How to Run a Business in the Food Industry | Ep 059

Kacie: We're ready to get into this podcast because we got a guest today. We have Edward here. He is the owner of Official Wings along with 5, 000 other things that you do. Um, just super impressed by you. And so we invited you to come on. And, um, today we're going to be giving you some five tips, right? What you got for us today.

Cause you got lots of knowledge to share.

The Business Project Podcast. Business can be complicated. We break it down to regular people like us who 

John: can understand and find success. I'm John Crespo, accountant and consultant. 

Kacie: I'm Kasey Bryant, marketer and event planner. If you run a business or want to run a business, 

John: welcome to the show.

Kacie: Welcome everybody to another episode of the Business Project Podcast. What's going on? Woop woop! If you guys didn't hear in the introduction, if you're listening on YouTube or someplace where we don't have that posted at the beginning of the video, super excited announcement. We are going live in January.

Live baby! Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

John: That's, that's gonna be awesome. I'm excited about 

Kacie: that. It's gonna be so fun you guys. You guys are gonna have an opportunity to tune in and chat with us and ask questions. We might even try to incorporate a phone call. That would be Dave Ramsey in it. Yeah. 

John: Yeah. So we want engagement is what it is.

Yeah. We want you if when we're recording to, to chime in, to answer questions, to challenge us, like bring your a game because that's going to help us step it up a level 

Kacie: as well. Yeah. We're really excited about that. So we'll have more information coming soon, but we're ready to get into this podcast because we got a guest today.

We have Edward here. He is the owner of official wings along with. 5, 000 other things that you do, um, just super impressed by you. And so we invited you to come on. And, um, today we're going to be giving you some five tips, right? What you got for us today. Cause you got lots of knowledge to share. 

Edward: Well, for having me first.

Uh, I'm definitely excited to be here and I am one of the owners and one of the founders of official wings. We started in 2020 with a food truck. 

John: So what is official wings? So that the people that don't live where we live. Know what you, what official WING stands for? 

Edward: Official WINGS is a wing restaurant.

We specialize in whole wings. Mm-Hmm. Not 

John: part of 

Kacie: wings. That's what, when we do, and it's so good. When we talk about official wings, that's the first thing people say is they got the whole wing. They got 

Edward: the whole wing. Yeah. We have the whole wings. We have over 20 flavors. Wow. And you can pretty much bill your flavor.

You can come in and add any sprinkles or drizzles on top of whatever flavor you pick. What's your favorite 

Kacie: flavor? The Mond Pepper. What's the most popular flavor? The honey 

Edward: gold lemon pepper 

Kacie: spring. And so you're not just here in Clarksville, you have one in Nashville, right? Correct. Where are your locations?

Edward: I have a location on 2035 Jefferson Street, right in between Tennessee State University and Fish University. And then we also have one on Highway 76 in Clarksville. And then we have our newest location on Franklin Street, 136 Franklin Street, 100, which is 

John: downtown, which is downtown. And those of you who don't know Clarksville, we have an amazing thing going on downtown.

There's a lot of construction, a lot of, uh, revitalization, they call it right where they're trying to bring a lot of, a lot of business and people downtown. So it's pretty, it's looking pretty awesome 

Edward: down there. Yes. We're right in the middle of the growth and I'm excited about it. That's 

Kacie: great, man. I love it.

I think what we're most excited to talk to you about today is I think as business owners, it's really hard to come from the idea. Like we get started in a business and we're super excited about it and we think that everybody's going to flock to our business, but, um, and it might be something that we were really passionate about, like cooking or, you know, building tables or sewing, but then when it comes to all of the rest of it.

Business owners struggle with. And I think one thing that you have done really well, and it's obvious by the fact that you've done it at multiple locations is your branding's great. You got a great tagline. You got good quality food. And so we're just really excited to hear from you today about how that happened.

So why don't you lead us lead us into your into some five things that you got for us? 

Edward: I would say five things to have a successful business in my mind. First, you have to have a good vision. And then you have to create a product that more people want more than just yourself. So it has to be something that someone may want at least twice a week.

And so when we created our menu, me and Kim, our business partner, we decided to create something that Everyone will want. And we're from Memphis where the whole wings are at most of the wing restaurants. So when we brought something to Nashville and Clarksville, it was something that didn't exist. And if it did exist, it wasn't on a mainstream scale where It was something that people ate on a regular basis.

Most people are used to party wings. And so we created the flavors and the menu and it's been a hit ever since. 

Kacie: That's amazing. So, how did you, how did you come up with your branding and all the things? 

Edward: It just came to us. We, uh, me and Ken were sitting down trying to decide a name and we were like, we want a name that's official.

And official stuck and it's here today and we're thankful that we came up with a name that we both enjoy saying we're part of official wings and we created something that we hope can, you know, go very far. 

Kacie: Yeah. 

John: I love that. I think that when, uh, somebody wants to think about something that's, um, legit, right.

They call it official. Correct. Right. So I like that, that you're, you're adding that to the wings. Right? To your, to, to what you guys offer because then when people think about it, they're like, all right, then that means they're actually 

Kacie: legit. That's where we need to go for 

Edward: wings. And it increases the expectation for great customer service, a clean restaurant, good quality food and consistent food.

And that's another thing that'll be number two is to have a consistent business. You can't create something and then not stick by your product, your hours of operation. Or stick by your taste. It can't change. It has to stay the 

Kacie: same. I love that. Yeah, that's great So let's go back to number one real quick because I want to make sure that we touch on all these These are all going to be really good.

So your first one was a vision have a vision And I I believe 100 that's so important a lot of times what we see happen is Businesses have this idea they get started and then and they they have a vision, but they're not able to Properly, you know, put, put it on paper and, and communicate it to the people that they're leading.

Because you can have a vision and you can have an idea. You can see where you want to be in 10 years, but if you can't properly communicate that to people and get them on board, then they ain't going to jump on your 

Edward: boat. Correct. And your vision, you have to make it plain and make it clear. And then create, make details to where you can go from A to Z where how are you going to make this thing happen?

And even though you may be the only one understand it, And that's enough to just get started. And then your next step is figuring out what's the best way to relay it to your team or whoever else is going to be a part of helping you grow. 

John: Cause usually in the beginning it's just you, right? It's the, the visionaries that are actually doing the process.

So you have to go ahead and do the work in the beginning so that then you can figure out how to relay that to your team as you grow. Right? So you, you put the, you make the mistakes. You over fry the wings, you over season the wings. You do like, you do all the bad stuff up front. The trial and error stage.

Yes. So you can learn from it and then create the right processes for the team that you bring on. I love it. 

Kacie: Yeah. Okay. So tip number one was great. Vision, have a clear. Vision and be able to communicate that like know yourself and then communicate it. So what's the second one was product? 

Edward: Yeah, the second is product.

Okay. Consistency. Once you figure out the product stick with it and figure out ways to make it better while still keep keeping the taste the same. Because a lot of things that we started out with on our menu were time consuming and so the the more busier we get we're learning how to figure out how to get the product out at a faster rate, but still tasting the same, because there's no way to, you know, scare your business or be able to expand to multiple locations, taking too long to produce the order.

You want to lose your customer unless you want to specialize in being a business that takes a long time.

Kacie: So, and that can probably apply to people that are in the service industry too, if you're cleaning floors or washing cars, making sure that you, you want to have a good product. So what does that look like? How can you make it better as you're, as you build, right? Yeah. Um, so with the product and the consistency, how did you guys, how'd you do that?

Walk us through that. 

Edward: We did that by a lot of mistakes. Mistakes are the best tool to help you trial and error, make anything effective and work for yourself. If you don't create the mistakes and be okay with, you know, I'll say a temporary sale is okay, but To feel permanent is when you quit. But as long as you keep going and keep working on it, it's going to get better and better and you'll look up and say, okay, I got this thing down.

Right. 

John: Yeah. I'm ready for failure. 

Kacie: Yeah. Right. We did whole episodes on failure. I'm gonna ask you a really uncomfortable question. What's the, what's your biggest failure that you've had in life? Just running a business. Either way, probably running a business. 

Edward: Not knowing the worth of my product. Yeah, 

Kacie: that's a good one.

Talk us through that. 

Edward: And I will say we have went through, um, More price changes than I can imagine, but had I knew my worth and understood everything that it took to get where I'm at today, I wish we would have started off in the very beginning with a different price set up because people will pay for a product that they want, but they have to know exactly what they're getting and they have to know that it's going to be consistent and know that it's worth it.

John: Yes. Yes. People will pay for value, right? And when you show your value, The people will come, right? So in essence, you have to, by, by presenting your value, you're weeding out. Those that you don't want anyway as customers or clients, right? You're, you're able to attract those that understand and appreciate the value and look for that value, but you're also getting rid of the ones that you don't want that are going to complain about everything and all that stuff, right?

So value is important. That brings 

Edward: me to the third thing I would say target audience. 

John: Look at that. How we're just segwaying into each 

Edward: one. This is good stuff. You have to have a good target audience and You know, the, uh, the McDonald's customer may not be my customer. McDonald's has a great product, but McDonald's has a menu that caters to a specific group of people.

Yes. Agreed. There's fast food. There's people that want a burger, chicken nuggets. They may want items that I don't carry, but it's also, they also have a very unique way of being able to make you feel like you're getting the best for the least amount when you, when you're paying for their food. And that's, that's not the way I'm going,

but as long as you have your product and it's worth it, it's easy to make a target audience because your target audience will be the customer that don't don't mind paying, right? Because they know what they're getting. Yeah. 

Kacie: Yeah. So now you're know your target audience. That's how important is that? So important.

So how do you, how do you find your target target audience? 

Edward: They almost found me. 

Kacie: If you build it, they will come. 

Edward: Yes. And by starting with the food truck, it was, uh, it was easy to find different locations where we knew we would do really well, and then some of the locations we wouldn't do well. 

Kacie: So failing again.

Not being afraid to fail. Try things and fail. 

Edward: Yep. And then you have to decide, okay, once I decide this thing, am I okay with the results? You know, if I have a special event meeting you on the food truck, and, uh Cut down half the things that I normally sell am I gonna be okay with less people supporting me You know, they may feel like well, I don't want five wings.

I want two wings You know, I want 13 wings. I don't want a 10 piece, right? And so because of how people operate and how we want what we want Everything that we create, you have to be okay with a person not wanting it. And that's okay with me. 

Kacie: I think you threw in a bonus tip, and this might be tips down the road that you have, but um, I think catering to your target market is another thing.

That's a thing that we see a lot of businesses forget is that you're not in business to sell to yourself. Right. You have to sell to your target audience. Correct. If your target audience is telling you, I want six wings instead of seven, then that's what you do. You don't do six wings just because that's what you've always done or that's what you feel comfortable with.

So it sounds like you're, you've been able to pivot really well

Edward: too. And then depending on the event, that may depend on the menu that we offer and it depends on too how many people were feeding. So if we go to a school and there's 200 kids we're feeding for that day. We may only offer four wings and fries, but that doesn't mean you're going to come to one of the storefronts and get four wings and fries all day long.

It may not be available. Right. 

Kacie: That's good. Alright, that's good. So what you got number 

Edward: four? Number four would be put the right people in place. Oh 

Kacie: my goodness. That's the hardest one. 

Edward: And it takes a while because when you start you think you can do everything yourself. And you make a lot of mistakes doing it.

John: How hard is it in your industry to find good people? So I know it's, it's a, it's a revolving door. Oh, 

Edward: nice. Easy to find people. Yeah. But they come and go. It's hard to find the people that's going to understand what it is you're trying to do and that they're going to stay. Because sad enough, most people will come along and think that their vision is, is better than your vision.

And that's not what we want, want you to do. The idea is for everybody to work together and make it work. And then if you see something that I can change or we can modify. You know, it's fine. Yeah. But overall, you have to come in with an open mind to be able to learn and adapt to whatever it is any company is trying to get you to, to do.

Right. 

John: So true. Get the, get the people that will buy into your vision, not going to try to change your vision. 

Kacie: Correct. Which is hard to find because I think a lot of the motivated people out there. Visionaries too. And so when you, it's, it's a very hard balance to lead people in a way to where you're not squishing them or pushing them down, but also encouraging them to help you grow your business and make your business 

Edward: better.

And I'm okay with, uh, with that. I have, um, several people on my team right now that they want to own their own business and we're going to help them with every step of the process to start their own business. But however, in the process, I'm not willing to, um, Lose my vision for my for my business. Why why they're trying to start this so it's a thin line, but it's possible You know, I can help them and give them ideas for their business and give me ideas as well.

I'm not saying I won't listen But I'm saying that The correct people in place they can do exactly what I need done. It's the best way to have a successful business. 

Kacie: I Love that. All right, that's a good number four What you got for number five? 

Edward: Number five is let it go so you can grow. 

Kacie: Let it go so you can grow.

Edward: If you hold on to things that's not working for you, it's going to hold you down. And every day it will be a heavy day for you because you will be carrying around all of these things that's not working for you, your business, or your family. So you have to figure out a way to Get these heavy things off of you so that you can produce and do better for yourself.

That's 

Kacie: such good advice. Because, you know, a lot of small businesses start because it's a passion project. And they hold on to things. And then also one thing that we've gone through as a team is we will spend all this time creating something and we all think it's going to do great and we're super excited and we put all this energy into it and we try it and it doesn't work and we're like Well, we just spent 50 printing out brochures for this and we spent all of these time putting this into it.

And, and so we don't want to let it go because we're like, why don't they get it? They should get it. This is great. 

Edward: Well, my response to that is all you did was did investment. Yeah. There's never a guarantee of a return. It's just investment. And that's the beginning stages of anything. Once you do the invest, then you waste.

You sit and wait and wait and see what happens. But it's not a waste of time because you at least started. Yeah. 

John: Yeah. I think that's a problem with the, uh, the entrepreneurial, um, story that's being portrayed out there right now. Is they're, they're sending, they're putting out a story that, um, you know, it's a get rich quick overnight.

Thing to be an entrepreneur. We were talking about this before we started recording him and people hear that you're a small business owner. Automatically they think you got all this money in the bank, right? And that's not the case. Now 

Edward: the case is the money does hit the bank, but it leaves. 

John: Right.

Sometimes faster. 

Edward: And, um, and the profit and loss is real. Yeah. Uh, product costs changes daily. Right. You know, you may, you may better get a case of french fries for 20 on a Monday. And by Thursday, that same case, same amount, same brand, maybe 35. But the customer does not see that because the price on the menu stays the same.

But then once the price changes, then it's, oh, what happened? They're too high. But no, we're trying to keep the lights on. We're trying to stay up. And so that's the changes that any business, you know, has to go through. Because the whole operations cost can change. Without you Um, doing anything but opening the next day.

I love that. Yeah. 

Kacie: There's so many additional things I think that people don't understand, you know, taxes and you're building and your insurance and paying employees. And I mean, all of the things that just, there's a lot. Taxes 

Edward: is a big, 

John: um, sales tax. Yes. A lot of, a lot of, uh, retail, uh, companies get caught up in the sales tax.

Um, where it's like they don't realize. Until it's later down the line that that money is not their money and it's got to go to the state and then You know all of a sudden it's like where am I gonna come 

Kacie: up with? 

John: Yeah 

Edward: Texas is very serious and there's there's no one out. There's gonna come knock on your door And say, this is what you need to operate your business.

You have to pay this tax monthly, this tax yearly. This is the best way to save on taxes. And this is the best way. No one tells you. So the best thing to do is just get started. Be okay with owing. And when you do, when you find out you owe, just pay it. And then that's your lesson learned. It costs you some money to learn that lesson.

But at least you'll be able to move forward and know exactly what your business needs to thrive. And that's a whole lot of components of owning a business that people don't talk about. Yep. 

John: I think that's, that's the reason why we started this, right? It is. To give, um, points and give guidance so that if an entrepreneur wants to start a business or is starting a business, you know, they, they can, they can listen to these podcasts and learn from other entrepreneurs and learn from the business project on what kind of steps you could put in so that you don't fall into these scenarios.

You know, learn from, from the ones that have failed, right? So that you don't have to. Uh, you know, it's just, it's great having entrepreneurs like yourself on to tell the story so that, you know, we can help those coming up behind us not fall through the same traps we fell 

Edward: through. Yeah. And, and my sixth thing, you asked me for 

Kacie: five, like, yeah, go for it.

We love bonuses. We can't count all the time. So six, 

Edward: I would say, uh, be okay with losing a little power just because you created something and just because this is your vision. You have to be okay with losing a little bit of power so that somebody else can come in and be able to take on some projects or some things that you Can't handle that.

You're struggling with, but if you're so power driven and you think you have to do it all yourself, then you're going to prolong your, your own success. Burnout. Yes, you will burn out like man. Um, Kim, we started official wings and we found it with the food truck. But since then we have added two business partners, Nick and Keith, which they are both our 15 years, went to college together and we added them.

Um, To the team because they both had great values that we needed to be a part of the growth of the business But in other people eyes, it's like oh, why'd you do this? So why'd you do that? We did it because we knew it would work But you have to be okay with reducing a little bit of your power when it comes to making every decision by yourself or Making sure every decision is something that you a hundred percent are okay with Now I know as long as I'm 60 70 percent okay, that's fine.

Go ahead, do it. You know, because there's too many, um, pieces to the puzzle to put together to think that it makes sense to do everything yourself. I love 

Kacie: it. When you look at a lot of successful, all successful businesses, they're successful not because of one person but because of the team. Correct. And that's your goal, I think, as a business owner is not to be the best at everything but add people to your team that are the best at everything.

Edward: Yeah, and you have to be the best at delegating, too. Yeah. Yes. Because every day I come up with a new idea or a new way of doing something or new idea 

Kacie: man. Yeah. And

Edward: those ideas are great, but we have to work behind it and, uh, proper preparation. Mm hmm. It's just the idea. 

John: And sometimes you need pushback on that idea.

It may be a great idea, but not necessarily for your business at that time. And you need somebody who's willing to say, Hey, uh, can we think about that idea for a second? 

Edward: You don't need a lot of yes people. Like my business partner, Ken, we best friends also. He's, he will tell me in a second. No, no, no. Edward is not a good idea.

Um, Um, that's not going to give us the return we want and that's not going to benefit anybody. That's not a good idea. That's a good thing. And I appreciate that because if not, I'll go around, oh yeah, that sounds good, it feels good, and just because it feels good doesn't mean that it makes 

Kacie: sense. And sometimes you need that balance, like I think we're pretty good at that because I'm the idea person with all the ideas and John's like, okay, but how are we actually going to make that happen?

Yeah. Let's think through this. We haven't finished the last five ideas that you came up with. 

John: And that's good that you have that synergy because, you know, then you're able to really refine ideas at that point. The ones that are really going to make sense, you can refine them when you have that. And then it just makes it that much more impactful.

Edward: Some ideas are the gamble is so large that you have to know, am I in position to gamble this new idea? You know, not because I feel good or the sun is out, so it's a good day to do this. It has to really make sense for where you are financially, mentally, spiritually. And once all of those things align, then that's when you will see the growth of something that you have dreamed and wanted to happen.

John: Love it. 

Kacie: Love it. Well, this is awesome. This is so great. I think this is really going to help a lot of people. Thank you for your five and a half tips. Okay. I think throughout the whole thing we probably gave about 30. Is there anything else that, well, first of all, tell them where they can find you. 

Edward: You can find us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, Official Wings.

Awesome. 

Kacie: Is there anything else you feel like you, if you didn't say right now, then you would be super bummed? 

Edward: It's never too late. It's never too late to recreate yourself. It's never too late to create a new friendship circle. It's never too late to start a family. It's never too late to start a business.

As long as God has granted you a new day and you have breath in your body, it's a good day to reset and restart. 

Kacie: That's so good. Love that. Yeah. I'm gonna write that on my wall. Yes. Well, thank you so much, Edward, for being here and for joining us. You guys find his page. If you are anywhere in the Nashville area, um, Clarksville area, anywhere that Official Wings is, go check it out.

Eat some whole wings. You won't be 

John: disappointed. 

Edward: And we also have deep fried cauliflower if you don't want wings. Miss 

Kacie: Sherry Downs. What in the world is that? Gotta try that. Miss Sherry downstairs said your fried pickles are the best ever. Yeah, we have 

Edward: good fried pickles, and okra, onion, you know, everything is pretty good, but who am I to say it?

Come try it 

Kacie: for yourself. We hungry. Next time we're doing our podcast at your studio, at your place. That'll work. Alright. Well, thank you guys so much. Um, as always, it helps so much. We hear from you guys all the time. As we're passing you on the street, emails are coming in. Just, we love your podcast. This is helping us so much, but you know what is really helpful.

We love hearing that, but it's really, really helpful. If you guys go on to our Facebook or Instagram, wherever you watch our podcasts of Spotify, Apple podcasts, I heart radio, YouTube, and just leave some comments, give us a review. Um, those are all, they make such a big difference, a huge difference. Share the wealth.

Share the wealth. Yeah. So, alright guys. Well, thank you. We will catch you. We actually have him back on for another episode. We're filming two today. So next week you're gonna get another, some great advice from Edward. We're gonna talk more about the food industry and how specifically if you're interested in running a restaurant or a food truck or getting into the food industry, how you can do that.

It's helpful for those of you that don't. That don't have a food business, too. But we look forward to that. See you next week. See you next week.