Coca-Cola 's Newest Competitor to Olipop, and How to Stop Trying to Rewire Your Brain

0:00So Eric, have you ever drank Olipop? the sparkling water? I think once. Why? Have you? I'm not a fan of like sparkling water. I know it has probiotics in there. It has a lot of microplastics. Yes. The can is not great. Coca-Cola is trying to go after that market because Olipop is worth like one point something billion dollars the last side check. And there's a few other competitors. But what they did was really clever from a marketing standpoint. Because if you look at those products, it's not hard to copy them. But what they did is they took Simply, you know, that brand like Simply Orange, that younger generations and the market who's drinking Olipop is already familiar with.

0:40And then they created Simply Pop. So similar logo, similar messaging, or messaging is a little bit different, but similar style. They're trying to keep on brand with the Simply brand. And they released it to the market. And I believe they're going to take a huge chunk out of Olipop's share. I bet you just have to wait a few years and they're going to be one of the bigger players. So it sounds like they, just by latching onto something that's already popular, simply something, they're taking market share that way. And that's the game that they play now because they're so big. They need to find other ways of growing.

1:15And Coca-Cola now, I don't know if you know the numbers, but what percentage of their sales actually come from Coke. Less than 10 % of that, I guess. But it used to be everything. And remember we talked about this a long time ago, or a couple podcasts ago, that Coca-Cola back in the day, they were targeting the wrong market. They're like, no, we need to target the entire beverage market, not just the soda market, because they were the big player in the soda market. And then someone's like, why don't we just target the entire thing? And that changed their thinking completely. And that's why they are the way they are now.

1:42I was talking to Derek Halperin from Social Trigals back today, and Truvani now. They have some great products. And they have a lot of vegan protein products. And he was teaching me something about the retail space and CPG space. When you look at a lot of the acquisitions in the space, things will trade for a multiple of revenue. And I was like, how does a product that's selling supplements or proteins start trading for two, three, four times, whatever the multiple may be of revenue? And he's telling me a lot of them are trading for two, three times. And they're barely making any money. Revenue.

2:18of revenue. And he said it's because of the shelf space. So when you are in a grocery store and you control a lot of shelf space, if Coca-Cola or Pepsi want that shelf space, a lot of times they'll buy a company for a premium because they're not just getting the brand, they're getting the shelf space distribution, which they can put any products. What Olipop has to compete with is Coca-Cola who already has massive distribution and tons of shelf space, which is going to allow them to just grow their numbers at a very rapid pace. And then if you're like a Whole Foods or something, you're going to trust a Coca-Cola more than like an upstart brand.

2:55So I think Whole Foods is a little bit picky. Sorry, Whole Foods is a bad example. I know what you mean though. But let's use like Ralph's for example. Exactly. Yeah. Yes. And they're just going to end up putting the product everywhere and their shelves are going to climb really quickly to nine figures. I don't think it's actually going to take much time at all because they can just push it to their existing shelf space. Dude, you actually have a good one here. first of all where did this topic come from and your topic actually goes well with my topic right after it on the rewiring your brain so where did this come from and what is this I just put it in the spreadsheet it came from no article what were you thinking when you came up with this idea I was thinking about you I do it you go first and then I'll go next so the topic that I put into the spreadsheet I'm actually trying to find it it's right after the Coca-Cola one Okay.

3:44The top, the headline I put is stop trying to rewire your brain, focus on what you're good at. And the only reason I was thinking about this is every time when we film, which is once a week, Eric and I put ideas in a spreadsheet. And naturally I was thinking about Eric cause Eric and I are about to meet up and I know Eric's running multiple businesses and he's doing a lot of stuff. And I was like, huh, a good topic would be, and it had nothing to do with me. I wasn't going to discuss you at all in it because you brought it up. I was going to be like, huh, Eric would do really well if he hired that COO or CEO that we've talked about for a long time and just focus on what he's amazing at.

4:26It's all happening this week. Is it? We're meeting four of them this week. Yeah. And one's really hardcore. This one guy used to play. I won't name any names, but he used to play in the NFL. And he played for, you know, the Patriots? I mean, Patriots are hardcore. Yeah. Hardcore. Sure. So we need hardcore people. But continue, continue. And then I'll tell you kind of what's been going on in my head. Yeah. I'm actually really curious, but there wasn't much to the topic other than I think people focus on the wrong things. They try to be a jack of all trades instead of, is it trades or traits? Jack of all trades.

4:56Yeah. Trades. So people try to focus on everything instead of just doubling down on what they're good at. You don't need to be great at everything. Just be amazing at one thing and you can build a big business off of that. You know, I was thinking about this earlier this week. So we're both thinking about each other. Now we're both wearing the same sweater. But so earlier in the week, I was like, you know, obviously when you start as an entrepreneur, you have the hardcore entrepreneur ADD. We all have it, right? And you have to keep fighting it off. I don't think it ever goes away. At least for me, it doesn't go away.

5:23It's constant. It's a constant battle. It's like working on everything. But for Neil, I was like, you know, what's worked well for him over the years is he's hired the right people. Okay. And he stayed really focused, right? And he's only stayed locked in on what he's really good at. And he's also been laser quick at cutting people if needed. Not that Neil enjoys cutting people. But then the other thing is, Neil's comfortable just being himself completely. There's no like, I'm going to be nice to you. It's more so like, hey, if I feel like numbers are off, sales numbers are off, I'm going to keep hitting you until I feel satisfied.

5:57And if I don't feel satisfied, I'm probably going to make a move. And that's something, that level of pushing that you have, again, I say it's heavily underrated because it doesn't get talked about enough because it's not a sexy thing to talk about. So I'm like, those things, you've been very consistent over the 14 years. I think I've known you. Holy crap, it's been 14 years that we've known each other. Has it been 14 years? 14 years, yeah. But one thing you are spot on, I do believe it's hard for entrepreneurs to get rid of that ADD. I still have it. We both have it. But yours is way better. You have it under control.

6:30Not really, yours is way better. My personal life is chaotic. Oh, your terrible personal life. Yes. Dude, I'm not even going to say what you do, but I'm just like, the way you make decisions, I'm just like, how do you even run a company? But it used to be my personal life was not really good. It was decent, and my business was chaotic from me trying to do too many things. And it's gone to the business being really good, to me personally starting to just be chaotic. The number of cars I've gone through in a three-month period was just ridiculous. How about the other physical object? Homes? Yeah.

7:05The amount of homes I bought in a year to try to figure out which home I wanted to live in and then reselling them. That is just ridiculous. And the amount of pain you're willing to endure for that, I just would never be willing to do that. But anyway, this goes back to focusing on what you're good at. And here's the thing. Let's say you're sitting in a meeting, and this will maybe apply to the things I've realized over the years. If I'm sitting in a meeting with my leadership team and there's something that someone's supposed to solve and I find it constantly bubbling back to me, I've had people say on my team, it seems like accountability is missing here and then it's missing over here at the manager level and then it's missing at the director level and then it bubbles all the way back up to Eric.

7:42But then one person was like, but that's not fair because Eric's also the investor in this company. He's also the coach of this company. He's also the player in this company too. And so what that means is if you don't apply pressure, which is what you do really well, the pressure will be applied to you and you can't run a business that way. You can't play operator hero and I think that's what you were before. and I've played that to a certain extent and now it's just like, okay, enough is enough over the last couple of years. I really do believe doubling down on what you're good at and putting tons of pressure really solves a lot of problem.

8:18Great example of this, and I did this last week and it carried on to this week. We're shopping for a company in Latin America and when we're shopping for a company in Latin America, the banker took and that company took months and months to get back to us on their numbers. They sent us a little teaser, signed NDA. We got some more information. And our team even created an offer for that business. And we're like, hey, we need more information because in some countries, it's common for agencies to put media spend as part of their revenue. So dishonest to me, but I guess it's common. And then they put it in many, throughout multiple years.

9:01So it's hard to see if an agency is actually growing or not because one's if the revenue is down, but there's more media pass through. So it shows that they're actually growing. And I was like, dude, how long is this going to take? We eventually put together our offer. Bless you, Brad. We eventually put together an offer. They came back to us and they wanted something ridiculous for a company that I don't know is even growing yet because they still have not given me the numbers that I requested. so I hit up this other company in Latin America and I remember I was flying back from Dubai to the US and I was just messaging companies on the flight on LinkedIn uh large not really large it depends because the currency exchange but agencies with that at least a hundred employees in Latin America that we could just tuck in you started sourcing yourself on this I started sourcing and this was months and months ago.

9:55And I remember the banker hit us up and one of them was in there. But the way the deal was presented to us, it looked like they were doing something funky. The banker just did a terrible job of presenting the deal. So the banker's just like, hey, you can end up going back to this deal. It's still pretty good. They don't have tons of options. I was like, why would you even say this as a banker? I was like, you know what? Forget this. I pick up the phone. I dial and I just told the dude, I want to deal directly with you. I figure out his numbers right then and there on the spot. He explains the confusion that the banker ended up causing because they had multiple business units.

10:36I'm like, why did they just buy these companies? Like, no, one's SMB division. One's an enterprise. I was like, why don't you put this in the deck and saying our enterprise brand and our SMB brand. Right. And there was a lot of other little things like that, that were confusing. Pick up the phone. I tell him what we're willing to pay up front. if his numbers are actually accurate. He then gets a list from our team within 24 hours on what they need. And then our team was going to work with the banker, come and stuff. I pick up the phone yesterday, no joke. And I said, hey, this is where you're at.

11:08This is all I'm willing to pay. I don't want you to fly down here because he wanted to fly me. And I told him we would after we get the diligence list and we start going through all the churn numbers and everything. I'm like, we still need some more diligence stuff because we have some questions and stuff. but I'm like, but before we get any further, I just want to be straightforward with you. I told you this on the first call. I wasn't lying. This is what I'm willing to pay. And he's like, well, we have some debt. So if I don't get X dollar amount, it's not going to work. And I said, assuming your numbers are true and we're going to have to validate them and get an audit on your financials.

11:40I can get you that upfront amount after, cause you have to leave working capital and some of those things account. I'm like, we'll adjust the multiple. I'll get you this. This is what you're going to get an earn out and the team will send you the details does this work he's like i think we can make this work and i was like well based on your you know financial performance before this is all i can do if you want to do something let's go yeah and i'm pushing hard we already have three deals under loi right now so i call up the ceo then i call the accounting cfo on your team and then i count the legal yeah and then i call them a i'm like cool so let's try to get this deal done within four months.

12:17And they're like, we already have a deal coming. That'll be done in March. I have another one that I'm trying to get done in May, another one in June. And I'm like, cool, add this in there, get it done in that same timeframe. I'm like, this deal's in Latin America. You're not doing the legal. We have in-house counsel, but in-house counsel works with external. I'm like, you don't know Latin America law. And they're in pretty much all the major countries in Latin America other than Brazil. And they're like, yeah, that's true. Hire external counsel. So I'm like, you're not going to do the finances.

12:45We're going to hire auditing for them anyways. Just pay a little bit more. So it speeds things up and you don't have to spend any time. All right, sounds good. I was like, cool. Add another deal into a pipe. We're getting this done. And if I didn't do that, they would have told me that we can get the deal done in Q4 of this year. When I first started my business, the overwhelm was real. I didn't have the tools to help me scale. If only I had Shopify from the start to handle all the behind the scenes work. Shopify is the platform behind millions of businesses globally from huge names like Mattel and Gymshark to the smallest brands just getting started.

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14:51Ready to build a site that looks hand-coded without hiring a developer? Launch your site for free at framer.com and use code MS to get your first month of pro on the house. That's framer.com, promo code MS, framer.com, promo code MS. Rules and restrictions may apply. So your point of this is that this is an example of you focusing on what you're good at and pushing things along. And if you don't push things along, you will not get as much growth because the feed, the pushback that people will give you internally on why they can't do things is excuses that makes them feel more comfortable. And what I mean by that is when people say no, it's not that they can't do it.

15:31Some people don't like pressure and they come up with reasons on why they can't do certain things. So instead of trying to put pressure on them and forcing them to do things, I try to objectively look at why this can't be done, why you don't have bandwidth, who can I put in there, what companies or contractors can I pay to just solve this so it doesn't take as much of your time, and now everyone is happy so we can get this done. Guess who said this? This is directly related to what you said. You can guess too, Brad. Physics are the only laws. Everything else is a suggestion. Elon Musk.

16:11Who? Elon Musk. Exactly, Elon Musk, yeah. And so, which is true. The only laws are physics. Everything else, people are going to come up with their own justifications, whatever. And the thing is, we're both entrepreneurs. So here's how I think you probably think like this to an extent too. I'm like, okay, entrepreneurship is the best deal in the game. How is it that nobody wants to work like this? Yeah, it makes sense. It's not their business, right? But in my mind, I'm just like, we have someone on our team. he's like, hey, I want to go out and do my own thing now. And I was like, that sounds amazing.

16:42Immediately I'm supporting, I'm brainstorming with him. I'm like, dude, we'll support you. I'll even send you leads. Like he wants to like do consulting and all that. I'm like, dude, I will help you. Right. Cause you are unplugging yourself from the matrix. Right. And 1 % of people, less than 1 % of people listening to this will probably go out and do their own thing. But I do think it's the best deal out there. But when you start to think like this, it blows your mind how anybody wouldn't want to push to get things done. But that I'm digressing a little bit. So the first part of your topic though, and I'm going to go into my topic here in a second, but it says, stop trying to rewire your brain.

17:12And I think what you're trying to say here is stop trying to do everything and learn everything more. So just focus on what you're good at and time and time again, that's proven to be true. Yeah. But before we move on to the next topic, I'm curious about your four interviews, thought process behind it. What's your goal? and the real question, and you can answer this towards the end, why are you interviewing someone from the Patriots? There must be a reason, I'm just curious. This person has actually worked at companies, high level, and he actually reminds me of your co-founder. It's not necessarily an experience thing that matters at the end of the day.

17:50It's more so, can you trust this person? This person has worked with my other friend who you know, I won't name him right now. He's worked with him at two companies. I said, why didn't you just hire him back? He's like, I already have a really good COO, but I would do anything. I would kill to bring this guy back. This guy's a killer, and if you need an enforcer, you need accountability, this is the guy for that. So I'm going to talk to him tomorrow. I talked to a handful of other people this week. I've actually talked to one of my friend's moms who was a CEO of a company, and she's been in EO.

18:16She's been in these other things. She understands all the things. And I'm like, look, I don't need you to be a CEO here. This is probably like a COO or chief of staff type. I just need you to be the pusher. I need you to stay with me, and then you need to push things where I need things to be pushed on top of me pushing, right? So let's back up a little bit. What was a breaking point that made you realize or want to, I actually think you've realized this for a long time. What's a breaking point that made you want to hire someone that can just head up operations for you? This is great. You guys get a live therapy session with Neil Knight.

18:48So let me ask you this. Where do you think my weakness is with people, especially ones that I like on my team?

18:57i don't know other than if i had to take one guess it would be you probably give them too much free reign i i start to care about them a little too much and that actually that's not i'm not saying that's a bad thing but that that actually affects the business if they're not doing their job right and so what happens is like like you're like you might love someone for a little bit but the moment they start to not perform for a month or two you're on them pretty quickly I like to bet in the potential of people. I've known this for a while, but I just sat in far too many meetings where people were supposed to solve problems and they kept looking at me.

19:36And I'm just like, okay, we have a problem. And then other people on the team were saying it too. And this has happened for a while, but we've been looking at the right people to talk to. And finally, all of a sudden, there's a couple to talk to. Yeah, I've known you for years and there's no right or wrong approach. for many years you've had the IBM CEO approach where the IBM CEO a long time ago talked about someone making a mistake that I think was like 100 million bucks. And the guy's like, why would I fire him? I just spent$100 million on training or educating. Which I don't completely align with that approach.

20:07I think it's more so like I really care about them. And then you start to know their family and everything like that, right? But the right move is just probably like some type of transition, some type of severance and just move on. Because I look at a, I say this a lot, but we don't act on this as much as we should. Every company is a high-performance sports team. Just like you look at the Lakers, for example. Yeah, we had to rotate Anthony Davis out to get Luka. It was a great trade for the Lakers. Great trade for us. We're both in LA. But the point is, you're going to have to give up assets and sometimes you're going to have to move on from people that you love, like AD, for example.

20:40And LeBron's not going to be with us forever. These are just examples. The GMs get fired, the coaches get fired. You've got to be willing to cut quickly and you got to take your emotions out of it. Yeah, I agree with that. So you came to a breaking point where you're just tired of people pushing up the problems to you. It's been like that for a while. I think it's, you know, I like to think that, okay, someone like you and me, like we're entrepreneurs, we can handle any problems, right? We're problem solvers. That doesn't mean we should solve every single problem. Like that's what we're paying people for.

21:07Yeah. And I think I've, the last couple months or so, I've gotten a lot tougher and it's actually scared a lot of people, right? But still being tough is one thing, but people actually acting on it is another one. So I think you actually have to have people on your team that have that culture of hardcoreness. Because the thing that people have started to notice too, by the way, and I'm sure some people will listen to this from my team, is when my CTO and I are into office, we're working the whole time. We're in at like 7 a.m. in the office, right? And we're just working the whole time. My eyes start to hurt by like 5 p.m., so I have to go home.

21:35But I'm still working. He's still working. And to us, there's a joy in that, right? But the culture has changed, and some people have said that, and it will continue to change. And I said this yesterday to some of my people. I was like, guys, like, it's only going to get harder working here. It's only going to get, same thing for you guys too. And was a breaking point for you or do you think things started changing because of the ABM software? I think so. That, that made me realize, um, that like, it's, it's, it's interesting. Cause again, when, when we're working in the office, the problems we deal with are exciting problems to deal with.

22:13And like, you don't mind these, and there's multiple problems per day. Right. and you just see the speed that it's compounding and then you look at the other side you're getting different types of problems you're actually getting more people problems where there's a lot of resistance and then like you know what I do now guys here's a suggestion for you don't even listen to podcasts when you go to gym stop you know all the stuff from podcasts open up your sales tools open up gong all I do is listen to gong calls now this morning I was listening to gong I just got more and more I'm just like oh my god I'm just more and more pissed right And so I'm going to listen to gone calls when I'm flying to Mexico on Friday and just gone calls all day.