sometimes the problem they think they have is really not the problem, it's a symptom of another root cause. You know, so it's how to kind of break it down to something else for them. They say, okay, hold on. I make the joke with my people sometimes, you know, you may have a you may have a clumsy child, and you know, you say, Well, my child keeps falling down, so my solution is a box of plasters because I have a clumsy child. So hold on, why your child keep falling down? When you already dig deeper, oh shoot, the shoelace and tie. So the solution is tying the shoelace, not accepting you have a clumsy child and buy a box of plasters. So for me, it's always about digging a little bit deeper and breaking things down to the root cause as to what it is. And then from there you're building up.

Corie 8:43

And you think is the symptom is most visible most of the time. So a lot of people will respond to the symptom.

SPEAKER_01 8:48

But yeah, but yes, but but also sometimes too, it's always good to have a fresh pair of ice. Like I, you know, we always talk about that by us, you know, a fresh pair of ice. I mean, I could be in my office and you could have something on this side of the table in my office, and every day it moves in a half inch, half inch, half inch. I not seen it. You may come into my office if you follow a week and say, Dominic, what is doing over here? Because I didn't see it. So sometimes it's it's just getting an outside perspective because you you're so close to the problem, you're not really seeing it. Or it happened so slowly, you didn't notice it. So, and again, even knowing when to ask for outside advice is also a form of problem solving.

Corie 9:28

Yeah, I guess. I guess. When I heard you talk about problem solving, what's unique to me and what stood out to me is that when you hear people talk about entrepreneurship or you read books on entrepreneurship, people talk about this jump or this leap that you take, right? And you find that most literature will tell you, okay, find the customer problem and solve it better, your competitors. But what was unique about the way you spoke about it was that it wasn't just about finding the customer problem. You said you walk around your business looking for problems in general. Yeah, because that that's my job.

SPEAKER_01 9:56

So I define success. Once people say success is the absence of failure, right? If you remove the things that make you fail, what is left is success. Right? People don't go in a cocktail party and say, hey boy, you know, um Dominic, you know, you know, do what is successful. You don't hear them say, well, it's successful because he lies, he cheats, he steals, his product was crap, his service sucked. You're there, well, you know, he's successful because you have a good product, you have good values, people are well trained, his delivery is on is on time, etc. etc. So for me, is if you just look at all the things that make you fail and just deal with those every day, what is left is success. And that's what we do. We look around the business every day, say, what can we do better? You know, yeah, is every bottle coming off the line with a and people go boofing for this? Capital hard to open. The water might spill sometimes when open it. Yeah, we try our best to reduce, it's not hard to eliminate it, but to reduce it as much as possible. Does every delivery go out on time? Um, does everybody come to work when they should, they're doing what they're supposed to do, et cetera, et cetera. So, I mean, it's really that. And then you're okay. Well, why are they not coming to work? Why they're not doing what they're supposed to do? What's the reason for the root cause of that? What's the cost of that problem? What's the cost of the solution? And just really deciding what do you do, uh, how to address it. You know what I mean? Think about it. I mean, if you if a guy comes in the air conditioning business or he in car repair business, and you take your car by him, and he tells you he know what the problem is, and he's gonna fix it at this period of time at this price, and he do it. What are you gonna think about that guy? Great guy, I'm gonna bring him back. I'll go bring back my car again, I'll refer a friend, etc., etc. It's that simple. You know, anytime anybody in any business or any job, um, you know, most of the times why they're not succeeding, being promoted, I'm not saying all the time, but most of the time, is because of something that they did not do properly, or they should be doing better, or they didn't do that it was supposed to do. And, you know, once you address that, you'll be fine.

Corie 12:02

Yeah, but even in the way you're describing that, because you're talking about problems that for for businesses with your size, especially, you're talking about some problems is HR or training and recruitment related, some of them is operational problems, some is branding and marketing. So when you say you go around looking for problems, you're in touch with all these different areas of the business.

SPEAKER_01 12:20

Yeah, and what we do is that I do have a monopoly on good ideas. So part of our culture is the teams know, all the people know that they could bring ideas to us, they could bring problems to us, they could bring solutions to us, they could identify any stupid rules we have in the organization. So when you have when you empower your people to do that, and you know I think Blue Water is over 600 people, and you have 600 people running around every day trying to make your business better, they're pointing out all the problems. Sometimes they they they volunteer in a solution if they have one, sometimes they don't. They say, boss, I don't know what the solution is, but I know there's a problem. And you know, we look at it, so it's not just me. The business is too big for just one person anymore, but it was always about empowering, motivating, and rewarding people to come up with better ideas to do the business, you know, and and as an owner, why an owner does it is because every action or inaction is a benefit to their pocket or a pain to their pocket. And you know, if you're paying somebody by the hour or by the month, and whether they perform real good or hard or add real value and you know, give them any extra, why bother? It's human nature. So we try the best of our abilities to put a lot of variable compensation in the positions where the more effort they put in, the more uh value they create, the more they could get. Because that's really how our owner operates. And that's why I or any other owner will do what they do in the business, thinking 24 hours a day, working seven days a week is because they're getting rewarded for it. 100%. And if you don't give that opportunity to the people who work with you, who partner with you, why would they do it? Makes no sense for them.

Corie 13:58

Yeah, makes no sense for me. Of course, of course. And I think a lot of that goes back, and maybe this is just me personally, for vision and purpose. Because, like you see, getting things out in mud, starting something from scratch. I feel like it's very, very different or a different muscle for me sometimes than running a business your size. I feel like it's two different things.

SPEAKER_01 14:16

We didn't start the size, we started small, right? And

Endgame Planning And The Eulogy Test

SPEAKER_01 14:20

yeah, I always have people say, define your end game, what you want to accomplish, and then work backwards. Um, because that's the best way to really know what you should be doing when the opportunity or the problem presents itself to you. By chatting with you, you're doing this great stuff. I say, Corey, how old are you now? 46. Okay. Same thing. How long are you going to live? And I've asked this to people all the time. Yeah. You know, where you're going to see yourself in five, ten, twenty years. You know, if you don't define that and then refer to that every time an opportunity comes to you. Um how do you know what if to take it or not? How do you really know if you're going to add value or not? How if how do you know if it's right time to use it or not? So, you know, that's that's what it's for me. So it's always about defining the end game. It could be a personal end game, it could be a professional end game, could be in, you know, each business have a different end game, and over a particular period of time, so it helps in the problem solving and decision-making process.

Corie 15:23

So for you, that definition of vision and mission is like defining that endgame.

SPEAKER_01 15:27

That's absolutely right. So, so in many companies, if not, why are you coming for? I mean, a vision and mission in any organization kind of explains to people what they're here to do. You know, and and I, you know, went through this Blue Waters vision. You know, we started off saying one bottle, but now because we do things that are not only in bottles, right? We say one serving. So we say one serving a day for every man, woman, and child in English-speaking Caribbean. So that defines who our target market is, English-speaking Caribbean. It defines our quantity. We know how many people in the Caribbean, one serving a day. If it's five million people, you say I'll do five million servings a day. You know, you know how many servants in a case or bottle, and it kind of gives you an idea as to how big you potentially want to be. And then you say, Well, okay, what are the actions you need to take to get there eventually? So the the company vision is the what you want to accomplish. The mission is the how. So for us, our mission is to profitably inspire and delight those we choose to serve with quality, functional, and greatness in beverages. So that defines the how. So if anybody comes to me to try to do something in the business, well, how are we gonna make money doing that? If it's not profitable, what are we doing it for? Sure. Inspire and delight. If the people on the receiving end of what tradition out, not gonna be inspired and delighted, what are you doing it for? If the products we put on out are not quality products, why are we doing it for? If it doesn't have some functionality in it, it doesn't taste good, what are we doing it for? So it's very easy to work for me if you understand the visual and mission and understand what we're trying to accomplish. And then within that framework, you can come and say, Well, boss, if you have me doing this job and you want me to profitably do this or inspire and delight, this is my need from you. And then they can make the case for extra people, extra pay, extra assets within that framework or context of achieving a company vision and mission. Makes sense. And same thing in a personal development. If I say this is what I want to accomplish in my life, it's easy for me to tell my family, my friends, my wife, my boss, my banker, my supplier. Look, this is why I'm trying to accomplish. This is why I need to do this now, and this is why I have to do it this way. And if you have a better way for me to do it, I'm open to listen, listening, but I'm gonna look at it through that lens of would it help me get there or not?

Corie 17:41

Yeah, and it's easier to do sometimes. You see, when it's you yourself starting a business or just a few people around you, it's easier to translate. So I want to get to how how that or you translate that for 600 people. But on the personal side, I hear you say something, and uh to tell you the truth, I try it. But I don't know if I have it in my way you tell people, for instance, sit and decide on where your personal end game is, where how long you'll live for, right? And write a eulogy that you would want people to hear, and then do one for today and compare the two and then take the actions. Right. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 18:12

Part of one feel like it's morbid, it's like, but I'd rather write more eulogy. But the reason why I said that, and that is how you would, so that is the how and how you would go about getting your own. So think about eulogy as your personal mission and vision. Understand. And why I say when you're dead, it because it defines a timeline in business. A business is not hopefully not supposed to die. So you you know, when we do our vision and mission in in the waters, we didn't say by this date, right? But from a personal point of view, you do have an end date. So you do have an expiry. Whether it be a professional expiry, you're gonna retire by this day, or you're going to die. And I find that when you kind of put it out there and you say, Well, look, if I want to live to 85 and I'm 50, you're gonna have to make sure you eat healthy, you exercise, you know, you meditate, you pray, whatever is required, and you know, otherwise you're not gonna get to 85. Now, if you say I want to be 65 years, 62 now, well you can do what the hell you want. But it's true. So that that helps define a health perspective. Now, where you are today in respect to a net worth, you say I have 100,000 today and I want to, you know, uh have 10 million by you know 20 or 30 years from now. That also now defines an end game too, where you can say, well, okay, from 100,000 to X million, what is your rate of return over that period of time? Is it 7% a year, 8%, 12%? Then you know you need to start to look at investments that will help you get there in that time frame. But also, it will tell you if you've been unreasonable. Because if you if you to get to your end game, you have to double your money every year. So listen, Warren Buffett didn't do that. Who's you? So it helps you dial back the expectations so you don't live a miserable life trying to accomplish something that the best in the world couldn't accomplish you. Yeah, of course. So that's why it's there. Now, sometimes I pick these morbid things or shock and awe or silly uh statements or comments or examples or analogies because it's an easy way to remember. Right? You know, people um I went off for dinner the other day with some friends and um they were telling me, boy, you know, dominant easy. You see a young fella there, um not too young, but probably now in his 30s, and man, on the obese side, and he's not overly successful in business yet. He's not bad, but he has real potential. And what domic tells you boy, hey, when I was your age, I look like that, but at least I had money to show Fred. What you what are you doing for that? You understand? If if it if I go and and and and they're like, Well, how you can tell any man that? I said, Well, if somebody had told me that at that age, you know what I'm gonna do? I said, That's son of a bitch, I'm gonna show him and I'm gonna go and either make plenty of money or get real skinny.

SPEAKER_02 21:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:08

No, for me, I thought I'd do that

Kind Vs Nice And Hard Feedback

SPEAKER_01 21:10

guy a favor. Now, and they remember it. And I said, Well, you see, that's the whole point. You remember it. I'm not trying to be mischievous, terrible, um, insulting. I'm trying to actually help the person or motivate the person. Now it's some other perverse. Now, a cousin of mine tell me once, you know, there's a difference between being kind and nice. Say, Dominic, you're kind, you know, at night. I say, well, okay, and he explained it. He said that we're out at a dinner function, you know, he's saving food, whatever. And Corey, I see you have something in your mouth. Now I could be nice and tell you nothing. Or I could be kind and point it out to you, embarrass you for two seconds, but I save you from running around your place, skinning your teeth all day, and people not telling nothing. So for me, I am kind. Nice because I will point it out to you, not to hurt you, but say, hey, watch this or watch that. Now, again, I don't take offense to those things. So I kind of was surprised that other people take offense because I see that as feedback, as good feedback. Of course, of course. Person looking out for me. I ain't studying trying to embarrass me, whatever, whatever. And so I'm stuck in a country between do I help them or do I just shut my mouth and leave them?

Corie 22:24

Yeah, kind of nice. Yeah, so it's a situation like that. So well, I'll say this, right? When I first saw it and the whole eulogy thing, I say, I said this a little morbid. But to tell you the truth, I haven't written it out yet. But I'm committing to do it because when I started to work through, I've never thought of it. I mean, I just maybe just don't think like that. And especially the part where I say write a eulogy today. Because maybe I want to think about what the end game is and what what legacy I will leave, if I could use them words, but I certainly never went as far as what I would want to hear at that time, and surely not today.

SPEAKER_01 22:59

Well, yeah, because what you want to hear in that future, right, is putting a pin on those things. Because you'll do it for because when you go to a eurosgy, you usually hear about good family man, good business person, or good doctor, whatever the profession is, you know, how good it will be friends, how charitable. So the point is, if that's what you want, and they have no right or wrong answer. Of course, of course. To what you want people to say about you when you pass away. But when you've defined that for yourself, then you will see what life gives you. If you want to be charitable, then you better be charitable along the way. If you want people to say he was a kind person to his friends, he was a good father, good husband, then you better do those things to make that happen. If you don't, you're going to be like a bamboo blowing in breeze. You're not sure what you should be doing, not doing an every minute all over the place.

Corie 23:44

I think that was the most interesting part of the exercise to me, where I started to realize that when I think through what I would want people to say, it was directly connected to what I think my core values or mission or vision is today. But the truth is, it's just like that thing you say that move some inches, you know. The day today is so hard to unless you have metrics that are measuring everything you do every day. I think it for me seemed like a very powerful exercise for me to change actions now.

SPEAKER_01 24:08

And what is even more powerful is if you and a couple friends do the same thing and you make a commitment to keep each other on track. So, like if we did it together, and and and I said, Corey is my end game, and you said I'm raised my end game, and we give each other permission, say if I'm stepping out a line, pull me back. If I'm doing something that's against that, remind me. You do that? You have people who you do that with now? Yeah, they call the board of directors. You understand? And they do it, and they're not afraid to do it. And and and they do it with sometimes with too much pleasure. Um but but they are people I respect. Of course. Right? It's it's it's it's people who I know will look out for me, and it's people who I know doing it for the right reasons. I don't always agree with it. You know, I have many things people tell me about me that I don't agree with, but if enough people tell me about it, then it had to be true. Yeah, maybe it's worth looking into. I have a friend of mine, you know, he if you have you have three broken marriages or whatever the case is, I say, Baba, the problem is you. Three women can't be wrong. You understand? So, and as I get about facing the reality of a situation, sometimes it is you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Even if you disagree, if enough people think so, then maybe it's so. And dig deep and check it out.

The Manual, ADM, And A Players

Corie 25:25

Yeah, it's something that's interesting about because uh there's a uh what I thought was a book you were working on. It turns out is that what is the employee manual you'll usually sell out to everybody?

SPEAKER_01 25:34

Yeah, it's uh something we just did um late last year, early this year, how to be successful at Blue Waters. Yeah. And then it basically is all these stuff that I used to run around telling people all the time if I was in front of them when I'm hiring them, you know, if I in a sales meeting or in production meeting, or how I deal with you know receivables and collections from customers, we need suppliers. And it was you had all these things all over the place, and they were like, you know, Dominic, just put it together. Let's get a manual there because the place is too big. You can't run around, talk to everybody anymore. Um, so let's let's see how we can capture it in one document. Yeah. You know, it's now I think it's 72 pages, and now they're even overlaying AI on it, you know, that you can ask it questions and it will pull what you know, what I would do or how they should go about thinking about a problem, breaking down a problem. Yeah, you know.

Corie 26:24

Very inspiring. That's something I want to do when I when I saw, especially the AI part you're talking about, because it's it's it's tricky for people who like my father and I, we started in 2006. And at that point in time, I know every customer, I know every employee, and all, but now I think we had about 150, 200 employees, and they're working all over the place, they'll come in the office, so you don't know them.

SPEAKER_01 26:43

That's exactly what I went through, and that was a very emotional thing to do. My father had a very small business and he was able to know everybody. Sometimes their husband or wife, sometimes they chair a name. It was hard for me when we started to have so many people. You're running 24-hour shifts, you hardly see them. Um, you have a factory in St. Lucia, you might see them even less frequently. So it's it was something that it took me a while to get used to. Um, they don't, I don't have a good answer for how to deal with it, but you know, to reinforce any culture, the best thing is repeat, just like when you have a parent and you have a child, repeat over and over, live be by example, be consistent with what you're saying. And you know, so it's just a way of capturing that. These things that were what I would consider non-traditional thought process or non- or things that were a little bit different and odd from what the norm was. But those were the things that actually made the company successful.

Corie 27:38

Yeah, and you know, we go through this thing now where I remember being in long circular mall at time, and somebody came and tell me, Hey Corey, I say, How are you going? You know, now I don't know if they know from lecturing or podcast. I don't know where they're number from. I was like, nice, and she's like, Corey, I'm working for you. I was like, What? So which part? You know, so I'm sure you must must get out of your house.

SPEAKER_01 27:55

I have a way to know that's what I've happens a lot of times sometimes with customers. They come say, Hey Dominic, how you going? I say, Going good. Um, do I know you? Tell me I'm a customer of yours, I buy from you last 10 years. I said, Really? I say um, you just pay your bills? He said, he said, absolutely. I pay promptly. I said, but that's why I don't know you. I said, skip a payment, see how fast I get things on you. Of course, of course, because in my world is boss, this fellow owe you money. Boss this employer didn't come to work. So I know all my bad customers, my bad supplier wouldn't deliver, or the quality was off. Because the employees wouldn't show up for work, the people who didn't do delivery. That's what I know. Yeah, because that's the world I'm living in. I don't have the time to pat myself on the back or to pat you on the back or to thank I should, but I don't have it. I I wish they had an extra six hours in a day or two more days in a week that I could dedicate to knowing my good people, knowing my good customers, knowing and thanking them. It's something I really wish I could do. But is I live in that world of what's the problem, who's the problem, how are we fixing it, and move on.

Corie 28:59

Even that is unique for me in looking at your story or looking at some, even that book, because there's a well, and maybe I should just talk about myself. Like that feedback like that is difficult for me to receive sometimes. You know, you're working on something, you're trying to be the best you could be, and then somebody said, hey, and it's like, well, hey, why are you not looking at all the good things that are happening with this? You're looking at the bad stuff. But you have a very different approach to that. You're looking for the bad stuff.

SPEAKER_01 29:22

Yeah, because I don't want to live in a world of the everything going good. I want to live in a world of I could do better. Because I've seen when people dwell in the world of everything going good, they get arrogant, they get cocky, they get complacent. But when I live in a world of all the problems, I go to bed every day knowing how dumb I still am, how much things I could improve, you know, how much people are at this appoint. And that motivates me to go out and try to be a better person every day. But if I live in a world where everything's going good, why am I bothering to even improve?

Corie 29:54

Yeah, just as a slack back. Yeah. And it is interesting because your manual is written that way. It is direct. It's not something that direct. I was shocked that you put it on the level, but a few of them, right? You have an ADB concept when it comes to um to your both your clients as well.

SPEAKER_01 30:08

ADM.

Corie 30:09

ADM concept when it comes to your clients as well as your employees.

SPEAKER_01 30:12

Yeah, accommodating, demanding, and miserable.

Corie 30:14

Right. So you say accommodating is 60% is the goal.

SPEAKER_01 30:17

But no, not the goal. I just think when I look at it historically, I say approximately 60% of your customers are accommodating customers or even employees are accommodating. Meaning you, as the company, say, look, this is our policy for delivery, for employment, whatever it is, and they accept it. Right. You know, you have, I would say maybe 10% who are demanding. I use the example, let's say, in the case of business, you know, PriceMart might be a demanding customer. They'll tell you they want delivery every other Wednesday at 2 42 p.m. Pack this way. There's their price, there's their credit terms, and you are you accommodate them. Okay, take it or leave it. Right? And then you have some customers say, I go buy a thousand cases and I pay in your cash. And when you reach by them, they only want 500k, so they give you a post-it check. So, you know, that's an example. And then for employees, I use the example of in manufacturing. Sometimes you say, Okay, these are the chefs. Um, they say, I'm fine. Hey, we have a problem. Somebody didn't come up for work, do a double. They say no problem. But you have some who debanned and say, boss, listen, I'll work any double you want, but I have to get a babysitter or I have to organize my husband or my wife, and I need two days' notice. That's fair. Then you have some that say, boss, I get the best eight hours of my life, but I ain't working no double for nothing. And that's okay. But why that is useful to me in efficiency is that if I come in up with a policy that will impact a customer or even an employee. When I talk about inspire and delight, I will go to the miserable employee or the miserable customer and say, hey, we're thinking about this policy or we're thinking about changing it. How that song to you? And if it's okay with them, then 99.99% of the chance it's good with everybody else. I ain't gonna waste time on the whole service. I go into the most miserable one and say, How this song into you? And if it if they're okay with that, I know you're as good because how much time you go in a meeting room and you're throwing out something and you see everybody watching, one or two people in the room, just waiting to see if they're okay. And once they're okay, everybody else's okay. Just go to the two people and done with it. Yeah, of course, of course. So we rank it like that only so again, not to be derogatory, because I say, okay, if I was the plant manager, hey, you have a hundred people in your plant, 60% are not accommodating. So if you have a problem, oops, something going wrong, go to the 60% who are accommodated the double first. Don't go and fight up with the demanding person, get vexed with them and say they're not to any part, the company lying and and and the no, go to the people first. If you have a plan shut down or a planned overhaul and you need them to work out, you have enough time because it's planned. You could then go to demanding ones. And if you're doing your business properly, you know, between the accommodating and demanding, it's 70%. You should never have to bother or even bother the miserable ones. So again, it's just a way of because if not, they're going and fight whether it's his person turn. And but why is this person where everybody has to get a turn? Why everybody have to get a turn? Yeah. The other person happy for the money, this one don't want it. So who say everybody must have a turn? You know, and it's like, come on, guys, just go to who will help you. And so again, it's even helping the managers think along those lines where it's common sense.

Corie 33:15

Yeah, well, I don't know that many people put in the word miserable in an employee manual at all. Or you have it.

SPEAKER_01 33:22

You notice it have some curse words in it. That that keeps back the manual. No, I I it have the F-word, I think, three times. It allowed me only three. It was a negotiation. It was more, it was more. They had more in there, but they agree with you. I said, listen, right? They say, Y'all tell me this after song like me. If I want to curse word in there, it's not me. Yeah, yeah. Come on. So, and I say, you know, they'll take it serious. And again, it is it's not to be derogatory, but it's I said, This is so important. They have an effort in the company manual dice because you don't see company managers with that. And that was the point. And that was even a negotiation with them. And it was the getty point across.

Corie 34:01

I appreciate that. Another part of it that stood out was um, I've seen many people say before that they only work with A players. I never see anybody end the paragraph with again with a C players, you'll get severance, it's fine.

SPEAKER_01 34:12

So it's supposed to be the way you approach it. Yeah, and I'll tell you why. Because if it was me, if I was a C player somewhere, and they have plenty places and jobs that if I was there, I'd be a C or D player. I don't think it's fair to the person to have them in a position where they're not performing well. That's not good for their psyche, their upward mobility, etc. Nor is it good for the other people who, as a leader, you're saddling them with other people who are not doing their job well or at all, and you're putting more burden on them. So, and then I've seen people who, you know, they're a C player in one place and they become an A player somewhere else, and they're very grateful that you had let them go and let them find a place where they want to be. And that's really what it's about. It's really about helping the C player end up in an A player position somewhere that more suits their skill sets, right, their mindset, their attitude. And then also for the other players on your team who uh whose work has become harder because somebody has not pulling their weight. So that's really what it's for.

Corie 35:13

Yeah, I can see where you're saying about the A players as well. Because if I, as a manager, I'm an A player, I report into you when we get anything done, and I'm telling you as somebody there who pulling stones and training pallants. Uh if if I saddle that person, I like to saddle that person have a problem. I can't deliver what you you're asking me to deliver.

SPEAKER_01 35:32

Yeah, yeah. So let me go back. So you treat the person fairly, by the way. Say that again. You have to treat the person fairly. Yeah, yeah. Be very generous with them, give them enough severance that they can land on their feet, etc., etc.

Corie 35:42

And I suppose feedback as well, because uh uh you had to know that you're a C player by by by Blue Waters definition, at least.

SPEAKER_01 35:48

Yeah, but sometimes we we try to give people opportunities in other parts of the organization first and see you know if it's for them or not.

Corie 35:54

So in some of those early days, right? Because again, you're starting off Blue Waters, you could see all the employees, you could see all the issues and so on. How different is it now in terms of leadership as a business now versus what you were doing in the beginning?

Scaling Culture With Numbers And Incentives

SPEAKER_01 36:08

Well, now the way you could see what's going on is you really have to look through your numbers. You have to look at what you produce, you look at your cost to produce, what you sold, you know, what you collected, your delivery efficiency. So you you can still see the business, but you have to see the business no longer, you know, buy it, you know, real time on the floor in the trenches, but you see it through the reports. And then where you see your red, where you have a problem, that's when you're going to take a deep dive and look at the problem through San.

Corie 36:40

And for you, that team around you is the same philosophy in terms of the people who Yeah, the good ones, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:45

I mean, they they are they all get, you know, we make the joke, they they eat what they kill, they all incentivize, like owners. Uh, the more the company makes, the more bonus they get. They understand what the value drivers are like. And I tell the guys in our business, say, look, we only had three ways to make money in our business. You know, fellas came from Coke and have all these ideas that say, listen, all those were inputs to the output. It's sell more cases, get a higher price per case, and lower your cost per case. That's it. So any activity you're doing have to add to one of those value drivers. Line efficiency, training of your people, um, new equipment, new technology will help lower your cost per case. You know, great marketing, great delivery, great customer experience will help drive volume. You know, maybe get an extra dollar or so on a case as well. You know, so you know, better buy-in might might help you get better discounts, lower your cost per case. So that's really what it is. Control your damages, control your theft, control your receivables. So they know what the key drivers are. So and everything else we're doing have to be an input to that output. You know, selling more cases, lowering your cost per case, or getting a higher price per case.

Corie 37:54

Yeah, and then in the case of Blue Waters, it's interesting because you define your customer. So for me as a layman, I think your customer is me who buying a bottle of blue waters. But it's a distinction with you because you have to sell through a supermarket, pharmacy, gas station. So when you define a customer, you're defining a business.

SPEAKER_01 38:11

Well, we define customers all the way through the organization. You know, for example, the production's customer is the warehouse. The warehouse customers are the truck drivers. Truck drivers' customers are, well, the shops. The shops' customers are the consumer. So we have mapped who is the internal and external customer supply relationships, what they require out of everybody, and we try to get them to work together through that lens.

Corie 38:37

So and I guess it's through the lens of your vision, uh you communicate in that role.

SPEAKER_01 38:41

Well, it's not my vision. We sat in a room with some consultants and we fight for two days and we all walk and say, yeah, this is something we could dedicate our life towards. Believe me, it wasn't uh me. I think in the in in the in it, I only got two words in um in the in the mission statement. And I think one was profitable, right? And the other one was choose to serve. So it was, you know, to profitably inspire and delight those we choose to serve. And they were like, why you put profitability in in our mission statement? I said, What if we're making money? What are we here for? So they're giving on that. And when we're insisting on customer service, and we agreed that we'll do, I said, guys, I'm giving you the off-ramp. Choose to serve because you can't serve everybody. They're gonna so I'm saying this is for you all. Right. Right. If I tell you you have to serve everybody no matter what, they'll abuse you. So I said, I'm giving you an off-ramp in the choose to serve. So we're telling everybody that we ain't for you, we ain't for 100% of the people. Yeah, we are there for those who allow us to do our job well, uh, we in a respectful manner, in a in a mutually profitable manner. Uh, and and that's what it was. So those were the two things really that uh learn two words I got in.

Corie 39:52

It's interesting because the choose to serve stands out to me. I'm not surprised that I use your words and you use the one who gets on there. Because choose to serve is it's sound like a simple thing, but it's it's it's powerful.

SPEAKER_01 40:03

Yeah, and you know, a lot of people say when you read or or you hear anybody, you know, talk about focus, you know, they were very focused. So if somebody was focused on a particular sport or focused in a particular product line, it means that they chose to do a lot of well, they chose not to do a lot of other things. So the power of saying no. If you're saying yes to everything, you can't really be better at a few things. So, you know, choosing a very narrow focus, choosing who your customers are, choosing what sport or career you're going into, and focusing on that. Like my son, my wife had him in karate, tennis, football, volleyball, but the boy was good at none.

Corie 40:46

You tell him this before he noticed, or he didn't notice it.

SPEAKER_01 40:49

But he noticed he never got picked for none of the main teams. But when they dropped the karate and he dropped the tennis and and dropped the uh volleyball, became a better football player and they put him on the teams and etc. etc. So point is focus. You understand?

Leaving The Family Trade To Build Blue Waters

SPEAKER_01 41:05

Understood.

Corie 41:05

So the passion was one of these things you spoke about very uniquely as well. Uh, in your early days, like I heard you tell this story about what gave you the idea for selling water. Uh, be passionate about it at that point in time, or you're just looking for business to get into?

SPEAKER_01 41:19

I was looking for something that was different at that time. I was looking for something where you could have some customer loyalty, brand loyalty, recurring revenue. Um just like the gym example earlier where they could come and take your muscles in nightmare sleeping. That effort wasn't permanent. And you know, my father's business was fabric. And again, the customer they they changed who they who want floral, who want stripe, who want stretch, who want uh lace, you know, and then come out, it was a commodity white polyester, white polyester. So you really could not build a brand on those things. I mean, somebody would take your fabric and make their own brand. Sure. So I was just looking for something that again you could give you a return for your effort. Right? And again, it's it's like if you read that book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad, you talk about the poor dad working for his money and then the rich dad money working for him. So it was to try to have a business where, like you say, fabric business, you had to work for that business. The other businesses like real estate or consumer, whether it's food or beverage business, you get recurring revenue. I mean, if you're a dentist and you have a client, you get recurring revenue. Same as a doctor. So, you know, you want something that has a kind of a recurring revenue nature that when I go out and I sold you once and I convince you I have a good product, a good service, a fair price, and you try me and you agree, you keep coming back. So that's kind of what it was, what it was looking for. I mean, I'm not people say I'm a hard worker fella, but I kind of lazy too. I want I'm looking when I tell about efficiency, is is my version of a training shortcut. I I ain't cutting corners, but I I I want I definitely looking for the fastest way or the shortest way for sustainable results. Not uh cutting something short and it goes fall apart eventually.

Corie 43:11

And in in getting into that, because for instance, I went Fatima, right? Let me establish this now, right? David, thanks for booking somebody from Fatima here every week as I said, Mary's man and stuff too.

SPEAKER_01 43:21

They didn't really like me in Fatima, but I don't know. I get I get licks in Fatima from form one to form five.

Corie 43:29

All the week I was in the same boat. Oh, who's doing in Fatima? It's a good student, just doing well and I'm gonna have serious.

SPEAKER_01 43:34

I was I what I get, I get one, one, five, twos and a C. I get the I get you one in principles of business and I get you see in economics. If we get too fancy, you're gonna lose me. Yeah, I keep it simple.

Corie 43:47

What yeah, like Fatima? I don't know. What time was it, Fatima boy?

SPEAKER_01 43:50

Oh, I left Fatima boy. I was doing maths backward now.

Corie 43:55

I was seven maths me a pass as well.

SPEAKER_01 43:56

I was fifty two now, I was seventeen back then. So just how many years?

Corie 44:00

Check that yeah from a 72 minus 15. I'm just trying to figure out what I was doing.

SPEAKER_01 44:03

Minus 15 and then minus that from 2026.

Corie 44:07

Well, I lost in this equation there already. But I left a wrong. When is it? 2011. It's not a bit. I leave Fatima in 95, 96. No, I went in Fatima in 90, 91.

SPEAKER_01 44:22

So no, if if if I I I I would have been you're talking about a non-ready of a calculator, it had to be in the early 90s. Right, yeah. But probably probably there around this age. When I started Blue Waters at when I was 24 in 1999. So I was already I was back from school um when I was 20 years old. So that, yeah, so if you take five from nine to ninety nine. Yeah, so you're talking about 92, 93, somewhere around the year.

Corie 44:49

Yeah, so I was probably I went in 46. So I went into Fatima in 91. So when I was there, you're probably in a level.

SPEAKER_01 44:54

I no, I didn't do a levels at 17 straight out. Yeah, that was. I couldn't wait to leave. Yeah.

Corie 45:00

Oh, they couldn't wait to get rid of me. Same here. One of you two. Same here. But at that point in time, so I mean, I go in Fatima, I know the hadith, right? And in my mind, I think into myself, listen, if I was in all a family, I'm not trying to find no business that's sustainable and all them kind of thing. I go and work by my father, I go and just continue that or get a salary or just like.

SPEAKER_01 45:18

Well, I did work with my father and I didn't like the business.

Corie 45:21

You know, what is about it? I hear you say that before, like you just didn't just.

SPEAKER_01 45:24

I was a C player there. They had people in that business who were A players. You're talking about Jimmy Abud and George Abud. Uh, you're talking about Diamond Tech's Abutique, you know, um Patrick's. Yeah, them fellas love that business. They talk into the clot, they making the clot, the man's Patrick was sleeping upstairs, yeah, apartment upstairs. I I couldn't outwork them fellas.

SPEAKER_02 45:46

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 45:46

That wasn't for me. I was a C and D player in the in the fabric business. You understand? I I couldn't do it.

Corie 45:52

And so you label yourself as that. You know, it's you saying that you no, because I can tell I mean how to put it boy.

SPEAKER_01 46:00

I mean Brian Lara is a triple A batsman. But put him as a hundred meter sprinter now, see what you do. He might be an F. Yeah. And vice versa. So the point is that you know, that's why I keep saying so you you everybody is good at something. You gotta find whether something is. So I wasn't good at cloth, I didn't like it. I wasn't as passionate as the people who were there. Right. Right. Yeah, my father was making money in there, but that was his business. He'd like it. I didn't like it.

Corie 46:27

And I remember you're talking about your uncle who's who kind of gave a trippy a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 46:30

Yeah, and then he passed away at 49 from cancer. Oh, I see you're so you know, life too short not to do what you love. So the point was you had to find somebody that you love. And otherwise, how you know, how could you be more successful at somebody who loves something if you don't love it? The man who loves it is going to outwork you, he's going to outthink you, he's going to out-custom or service you. You know, how to me it makes absolutely no sense to think as an arrogance that I don't like this business, but I'm gonna beat the people who like it more than me. And that that I'll be a fool.

Corie 47:02

Yeah, I understand, I understand. So remember you're talking about how you discover the water business and so on, and you're putting your father telling you. And this evening say your father, just to establish for the listeners, these people who experience in business, right? Your family has been in business for for many years. When they tell you you want to bring something here for free, what's your thoughts then?

SPEAKER_01 47:20

My father was a I mean, even though he's saying experience in business, we were in business a long time, but they were simple guys. He had a few stores, traders. I mean, um, you know, he didn't read or write. When he came across, say, you know, didn't speak the language, they're not to say fully educated and whatnot. And they did okay. They did okay because of they love what they did, they work hard, um, they put the majority of what they make back into the business, they invest in the kids, and anybody does that will do just as well. And you you're hearing these successful people telling you that this other thing that you want to do not gonna work. Well, obviously you have to you have to pause, but then it's the same thing is that he's not an expert in that area. You understand? Again, if I come back to the Brian Laura example, like telling Brian Laura how to how to run, how to place my foot in a hundred meter dash. Yeah, he's great at something, but he's not great at the other thing of doing. So for me, it it was that it was to say, okay, I understand him and I need to talk about business, but he doesn't understand this business. Correct. Right? He could tell me the principles of business, you know, about you know, treat your employees properly, treat your customers right, um, make sure what you borrow you could pay back. And he could give it those principles, but he couldn't tell me anything about manufacturing and distributing and bottling water and marketing a brand.

Corie 48:34

Yeah. And the thing is you study abroad. Where you went abroad to study after Fatimum?

SPEAKER_01 48:38

Just business. Oh, it was business. Just general, just general business. Um I didn't do no endgame back then, so I was just I was literally like a bamboo baloney breeze.

Corie 48:47

Go away to school.

SPEAKER_01 48:49

Nah, yeah, go away to school, you align with your partners, your cousins, wherever it is, you learn something, you come back home. Right. That's what

Starting At The Bottom And Surviving Cash Flow

SPEAKER_01 48:56

it was. It wasn't uh um I had no great master plan. I wish, I mean, I wish I knew the things I tell you now back then. I didn't know it.

Corie 49:04

Yeah, yeah. Well, I guess it's learning it is in the joys in learning it and being able to implement it. But over there, you see, you know what I'm selling, right? Because I mean you're talking about late 90s, water.

SPEAKER_01 49:13

Yeah, it was now starting. It wasn't a big, big business, but it was now starting off in the states. You had you had no clear winner. Um, Coke and Pepsi was not in the business. You had a lot of mom and pop operators. So again, it didn't feel like something that I couldn't do. And back then nobody was really doing it on that either. The big boys wasn't in it yet. So again, it's not like you're going to compete with them, you know.

Corie 49:34

They didn't, they weren't there yet. But there was a gap between when you decided what when you take that information. You said you you started to work at uh Gulf City, was it?

SPEAKER_01 49:42

I started at Fabric Land first, and when my uncle passed away, I ended up in Gulf City. So, where you were doing at Fabric Land, what was the job? Well, I initially thought I was going to work in head office. My father tossed me a bunch of keys and said, You go and open and close the store in Queen Street, Port of Spain. And for two years I was the manager there. You opened your offload the van, open and close the store, cash, you know, bring down the goods, attend to the customers, make your bank deposit. How valuable was that for you then? Well, it was valuable from the sense for that business where you learn the business because that's the business really was about serving the customers through your stores. So when you understood what it took to run a store and what you understood, what your customers wanted, then you could have go into a head office and know what to buy and what policies to put in place and how to improve things along the way. So, you know, starting at the bottom is the right thing to do all the time. Yeah. It may not be writing for your ego, but the right thing to do if you really wanted, if you're thinking long term and you want to understand your business, you have to go from the ground, come up.

Corie 50:39

You strike me as somebody you don't care much about the ego too much now. Like you take any feedback and things. Then days it was like that. You you or you feel away when you tell it.

SPEAKER_01 50:47

No, no, I'm the same way. You have to say, I grew up in a handicap. So it was so literally I dropped foot as they say in trendad. And so I ain't grew up in no star boy in football. I wasn't the best-looking man, the girls wasn't throwing themselves at me. So, you know, I didn't really grow up with anybody saying you're great, you're this, you're that. My father only tell me problem in the day before he died. No matter how successful I was. He in his mind I used to say, Well, you feel I am like somebody that the day you tell me, good job, I done work. I said, Man, I used to argue with him. I said, Listen, I say, people not going to say that that was Aziz Hadid son. They're going to say that was Dominic Hadid father. Right? I say, they're going to remember you because of him. Absolutely. I said, they're going to remember you because of me. They're not going to remember me because of you. So don't feel that you they you tell me, good job, at a boy, I done work. I said, that's where I'll start. I said, I want feedback. I want good and bad feedback. But for doing shit, tell me I'm doing shit. If I doing a good job, tell me I'm doing a good job. Right. And that's kind of with me. I want that. I find it very valuable. And I want that's why go around and tell people like this. But not everybody wants to hear the bad things. They only want to hear the good things. But I didn't know that because I found it was useful to me. I was begging for it. So, you know, I mean, that that's that's how it was.

Corie 52:11

Yeah, I guess it's the same thing I say about your partner when you're telling Lucy, we hear that differently if somebody tells you that. You hear you hear a chat like that.

SPEAKER_01 52:16

But but I challenge a hearter's place coming from a place of love. You understand? You man care for me. You know, you want to motivate me, you want me to live long, you want me to take care of myself. That that's that's how I view it. But not everybody view it like that. And because I live in that world of the problems every day, right? Like I wish to have an ego.

Corie 52:33

Okay, so somebody like me who's sensitive to the negative feedback, you think it's like burying yourself in it or face and it helps to get past it.

SPEAKER_01 52:40

Absolutely, but you have to understand why. Is it because somebody tells you something in a previous job you might get fired, um, people to laugh at you? You gotta kinda dig deep and find out why you're afraid of that. Well, because the only way you can think about when somebody coaching you, whether it be in football, cricket or whatever, and the coach coach any player, hey, your foot out here, you're a little unfit, you gotta run. But the the coach is telling them all the things they have to do to improve. And and how could you improve as a player on any sport if they're never telling you what you're doing wrong? Your posture wrong, you're not getting enough rest, your diet off. You understand? So, why is it different in in the real world? It's perfectly acceptable in one area. Why it can't be the same as everywhere else? And that's where the EDD comes in. I'll take things from one area and say, Well, if this works here, why shouldn't it work here? Even though it hasn't been done here, don't mean it won't. You understand? But but it's the same kind of principles.

Corie 53:33

On the studio, your mind already works away. So your dad eventually told you, here we're going on. You could do the water thing, he supported you. You have it there, right? But he had to run Gulf City. Experience with that at that point in time, like property management and that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_01 53:47

Well, property management part, the family was now getting into it too. Um, at the time, most of it was properties that they had stores in there already operating. We had a small mall before that was Voyager Mall in Henry Street, and and and so Gulf City was the first big one. And my uncle had bought it, and then within a couple years, he had got cancer and passed away. And I think the you have to run Gulf City too was him just trying to make me have twice as much work and forget the water thing.

Corie 54:16

Trying to set up the water to fail out.

SPEAKER_01 54:18

But no, to encourage me not to do it. And you say, well, yeah, do this and that, you're doing two work. But I call this bluff. But I mean, again, my uncle was able to put in some management there, and you know, real estate is it's it's complicated, but it's not rocket science. You know, it's uh you have X amount of square foot, you're trying to get your best tenants in place who could pay the highest rent, trying to run your mall well, keep you keep the upkeep, etc. And just balance it's almost like a housewife X amount of dollars in, X amount of dollars out, and what you get to keep is what you didn't spend. So um, so that's what it was. So it was a two days a week kind of thing in Gulf City, and then the rest of your time was dealing with blue waters.

Corie 55:00

Yeah, and you said that you felt like when you started to do Gulf City, you started to get good at it. What was the only that you were getting good at it at that point?

SPEAKER_01 55:07

Well, we were able to improve the mall, add more tenants, get higher rents. Again, if you look at the numbers, the numbers were doing well. You went in there, you redid the bathrooms, you retiled the place, said over the air conditions, the carpet, added more space, added better tenants, you know, you could see it. More patrons coming along. So you could those are businesses where, again, if you look at the numbers, you can you can see how well uh a business is doing just by the numbers.

Corie 55:33

Yeah, as a consumer, my father living south, so I used to go south pretty often, you know, and spend weekends long there. And I see Gulf City evolve. Like I wonder if people you all have pictures of where it was. They should show that. We do, we have pictures of when it was being built in the early days. Oh, serious? That would be amazing to see. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 55:50

Because people now ain't gonna know. My cousin, my cousin Sean runs that now. So I'm gonna pull it. Um I don't know how long the mall has been around, but I'm sure next anniversary they have coming up. Maybe you can do a nice was and now and progress. That would be interesting to see.

Corie 56:03

And that is massive. I feel like it double or triple in size. It was not a big, big mall compared to now.

SPEAKER_01 56:08

It is probably three times the size of when we had first bought it. Amazing, amazing.

Corie 56:12

So, what's your time management and energy management? Like, no, we can get a run sound to do that.

SPEAKER_01 56:16

Yeah, no, not me, my cousin had done that now. But no, I mean it's not today. I say a couple days a week. So you just do two days and so on. In in real estate, it's um it's a much slower business. Okay. I mean, unless you have major work going on, not like the blue waters production going on every day, deliveries on every day, collections every day. Real estate is slower. You know, you have to make sure you have your security guards, make sure you're more open and closed, clean your garbage, your bathrooms, etc. etc. So it's a more slow-paced thing unless you have major renovation going on that is not going well. When somebody leaking in a man's store, the air conditioner not working, thus, that's when it becomes more complicated. But but it's a it's a it's a slower moving business than uh manufacturing and distribution business.

Corie 56:58

Yeah, so I guess you skew your time to that. How are you learning about what it takes to make water a product?

SPEAKER_01 57:04

You go to trade rows and you go and talk to the best people out there. People will give you good advice, um, sometimes equipment suppliers, raw material suppliers will put you on to the consultants, etc. And again, you know, just go and ask.

Corie 57:17

Right. And you're having as much doubt from the market as yours having from your family until it points in time.

SPEAKER_01 57:23

Well, by the time we eventually got in, there were a lot of other brands in the market. I have said this before, it was about 42 brands. So at that point, I didn't have to prove that there was a market for water. I had to prove I was better than all the other brands that were there. Yeah. So by the time I eventually got in, it was more of a traditional fight for market share, brand penetration position, etc., than trying to convince somebody to buy something that they were getting for free already.

Corie 57:49

So it was And I would assume that there's a different is a different fight, but it's still difficult because the thing about it is if most people I talk to, like I do entrepreneurship classes, and I've found that students tend to want to discuss businesses or business ideas when nobody ever did before. It seemed to be the most exciting part of business.

SPEAKER_01 58:06

Well, yeah, I mean, like I said, when I started thinking about blue waters, there's nobody there. And I think the reason for that is you have you see again, maybe a problem solving, you see a consumer need that nobody's yet attending to. And the fact that nobody has attended to means you have no competition. So it should be easier. Now, I I always wonder if sometimes what is easier getting into a market that you're trying to create, but you have no competition, than getting into an established market with a lot of competition already there. You know, um it could go both ways. So but I think you know, for most people, if they're doing something that has already been improved in another part of the world, and it's only a matter of time before you get to train out, then I think there's less risk of there being a market. And and it's more a matter of, you know, how long will it take for the market to reach? Yeah, yeah.

Corie 59:01

Well, I see in those classes, right, for some strange reason, you talk to people and because a part of it is creativity and innovation, right? So we'll ask them for business ideas and real people say juice. For some strange reason, everybody in this country feels they could make juice and they say it tastes like a straw in an orange. I hear some of these best statements, I was like, who gonna buy that? But my philosophy to them is listen, you go into that market, you're ready to die. You go against people like Coke and Pepsi and Blue Waters and things. They're not the competition is not friendly.

SPEAKER_01 59:26

You you you go in and well, in fairness, it depends on the juice they want to do. If they want to do fresh juice, yes, they they because the big players are not in fresh juice, they cannot manage the cold chain free fresh juice, etc. They don't have enough access to that kind of a fresh juice. Right. So I think there is an opportunity, and there always will be for the small players. And I think you can make a good living there. Yeah, um, you wouldn't be as big as the others, but you don't have to be. Again, it depends on what your endgame is, what your lifestyle you want to be is, but it's it's something where you could you could carve out a niche and do well.

Corie 59:58

Yeah. And I saw when I when I use examples, and this is my first memory of seeing the Blue Waters brand. And I example I use a lot is like I remember seeing it by like doubles men and them kind of thing, like traditional vendors first. And I was telling them, I said, listen, you're looking at, and just like you said, the people going into fresh juices, and I guess it's maybe just ambition. You tend to see, okay, my competition is Jalil and Blue Waters, and I'm like, I don't know if that's your competition at all. Because the way they're playing is a whole army, it's a different ball game. So I'm like, okay, so why you don't look at traditional because you'll do product place price promotion, right? So in reach place, and we talk about distribution. I say they go oh, distribute it or they're dealing with a product that if people see it more, they go buy it more. So, but you had some strategies like that in terms of getting into to the market.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:45

Yeah, but you so you said the first place you saw it was the double span, right? Why do you think? Why do you think they were the first places?

Corie 1:00:52

I feel it's easiest easier to get into than Massy.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:55

Well, because they're small customers. And the small customers don't usually get the best service from the big players. So if you're the only person delivering to them, even if they had like the other brands, but the other brands not delivering to them, they have to buy from a wholesale, they buy it from you. So there's a deliberate strategy you have in mind when you're going to. Well, it was buying, we'll sell it to who was willing to buy from us, and those who are willing to buy from us were the small players. And if you even look at uh Walmart, when Walmart came into business, you had Kmart and Sayers and all those guys out there ready. And what Walmart did is they went to these small towns where Kmart and Sayers were not. And they they they built up a good business in these small towns, and then when they had a nice string of pulls where making a lot of money in all these small towns, then they went and charged against the big boys in the big towns. Right, right. So I would always advise people to start with the small customers. Yeah because as big companies, we do a poor job with the small customers. So you have a better chance of getting in there than a massey.

Corie 1:01:53

Of course, of course. And you spoke about Maracas and Bacon Shop being one of them things, right? You're going up there, too.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:58

Yeah, because those were also the places back in those days where people were didn't want to drink from a standpipe. If you're in your home and you're boiling water, whatever it was in those days, you weren't thinking about bottled water. But if you went to a party and like I say, in those days a venue was, you know, plyboard around in four corners in somewhere. And uh that was a venue. But you didn't want to drink water there, and you go to the beach, you're hot, and you don't want to drink water, they either from the standpipe. So it was again just thinking about where would people want to buy it, and then where would people actually buy it? I mean, like who would buy from his small customers? And again, nobody going up to Maracas to deliver a few cases of water, it's losing money. But to me, it was always about marketing in those days. Being where the customer wanted to be was a form of marketing. So it wasn't really about how much sales are making up there, it was visual branding, presence.

Corie 1:02:48

Yeah, I suppose your truck going up there, hard to miss too. People put us out of seat.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:52

That's exactly how I can do is advertising.

Corie 1:02:54

Yeah, you have your own billboard, your own roomboard. It makes sense. And it's one of the things that I feel like in business class, it's hard to express sometimes because I'm trying to say to them that listen, if you start with just the doubles vendors and shallows, like start smaller. So I'm not saying that because I mean, look what you've achieved from what you're talking about there, but you and all will be able to manage it better than if you go and try to sell to all these, like you mentioned Price Mart. Price Mart is a beast in the thing, or people who in personal care, we work with Unilever as well. Like, Pennywise is rough, rough, rough. It's not easy to go in them places. I think Pennywise when you start a buy from us a year or two ago. Really? Yeah. From y'all.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:32

That's how hard it was to deal with pennywise.

Corie 1:03:34

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's it's it's tough. So when you're looking at small businesses where you have the resource constraints, uh, I wonder why people don't see sometimes that these are some of these stresses.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:44

They try to go for the big hits. So you can make so much money with one customer. The big drop. It's just human nature. They're trying to they think that's the most efficient way to go. My father was that was I got too. Why you go in? The only two customers, three customers, the truck costume more. So we gotta start somewhere.

Corie 1:03:59

Well, he was saying that too.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:01

My first delivery was I think it was to um those days was um oh my god, trying to remember. But it was uh a retail store or two in Shogunas, and um it was a friend place, so it was like you know, uh top value. That's what it was. I see it was top value in Shogunas, and if I used a whole van there to sell two cases of water, so you gotta start. I said you gotta start somewhere. I mean, that's what it was, of course. You know, so so again, the advice you're giving people is the right advice. And then over time, then the big boys will be interested.

Corie 1:04:39

Yeah, because it could backfire them. Like growth is painful. If if friends, I tell I tell some students the other day, I say if you really get an order from Massey, you ready for your business to shut down when Massey tells you 20 days to pay, 60 days to pay?

SPEAKER_01 1:04:50

Actually, the way we got into Massey in the early days was we appointed them our distributor. So we got into their stores because they were the distributor, and then we dealt with all the small customers they didn't want to sell to.

Corie 1:04:59

I understand.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:00

So you find a local distributor even doing manufacturing here in the early days because I did what I didn't know about, I didn't know about distribution.

Corie 1:05:05

I see.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:05

And I figured, look, if they distribute it and they're the biggest, they must put it in their own store.

Corie 1:05:10

So your foot your startup was focused on manufacturing.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:13

Yeah, because how much things you can do? I mean, I again I'm not I wasn't that bright. You know what I'm saying? So I focus on the manufacturing and the small customer, and I go on top professional to handle the big customers. Gotcha, gotcha.

Corie 1:05:24

And in terms of sales, the early days, what are you doing? You're getting a sales force in place, it beats in the street yourself. What was that?

SPEAKER_01 1:05:30

But there was van sales in those days. You had two salesmen on a van and you had me running around, hey, why you don't buying for me? Why not buying for me? Why doing business with you? Buy from me now, go on. That's what it was. The first set of customers was the people I was buying from. I say, listen, logically, if I buy in tires and trucks and billbook and toilet paper.

Corie 1:05:47

Oh, you mean your business buying from?

SPEAKER_01 1:05:49

Absolutely. The customers who blew water buying from me say, Hey, you gotta support me. I buying thousands from you. Why can't I buy hundreds from me? Come on. And it was that. Right. It was literally open up opening doors in the LEDs. Makes sense.

Corie 1:06:03

Makes sense. Right, you're pause. I want to get to the new pause, right? There's a statement you made in and it's in your manual, which again I find to be so impressive that you share some of these things with employees because, as you say, you're not talking to everybody every day. But you said, for instance, you would leave a meeting in Gulf City, write a check for 100,000 if you're comfortable, and then Blue Waters on your handshaking to write a check for a thousand. I want you just to talk about a little bit because that idea of getting something from scratch is very different to what the corporate problems are.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:34

Well, you have to understand Blue Waters was not established. And the first couple of years, Blue Waters losing money. I mean, we lost money the first year, we lost money the second year, we broke even the third year, year four and year five, we made back the money we lost in year one and year two. Okay. So the point is when you have when you start and you have to start and you have to expect, you're gonna lose money. At least any kind of business that we were going into, because you when you get into manufacturing, you have a certain amount of fixed costs. That before you make one case, you got to pay the bank loan for the truck, for the equipment, for the employee salaries, you know, for your raw materials before you sell a case, before you collect. So, you know, and it was like making sure you didn't hang your hat where your hand car reach. So, you know, again, you could you in in Gulf City, you were writing a project, you know, you're doing a project, you knew where the money was coming from, or the bank loan was there. In Blue Waters, you wasn't sure. And you're still, you can't writing this check today, how much money are you gonna collect tomorrow? Are they really gonna pay? The body van's gonna bring in. So it was, it was it was a much, much more challenging act. And and and you know, to the point really, what I was trying to get there was that you wasn't as sure that you could write the $10,000 check. You weren't sure that the check will go through. You know what I'm saying? But you had to do it.

Corie 1:07:50

What was that like for you emotionally? Because uh you you you uh you said many times that you didn't have a choice, and people who hear your last name will say you have a choice.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:59

But who said my last name now? But 30 years ago, Hadith wasn't where we are today, right? We weren't catching our ass, but we didn't know none of our business was as big as they are today, you know. So so so you have to understand again the context. Right? Back in those days, the big names were all the French girls, you had maybe Sabga and Aboud in in from the Arabs, but you're talking about 30 plus years ago. Right, yeah. We were small, you know, very small. Um, but it's just 30 years of hard work. So today, you have to look in the context. So today you say, you know, saying a hadith name is very different than what it was 30 years ago. Yeah, which you know, um, and again, like I said, it's you know you have that legacy on your back. And for me, when I say I had no choice, it's because I fight my father so long to do this. If this thing had failed, any other idea I would have had for the rest of my life, you say, hey, remember that water thing? Shut your mouth and you follow my instructions.

Corie 1:09:00

So you put out here. You understand? So, what is it like emotionally now? Because you're going into it, because that would be emotional. No, number one, you're proving daddy wrong. That then, as any youth, you could understand what that is. And then this have to make it work when you have customers who people who mightn't be in the business day to day, you might have to deliver cases, it might be a credit consignment, whatever it is. You're hoping that you get cash on it. So you at that point you're probably managing cash hunting week to week, is it like that? Almost day-to-day. Yeah. And oh, day to day. So, what's the emotions like for you running?

SPEAKER_01 1:09:32

My my sister was the accountant in those days. She passed away from brain cancer a couple of years ago. And um she was good at the juggling, you know, and she would tell me, I can't do this, you shouldn't do this. And I trusted her, I respected her. She wasn't against me with the dream in the early days, and um, you know, we kind of knew in advance what you could and couldn't do, what you couldn't commit to, what you was hoping to sell, the new customers coming in. You know, by the time you start to get a rhythm and say, okay, we're gonna you're gonna get X number of new customers a week or month. The average purchase price was this, the average time to pay was that. So you started to get some clarity, and in the early days, you just you knew you were gonna keep owing the bank more and more as you went along. So it was really about talking to the bank and said, Look, this was going on in business. There's the extra support I'm gonna need, and this is why you're gonna need it because you know our cash conversion cycle sucked. You're paying cash up front for raw materials. By the time it comes, sit on your warehouse, you're produced the goods, you give the credit to the customer. Tell me it was six to nine months. Yeah, and every other month pay employees every month. Yeah, so but but at least the bank, the bank supporter, because you could explain your story to them that this is what when you're putting out, this is when it's coming back, and this is the growth that you're seeing. And yes, I need to borrow more, and yes, I could afford the interest. And you know, once they have faith in you because you explain your business the right way, you know. But it's all about the storytelling, right? I mean, why people want to work for you is a story you're telling. Why they should buy from you is a story you should tell them. Why the bank should lend you money is a story you should tell. Why the the the supplier should give you credit is a story you're telling. So you really have to be good at I'm not saying telling stories from a lion point, yeah. But I'm saying explaining yourself in a way that makes sense and being able to execute and deliver within that time frame that was in your story.

Corie 1:11:24

Yeah, so what was the story like in the first two years when you lose money? What was the story like Christmas time when you see a fellow?

SPEAKER_01 1:11:30

Well, it was okay. The first year was the story was hey, we now start.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:39

Next year was A, we lose less than we lost the first year. You understand? So we're improving. We're less bad. Yeah, three, I ain't lose nothing. Right. You understand? So it was it was that. And again, that's what the story was. So again, you and again, like I said, the banks saw that your father saw that okay, you're now starting a business, you have to lose money first year. There was no way around it that you could avoid it. Okay, um, and like I said, when you start to see you growing, you sales and losing less. So, okay, we kept this up in another year or two, you'll break even or make a profit, and that's what it was.

Corie 1:12:11

Your partner, well, he says your partner, let me confirm this. Your partner, Mark Jardine, is your partner, and true. He just said that. Well, I know we go back. It started well.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:20

No, I go back with Mark a long time, right? And um Mark actually worked with us for a couple years. It's almost so and then went back to the bank. Yeah, but I was teasing him. I say when they when he got the top job at the Royal Bank and they were talking about his resume. The two years he took, he was by us, they didn't mention it, they talk about us as sabbatical. I tell him I say, I say, probably get it walked because you come by me for two years and learn all my tricks.

Corie 1:12:44

He didn't describe it as no sabbatical. Now he was serious about this when he talked about it. Because the first time I spoke to him, I talked, I called him about bank thing. And he said, Well, I buy blue waters. No, I said, What were you doing now? I say blue waters is not bank, no, they make so much money on this water, yeah. And then he was telling me about farming. So I get confused immediately. I was like, okay, so because in my mind, this is a place that manufacturing and distributing water. When you start expanding or when it started to go, where did it go from water? Because at this point it gets successful.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:18

So that one is when we had acquired Prince Ricard. So Point Ricard had the alcohol division here and they were growing Anis. When we acquired the company, we got all the lands where we are in Orange Grove. And after a few years of operating it with Pruner Ricard, they cancelled the contract for us on the Anis. So we say, you know what? We'll bottle coconut water. At that point, coconut water was now starting to come up, and um again, it was enough coconut water. So we say, you know what, we're gonna we're gonna transform the estate from Anise to coconut. So we planted it and we waited three, four years for it to come. We always knew Mark, and Mark, I mean, again, agriculture is a lovely business but a hard business. And he said, you know what, he was passionate about it. He understood numbers. We said it'd be great to have somebody of his caliber working with the team on the farm to really get it off the ground. And that's how he came across by us. And it was it was always about trying to bottle the coconut water, which we still do to an extent. Um, but we still sell a lot of it as raw nuts.

Corie 1:14:21

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:22

Okay, you do. Oh, yeah. Okay. So who like then? Let's buy in raw nuts. A lot of people buy from us, but we also have our brand of coconut water under the with love um logo. We sell it more to the bars, hotels, restaurants. You might see it in true value, kappa drugs, Adams have it. Okay, good. Um we just couldn't get enough of the farm to put in big set of equipment for bottling.

Corie 1:14:48

Oh, I see, I see.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:49

So you really have to treat it like a mom and pop uh business, just like a juice business we were talking about earlier.

Corie 1:14:53

Right, right, gotcha. That's that's that's the approach, got it. So, even in when you're talking about business strategy, I heard you're talking about the bottle sizes and how important that was to your strategy in the beginning.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:03

Yeah, because every every single um sizer we have has a reason for being, as we call it, an occasion. So before we switch to that, let's let's talk. I'll just give you an example of what went on with the uh coconut bottle water. Sure. The bottle of coconut water. If you see it, it's a square bottle. You grip it from the outside over the the um label, and they can stack one on top the other. Why? Because when you look at a bar, a bar has limited space, even in a fridge, limited. But if you have a square, you can fit more in the in the um in the fridge if they colour to stack the bath and they could hold more on their limited space. So again, there was a reason for it. Because again, coconut water is almost a commodity in a sense where it's the same. It'd have some time, you know, differences in taste, whatnot, depends on the time of the year, any time of the nut. But it's still basically a raw commodity. So the point of differentiation for us at that time would have been the bottle itself. Why we pick the bottle. Even the bottles we have now, like I said, each one of a different size, we keep a wider mouthfeel compared to our competitors. It feels like a cup on your lips. Um, a wider cup makes it, cap makes it a little easier to open. So each one of those things went into the design. And again, what is the use occasion for a bottle water? Sometimes you just want a sip. Sometimes you're in the gym, you want something more. Sometimes you're going camping, you want the five liter or the eight liter. So each one of those bottles had a use case. And some of the use cases are small, but if we're the leader, we want to carry all the use cases and not leaving a space for anybody. I don't want somebody who says, Well, I can't be loyal to this brand because this this brand does serve all my needs. It serves me sometimes, but not all the time. Gotcha, gotcha.

Corie 1:16:46

And I saw somewhere along the line, you're going to the office and all of a sudden blue water's on the cooler. Same thing, looking at the occasions on the use case.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:54

Again, it's the bottle of water actually in Trend actually started primarily with five gallons. Oh, it did. So that was something we had to put in. And again, the improvement that we did there was giving the bottle a handle. Most bottles had no handles in those days. The cooler had a punch in it, where again, long-time days you had to take off the cover with no a bottle with no handle, you're hoping to aim into this mouth. Yeah, it won't fit best. Right. So for us, the improvement was, and we did it and give the customer no charge more. So those days, the bottles were more expensive, the caps were more expensive, the coolers are more expensive. But we said, you know what, we play any long game here. Yeah, we're gonna match what the competitor's giving you, but

Packaging, Use Occasions, And Portfolio Defense

SPEAKER_01 1:17:32

you're gonna have the convenience of a better cooler, better cap, and a handle on your bottle. Not rocket science, it's understanding what the needs of the customers are and serving them. Yeah, understanding what the pain points are and find a way to uh alleviate the pain points.

Corie 1:17:47

Gotcha, gotcha. So, at what point do you all start expanding beyond just water? At one point was only water being manufactured, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 1:17:53

Yeah, well, we started to go beyond water when the big boys came in and tried to kill us. Yes, sir. Coke making all the money on coke and giving away water, jalil making all the money on juice, giving away water. So if your competitors lost leading your only product, your ass is grass. So we had no choice but to get into the other categories so that they so that you could take the weapon of them commoditizing, giving away, call it what you want, your core product. You know, um, it's like when you think about it back in the days with internet, you had Internet Explorer and Microsoft gave away Netscape, sorry, and Microsoft gave away Internet Explorer for free when you buy Windows. Well, that's pretty much what Coke Anjali was trying to do me. So you had to have other things to offer. So the so that we had to basically full out the uh the portfolio, right?

Corie 1:18:48

So that they didn't think they could have kill us by just giving away a core product. And you started seeing success as soon as you start to do that. How difficult was it to build brands beyond the blue water brand? But again, you know what?

SPEAKER_01 1:18:59

We I think I had underestimated the power of the blue water brand at that time. The first thing we did flavor-wise was the crayon water. And we did that, and okay, people know okay, that's blue water's crayon. When we came up with some other products, juice and whatnot, we didn't put the blue water's name on it. Right? I said, look, I'm gonna keep it separate, have its own brand name, whatnot. And it wasn't doing well. And I said, but it's a good tasting product. It um the price is good, service is good, presentation is great, but what's going on? You're talking to the customers, they didn't know who makes it. Okay, had blue water is very small on the look, the the um label say you're manufactured by, but they said, why you just don't? The customers, why you just don't put this and when I say customers, the the the the shop owners, groceries, supermarket owners say, put a blue water logo on the damn thing. Go sell. And once we did that, yeah, say it's take off. Because we didn't have to convince them anymore about trusting the brand. They're like, oh, there's some blue waters. I know blue water is a product is good, I'll try it. And once they tried it, we know it was a good product on its own, they'll continue to buy it. So that was the lesson for us there. So, and again, come back to the focus. I did not want to do as much as Jalil or as much as Coke or as much as solo or Pepsi. I said I need to do just enough where they don't feel they could pull me out of business. You understand? So we don't have that many products compared to the rest of them, but we have enough that it makes a difference and it uh keep them at bay. Yeah. You understand?

Corie 1:20:31

And is there how how you decide then what market you're going into? Because I saw you also talk about the functionality of the product, or you have some specific things that you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:39

So when we launched our juices, it wasn't just tasting good. You know, it had less sugar, more vitamins, added biotin, etc. etc. So it was something again, come back to the company mission statement: quality, functional, great tasting beverages. So it had to have something of a functional nature inside of it because people no longer wanted to just drink something, have it taste good. They want to drink the vitamins, you know, uh, energy drinks. If I drink it, I'll get energy. You understand? So, so so that's really what it was. So, and again, this is where coming last was benefit because all the other brands from long time were already established. The orchards, the the fruitas, the minute me's, and they had the formulas. So, I okay, how could I improve on the formulas? People like this taste, so we knew what flavors people like, we know what the price point would have work. We say, how can we make it taste the same, but with less sugar and more vitamins, and that's what it was. And it was that fine art of, well, you know, vitamins don't taste good, the sugar is highly bad taste. Yeah, so we had to really do the dance and the balance to get it to taste good. Yeah, and when we did it, did it and launched it, it was fine. So everybody has come in with a reduced this and reduce that and diet this and zero that, you know, yeah, complicate their life. But because we started off the right way from the beginning, it was simpler for us. So we don't have to have that full range of things, yeah.

Corie 1:21:58

And I guess you get known for it. People understand what to expect from your brands.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:02

Yeah, but again, we don't do too many things. So you know, we we we're in water, you have eight sizes of water, any flavor products, you have two or three. Yeah, you don't need more than two or three for them. Makes sense. Makes sense.

Corie 1:22:13

I appreciate you talking about that at length because it's something that we talk about all the time. When you break the mold of a lot of the things I would talk about in um in class, for instance, very, very theoretical, but you you bring some of that to life and it makes perfect sense in terms of those strategies.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:26

Now you should break it down to the basics first.

Corie 1:22:29

You did say so from there. You did say so. And that that risk in business, I guess it's inevitable. Like somebody else tell me before we started about this entrepreneurial thing about jumping. I would say somebody say that the other day, I say, boy, you don't ever stop jumping, and I don't know if he's land. This idea that there's this leap you take from having a job to going into the the world of entrepreneurship. I don't know if he's ever stopped.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:48

Boy, as a entrepreneur is a special breed, yeah. Real special breed. Um not for everybody, but I think you know

Entrepreneurs, Structure, And School Misfits

SPEAKER_01 1:23:00

what I tell people a lot of times you don't have to be an entrepreneur, but you could be a little bit more entrepreneurial in what you're doing, and that works as well too. Yeah, you know, um, but it's not for everybody, it's hard. Yeah.

Corie 1:23:12

You think entrepreneurs, there's another module that they say entrepreneurs are born and not made. I wonder sometimes.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:18

It's like some people who are born to take licks and some not. I mean, I don't know. You need to have a real high threshold for pain, and you have to have a real threshold for people saying you shouldn't do something and and you and looking like a fool when any free for a while it doesn't work, and sometimes it don't work at all. And I mean, yeah, yeah, enough for everybody.

Corie 1:23:39

But assuming you wouldn't change it, that that risk taking us.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:43

Nobody would hire me. Nobody would hire me.

Corie 1:23:45

Mark has a hire Mark, you do him a favor.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:47

Well, Mark couldn't work in an entrepreneur environment. Mark needed structure, right? And nothing is wrong with that. Right? So I say your entrepreneurs don't like to be told how to do things, right? Entrepreneur likes to be told what to do. Say, give me a box, there's my parameters, yeah. You know, there's a rules, you can't break this, and then don't tell me how to swing. Right? But other people, you know, in the structure that they're hiring you and say, just follow instructions. That's why that's why in Fatima, I didn't get along well because they tell me follow instructions. I can't, I will follow instructions that make sense. But if something does make sense, I'll say it just makes no sense. Yeah, yeah. So I can't follow blindly. Most entrepreneurs can't, because the minute they bounce into something that's frustrating and they say we never have a better way to do it, and they put up their hand to change it, and nobody wants to change their tasks, I go do it myself.

Corie 1:24:36

Yeah, go somewhere else. That's what's somewhere else. Yeah. All right, it's time to explain to me now why I ain't do so good in Fatima neither. I appreciate the help understanding that.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:44

I'm gonna tell you something. In Fatima, so when they uh when I left or trout, whatever the right word is, when they had this, when they had their 50th um anniversary of school, they decided to set up a hall of fame. And they called me and said, Would you, we want to appoint you for your year, would you come? I said, Why not? And when I went there, you had then you had the Brian Larris, you had the Ewart Williams, former central bank government, so you had the people you'd expect. Then you had a setup others like me and whatnot. I won't call their names, but we were all like, What are we doing here, boy? But I will tell you, three-quarters of the people who they were going to appoint for the Hall of Fames were all the troublemakers for the year. The biggest troublemakers for the year. So it just goes to show that the people who give quote unquote trouble in school are not necessarily troublemakers, it's they are entrepreneurs in hiding. And a lot of them ended up in their own business because they said nobody would hire them. So they're going to do their own thing. Yeah. You know, so so that's kind of what and look at you, even you. You say you have a problem in school, and look at what you're doing now.

Corie 1:25:51

Yeah, I had a similar experience because Faragory called me the other day to give us a keynote at the award ceremony. I said, Far agregory, I was never on a stage for an award ceremony in my life.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:02

And that's the point. So I just think the school system don't know how to handle entrepreneurs.

Corie 1:26:07

Well, maybe we should also redefine what troublemaking is. What what is the trouble?

SPEAKER_01 1:26:11

Yeah, but more but again, their version is they're not following instructions.

Corie 1:26:16

Right. Of course, they're not doing what they're told. Yeah, and at least when we were there, you know, you're good or you're bad. At least that changing now a little bit, right? Now, as you bring up this, there's some things I want to ask you about as well when it comes to the stances you take or the way you approach things, because again, I always feel and I now are sure is a misconception because I tell myself, you ain't coming blue waters every day, you know. I think you're done of that, you know. I mean, you don't make it, you good. And I would also think that for you, and having achieved everything you achieved, you have a employee, you have hundreds of employees, if not thousands by now, several businesses you're involved in. Yeah, you make the had it name your father can't say, you know what I mean? You're looking done, he's smiling, regardless. And for me, if I knew your seat, I feel like if there are things that I would shy away from saying or doing in the public light. So when I saw you in uh what was it, TTMA at a was it the award ceremony or the leadership?

Politics As A Job And Country First Thinking

Corie 1:27:09

It was the AGM. It was the AGM. And then I saw that you went up and you you said, well, you said we said newspapers, carriers, and all that. That's as which is typical for things that you would say. People people want to hear your opinion about the economy. Uh, I wonder what is that like for you having to speak to power in them places. You you you you don't shy away from it.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:28

Um, I don't go looking for it. But um, you know, uh I have a problem with honesty. If somebody asks me a question, I tend to have to answer it honestly. Um, but let's take a step back and talk about you call it what probably, but what do you call it?

Corie 1:27:48

Yeah, you know, talk about this thing about speaking truth to Paul, because I think you have raised the idea of the fact that the politicians, or yes, so the politicians as policymakers.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:57

All right, so let's let me give you an example. Of how I would think about this. So, what is a politician? Right? A politician is just a job. It's no different to a doctor, an architect, an engineer, a carpenter, a plumber. They're there to do a job. What is a party? A party is a vehicle. We have two main ones in Trendan through which politicians get elected to do the duties of the country. What is a country? A country is a partnership of sorts. When you're born into it, you can be born into a family business, or you're born into the citizen of a country. You're partnering with the people who run the country. When you have a shareholder in a company or a citizen in a country, you have a duty to help your country or your company to the best of your abilities. All over the world, and I think here in the Caribbean in particular, we get this thing about these parties are you follow them no matter what. Would be Trend and Tobago football, the national team. Yeah, it'll be blind. I'm going to follow them no matter what. Okay. West Indies cricket. I'm following them no matter what. I ain't care, but whoever playing against them, I can never support half to back my side. And obviously the teams on which my children are. Of course. Them is the ones I following blindly. Everything else, to me, are things that you choose to support or follow when it makes sense to do so. And what I mean by that is so politicians are hired by a country. The hiring process is by a vote. In when you own a company or you're part of a company, you have shares a company, people vote. And you vote for ideas, you don't normally have your your idea doesn't always pass. But you're voting for the idea or the person that will address the problem that your company or your country needs help with. And to me that is logical. What you think I'm going to vote for? I'm going to vote for a red bottle, a Santan lotion, or I'm going to vote for a yellow cast on my foot. Or if my problem as a country is to pluck the hair between my eyebrow. So the point is when I look at it, I look at when elections come, who are the candidates that uh afford it to us as citizens, and who are best suited to deal with the problems that a country has. At 52 years old now, I have probably participated, I think it's about seven elections. I think I voted three times yellow and three times red. Because at those times, to me, they were the right thing to do based on the candidates that were put forward and the problems that the country was facing. Now, most people in Trundad, they seem to draw a party line red or yellow. Again, to me, that makes no sense. Because if I have a problem, if I have an air conditioning problem, I'm not calling a plumber. If I have a dentist, a problem with my teeth, I'm not hiring a carpenter. So why do we do that for the leaders of our country? Right? And so to me, you have a duty to assist where you can. And if I if and if somebody votes against me in my business, I'm not going to try to destroy the business. I'm not going to try to make their job difficult because I own a piece of the business. So if I'm a citizen in a country, even if I vote for somebody and the other person wins, my duty is still to assist and to serve my country. That is my side is a countryside. And that is my duty. That is how I view it. And whenever the opportunity presents itself, I don't run around because I'm busy, I don't run around and say, hey, this is what you should do. But if I'm in a place where I'm afforded an opportunity or asked to say something, I will say the truth. And that's what happened that day. And it was said very respectfully. But again, you have the local media that just took a headline and run and the ticks out of context and run. And I didn't think people had enough time to read the whole thing because the whole thing wasn't presented. And that's unfortunate too, because that makes uh the people who could add value say, no, I have no time for this. So that is what happened there. And um it's a shame because the same thing like I was telling you about accommodating the band in miserable in my own business. I don't come up with all the ideas. I go and talk to my employees, I talk to my suppliers, I talk to my customers. And I'm saying, you know, any position of leadership I'm in, or any time I could make a decision, I will just take my idea. I will listen to everybody. Again, I'll try to understand what it is we're trying to accomplish, and then see which idea best suits the capabilities that we have or the problem that we're trying to address. And Trinidad is a small island, Trinidad Tobago, small islands. And we don't have we have enough talent to solve our problems. But we don't have enough talent if you start to slice it up and say who black, who white, who Indian, who in who Hindu, who Muslim, who PNM, who UNC, who gay, who straight. No, come on. In my own business, I've never hired an employee based upon race, religion, sex, or um who they vote for. I don't hire the people who come to pave my car park or fix my air conditioner or my roof or my raw materials based on that. I am hiring them based on this is the problem I have, and these are the best people I could find for the money I could afford to pay to get the job done. And whenever I speak about any of those things, that's where I'm speaking from. That is the lens through which I'm looking, and that is the lens through which I am making suggestions. And I am not insisting that anybody uh follow me blindly. I'm saying, look, if I knew what you knew, consider this. And if I'm wrong, I'm fine. Tell me I'm wrong. But sometimes when people tell me things in my own business that I disagree with, it sometimes helped me find another way that was better than what I proposed. So, you know, if everybody disagreed with me on something and they couldn't give a better solution, at least I know I should look for something else.

Corie 1:35:36

But you know, you're unique in that respect. Because if you put me in that seat, right? You remember my sensitive to feedback. So one of these statements was, which to be honest with you, my opinion, I just I find it's a very reasonable statement. There's two key things that I want to ask you about with that, because one of them was that okay, the government is a 30% shareholder, you get 30% free shares or something like that along those lines, yes? And it's a more corporate tax, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:35:57

Again, I might tell you how I distill things down. Sure. So what I meant by that is like I have a lot of partnerships in business where I own 30%. But I pay for them, I sit on the boards, I have work to do. And I was just using an example to say, hey guys, look, country needs money. You all own 30% of everybody's business. Through corporate taxes. Through corporate taxes, right? Depending on the business, you could own 35%. I think the the oil companies and financials pay more. But I'm just saying that the the way I would have approached it was go to the guy and say, how could I, because the government has the ability to, for regulations and rules and laws and policies, to do a lot of things that obviously privacy cannot do. Sure. So the thing was really say, again, my approach would have been go and sit with your constituents, which is your shareholders, and say, guys, what can we do to help you? You see it all over the world. Donald Trump sits with his guys and says, hey, how we can help you make more money. You need to get access to China, you need free trade, they have duties, and he works with his private sector to make them be more successful because the more successful they are, the more successful the country is.

Corie 1:37:11

Well, the bigger 30%, you could earn more.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:13

Of course. So the point was it was just giving them a lens to look through to say, hey, you want to make more money, look at the people who you're really making money from and say, how can I help you do more? Yeah. And that's really was the lens that I was suggesting that people look through. That to say, you're not on your own. The whole country is here to help you. You are the party that was legally elected, and our duty now is to support you. Yeah, yeah. Whether we vote if you or not, our job is to support you and to make you successful. We need our government to be successful.

Corie 1:37:50

Well, I I I I heard it as that, right? When you said it, I say, well, it makes sense. Even if you want to take away everything that was said, but the idea behind or the the core of what you were saying was let me work together to figure this out.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:02

And and I say that to all my partners, I say that to all my customers, I say to all my suppliers, I say that to all the governments that have had to work with through under and uh, etc. And to me, that is just my natural thing to do is I am here to help if I can. You understand? Yeah, yeah.

Corie 1:38:19

And I wonder sometimes, because we have to, we all of us want to do better as a nation, assuming that's one thing that all of us could agree on. We want to do better. The how you're gonna do better or what it takes to get better, I guess everybody could disagree on and so on. But I would think that from where I said, maybe I naive that the government of the day sits and consults with the biggest businesses in the country all the time.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:42

I I naive like you too. Right? Um none of them have ever sat with me and asked me anything, but maybe I'm not big enough. Maybe they've done it with the oil companies, maybe they've done with large conglomerates, but none of them have come to me on that.

Corie 1:38:59

Talking about previous governments since you start.

SPEAKER_01 1:39:02

Never. Um why should they? I mean, who am I? No, okay, so I understand. Compared to some of the others, who am I?

Corie 1:39:10

Okay, so the reason I ask is because like when I let's tell you I would lecturing Guyana or live in Jamaica and so on, your products on every shelf and stand out on every shelf in every country in the world. Maybe I'll cut out all before C VTT say that, but your products everywhere. So I would think I understand your question, who am I? But again, naively and from an outsider's perspective, I would want to know if I deal with anything to do with CARICOM as an example. I would want to consult the people who brands stand out in CARICOM, I would think.

SPEAKER_01 1:39:40

But maybe the issues that they are facing is not something that they think I could help with. You know what I'm saying? And again, I'm not arrogant to think that they should talk to me and come and talk to me. No, of course not. All right, but but again, if anybody wanted to talk to me, they know where to find me. Yeah, like I say, see me in a coffee shop. Anyone, I'm there. But I don't run around for volunteering. Sure, sure. But if I'm around, I will participate. If I if I make a commitment to attend something or participate in something, I will do it to the best of my ability. And and and that is that's just me. And that is what I I ask of everybody else. If you commit to do something with me, do the best. Because if I commit to you, I'm gonna do my best.

Corie 1:40:24

Well, coincidentally, you have that in your manual too, in terms of keeping your words to commit to work.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:27

And that is your point. Part of keeping your word is saying the truth. Yeah, yeah. If I if I don't want to do something, I'll tell you up front. Can't do it. I'm not gonna tell you I'll do it and then never do it. That's not me.

Corie 1:40:36

Gotcha, gotcha. No, the other thing that you spoke about I wanted to ask about for you is the the the issue of battery funds, right? Every business in the country having the same issue where I think you were talking to not just the fact that they're not being isn't the clarity or you're suggesting that they could make some suggestions as to how we could pay it.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:53

There wasn't so much the VAT, there was more exam bank at the time. Oh, I see. But again, all what businesses need is certainty and need to plan. You know, whether it be availability of foreign exchange, um, getting your VAT refunds, those are just things that all businesses need to know so they'll know how to plan. How they're making the payments, if they have to deal with the bank, that's all. So I just think it's the uncertainty of if and when and how much is what's causing a lot of the problems for business people.

Corie 1:41:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:41:26

At this time.

Corie 1:41:28

And there's no, but in terms of you now, as a person, making statements like those, you know where these statements will go more than likely. You're you're you're worried about it in terms of the backlash and what comes with it and so on. You believe in God.

SPEAKER_01 1:41:40

You believe in in what's to be will be. Um, I still think as a country, we have a good country. I think the majority of people inside this country is good people. Um I think as a country, we believe in freedom of speech, done in as respectable a manner as possible. And it's always respectable unless the government spin it.

Corie 1:42:02

Yeah, or podcasters when we spin when we slice it up. Again.

SPEAKER_01 1:42:09

But you know nothing I say or I think busy people say is um meant to hurt. At least when I say things it was meant to help and to offer help. They don't have to. I mean, they don't have to, they don't report to me, they don't have to talk to me. Um, they don't have to help me, and they they don't have to hurt me, right? I mean, and I think and I want to believe in our country that that is still the case. Right. I hope that's still the case.

Corie 1:42:43

Yeah, I want to believe so too. I I I I think so actually. I think so actually. So I think the discourse is is healthy. I appreciate the fact that you speak up on it because maybe if I was you have not say nothing more than nothing, you know, I mean, just to just fly under people's radar, you frighten, you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:42:56

It is it is sometimes um the better thing to do. Yeah. It's probably something I'll do more of too. I don't feel so. When I read your manual, I feel so. But that's my manual for my people. But I but but let me tell you something, right? Politics is uh not an easy game, and I don't want to say that it's easy, right? I mean, I've always said, boy, if I put myself in their shoes, you know, how would I do? All right, you know, uh I talk about investments and in business, and I always say maybe if you're investing, if you're in politics, you have to invest in political returns, invest in social returns, and you have to invest in economic returns. You can't let those are the three legs of his tool. You can't let one get longer than the other. And you know, it's easy for me or anybody to pontificate about what you could do or should do, and if I was in government, what I'll do. I mean, I don't want to be in government. And the truth is when you run your own business, I always say to myself, it's easy in my own business to do what I think is the right thing to do for the business. But if every five years the employees get to vote and decide if I get to keep the business or not, how would I run it? Of course. So it's not an easy job that politicians have, it's not a job that I want. Uh, I pray that whoever's there could do it to the best of their abilities for the country. We need them to do that. 100%, 100%. You know, and um and again, as citizens, if we can help, we we should help.

Corie 1:44:28

How would you? And it's something that I say often. Like when I look at politics, like you bring up Trinidad football, right? I remember when we qualified for the World Cup, Leo Benhacker was the coach, and his salary was listed at $400 and something thousand dollars, which I feel he earned every cent. Dwight York recently, different result, but they're saying $200 plus thousand dollars, which I think he deserves. And I feel like we're in a rough spot when the person who's in charge of the country is dwarfed by the football coach who run a new football team for the country. As important as trended football is to me, Salem. Yes, so when I see the prime minister's salary knocking somewhere near 100,000 and then the football coaches four times that I worry. I don't know if that system works well.

SPEAKER_01 1:45:08

I agree with you on that. If it was me, uh I would love to see a minister salary at 100,000, I'd love to see a prime minister salary with a million dollars a month. Right? That will allow the best and brightest from the private sector to come in. And to put my little odd Dominic had the twist on it, I'd pay the opposition leader 1.1 million a year. Right? Because at the job everybody wants to have is your opposition leader. Because right now there's a post for posing sake. Right? But if the easiest work and the highest pay is one day a week as opposition leader, they will make sure to cooperate with the party in power and make sure they stay there forever. You understand? But this fighting doesn't help. Yeah, it doesn't seem to help. And I think if you if we if we paid uh the ministers and the prime minister and the opposite leaders more money, the best and brightest from the private sector will come out for those jobs.

Corie 1:46:01

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:46:04

It should not be a job of charity for the country. It should not be. These people have to work hard, uh, they need to they're sacrificing their other private sector life. Of course. They're sacrificing family time. It's enormously high pressure. They need to be paid, they care to know, right?

Corie 1:46:21

You know, it's a very, very, very difficult job.

SPEAKER_01 1:46:23

They need to be paid properly for it. And I do not think we we as a country pay them enough.

Corie 1:46:27

I appreciate

Exports, Hiring Smarter People, And Focus

Corie 1:46:28

this in that. Let's talk about regional now. I know that I know that now, like I said, I when I travel, I see products all over in the beginning. You have those things in mind in terms of your end goal.

SPEAKER_01 1:46:37

Um, we took part in the early days um through the TTMA, trying to have a manufacturing association trade shows, and people would show up. For me, it was actually initially just a point of advertising for a lot of locals coming in there and almost fake it till they make it where nice big stand and whatnot. Because we're able to get into the groceries that way too. They saw it. It was like, okay, wow, you know, but then somebody would come along and say, Hey, um, from Guyana, Seneusha, Barbados, Jamaica, whatever, like a buy a container product. Sure. And that was extra. So for me, it was I again, you haven't understand, and I come back to the ego wasn't there back in those days like that. I was just looking at Trinidad. Um, I wasn't thinking Caribbean. My father, I don't think he had ever really exported anything in his life, I'm not sure. But I didn't really see it when I was there. So I didn't think of that in those days. It just happened in those days that where people started to pick up your product, products started to do well, you know, and and as you started to hire better managers in your organization who knew about export and all those go-to-market strategies, etc., one thing led to another. And for me, even in my business, I always look for the brightest people I could hire. I try to get people smarter than me in the area of expertise. And when you hire smart people, you know, they do great things, you know. So I don't want to be the smartest person in your company. I want to I want people to be smarter than me in the area of expertise. Right.

Corie 1:48:10

And through that, we're able to expand like how far you go now, where's the food smart?

SPEAKER_01 1:48:15

Water is is cheap, so the freight kind of gets you. So we already more or less literally in that English-speaking Caribbean. Right. Yeah, we really haven't gone beyond that. And again, as a massive market still. You intend to do it is something that you're looking at in terms of getting out of here. I don't know if I'll get it done in my lifetime. It's something for the children to look for one day. I can't do it. When you say one bottle a day, when you check it, I mean, I guess yeah, you have a lot to be a lot to achieve here still. Yeah, we have factory in Trundan, we have a factor in San Lucia. We're looking at Barbados, possibly Guyana. But I mean, really, for water is a cheap product, you have to eventually manufacture in China. Gotcha. And that's a whole other I don't know if I want that lifestyle flying on a plane every minute. I mean, you know, I'll still come to blue waters every day, but I don't know if I want to be in a plane every week somewhere else. That's you know, I don't know if I'm that good or that ambitious, but 52 getting old, bones getting old, you know. I ain't seeing it. I ain't seeing it.

Kids, Succession, And Not Forcing The Business

Corie 1:49:10

You know what I mean? Maybe it's me. So as you bring up children, is that maybe a good place for us to wrap on? Because you your your experience with your father, what was your experience with your children now? The indie business, you want them in the business or they're still young, they're starting in school and so they're between 12 and 17 now.

SPEAKER_01 1:49:25

Right, yeah. But I I didn't like my father's business, so I'm not taking for granted that they would like my business. Okay. I also strongly believe that when we talk about yesterday, where you have to love it. If they tell me that they they want it, but they don't love it, they're not gonna do well at it. I mean, you're talking about the Coca-Cola team here, you have to understand that they are the best brand in the world. They're relentless, they have access to unlimited resources and talent. They keep coming at you every month. If you don't love it and you can't hold that shield up to block that every month when they're coming at you. You understand? You're not going to want it. So again, we'll see if uh if it's something that they like and if it's something that they could do, because you could like it, but if you can't do it, then you're gonna fail. So um we'll cross the better and reach it. I mean, what we try to do at this point is give the kids the right balance, give them some exposure to the business, not too much. Make sure that I'm home enough with them that they don't resent the business. Where I've seen a lot of people who kids hate the business and didn't want nothing to do with the business because the business keeps their mommy or daddy away from them. Right? So it's right balance where I work Monday to Friday, but I spend time with them on the weekends. So it's the balance. And um, you know, get them a good education, get them a good exposure and see what they want to do. Gotcha, gotcha. If they come back from college with some other dream, I might do them the same thing my father did me and say that's a dumb idea, whatever, whatever. And he's like, Could repeat itself, who knows?

Corie 1:51:06

There are no uncle to get striped them and tell me away.

SPEAKER_01 1:51:09

Who knows? Who knows? I just saying, but so so so I am not taking nothing for granted. I am saying do what you love, yeah, get a proper education. And if this is for you, great. If it's not for you, tell me what you want to do. I'll try and see if I can help you. If not, good luck.

Corie 1:51:25

Yes, but what else are you gonna say? I pray, I guess, I guess is the most we could hope for the children.

Minority Stakes And Staying Humble

Corie 1:51:30

But you're involved in several other businesses when I was looking at your profile, so involved in Wendy's, involved in uh dwellings, and you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:51:36

Wendy's dwellings, dominoes, speedupit, food hall, homeland, fabric land. Right, yeah, eFinance. But those are more, they will support one another as from a group level. And those are me putting money in a business, working with the other shareholders, the other managers, and helping them with their dreams. Um, so that's kind of what what I do there to keep myself busy. Good. And again, those those are ways of um helping people too. Um and being humbling too, because again, you know, when you have a 30% or 20% or something, you know, you have influence, but you have no control. They can completely ignore you. So that's also another way of staying humble. Correct. When not all your ideas are good ideas, yeah. Um, and you know, you it teaches you how to work through people. Because you can't when you're when you're only playing, you can do what you ask you want. Yeah, yeah. But when you I would say now, majority, fair majority of what I'm involved in, I'm not controlling shareholders. So I treat them almost like investing in the stock market, but where you have a little bit more influence than the average in the stock market. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But again, like I said, some I can add value, some not, but it's great to see now some of the principles, I guess, that we spoke about today really applies throughout all kinds of industries. Yeah. You know, hiring the best people, giving them as much variable compensation. So the more they do, the more they could earn. Treating customers with respect, um, suppliers with respect, you know, looking for continuous improvement. That works in any business from hamburgers to finance, to retail, to beverage, to real estate. You know, when we design in plazas, KPACO Plaza, Gulf City mentioned earlier, Lowlands Mall, you look at the customer experience. You know, you have the return that you as the owner need to get, you have the operational capabilities that your tenants need to run their stores, and then you have the customer experience that the patrons who come to the ball need. Proper parking, good bathrooms, you know, nice environment in which to shop, etc. So that's really what is. And all of those things, no matter the business, they uh they they they replicate.

AI Knowledge Capture And Closing Lens

Corie 1:53:50

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And even more to add to what you're saying, like in going through some of the things you said, and uh I think is uh I really, really like the idea of you, especially the AI part of it, where be because it helps people who come into the business that might never be able to work with your day to day for all kinds of reasons to solve it.

SPEAKER_01 1:54:06

My only fair with that is AI is good at compiling the history and giving advice based on the history. I see. Yeah, if I dead and gone and you're relying on that, who knows what I might have changed.

Corie 1:54:23

Of course, it's the environment changing. It's true, it's true.

SPEAKER_01 1:54:27

I think AI is useful to a point, just like all things are useful to a point. It's not the be all and end all, but it's something that's not static. Yeah, right? It's something that you still need to input and monitor.

Corie 1:54:40

Um and double check because some of the outputs the the incorrect.

SPEAKER_01 1:54:44

Yeah, that's correct. So that's that's that's how I look at it. Um, I think it's gonna be fun, make things a lot easier. Yeah, um, but we'll see. I mean, for us, where we find where we hope it'll be very interesting is when it comes to the factory. You know, when you have all these very knowledgeable guys who are gonna retire, of course, of course, yeah. And having the brain, yeah, forget my brain. You can put some of their brain down and say, look, when this problem happened on this machine, is where you do. That I think is very interesting. That's something that we're trying to actually get on top of.

Corie 1:55:13

Oh, that's good. That's good. Congrats on that. But even more than that, even more than the AI part of it, I feel like there's a lot, and there's so much about business and the way you look at business. But I think that for me, the things you the way you look at life, so much of it I took in just going through that. I mean, no, as an employee handbook, maybe I'll apply for work, right, David? We'll see how it goes. But there's a lot of little things you put in there that really just make me reflect on the way I see and approach life generally.

SPEAKER_01 1:55:36

And it's simple. Like I said, it's what's the problem, was it causing problem? Was the solution, was it costly solution, and apply the best solution that gives you the highest rate of return, whether it be financial return or time, which will be fastest to work.

Corie 1:55:52

And rinse and repeat. Rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat. Well, I committed to you that I will try, you know, and those things because it really is very inspiring. And particularly that exercise with the eulogy and in battery, and I start thinking about it, and I say, wait now. I was worried at first, but this thing, there's a poor to it.

SPEAKER_01 1:56:09

Yeah, and the whole point is you look at what it will usually be tomorrow, and you look at what it'll be when you would like to pass away in 20, 30, 40, 50 years. And you see what's the gap. Yeah, what that gives you is a destination and a timeline. So whatever life brings at you, you look at it through that lens. So I'm a I'm big on looking through a lens. What lens am I looking through? Right. Right? Because that that's what will tell you if this is what happens in decision making. So when I tell you I'm good at problem solving, problem solving is also decision making because you have three or four problems. Sorry, three or four solutions to a problem, which one is the best one? So you need to have a secondary lens to look through that will tell you which one is the best one to use.

Corie 1:56:46

Yeah. Well, opportunity, but you know, it's all that old deal. And tens of millions, but not it's anybody opportunity, but it's a very good idea.