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A
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B
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- [01:27]
C
See guaranteed details@turbotax.com guarantees so you purchased 10 franchises from. I got Derek Hayes Big Days Cheesesteak. So that's interesting because a, he's a younger entrepreneur than you and he's also a black entrepreneur. So I think that's great that a, you know, know you could work with somebody who's black and then work with somebody who's younger as well. Right. So talk about the process and what was the, the, the steps to actually purchase those, those bulk franchises and what's your, what's your vision for those franchises?
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D
Yeah, I think it's a great question. So I got to meet Derek when I was in that Pepsi role. Actually I was an operating president of the south before I stepped to that multicultural. But I met Derek and Pinky at an entrepreneur summit up at Richard Dennis's place. I was actually a guest speaker one night. He had probably 100 people that were in his fun new voices. Fun, I believe. And so Derek and Piggy were there. They raised their hand like hey, we're from Atlanta. We're always, you know, getting called by your competitor. We're trying to stay lower with you, but we need your support. So I went back, spoke to them after the the summit, told them I would be in Atlanta, I would spend time with them. I had heard of them, but I didn't really know them that well. So I literally flew to Atlanta the next week, spent probably two to three hours with both of them all together, but in their restaurants with themselves and understanding their dream and their vision and sort of where they were headed. Got to taste. Obviously the food walked away. A big fan. I sort of pulled them underneath my wing inside the Pepsi structure. Most notably took them around to all the HBCUs doing homecoming tours. I brought them along food trucks, you know, basically under, under, underwrited the whole situation for them so people can sample their food, show that there are entrepreneurs that are rising who also care about the community. And so we made it a real full effort, end to end effort around certainly the entertainment activation. Also wanted to make sure they got support as black owned business, especially coming out of COVID how difficult that was for many of the restaurateurs at the time and then showed their bias and commitment to the community. It was a full scale display of their skills, their ambition, their dream and their vision. And I got behind them. And so naturally when I retired, Derek and I always, always talked about putting cheesesteaks in to Orlando because I'm a big cheesesteak guy. I grew up in D.C. but always when I could eat a cheesesteak, it was a good day because I didn't get to eat the food a lot. But when I had it, it was an awesome meal. I moved around so much. You can imagine I missed that regional food. So when I moved out to Ohio or Phoenix or Portland or Denver, you can't get Philadelphia cheesesteaks out there might be a mom and pop here and there, but generally speaking, you can't get it. Certainly a scale like you can in the northeast. And so I love his food. I love the brand of food again, I love his purpose. I love everything they were doing. And so I told him, hey look, I'll put one, you know, give me one to do when I retire just for fun so I can go get my own cheese sticks when I want. And then he and I got a little more serious about it. His vision obviously is the scale to be, you know, that big time operator. I understand his vision. I can help with his vision. I work in a company all about scale. So you know, I look at this much more. Certainly just not only just me being having sort of a franchise or franchisee agreement, I try to mentor him in terms of helping him with the scale. And so even my little short time inside, there are tremendous opportunities for us to do things greater and bigger, certainly more at scale. And so we continuously talk and work on those things. Meanwhile, I'm obviously going to get a feel for the business, having some restaurants in my portfolio. But our ambition is to scale this thing up, really across the country in many different ways. I created access inside of sports. I'm inside two sports venues already, creating a lot of excitement in town. Again, this is based on some of my previous relationships. I'm a big avid sports fan. I'm very connected to sports. We obviously spend a lot of money at Pepsi in the sports world. So I know that like the back of my hand and bringing that together to create a great fan experience, but also create, you know, synergies with sports teams. So you can do consumer programming inside the stadiums and outside the marketplace. It's just. It's just, you know, what I do. And so we're reaping the benefit of that now. It's only going to continue to build a lot more awareness for us as we kind of move around city to city to city. But so that's how I got into it. I'm having fun with this. I'm learning along the way the next set of boxes open, I'll be much better, much more efficient, you know, at it, because I'm a fast learner as I've been my entire life. And, you know, we're gonna have some fun selling cheese steaks down there because it's a great brand of food that Northeasterners, particularly ones that live there or visit there, probably don't get to get too often to come down there. And there's locals who, you know, I want to create an atmosphere of fun excitement for them as well.
- [05:55]
E
Yeah, mentorship is important. Relationships even more important. I'm sure you were able to lean on some of those, obviously working at PepsiCo. And now as an entrepreneur, when you come back into that, the Orlando scene, I know there's some Orlando legends that you're pretty close with as well. But there's another part of impact, and that goes sometimes where you go to school. So talk about the impact that HBCUs have had on you in terms of mentorship and leadership going on into your professional career.
- [06:20]
D
Look, I mean, I'm a hardcore HBCU guy. You know, where I wear it on my sleeve. I know I'm a Hampton guerrilla, true graduate, but, you know, I care about all the schools. I did a tremendous amount of work recruiting a lot of schools outside just the, you know, eastern Virginia footprint where I grew up in D.C. where I grew up, you know, I was responsible for signing the first SWAC deal with Commissioner McClellan. We did that back in 2019. They got an extension out. It runs out another six or seven years from now. So I feel great about the impact that I have delivered. It's sort of like walking the talk, right? HBCU student I got recruited off campus to join a big company. My job to sort of get paid that forward, bring the recruitment resources there, bring the brand activation resources there, bring entrepreneurs there where I can, bring the community effort there. And most importantly, again, just elevate, try to help people understand how important it is for the student experience. We did the first, I think big brand band commercial ever, the Sonic Boom and the marching 100. We did that commercial, you know, years ago as well, my marketing team. So, you know, there's always going to be a lean in. I'm a trustee at Hampton. I'm very close there. I spent a lot of time in the athletic department. I'm still contributing resources there where I can in other schools. So that's never going to leave me. It's important for people who certainly walk the hallways of HBCUs to really stand up and defend. There's certainly challenges that the schools are having across the board. You know, certainly fundraising is one of those areas that they're having challenges in. So our job is to continuously try to help push that up and navigate through that, bringing expertise, insights, businesses and our resources to the table to help move this along. So, you know, I'm excited to be in the middle of that now. I have more time to dedicate to it and I'm excited about the future certainly at Hampton University and other schools that I can participate and work with. It's just a pleasure and honor to do it.
- [08:12]
B
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