← The Money Mondays
The Money Mondays
How the Next Million-Dollar Brands Are Built (And What It Takes to Lead Them) 🧠 EP144
00:33:22
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- [00:00]
Greg Zamfotus
Foreign.
- [00:06]
Podcast Host
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to a special edition of the Money Mondays podcast where we cover three core topics. How to make money, how to invest money. How to give away to charity. You might notice I'm not inside of the RV motorhome where I interviewed this guest previously. It's very, very rare that I bring on a guest for a second time. But this guest probably going to come on every single year because she's so amazing what she does.
- [00:25]
Greg Zamfotus
She.
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Podcast Host
She's averaged over 1 billion views in a month. Month after month after month after month. It is staggering to watch and watching her career for years. And we're gonna dive right into it. But as you guys know, these podcasts is normally 40 minutes or less because the average workout is 45 minutes. The average commute to work is 45 minutes. However, this episode is only gonna be around 20 minutes because we're at the Zeta Global Live conference. We're not inside the motorhome downstairs. There's over 2,000 chief monitoring officers and and CEOs of different brands that are learning here today for this big one day conference called Zeta Global Live. I will be interviewing Adley on the panel very shortly. So we're gonna get out of here, but this episode is gonna be 20 minutes. So we're gonna dive right in. Adley, give us the quick 2 minute bio so we get straight to the money.
- [01:08]
Adley
All right. Hey, guys. Good to be back with you. My name is Adley and I'm a viral video engineer. And no one just comes out of the womb becoming a viral video engineer. So naturally I started with pranks while I was on tour with Blake Shelton. He was my coach on the Voice. But I got really frustrated waiting for permission from a suit behind a desk to say, you're good enough to entertain people now. So started making videos and made videos for a long time that nobody watched, not even my mom. That's how bad they were. And so kept making content just because I loved the story of it. I loved being able to entertain direct to consumer. And we got the data back so much faster versus music or songwriting. If you guys are familiar with the arts, you're building catalogs and waiting for somebody to say, this is good, now is your time. But with video, you don't have to do that. Whether you're marketing advertising, you can get the feedback so much quicker. So started doing that in 2020. We were averaging about 2, about 20 million views a week. And in March of 2020, we went to 200 million views a week on just my husband and I'S prank videos. So that was changing our lives. But as a storyteller, I was like, man, what else do people watch? They're watching cop chases, they're watching dramas of Karen's and these soap operas. Why don't we recreate that for Social? So we started doing that, but nobody was used to watching scripted on social, right? So we got away with it for a very long time before everybody started calling fake on everything. So we had actors, we had 15 people showing up to the house every day for three and a half years making 1820 minute long videos a day. And a single video could do six figures. So we were cranking this out and changing our lives and everybody that we could touch our lives as well throughout the process. And here we are. Now we get to consult and use our powers for good and work with some of the biggest brands in the world and help them to have more impact with their mission, message, product or service.
- [02:59]
Podcast Host
Okay, there's so much to unpack there. Viralish is the company, right? Is the actual agency that you actually help do this for brands and other creators. Walk us through. Why start Viralish when you're just doing it for yourself? And for those 18 people, for example, why. Why start an agency to do it for Land Rover and brands like that?
- [03:16]
Adley
That's a great question. So I did not want to start an agency. Does anybody ever like where you're just in client delivery? But I think it is natural human behavior. Once you crack a code for yourself and you've changed your own life, it is very natural to say, I have something that can be an unlock for anybody and you can compress years into months of an unlock for somebody. And that is the best feeling in the world. It really is better, as you know, to give than to receive. That is the ultimate gift. And so when we started doing it for others, I realized I'm training one on one, one on three, and that's very exhausting and that's not scalable. So we curriculumized the knowledge so we could train Viralish creators from anywhere in the world and give this skill set. But it attracted 95% business owners.
- [03:58]
Podcast Host
Wow.
- [03:59]
Adley
And I was like, oh, I had not thought about attributing what we do of how to get anybody to watch anything and how to compel people with storytelling online and how to package yourself up to tell this, tell your story. So we pivoted a little bit. We started doing it for businesses. But then, because I was an entertainer too, I'm also getting brand deals from Land Rover. And so it all started from me getting brand deals as an entertainer, but also kind of starting this education company that you don't realize you're building while it's happening, but then you blink and six months, a year later you're like oh my gosh, that's. Let's formalize this as viralish where we can just take everything that's happening to us, everything that we're learning and pack pass it through. Right. And so that became our education company to where as I learn things, as I develop things, we can just pass it on to people so that they can implement it without having to hire us to do it for them.
- [04:49]
Podcast Host
Got it. So on the make money side of this podcast, you mentioned something about some of your videos could go make hundreds of thousands. Let's say someone listening wants to make a few thousand dollars. Obviously there's an anomalies, you know, that you might teach people how to go make hundreds of thousand. Let's talk about a few thousand dollars. How, how could someone, whether they're 15 years old, 92 years old, everyone in between, how can they make videos that make a couple thousand dollars?
- [05:10]
Adley
Where attention goes, money flows. So step one and what we over index, and what we over index on teaching people how to do is getting attention. So ultimately you have to do that in a way that's going to be sustainable and authentic to you, otherwise you're going to give up. Right. So for some people that's making videos that entertain the masses or educate the masses and you're getting paid from platforms like Facebook, Snapchat, YouTube, TikTok or some people get the ATT and they have their own product or business or service. So you got to pick how you want to monetize. Is it from platforms paying you, if so you need a crap ton of views or is it getting that attention to parlay it into your own business and your own product?
- [05:49]
Podcast Host
On the investing side of this podcast, normally talk about investments into real estate, stock market, cash flowing businesses, cryptocurrency. I want to ask about investing into yourself. Why is it important for an influencer, creator or person that wants to become one? Why is it important to invest into their personal brands?
- [06:05]
Adley
Because when you get an you have to invest into your personal brand and your personal brand is not gonna be of service to anybody if you are not pouring new knowledge, new inputs into yourself that are helping you become the higher version of yourself. If I was Adley five years ago, I would not be equipped to handle the success that we're having today. So developing yourself not Only from an outward optics perspective, but also the ethics that are inside of you. To be able to handle the pressure. You have to learn how to hire, how to make good decisions. You have to constantly be ingesting new information and controlling your inputs. Who's around you, what you're listening to, because there is so much noise. That is our job, to find the signal to take care of ourselves in our personal brand. What I'm trying to say is you first have to become a different version of yourself so that your personal brand is even sustainable.
- [06:55]
Podcast Host
Interesting.
- [06:55]
Adley
But if we want to talk about why you need a personal brand, tell them, okay, here's my. Here's my forecast is in five years from now. I want you to picture social like an automated advertising system, that here's the shelf of the world and all of its products, services and people. You are on that shelf whether you want to be or not. You have a personality, you have a reputation, whether you want one or not. And most people are not showing up online in a way that's sustainable for them. It's very. It's the necessary evil. But it's a way that you have to do it. But if we can help you present yourself well in this black mirror type of future, that's where I think it's going. Because you're on the shelf whether you want to be or not. So how can we help you show up in a way that represents who you are on the inside and the gifts that God's given you and how you're putting your product out into the world in the best way possible, with the least amount of manual creativity.
- [07:53]
Podcast Host
There's Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, TikTok, Threads, YouTube. One billion users. Two billion users. One billion users. Two billion Users. Instagram just announced three weeks ago, three billion active users. When you think about it, there's eight billion humans. Two billion, unfortunately don't even have electronics. So six billion humans that have a phone. Half of the free world is on Instagram. That's insane. How do you decide what platforms to create on? Do you create on all six? Do you create on one specific one? How do people decide they're out there? What do I do?
- [08:22]
Adley
Not only is half of the free world on Instagram alone, Instagram just put out a stat that their output is 10,000 times more content going out a day than it was two years ago. What's 10,000 times more? So there's so much more to consume, which is crazy. So no wonder you're having a hard time standing out. No wonder your views are low, which is what we try to help people combat, is a way to cut through that noise where you actually become signal. Right. But it's very interesting because people tend to want to pick one platform and just be a YouTube shorts creator. You can, but I wouldn't advise it. I think that's step two. In the beginning, you're making the content already and you don't know where you're going to hit. You might have an educated guess, but I would put it everywhere because you may not have thought it was going to hit on LinkedIn, but it did. Now, based on the data, you put most of your focus on LinkedIn. For us, we are Facebook first creators, so we are putting it everywhere. But when Facebook was the one that crushed it and started building the biggest audience, Facebook and Snapchat, we optimized. Then from the data, we said, okay, we're going to optimize for Facebook first. Still post everywhere, but you can get where you want to go and elevate your personal brand by just being a LinkedIn creator, by just being a TikToker. And all your other platforms can be crappy, but you're not going to know that if you never started posting on TikTok in the first place.
- [09:43]
Podcast Host
All right, so the charity side of this. Why do you think it's important for influencers or brands to have some type of charity component to their world, to their ecosystem?
- [09:51]
Adley
Because your gifts are not for you. They're not for you to feel cool about yourself and just feed your ego. Right? Our gifts are given to us and our job is to refine them, to literally pay them forward and leave something in the world that makes it a better place. That's why we have unique gifts and. And you're such a good example of that and somebody that I aspire to be more like. Because you are the true epitome of a river and not a reservoir. And that goes with money, that goes with fame, that goes with everything that comes to you. If you operate from scarcity and you just hold onto it like, I'm never going to have this again. This will be all you ever have. But if you understand that it is not yours to begin with and you let it flow through you like a river and you don't become that reservoir, more will be given to you. And so whether it's charity, whether it's meeting a need and just being able to see that where, where whenever it presents itself to you, I think it's not only just our duty to try to be a good person but it's also how we're uniquely wired.
- [10:49]
Podcast Host
All right, where can people find you? Where can they find Viralish? Where can they find your whole ecosystem and world?
- [10:54]
Adley
Adley. My name is Adley is a D L E Y. And it's pretty much Adley on every single platform except for YouTube. If you look up Adley, I will Never Win on YouTube. There's been. There's a 10 year old who's been at it since the day that she was born.
- [11:06]
Podcast Host
Let's make her an offer she can't. Reviews.
- [11:09]
Adley
Oh, man. So adley kinsman on YouTube or viralish.
- [11:14]
Podcast Host
What about Blake? He's crushing it now too. What's going on there?
- [11:16]
Adley
Yes, we got my husband in.
- [11:18]
Podcast Host
Hold on. Tell me about Blake. What's going on?
- [11:20]
Adley
So my husband, he's an engineer by trade, so he was developing hospitals. The least creative person that you can imagine. But he was proof to me and many others that this is a muscle you can build. So because he's an engineer, he would look at our formula for creating content that stands out. And when we're doing billions of views, you have, we have over 62 billion data points. Way more than that. That's just views. Think of all the data points inside those views. But he would look at it like an intimate.
- [11:46]
Podcast Host
Like a beautiful mind, like.
- [11:47]
Adley
Exactly right. And so he's like, oh, I see what's happening here. I can make videos go viral very easily and I bet I don't even have to say a word. I bet I can pick a tiny niche and. And still reverse engineer this formula and be successful. And I was like, well, this is fascinating. So let's do it.
- [12:03]
Podcast Host
Do it.
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Adley
Yeah, let's try it. So we set out our first benchmark test for him was how quickly can you go from zero to a million followers on TikTok? 4 months, 29 videos just using our formula. So he approaches it totally different than I do. And now we've blended a little bit. But he approaches it like a science because he doesn't like being on camera. But it is case point to me that anybody can do this when you just follow a proven path. And so Blake and I have come together and that is the mission of Viralicious. To make this accessible for everybody. And it should be learning how to master organic, social. It is free. We are in the greatest wave of free advertising the world has ever seen. And so everybody needs to master it because again, you're on the shelf whether you want to be or not. So how can we help people present themselves in the best light possible and make it accessible to everybody without just using this formula to make rich people famous.
- [12:58]
Podcast Host
So as you guys know, this podcast is designed to have blunt discussion about money. We grew up thinking it's rude to talk about money. I think that's ridiculous. We gotta be able to talk about loans, taxes, finances. Should I rent? Should I lease? What happens if my friend borrows 600 bucks? What do I do? How do I get it back? Should I sign a contract? These are parts of our real life salary is part of your real life taxes and ubers and the things you spend money are part of your daily life. So have discussions with your friends, family and followers. Make sure to check out alieviralish.com and we'll see you guys next Monday here@themoney Mondays.com Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to a special edition of the Money Mondays podcast. Where normally I'm inside of an RV motorhome driving around the country, but I'm here at the Zeta Global live conference because there's over 2,000 chief marketing officers and CEOs downstairs in this building during this live event. And so I caught one of them. This Gentleman has had 54 locations and growing of a brand called Gregory's Coffee. As you guys know, we cover three core topics. How to make money, how to invest money, how to give it away to charity. What we like to do is keep these episodes to under 40 minutes. But because of the conference, this episode will actually only be around 22 to 25 minutes for your listening pleasure because at the show, we're at the conference, we're going to go back to back to back. And so without further ado, Gregory, give us the quick 2 minute bio so we get straight to the money.
- [14:16]
Greg Zamfotus
Sure. Nice to meet you. How nice to be here with you. Greg Zam Fotus, founder and CEO of Gregory's Coffee. Started in 2006, single store in Manhattan, New York City. Focused on delivering amazing coffee in a volume setting. So it was novel at the time and we were able to take that, expand across the country now and deliver high quality coffee in a volume experience and no sacrifices. Folks want great coffee, great experience, they want it fast, great products and yeah, why have to sacrifice things if they don't have to? So that's what we focus on every day. It's worked for us.
- [14:54]
Podcast Host
So there's thousands and thousands and thousands of coffee retailers that open up one location, maybe two if they're lucky. What made you stand out? What do you think? Was it about the brand that helped you scale to 54 locations and growing.
- [15:05]
Greg Zamfotus
Well, I think it started and stopped with me. I poured myself into this and I was very passionate about everything we sold, everything we did, and it just felt authentic. There was nothing I was trying to do, sell or create that I wasn't interested or passionate in myself. So if I felt like I wouldn't want to consume it or I wouldn't want to be a part of it, I wouldn't do it. So with that authenticity and my ability to sort of really push and lean into what I was interested in and loved, the brand felt authentic. The the team was able to rally around me and what I was trying to do, and our customers connected with it. So when you create that sort of community, not only amongst our team, but our customers, we call them gregulars. Right. So our Gregular community feels special and feels like they're getting something unique that they can't just bounce around and get elsewhere. Right. So once I was able to cultivate that and create that culture, it became infectious and that was sort of how we came to where we are today.
- [16:06]
Podcast Host
So if you think back to location number one and you walk into location number 54, how different are those location? Is there, Was there food items originally? Were the snacks? Was the size different? Was it 600 square feet versus 300 versus 800? Like talk us through the difference between location number one, location 54.
- [16:22]
Greg Zamfotus
So some things have stayed the same, right? The ethos that we're trying to really deliver amazing experiences to our guests and no sacrifices, how we're delivering that has probably completely changed. So the esthetics, it looks completely different, right? We've modernized the look. What was once warm and inviting back in 2006 now would feel very dated. So we had update the aesthetics of the location. The menu, which was originally just core coffee products and very light pastries that we were purchasing from somebody else, now we make. We make all our bakery items from scratch, baked fresh in the store every day. So that menu has expanded and become much more interesting while we're still anchored by our coffee program. And obviously I love that my blood type might as well be espresso at this point in time. I drink so much of this stuff. We do offer amazing ancillary products like Matcha. Matcha is huge. Right now. We buy an amazing ceremonial grade matcha from Uji, Japan. So we do a great matcha. We build on that program as well, do some interesting mixes of matcha and other ingredients. We launched a line of energy drinks using like really clean ingredients, so zero sugar. 180 milligrams of caffeine. Things that you don't really find elsewhere. Because again, I didn't want to just do energy like others, other folks were doing it. I wanted to do it in a way that was authentic on what I would actually consume. So, yes, the menu has, has changed, the experience has adjusted. Where now there's apps, there's mobile payment order ahead delivery. Those things certainly didn't exist 20 years ago in our space. But overall, the sentiment of trying to make amazing experiences and you know, our tagline was see coffee differently. I guess that hasn't changed in 20 years.
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Podcast Host
So is it franchises? A corporate owned. And how do you decide between, you know, wanting to scale which one and which path you decide to go down?
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Greg Zamfotus
So I was very protective of the brand for a long time. So all those stores right now are Corporate owned?
- [18:14]
Podcast Host
All 54?
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Greg Zamfotus
All 54 corporate owned. So, yeah, the hair has gotten a bit gray over the years. I'm able to hold onto it, but it's still gray. But that being said, I was very protective of the brand because I felt like we needed to deliver an elevated premium experience. I always struggled with the notion that maybe others wouldn't be able to deliver that same level of quality and care in order to deliver that sort of experience to our guests. That being said, as we continue to grow, you can just see how hard it is to continue doing that on the corporate side. And this last year, we've penetrated about 14 new markets around the country, and the best and most productive way to expand in those markets will be franchising. So the company is moving to pivot to start franchising probably in 2026.
- [19:01]
Podcast Host
So what's the difference between like a $2 coffee, a $3 coffee, a $5 coffee, a $6 coffee, a $7 coffee?
- [19:08]
Greg Zamfotus
There's a. That's a loaded question, right? So obviously the cost of coffee has skyrocketed lately, so it's harder and harder to get to a $2 coffee. But the quality of ingredients you use, the care involved with, the preparation, the training, the. The experience you're creating, you know, the team, you know there's robots that are serving you coffee now, right? You could press a button and get a $2 coffee. I can't speak to the quality of what it might be like. Obviously it's getting better over the time, but still, if you're having a highly trained barista using amazing beans and high quality equipment, really taking care to make sure they're delivering a high quality product every Time, that's where the price starts to go up because you're validating it, because you're delivering like a luxury experience, right? It's affordable. Luxury is how we like to think about it. You go to a bar, no name pub, you order a glass of red wine at the bar, you have no problem paying $15 for a glass of wine that you don't know about the vintage or anything special, but just because that's what you expect to pay. Coffee started at a much lower point, but we're delivering an amazing specialty beverage made on demand to your spec in a busy environment. So the ability to start charging a bit more what, what I believe is commensurate with what the value we're delivering has been interesting to see over the years and hopefully we'll continue to over deliver on value even no matter what we're charging.
- [20:29]
Podcast Host
So someone's listening to this podcast and they're like, man, I want to open a Gregory's coffee. What do I need to think about? How much ballpark money do I need? How do I pick a location? Like, how do I start a business like a coffee shop?
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Greg Zamfotus
So whether it's a Gregory's or other coffee shop, it all starts with again, having a point of view and understanding like what you want to do and what you're interested in. Just kind of like me. If you're just here saying like this looks like it's a, it's a good business and I think I could sell a lot of, I have to sell 500 cups of coffee and I'm going to break even. It's going to be hard because this is a business about passion, about community and creating third spaces for people. Oftentimes obviously there's drive through and convenience elements that I think are super important. But at the end of the day, if you don't have that anchor, the reason why people should care, because there is so much competition out there that's going to be challenging. But it starts with having that care, that passion, that, that point of view of how you want to differentiate and how you want to pour yourself into that brand. And I can't deny real estate obviously is probably the second most if not the most co important item selecting the right locations. You know, if a broker tells you it's close to a great area, it's right around the block and it's, you know, $30 less per square foot. You know, you don't want that. You need to be because this is a volume business at the end of the day. So the more Eyes that you have on your space, the better traffic. Yeah, you don't, you can't substitute that and you can't always expect people to find you. You want to find the optimum location. Make sure you know you're, you're, you're being economical with the rent that you're paying based on that and then you know, doing all the sorts of resources that you have at your disposal. These days there's so many tools from a data algorithmic set that you can pay people to tell you the quality of a space less than just the traditional demographics, which are helpful. But if you really want to learn more and more about the types of customers that are coming in, not just the raw number, but the where they're coming from, where they're going to, this is all information you could find these days which helps inform your decisions. So don't be afraid to use the data and information at your disposal when you're making those choices. Because you got to measure not once or twice, measure three or four times before cutting. Because once you start making that investment for, for a coffee shop like ours might be about $500,000 investment between equipment and just the general build out depending on what kind of deal you might cut with the landlord. But if you want to spend 500 grand and you want to pay yourself back in 18 to 24 months, like you don't want to make a mistake on the real estate.
- [22:59]
Podcast Host
So talk about investing side of things. Why isn't a company for a corporation important to invest into their team? Like why go hire that 180 grand executive or that quarter million dollar executive or 120 grand executive obviously depending on the area and territory type of company. Why is it important to go get that six figure person to help a company? Sometimes it might be nerve wracking to go spend that kind of money.
- [23:19]
Greg Zamfotus
So it's always the hardest right to measure ROI on human capital or human, human talent. Because it's not always so linear to say like hey, I hired this person and six months later our profitability jump. But it has to be, you know, a more thoughtful exercise as to what, how do you calculate roi? What, what are you saving in other departments? What are you, what are you able to do that you couldn't do before? Because how do you stay competitive? How do you stay cutting edge? There's nothing more important than your people. And I've always said I would only expand or continue to grow the company depending on the amount of the quality of people I had around me. The more people and the stronger talent on my team and my bench gave me more confidence to grow. And if you don't have that, it can be very daunting. Right. Then there's only so much I can take on myself on my shoulders. The bandwidth level starts to get extreme. So great. Surrounding yourself with great people that are talented at what they do will empower you to obviously build a great business, do things you probably couldn't imagine before, and free your mind to do more strategic thinking and drive the business in the way that you should be. But I can't underestimate, you know, how important finding human capital is. Again, you don't want to be just paying anything, but when you find that right person you believe is the right fit for a right role, I wouldn't shy away from saying, like, well, maybe that's a little bit more expensive than I thought. If it's the right person, they'll pay you back in spades.
- [24:48]
Podcast Host
So when you have 54 locations, that means that there's millions and millions of cups, millions and millions of napkins, millions and millions of spoons and sugar and little things, little details, but anything times millions is a lot. Even one penny. How do you find and source? All right, I'm going to save $0.01 on that cup or I'm going to save $0.02 on that fork.
- [25:07]
Greg Zamfotus
Yeah. I mean, today there's systems and tools we have that allow us to sort of monitor how much we're using, how much we're spending, keeping close ties with our key partners that we've worked with for a long time to make sure that we are competitive in the market when it comes to what we're paying. There's certainly been pressures over the years, whether it was inflationary pressures on certain ingredients. You know, eggs was obviously people were talking quite a bit about for a long time where, you know, we use eggs for our breakfast sandwiches. And all of a sudden that egg price went through the roof. And, you know, there's only so much that a vendor can do because they're buying by the market as well. Today it's the tariffs on coffee. Right. You know, Brazil has a 50% tariff. Over 50% of the coffee we purchase is Brazilian coffee. So what we're doing now is trying to understand that economic impact, how we need to adjust for it. And then as we think about purchasing coffee moving forward, are we going to continue investing in Brazil or do we have to think elsewhere just because it's, you know, to pay 50 more for one of our most important, most using or our number One most used ingredient is. Is challenging. So really having a 360 view on what you're purchasing, you know what those top 20, 25 items are. And like you said, one penny drives huge, huge, huge differences. Sometimes it's more than a penny, right? 50% tariff is for us, could be, you know, a million dollars a year extra cost that you weren't expecting just because, you know, the stroke of a pen from somebody said, you know, now it's more expensive.
- [26:35]
Podcast Host
All right, on the charity side of this podcast, why do you think it's important for businesses or their brand to have some type of philanthropic component to their ecosystem?
- [26:46]
Greg Zamfotus
I think it can't just be you're checking a box, right, like, oh, I should be philanthropic just because I want to be, or that's what the script says I should do as a business owner. Again, for me, everything comes back to authenticity, to respect. It has to mean something to you. And if it can tie into the brand, that obviously makes a lot of sense as well. But it should be authentic and something you actually want to do for a long time. For every bag of coffee we were selling, we were donating a pair of glasses to those in need. For those that know Gregory's, our logo is maybe a silhouette of my silhouette, but it includes a thick, chunky pair of glasses. So we tied that in where when you're purchasing bag coffee, donate a pair of reading glasses to someone in need in a third or developing country. We've done that for many years on the ground level, supporting local communities any way we can, giving back team efforts, feeding us soup kitchens in our local communities, supporting schools and other boosters locally that need help, need support from local businesses to kind of help provide support for the student body or just the local communities that are looking for help. And again, because we're doing it because we want to be a part of our community, it's not just, hey, this is a business opportunity. If I do this, maybe more people will come in. It's just doing the right thing. And when you have the ability to do good or to help others, it tends to come back around. And it's not, again, it's not a math equation here, as opposed to, like a human element that I just find it's so, so critical and so rewarding to just do well and do good for others. And once you've established that that's the kind of person in business that you are, it tends to come back around. People want to surround themselves with other good people that are doing well and are helping Their communities.
- [28:34]
Podcast Host
The last question is actually something that's been on my mind. You were kind of on this trajectory right when the shutdown happened, March 2020. All of a sudden, the whole world shut down, especially retailers and restaurants more than anyone. How did you get through that tough period of time?
- [28:50]
Greg Zamfotus
Yeah, I mean, our core business for at that point, it was 13, 14 years in operations, was serving the daytime office population of New York City and D.C. right. That was my customer.
- [29:02]
Podcast Host
What's an office? During that time?
- [29:03]
Greg Zamfotus
So it was literally evaporated. I remember being at Costco with my wife, you know, at that time, stocking up on toilet paper, whatever else, when those supplies were all going in short, short supply. And I had an email ready to go. That was the email that was going to be laying off, you know, my team at the time. It was like. However, I think we had like 600 team members and we were able to. We were going to keep a small few on, but it was like 90% of my team. It felt like everything I had built over 14 years was just getting lit on fire. So probably one of the tougher moments I've ever experienced in my life, but sort of woke up the next day and just said, well, what are we going to do next? I had a very interesting conversation just the other day. I met somebody who was one of our regulars, pre Covid, and he reminded me of something that I did during those early days of COVID So gets back to Community Care, doing the right thing. I didn't have much to do because the business was shut down and there's nothing else going on. So I said, you know what? I had a few of our team that we were still roasting coffee because we were shipping online. I went in and I told the team, like, hey, I want to do something good for our. Our regular community. And those that have been purchasing coffee or those that are loyal customers, we're going to send them some free coffee to their house and just thank them for all their support over these years. And, you know, obviously people are home. So now they could brew the coffee at home if they have a setup. And we'll help them kickstart that way and just do something nice for our regular community. So one of them is this guy Nick. Again, I didn't know him at the time. I just met him for the first time the other day, but he brought it up. He's like, you know, I always remember when I was sitting at home in those first months of COVID and I got a big shipment from Gregory's with a handwritten note from you. And actually my hand was destroyed. I didn't realize it sounded a good idea at the time time. But handwriting hundreds of, of. Of thank you notes to people. He's like, I always stood out to me is like that you would do that. And you know, I was like, man, I forgot that I even did that at this point. But it's just funny because then he had told me how many people he told about that and how many times he comes to Gregory's. Always seeks it out not just because of that moment, but it kind of, you know, highlighted just the kind of brands that he wants to be associated with. So, you know, that authenticity kind of rings true in so many things. And you know, when it's. It's just kind of who I am and the kind of business I want to be associated with, how things. So yeah, that's. It was. That was like the first real moment. I'm like, you know what? We're going to make this work no matter what. Pulled ourselves through, rallied the team, pivoted the business. You know, we closed a few stores that just, you know, we had to deal with landlords. There was problems. You know, we went into Covid with 31 stores, you know, and we were an office community service surfacing basically. And now we're at 54 across the country. So, you know, we grew, we've. We've taken our body blows, but we learned and we up grew, grew and we strong our company for it.
- [31:57]
Podcast Host
So where can people find you? Where can they find the company and tell us all the things they can find you guys on social or websites.
- [32:02]
Greg Zamfotus
Sure. So Gregory's Coffee, you know, strong concentration here in New York City. But, you know, you'll find us around the country at this point in time. So depending where you are, you can, you can look us up on gregory coffee.com, our social is at Gregory's Coffee. No apostrophe. Just Gregory's. No apostrophe. Yes. And me personally, I'm just, my handle is just Gregory Zamfotus on, on Instagram. You could find me there. And I try and be as active as I possibly can, but I should learn from you and be maybe a little bit more active on my personal channel. But yeah, out there fighting the good fight, serving great coffee and trying to build connections and human, human connections as much as I can.
- [32:41]
Podcast Host
I love it. All right, guys, as you know, we cover these three core topics because it's for people in your past, present and future. These podcasts are not just for you. You might have someone in your life that you go to dinner with or lunch with or go play pickleball with later, and they think about opening up a retail location or restaurant and you can refer them to this podcast with Gregory and you might be able to blow their mind and change their life. I call that the butterfly effect. I didn't invent the butterfly effect. It's the concept to me that you could hand off this podcast to someone and all of a sudden they learn or hear. They research and go down the rabbit hole learning about what Gregory did to build his chain that might help them with their future chain. Appreciate you guys. Check us out next Monday here@themoney Mondays.com.