Ep 62- Living Good and Dreaming Big with Tram Nguyen

Transcript

Transcripts are generated by machine learning, so typos may be present.

BTB (00:00):

Welcome to the Building Texas Business Podcast, interviews with thought leaders and organizational visionaries from across industry. Join us as we talk about the latest trends, challenges, and growth opportunities to take your business to the next level. The Building Texas Business Podcast is brought to you by Boyer Miller, providing counsel beyond expectations. Find out how we can make a meaningful difference to your business@BoyarMiller.com and by your podcast team where having your own podcast is as easy as being a guest on ours. Discover more@yourpodcast.team. Now. Here’s your host, Chris Hanslick.

Chris (00:42):

In this episode you’ll meet Tram Wynn, founder of Living Good Candle Company. Tram talks about the importance of understanding your market before starting a company and how the power of a team can help you realize your goals. Tram, I wanna welcome you on to building Texas business. Thanks for being here today.

Tram (01:02):

Yeah, thank you Chris. Thank you for giving me opportunity, you know, to be in this podcast. It is a really great to be here today.

Chris (01:11):

So tell us, you started a company on your own and it’s a candle company. Tell us about Living Good Candle. Yeah, is that it? Yes. Tell us about that.

Tram (01:21):

So I’m actually starting out my career as a chemical engineer. So I am making many difficult product for life from plastic to car material. And now I’m making composite for airplane. So I’ve been pro making produce so many youthful product and then suddenly when I am a person that really, you know, into candles, I burn a lot of candle throughout my whole life and then I got really bad headache from it. And then I have to take a stop from burning any candle completely. And during that time I take a step back doing more research about, you know, what’s going on in the candle industry and found out a lot of misconception or misunderstanding about different time material going the candles. And that’s either reason why I decide to start a candle company that’s only make candle with B wise and only, and we make our own oil too. So we control everything into a product and we transparent about that to our customer because I want the customer, when they burn the candle, not only feel good, but they know that they’re not booting their health at risk in that

Chris (02:32):

Dairy. Oh wow. So, so your passion for candles is what kind of led you to start the company?

Tram (02:36):

Yeah, it’s actually is.

Chris (02:38):

So you mentioned that. So what are the things that got you to, I guess it sounds like you control the product Yeah. Mix so that it’s more natural than, uh, having I guess, bad chemicals in there.

Tram (02:53):

<laugh>. Yeah, it’s 100% natural. Everything in make with B was, and we have the lab in Houston that make our custom oil. So I will come to the lab, I test all of the ingredient, or I smell them, go improve all of the thing, go into with it and then approve them before we, you know, put them in the candle. So we also send out candle to the lab to test them to make sure no, so no emission, no allergens, uh, and because I have really bad allergy too. So that’s the reason why I want a product that, you know, with my mind at peace, knowing that it’s not ringing bad chemical to my house.

Chris (03:32):

That’s impressive. So when did you start the company?

Tram (03:35):

I start, uh, in last year. It took me a while to figure out the recipe. Seeing B was a little bit difficult to handle, so I spent a lot of time testing it and work with a lot of vendor. So now I all about B was a from North Carolina and we have built trust with our vendor and then, you know, yeah, we’ve been around for like a, a year and a half now.

Chris (03:59):

Okay. Yeah. So you, your candles are all bees Waxs. Yes. And so what did you do to get the company started? Is it self-funded?

Tram (04:09):

Yeah, it’s actually self-funded. So I spent all of my money from my nine to five job, put them all into the business. I work day and nights, like weekend, no day off. Um, and then, you know, put some of myself in on it. But my plan for next year, we working on some funded, we working towards some bank, try to get the business funded so we can spend them, because right now we focus on Amazon and Walmart, but my next year will be rolled into the retail, so we would need a little bit more fun for that.

Chris (04:42):

Okay. So right now the products, excuse me, are on, you can find ’em at Walmart or on Amazon. Amazon, yeah. What has that been like dealing with those two to try to get into their system and, and, and the logistics of having to be a vendor for Amazon and Walmart?

Tram (04:58):

You know what funny, I actually used to work for Amazon Report <laugh>. I used to work for Amazon. I, I used to be their operation manager, so I manage their warehouse and logistics so I understand how it work. That’s why when I started the company, the first thing I do is I want my company as e-commerce because you know, I don’t want to ship our product by myself and the process again into Amazon. In Hustle, you have to do everything right from day one with Amazon. And we improve out the year, a year and a half. We get a lot of customer from all over the country. We do have some customer, even from outside the country, buts our Kindle on Amazon and our Amazon salary from 87% of ING customer doesn’t mean we build really big, you know, before they are on our Amazon. And then from there, when we getting the profit from Amazon, we come back and talk to Walmart. Walmart will be a little bit harder to get in because it will require be at a certain revenue. Okay. So we come back, talk to them, convince them, and now we in like Walmart. Yes, it’s a lot of challenge dealing with, you know, the two big e-commerce website because you have to do everything right and make sure that, you know, you don’t get your company suspended and stuff.

Chris (06:12):

Very good. So let’s kind of go back to the, this last year you, or maybe even before you started business, you were doing a bunch of research, you said, talk to us about, you know, if there’s entrepreneurs out there maybe that have just started what you’re doing or thinking about it, what are some of the lessons that you learned? You know, maybe some bumps in the road that you encountered Yeah. And how you got past those in starting this company?

Tram (06:37):

I think I make a lot of mistake. I, I do think like that I, the first thing I make mistake about is, you know, the leg of understanding of the market research. Like even I am really good at production testing product, but you know, the lack of understanding of why people looking for at first challenging it for like three, four months, we wasn’t able to really push the sale up to where I wanted to be when I get started. So, you know, if any entrepreneur want to start a side business or business, the first thing to do, we understand the market, understand your customer. And then the second thing would be understand your, you know, the power of being in a team. I used to do everything by myself. I used to do can pouring production, packing, marketing, everything. And then at one point I got burned out. And that’s the reason why I always say you cannot start a business by yourself. It’s always needs help, you know, from your teammate. And that’s when we started ringing more people because myself, my family, and even my boyfriend okay. Got burned out. Everybody got burned out from helping me. And that’s why I’m like, okay, this time for me to hire more people and then I take in time interview bebo and bring in some people to the team.

Chris (07:52):

So that’s a great segue. So it does take a good team. Yeah, right. At any company. So let’s now talk about what were some of the things you did through say the interview process to make sure you were hiring the right people to join your team?

Tram (08:07):

That’s a hard question. I actually, I make a lot of bad hire at first because of the rushing feeling. You know, you got burned out and then I’m like, oh my God, I need help. I need help. And then we just take whatever. But then it is actually create more problem down the line because I don’t understand who I work with. And seeing I have my nine to five, I do looking for somebody that independent and can be at a warehouse by themself. So the, in the interview I have conversation with them, I’m making sure that they, okay, working in the warehouse setting, you know, where it can hit can be a little bit of problem and it’s, you just have to look around for until you find a right one. So I, when I’m making so many bad hack, I take a step back.

Tram (08:48):

I say I’m not hiring more people, I try to do it by myself. I’m taking my time looking for a right person. And then from there, you know, you just have to take your time talking to people, try to understand the goal. And one of my thing, I love hiring students <laugh> because, you know, I used, I used to be a student and working part-time. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. So I hiring them a part-time. Right now we only have part-time worker. We didn’t have anybody full-time yet. But you know, I, I start with student because I, I like the curiosity of them and you know, they want to do the best, the

Chris (09:19):

Young energy.

Tram (09:20):

I think so too. <laugh>.

Chris (09:21):

Well I think you, you mentioned something I think’s true. I think when you’re hiring I what I would call desperation, right? Yeah. You tend to overlook some things and And that yeah. Tends to lead to maybe bad hiring decisions. I see. As opposed to your time. Yeah. And really digging in to get to know someone and make sure they fit, you know, the fundamental priorities of your company.

Tram (09:42):

Yeah. It’s important. It’s

Chris (09:44):

Very important. You only figure that out if you slow down.

Tram (09:46):

I think so too. Yeah. You need to slow down to go far. This is what I take. Yeah, you need to slow down, take one step at a time so you can go forward.

Chris (09:56):

So let’s talk a little bit about your process I guess, in making your product. Do you feel like what you’re doing kind of in the candle manufacturing space is somewhat innovative? When

Tram (10:06):

I first started, it’s actually was really manual. I actually took it at like, you know, wasn’t really innovative or efficient and I could love it to be, but you know, of course that I have to do everything by hand so I can figure it out where I can twist stuff around. And the thing I really listened to my teammate, so I talked to my candle maker almost every day and we asked, you know, how will the process, anything we can make them better. And then, you know, from there I start looking more into automation stuff and my goal for next year is, um, so right now we’re working on the design, um, not similar to a machine, but this can help us support the candles so it can help us to minimize the mistake. But you know, when I first started it, it wasn’t really innovative. It’s really, it is really manual hand everything, but you know, one step at a time. And I always say that’s we looking at a process, talk to our people and see what can we can improve.

Chris (11:05):

Well I think it, uh, at some level just the, the fact that you’re making such a clean Yeah. Is somewhat innovative as well though. Like different than what your competition is.

Tram (11:15):

Of course. Yeah. But it’s caused a lot of problem too because when they so natural you cannot control a lot of them. But then we only tell my customer, you know, there will be some, the candle can cracking. So that’s the big issue of B was it cracked really bad and we had to do everything to control our temperature. But it still happened. And I only tell my, I try to educate my customer that this is a clean product. We didn’t put anything else. So there may be some imperfection, but you know, it put you at peace.

Chris (11:46):

What have been some of the challenges on that kind of marketing this new product? Yeah. You know, what are some some of those challenges and how are you trying to overcome them?

Tram (11:55):

That’s a tough question. <laugh>. Yeah, it’s a lot of, maybe a lot of education for customer because you know, you can’t just go to Walmart and buy some candle that I can never commit with them, you know, but I only tell people, you know, breathing is so important, you breathe in your air every day. So make sure you rin something clean to your house and it take a lots of time for customer to get used to the product, understand some of the issue that might happen to be wise and accepted. And the thing we do is whenever a customer feel like, you know, the candle wasn’t look at it e when they reached out to me, I address the issue immediately and try to explain to them what’s going on and on social media, the same thing we post about our behind the scenes, some of the challenging that we encounter when we making BY candle and you know, because of all of the issue is actually make a unique, so we really stand now because we were looking at our product and say it’s so natural. I have a customer bought a candle on Amazon for a year and a half, came to a family market to see me in person really just because she told me she’s so impressed with the product. She had to come all the way to the farm market to see me. And

Chris (13:07):

That had to make you feel good

Tram (13:08):

<laugh>.

Chris (13:09):

Yeah. So you are dealing with two of the biggest companies in the world. What are some of the things that you do to try to foster and grow those relationships with the people you’re dealing with at Amazon and Walmart?

Tram (13:22):

I think the first thing we do, we, I don’t always say like when you start out with them, you have to do right from the beginning. We, from even our account, you know, reservation, we make sure everything is correct, no mistake or you know, and we have actually have two people dedicated to just handling Amazon and Walmart. It’s just because that this is a really bulky system from them and you need to have certain understanding. And I feel like sometime I’m in and out so much that’s why I’m dedicated to people, don’t do anything. Spend four hour a day taking care of Amazon and Walmart for me. And you make sure that you follow the rules. They have a lot of policy and rules. You make sure you understand it, you make sure that, you know, update about the news because they change stuff around a lot. So the thing is you keep your communication with them. When something pop up, something doesn’t, you know, sound right to you, you reach out to them immediately and they’re actually very helpful when you calmly reach out to them, you know, and they will definitely get to you.

Chris (14:24):

Very good. Yeah.

Tram (14:25):

I love working with Amazon and Walmart.

Chris (14:27):

Well I think you hit on something, I mean the key to communicating, right? Yeah. Constantly and, and timely. Uh, yeah. So let’s talk about you. There’s always learning and, and setbacks. What’s a setback that you’ve encountered kind of along this journey that you know, you maybe didn’t think you could overcome but you did and it’s made you stronger and better? Yeah. Can you, can you think of anything to share?

Tram (14:50):

Yeah, so we actually lost our Amazon account beginning of the year. Oh that’s, we lost it for okay. We lost it for three months. It’s a supportive feeling, you know, I just wake up, I just went to bed, wake up in the morning, my account gone completely. Amazon couldn’t look fired and there was so many people involved. I was thinking that alright, you know, maybe Amazon is not right for me. I have to be out Amazon grow outside Amazon. I was so, I was really negative, you know, at that time. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> because you losing a really big part of three month, beginning of year. Sure. That’s really hard on me. And we still have candle on the warehouse needs to be sale. So, you know, I need to think about what do I want to do with it. So what we do is reach out to so many people.

Tram (15:34):

I reach out to Amazon, prove multiple way. I send them a letter, I reach out from Twister, I do everything I can, make sure I’m in contact with the right person. And then when I’m in contact with, we try to bring in an Amazon lawyer to just have some help from them, you know, to speed up the process. And I really fight for it to get my account back. It’s a three month, it’s a longer three month in my whole life. Yeah. Every day. You know, we didn’t get the answer we need. They say we cannot be in Amazon again. And then suddenly, you know, they, we just have to keep trying, send them more emails, send them more message, try to be kind with ’em even we be frustrated but we need them help their help. So we keep reaching out for three months and then finally they say, alright, we let they, they have to allow me to open a new account so they allow me to open new account, transfer everything.

Tram (16:25):

But the thing that you have to restart, we love all of our customer. I thought that I would be out Amazon completely because of frustration that I have with Amazon. But taking a look back now, we have so many great customers. Like we have so many customer that reach out to me personally and send another message because just how much they love the candles and you know, the fact that the people go out their way to go to the farmer market to see us making me feel like Amazon bring my product closer to more customer. And we actually have some wholesale order from customer on Amazon. Oh wow. So we rode really big on Amazon.

Chris (17:05):

That’s great. So your persistence paid off, right? Yeah. <laugh>. But I have to imagine that was a pretty trying time for you Yeah. As this young entrepreneur to lose an account like that.

Tram (17:15):

Yeah. And the thing is, you cannot open new account the moment you open new account, they shut it up completely. Yeah. So you have to do the right thing.

Chris (17:23):

What did, how did the rest of your team respond during this time?

Tram (17:26):

They actually working hard with me. So at that time, like, you know, my Amazon team working hard every day with me. Sometime I have to be at work so I wasn’t be on the phone with them. So they help me to tag on a call with Amazon, follow up with ’em every day. And the thing I’m really grateful for the people that I work with. We have awesome team. I have to tell you that we cheer every single wins. Like let’s say we have really great re like Friday during this weekend and it’s when, so great. So, you know, that’s the other thing. You just have to put trust in your team and then know that they will do the best for the business. And I just hear them like, Hey, I don’t care what you do alone and we, you know, can come back and run again. I should be good.

Chris (18:09):

Yeah. So that kind of leads me to a subject of talking. Maybe you as a leader of this team, how do you try to show up as a leader for your team?

Tram (18:19):

I think the thing is I show that I care and understanding and listening because, you know, so we have, one of my teammate recently had some of the thing happened outside work, which you know, affect the candle because he dropped so many candle on the floor because of, you know, his mind was so busy. But instead of me yelling or upsetting what I tried to do, I tried to be calm and learn from it and ask, Hey, what’s what the issue? You know, do you have any problem that you want to share with me? So the thing for me, you’ll be there for them when something happens. Talk to them, listen to them, text them. Like every day even I am not at a warehouse, I’m still calling, you know, my people has, Hey, are you doing good? Or I’m making sure they drink water and you know, because text is hitting no joke for me. So I’m making sure that I’m taking care of them in everything I can. Like if they need a day off, you know, I can cover for them or that’s the reason why, you know, when I need help, when I need long hour, they will be there for me because I’m be there for them and I listen to them and I go out my way to help them. You know?

Chris (19:25):

That’s, that’s great. So it sounds, you know, someone like servant leadership, right? Yeah. There to make sure that they’re taken care of. Where, how would you describe your leadership style? Where have you learned over the years in your other career maybe to uh, develop these leadership skills?

Tram (19:44):

That’s a hard thing because I think that I see this improvement on my leadership style. <laugh>.

Chris (19:48):

Well it’s, it’s an evolving process, right?

Tram (19:50):

Yeah. It’s a lot. But when I went to work, I graduated working, I’ve been through with so many, like work with so many boss work, so many like, you know, manager and what I figured out and throughout the year I worked with them, I figured out what he, what do I like from them and what I don’t like from it. And now when I have my business, I try to do whatever I like, you know, from the manager. Like I have a boss that used to be there for me. He’s so nice. He was helping me so much. He could, you know, send me a card for Christmas or Thanksgiving. And that’s really, you know, something that beyond the, you know, our manager and work relationship, right? He go out of his way to help me when I need and that’s what I want to do for my work. Be able to, I want to be a type leader that if something happened at work, the people can feel, you know, okay to tell me what’s going on. Like there will be no upset or no being too aggressive. I want to be a good listener to them too. And I’m, and I’m still working on that, you know? Sure,

Chris (20:54):

Sure. So somewhat of an empathetic leader where they

Tram (20:57):

Yeah.

Chris (20:58):

And has, have you seen that kind of take hold with your employees? Uh, yeah. The culture is forming Yeah. Where everyone feels safe to, to share if something’s going on.

Tram (21:09):

Yeah, it’s a, like we have a, we have a worker. I jet dropped like train candle on the floor literally other day. And if, if it’s won’t me before I have my business, you know, I will be really arrested, really angry. But with me dealing with my so many people, I try to be calm and try to clean up and I really don’t mind to go, you know, to clean up their mess. That’s what I know they say. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> if I have to. So I really go out my way to help people and that’s actually make people want to work with me and stay longer. And we see that too. We see that the be even, you know, we, small business, we not big cooperation. So sometimes it’s hard for us to keep people, but all of the people working with us until this point been two years and I can see that they still want to work with me. So. Yeah.

Chris (21:56):

So you, you’ve talked, uh, several times at least referenced kind of plans you have for the next year. So what, what are kind of, when you look to the next year or next three to five, what, what are the, the plans, kinda strategies that you are putting in place and what you hope to accomplish? And where do you see this company in, in the near future?

Tram (22:15):

So, so every year, like, so right now I’m doing my six month plan. So I’m working better when I plan everything out. And I would encourage all entrepreneur, you know, do nothing about it, write ’em down the paper, do the chart, do everything you can. You have, I think like you can only achieve your goal when your mind is all about it. So writing down everywhere, I could sit everywhere and I could write down, you know, how much, what revenue I want for every single platform. So, so my e for goal for the next five year, you know, I want that we will become the candle brand. That when customer wanna clean candle, they will say leaving your candle coat. So we want, we of course we want to become, you know, the goalie, everybody wants to become a multimillion company, right? But for me, the goalie, you know, when you want something clean, you think about us.

Tram (23:06):

And that’s, and that is something that I work hard every day and we have to do, you know, be what is so expensive. That’s why so many brand cannot making profit with them. And every day I have to continue improve to make sure that the product is profitable. And another thing is, you know, you just have to give, you know, thinking about what you want to do in your, what’s your end goal of everything, all the hard work. And one of our next year I want to roll out a very new product on the market we don’t want to disclose yet. That’s fine. <laugh>, you don’t have to tell your secrets. Yeah, we, you know, we will be rolling them out on January, but I think it’s, we really big, so right around the corner. Yeah. So it’s really big hit for the market. Um, so

Chris (23:50):

Everyone should be looking out <laugh>, it’ll be on Amazon and Walmart.

Tram (23:53):

Yeah, we, Amazon and Walmart and our website and we will be at Farmer Market too. So if you locally to Houston, you know, stop by saying hi to us. Um,

Chris (24:02):

Which farmer’s market, you mentioned that a couple times. So which farmer’s market are you

Tram (24:05):

At? We are the market for Maker. Okay. Yeah. So they in the house that’s see the only market I’m doing right now, but next year I would love to do, you know, more farmer market. I love the feeling of going there, going out there, talking to customer and have them smell a candle. Yeah. But back to the question, we have a lot of goals for next year. We want it to be more automation. We don’t wanna be able to manually apply every single label or every single jar. So we working with a company, you know, to try to automate our process. We would love to hiring one or two person full time with us. And that is something I’m working on and we would love to increase our capital too. And it’s really, you know, when, when you want to go big capital can be a problem. So I try to get ready for that. Yeah.

Chris (24:52):

Let’s talk a little bit about that. What, what are some of the things that you’re doing to put in place to uh, access Yeah, additional capital?

Tram (25:01):

That’s a hard question. So right now we still small and I, you know, and I mentioned I invest everything I make from nine to five into my side gig, like my candle business, all the money, all the serving. Another thing that I do, we, you know, we, sometime we will ask help from friends and family and that’s the only way that pretty much I’m doing right now to keep the company running. But of course it’s still about us hustling. So we try to go to more family market. We try to do different thing expanding them on Amazon. Like on TikTok we not have TikTok shop and Instagram, so we try to run, you know, expand them out to make a little bit money. But I’m very strict on how I spend it, so I’m budgeting everything. So right now I’m looking at the, how much money I need for 2024. And that’s helped me like, you know, try to see where can I get all those fund, do I have to get it from the bank or you know, like it’s a hard, i I still try to figure out a capital part. Yeah, it’s,

Chris (26:01):

Yeah, well it, it, I mean it’s a very important part of it of a new business, right? Yeah. I think what you mentioned a minute ago to to budget very consciously and thoughtfully, so you manage your expenses well and, and that’s gonna be important when you go out for capital, whether it’s a bank or investor want, wants to know you actually running a good business.

Tram (26:23):

Yeah, of course. I, I try to talk to some bank right now to hopefully get it funded. Hopefully that will be, you know, something I can achieve next year. That’s one of my goal.

Chris (26:32):

Very good. Have you had any, uh, mentors kind of along the way in your career that have kind of helped guide you or inspire you to do what you’re doing now?

Tram (26:41):

I actually have a lot of mentor. I know so many people that I learned so much from them. And you know, some people that, they probably don’t know me, but I learned them from their podcast. I listen to some of your podcasts too, by the way. I try to know that whatever the people do that I’m really enjoy, like I, you talk a lot about innovation and that is something that I really want us to be better at. I want us to be more, you know, about how we can improve things. So I guess one of my big mentor, I have a mentor that mentor me how to say on Amazon and he actually was the one that get me started. So I reached out to him, you know, talk to him about my desire, why I want to have this brand, why I want to start on Amazon. And he actually was helping me from day one. So he guided me through out the way and then I met some other mentor, you know, like we, I learned a lot from people. More me, more of the thing I learned is cell talk, you know, from YouTube.

Chris (27:38):

Well you, I mean I think what you find along the way is you can kind of learn from everybody, right? <laugh>, I mean some more than others where there’s learning. Yeah. If you’re,

Tram (27:48):

Yeah, yeah, that’s true. Yeah, it’s, we learn from our customers, we have customer that angry rather, you know, because on Amazon. So people can just buy our product and change them their mind the next day. So we learn so much about our customer and the thing, my goal is to review our return rate to almost zero. And to be honest, we don’t have a lot of return in the big market like that. But we still have some mm-Hmm <affirmative> and every time that I have a customer return, I accept it. I reach out to them, I want them to tell me what’s happened or what can I make them better. And I do think that though feedback is something that, you know, make us better every day.

Chris (28:27):

That’s good. I agree. So any one or two things you might tell an inspiring entrepreneur to, to think about as they’re about to step off and start a company like you did a couple years ago? Any pointers

Tram (28:42):

I did. So if I have, I would love to tell this to all entrepreneur. I think having the business and actually running a business at two different things, it’s a lot of hard work. You have to ring yourself out there. I used to be so shy, you know, but I have to go out there hustling, selling stuff at family market, ringing my product out there for people. The judging is, but the thing is, when you want to do great in your entrepreneur, you have to make sure that, you know, you just keep pushing. Don’t care about anybody else, just think about yourself business. And the second one is, do not ever think that you can do everything by yourself. It’s impossible. They have to be balanced between your life, your work life and your family. And you want to make sure that you know, when you, at your high point in your career, you still feel happy because your family happy with you. So that’s the two thing that I would love, be able to think about when I started at entrepreneurship,

Chris (29:39):

That those are two great things to, to share. So thank you for that <laugh>. And, and I know the listeners out there will thank you. So let’s, lemme ask you this. What was your first job?

Tram (29:48):

My first job I used to work in Chick-fil-A before. Okay. So, you know, so I can learn a lot about value customer, we my, in my, my customer, in my number one, my priority, everything I do to make sure they happy. So

Chris (30:02):

If you work there, you must have eaten the food a lot. <laugh> do. Are you like done with Chick-fil-A now or do you still go through Still

Tram (30:07):

Like it <laugh>. Okay. They get me every time.

Chris (30:10):

Yeah. What’s not to like about it? So keeping with the theme of food, do you prefer Tex-Mex or barbecue? Uh,

Tram (30:16):

Barbecue. Barbecue.

Chris (30:18):

Okay. Very good. Who doesn’t like good barbecue in Texas? Yeah. So are there any things that you, any things you do to kind of keep yourself up, like reading or you mentioned podcasts, any business related books or podcasts you like to listen to that you’d share?

Tram (30:32):

I listen to, uh, I read to, I read a lot of book, so I actually attend to a book club. So we wake up at 5:00 AM in the morning, pick any book that we read. So right now I’m reading a book called The Messy Truth from Ali Webb. So that’s a really new book. Just really The Messy Truth. Yeah, the Messy Truth. So that she talk about the behind scene of entrepreneur and you can, and every new entrepreneur will find them, their sale themselves in there she talk about a lot of, you know, dark side of their business, the busy, you know, the doubt turn your doubt about your business yourself. So if anybody want to start in, I think that’s a good book to start with because it will help you to see, you know, that everybody out there having a small business dealing with the same thing that you dealing with, right.

Chris (31:22):

It, it takes hard work, it takes courage and, and a little bit of willing to take a risk, right? Yeah. So that’s great. I’m gonna have to go check that book out. Yeah,

Tram (31:30):

They actually generally, yeah, I actually just released like last week I think <laugh> Okay.

Chris (31:35):

Yeah. So just out. Okay.

Tram (31:37):

Yeah, just out.

Chris (31:38):

Well tram, thank you so much for being on the show. Enjoyed hearing your story. Best of luck as you continue to grow living Good Campbell Company. Thank

Tram (31:46):

You. Thank you Chris. I really appreciate the opportunity and you know, really appreciate that you having me here. Let me share my story and hopefully it can inspire many small business out there.

Chris (31:57):

No doubt it will <laugh>. Take

Tram (31:59):

Care. Thank you.

Chris (32:03):

And there we have it. Another great episode. Don’t forget to check out the show notes at boyarmiller.com/podcast and you can find out more about all the ways our firm can help you at BoyarMiller.com. That’s it for this episode. Have a great week and we’ll talk to you next time.