REAL AF with Andy Frisella - August 13, 2015


ASK ANDY： Product Development and a Primer on Core Values


Episode Stats


Length

21 minutes

Words per minute

199.06842

Word count

4,288

Sentence count

375

Harmful content

Misogyny

1

sentences flagged

Hate speech

7

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

On this episode of the MFCEO Project Podcast, we answer a bunch of questions and talk about a variety of different topics. We also talk about the heat in St. Louis and some of the crazy things that have been going on in our lives.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Hey guys, what's up? It's Andy. You're listening to the MFCEO Project Podcast. Thanks for tuning
00:00:23.660 in. We're here, going to hit some Q&As on our Thursday episode. I'm here as always with
00:00:29.420 my host, Von Kohler. What's up, dude? This is a great day. It is. It is a great day. It's
00:00:35.200 just beautiful out. It's been ridiculously hot in St. Louis the last couple of days.
00:00:39.380 Yeah, man. It's 90 today. It feels like it's 75. Yeah, it feels really good. People don't
00:00:44.180 realize how fucking hot it gets here. I tell people, I've got my friends in California and
00:00:48.620 my friends in Florida, and they're like, oh, it's hot. You don't know how hot it is. First
00:00:53.380 of all, my mom lived in South Florida for a long time. I know how hot it gets. It does
00:00:56.620 get hot, but it does not get like here. Here is different. There's no ocean breeze. It's
00:01:01.980 fucking 1,000% humidity. There's really nothing cool to look at. It makes it worse. There's
00:01:11.840 asphalt everywhere. It's like you walk outside. I mean, for me, man, I'm a big dude. I walk
00:01:17.680 outside and I'm like, I've got to change my underwear after walking outside for 30 seconds.
00:01:21.620 It is really. It fucking sucks. Yeah. Yeah. And dude, today it's, I did cardio outside
00:01:25.600 today, 90 degrees. I seriously, it felt like it was like 75. Yeah. I mean, it felt really
00:01:30.360 nice. Yeah. Of course I'm flying out tomorrow, so I'm excited. Well, I'm going to tell you
00:01:35.880 where I'm going and then I'm going to try to think if I know you well enough to anticipate
00:01:41.220 the question that's going to follow. All right. I'm flying to Colorado.
00:01:46.920 Oh, you're going to go out there and smoke some weed?
00:01:51.940 I'm flying to Denver. I was going to go out there and get his little sticky green on.
00:01:57.320 You know what? I was in Deerbrook's for people who are not.
00:01:59.960 They don't sell weed at Deerbrook's. No, they don't. They don't. I was at Deerbrook's for
00:02:03.160 people who don't know what that is. That's a local supermarket. And I was ordering some
00:02:09.780 salmon from, you know, the deli area and there was this high school kid and I have to stay
00:02:15.900 away from gluten. So I asked him, as I said, I said, Hey man, how much for a dime?
00:02:20.640 So there's this, so there's this, the salmon and it comes with a glaze and he says, do you
00:02:25.600 want extra glaze? And I said, is there wheat in it? And I think he heard me wrong. He's like,
00:02:32.280 dude, that'd be awesome. And I go, I go, what? And he goes, what'd you say? I go, I said,
00:02:38.800 is there wheat in it? Like wheat, like gluten? He goes, Oh, Oh, uh, no, I don't think so.
00:02:44.540 That's funny. I think he damn kids these days. Yeah, I know. It's crazy. Anyway,
00:02:48.880 smoking all that weed. Um, did you do the intro? I don't know. I think so. Okay. If I didn't,
00:02:54.940 if you're new, um, we're going to say bad words and we're going to talk about things,
00:02:59.380 answer questions in regards to business. This is the MF CEO project. If you didn't already know
00:03:04.020 that. Yeah. If you're, if you're continuing, you know, that we're, um, or unorganized and we're
00:03:08.620 going to get off track and we're also going to say bad words. Andy is. Yeah. I'm going to. All right.
00:03:14.200 So, well, if anybody's still with us, we should probably answer a more serious question, but those
00:03:18.780 are fun. Okay. And you know what? I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm hesitant to ask this question simply
00:03:25.760 because I'd like to spend a whole podcast on a bit. This is a good question. This is a question
00:03:31.660 from James from OKC home of the thunder. All right. Hey, Andy, I'm a huge fan and big believer
00:03:38.540 of your thoughts and beliefs in business. I thought I was one of the only ones that thought this way.
00:03:42.880 Uh, I was listening to the podcast the other day and you were talking about your core values in your
00:03:46.600 company that you hire and fire by. Could you run down your list of core values again? Um, and come
00:03:53.620 up with, uh, let's see here, so that I can review them and come up, come up with a couple new or
00:03:58.120 borrow a couple of ones. And can you also tell me how you came up with those core values? Um,
00:04:05.160 I kind of butchered your question, James. Yeah. I think he got it. Dude, that's like a,
00:04:09.200 that's like a 40 minute answer to be honest. Um, you know, so maybe, maybe how about we do this?
00:04:13.960 How about I narrow the question and say, why do you think it's important to have core values?
00:04:19.000 And because, okay. So the idea behind what you want to do is you want to create a culture in
00:04:24.620 your business. All right. You want to give your business a living, breathing culture that is your
00:04:32.700 company. Okay. And if you want an example of a living, breathing culture of a company,
00:04:36.920 look at a company like Harley Davidson. Okay. These guys, they don't care if you're black. They don't
00:04:42.840 care if you're white. They don't care if you're gay. They don't care if you're straight. It doesn't 0.63
00:04:45.740 matter if you're a man or a woman. It doesn't fucking matter as long as you live by the core
00:04:51.560 values of live to ride, which is I'm passionate about Harley Davidson motorcycles. And even some
00:04:57.840 guys stretch it out to, I'm just passionate about riding motorcycles because so you show up at Harley
00:05:02.720 Davidson on a Sunday or a Saturday for these group rides that they do. And there's dudes that are six
00:05:09.380 foot five, 280 pounds with beards down to their belly button, you know, and then there's, you know,
00:05:16.360 the regular doctor dude, you know, um, they're dressed, you know, in his Harley shit, you know,
00:05:22.180 you know, he's going to some fancy dinner at that night, but for that three hours, he's a fucking 0.96
00:05:27.540 Harley guy. You know what I'm saying? And those two guys find connection in that culture. And you,
00:05:32.660 the way you really want to get your business going is by developing a culture amongst your employees
00:05:36.880 and your customers so that not only do they use your products, but they're proud to use your
00:05:41.640 products and they stand for what your company stands for. And if your company is going to stand
00:05:46.560 for something, you have to identify what those points are going to be that your company is going
00:05:53.140 to stand for. And that's what your core values are. So developing the things that you stand for
00:05:58.420 and making it something that you hire and fire by, if you think about it the way I just explained,
00:06:03.820 it becomes very natural thing to do because if you don't hire and fire by those core values,
00:06:09.280 the core, the core values and the culture will die eventually. And you'll lose that cool
00:06:13.900 quote unquote X factor that you created. That is really your most valuable asset as a company,
00:06:20.160 you know? So in terms of like listing them out and all that, you know, I've told a couple of people
00:06:25.300 on Periscope and here that we'll put them, we'll put them up on the website. So, and then like
00:06:29.940 our description of them, but by no means do those have to be your core values.
00:06:36.300 But I will say they're very good core values, not only for, for business, but for life. And I think
00:06:40.660 that's why people relate to our personal culture here at first form so well, um, and at supplement
00:06:45.860 superstore so well, and they want to be a part of the team because the core values don't represent
00:06:50.700 just making money in business and growing a business. It represents how to actually live
00:06:55.440 and be a good person and do the right thing. And people dig that, you know? Um, and it's true.
00:07:01.040 It's how we operate here. So, you know, I'm not going to get into them because you're right. That
00:07:06.920 could be a whole episode, but I hope that I explained why that's important. Yeah. So that's
00:07:13.000 your teaser, James. Yeah. Uh, so, uh, most people don't get what core values are. Like you can ask
00:07:19.440 companies, like if you, if I ask people what their core values are when I'm in my consulting situation
00:07:24.400 and they can't answer, I mean, I know I'm in for a fucking, a battle. Yeah. You know what I mean?
00:07:30.720 Yeah. There should be strong identifiable values that your company stands for that you live, breathe
00:07:36.540 and enforce in your day-to-day operations. I mean, and that, and they're, and they're important.
00:07:42.700 You know, a lot of companies don't think they are, you know, they are right. They're everything.
00:07:46.920 Right. Okay. So you want to do one more? Yeah, we'll do another one. Okay. This is, uh,
00:07:54.140 question from Danny and Danny actually works for a technology company. And by the way, it's D-A-N-I. 0.74
00:08:01.580 She says, um, let's see here. You have said multiple times to listen to your customers,
00:08:09.460 respect your customer and deliver what your customer needs. Basically happy customers equals
00:08:13.480 happy returns. So wait, wait, wait, let me stop right there. Yeah. Because I haven't said that.
00:08:19.940 Oh, you haven't said that. I haven't said, listen to your customers, make what they want
00:08:24.740 because a lot of times customers don't know what the fuck they want. What I said was make
00:08:29.540 what you think is the best and customers will relate to that. So I don't go out and try to
00:08:35.560 take customers feedback, dude. Okay. You know what? I think I miss misread just, just in fairness
00:08:41.720 to her. I said, I think I wrote deliver what your customer wants. No, you, she wrote respect your
00:08:47.140 customers and deliver what they need. Yeah. Solve their problem. Right. Right. So that was my
00:08:51.940 fault. I'm like, for example, I'll just finish what I was saying. You know, we flavor products,
00:08:56.400 right? Not everybody's going to fucking like the way you flavor a product. People, if you ask a hundred
00:09:01.680 people, they're going to say it should be sweeter. It should be less sweet. Um, it should be thicker.
00:09:05.500 It should be thinner. It should be this. It should be that. I can't make a product for everyone.
00:09:10.460 I've got to make the product that I think is the best and put it out there. Right. You know what I mean?
00:09:15.660 And people will like it. Right. You know, and I might ask four or five people, but I'm not asking
00:09:21.100 everybody. Right. You just can't do it that way. Right. So. So here's her question. Yeah. So how do
00:09:27.520 you turn a product from what appears on the bottom line to be a great product into a product that is
00:09:33.540 truly a great product that people continue to rave about? So I guess she's just talking about how you
00:09:38.320 improve a product. Read that again. Okay. This is what she said. So how do you turn a product
00:09:44.240 from what appears on the bottom line to be a great product into a product that is truly great
00:09:49.600 that people start to really rave about? If I understand her correctly, I think she's just
00:09:55.040 talking about how, how do you take sort of an objectively good product and turn it into
00:09:59.460 something people, I mean, what? Well, I mean, the reality is, is great product development
00:10:03.400 and great products cure everything. You know, the better they solve the problem and the better
00:10:08.700 they solve the problem with like a certain wow factor, like, wow, did that not only solve my
00:10:13.000 problem, but it was fucking awesome. The more people are going to talk about it. So, um,
00:10:18.140 you know, for example, I mean, if you take a fucking bandaid and it's, you know, I mean,
00:10:24.180 look at band-aids, it's the most boring fucking thing on earth. All right. But band-aids used
00:10:29.000 to be like that ugly Brown. Right. Right. And then all of a sudden somebody came out and they 1.00
00:10:33.000 made fucking Snoopy band-aids, right? Or Superman. Right. Or Superman or whatever. And guess
00:10:37.960 which ones sell the ones with the shit on them, the logos and shit on them. You know
00:10:41.840 why? Cause it gets people like some sort of little extra thing, you know? Um, so if your
00:10:47.980 product can't for your first focus should be on getting your product to solve the problem
00:10:53.600 that it's supposed to solve the best possible way. If you're solving a problem at 80% because
00:10:59.260 the cost of manufacture is too expensive to get it to solve at a hundred percent, you're likely
00:11:04.540 going to miss a big opportunity for word of mouth to be wow because you're trying to cut
00:11:09.400 that corner of that 20%. You get what I'm saying? So if you were just to spend a hundred percent
00:11:14.180 and do it fucking perfect, you're going to get that extra wow factor and probably make 0.65
00:11:18.120 up that mark, that production costs on the backside. You know, people always short, short
00:11:23.060 circuit themselves with that kind of thinking. Let me make, especially here in the supplement
00:11:27.180 world. I mean, I can tell you, everybody's trying to make the cheapest, the cheapest, the
00:11:30.580 cheapest, the cheapest, the cheapest. Well, why does it make any fucking sense to put
00:11:34.220 the cheapest thing into your fucking body? It doesn't make sense. Right. If you want,
00:11:39.120 if you're putting something into your body, you want the best, you know, and that's what
00:11:42.520 we built our whole company off of. So, and I think that's, I think that's encompassing
00:11:48.420 to almost all products. You know, people want within their budget, the product that's going
00:11:54.920 to solve their problem the fucking best. And you have to realize as a manufacturer of a
00:11:59.560 product or producer of a product that your product may not be for the guy who's going
00:12:05.060 to drive a $10,000 car. And you may not get those guys. Your product may be too expensive
00:12:09.860 for that. And I think people get caught up and they may end up with these products because
00:12:14.440 they try to include everybody in the price point and everybody in the, you know, in the
00:12:20.880 funnel. But the reality is, is most products that everybody can fit into the funnel on. And by
00:12:26.480 the funnel, I mean like a potential customer, most products that fit potentially everybody
00:12:31.120 are fucking so vanilla that people will never fucking talk about it. So you, you squeeze
00:12:36.120 your funnel a little tighter, exclude some people and make your product better. And then
00:12:39.800 all of a sudden it's good enough to where people say, Holy fuck, that's awesome. Right.
00:12:43.260 You know, and you have to understand something too. I don't know what product, but there's,
00:12:47.520 there's an aspect of something potentially costing more that people actually appreciate. You
00:12:53.800 know, when things are more expensive, sometimes the mentality can be look at Apple computers.
00:13:00.440 Apple's a great product, but they're fucking three times as expensive as PC. Right. So there's
00:13:09.340 our timer to get done, but you know, somebody who's making, you know, barely enough money to
00:13:15.620 get by and they work their ass off to afford that Apple and they buy it. They're fucking proud
00:13:20.180 of that. They say, fuck, I'm an app and that won't work with every product. Cause there's
00:13:24.360 commodity products, you know? Um, but it works a lot of times, you know, it says, man, I'm
00:13:30.600 proud of this product. And there you get word of mouth. Right. Cause it create pride because
00:13:34.340 they had to earn it. You see what I'm saying? And I don't think Apple's three times as expensive
00:13:39.860 better than PC. I mean, I prefer Apple, but you know, and I still buy Apple because I'm in
00:13:44.920 the position to do that. Right. But, uh, you know, I mean, there's definitely a premium
00:13:50.380 in there and they're smart. They get it. They get the people brag about, they want that little
00:13:53.420 light up Apple at fucking Starbucks with their latte. You know, they'd want that. They want 0.91
00:13:58.020 to sit there and they want to put their fucking black frame glasses on. Look man, they want
00:14:02.040 to put their fucking black Harry Potters on and they want to sit in Starbucks with their 0.98
00:14:06.000 fucking coffee with the little Apple lit up and pretend like they're fucking, you know, 0.63
00:14:10.780 getting shit done. Yeah. I mean, dude, and Apple sells that to them. Yeah. Yeah. You
00:14:16.340 know? So it makes people feel important. It makes people feel good. It makes people be
00:14:21.000 productive. And I'm not saying that's even a fucking bad thing. I'm just saying they understand
00:14:25.340 what they're selling. Right. So understand what you're fucking selling. What are you selling?
00:14:29.900 You know, I don't know what she's selling. She didn't say what she's selling. I don't know.
00:14:33.240 I can only answer the question. Um, you know, I didn't read the whole thing. Guys, if you ask
00:14:37.940 questions, include everything that you're include the details, because that helps me
00:14:42.660 answer the question better. If I don't know the product or I don't, these generalized questions
00:14:46.960 are very hard to answer. Right. You know, because. Well, your co-host didn't read the
00:14:51.200 whole email. Well, I'm just saying. Yeah. You know, I, it would help if I knew the product
00:14:56.140 because then I could fucking say, you know, Hey, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Right. No,
00:14:59.620 that's good. Okay. So we are past our time, but I do want you, if you can answer really
00:15:03.340 succinctly, here's a question. I mean, this is, this is anecdotal. This isn't based on any
00:15:07.400 hard, hard research, but I don't know if you've ever heard, you know, a lot of people
00:15:11.860 say early iterations of Microsoft word were great. So then they tried to improve the product
00:15:16.800 and people kind of got the feeling of like, dude, this is so bloated. So what was the
00:15:21.120 mistake that they made? You know what I'm saying? Cause a lot of people thought here's the difference.
00:15:25.920 The new improved version was just too much. Look, here's the difference. And again, that's
00:15:30.160 just anecdotal. Here's the difference. Don't come out with a new version of your product
00:15:33.720 unless it's a legit improvement because a lot of companies will come out with a new version
00:15:37.800 because they need to generate the cashflow. Apple's starting to do this every, and they've
00:15:42.440 been doing it every fucking year. There's a new iPhone. It's no different. You know, I mean,
00:15:46.820 a couple of years ago they got fucking, you know, Oh, I'm going to take the phone Jack from the top
00:15:51.360 and I'm going to put it on the bottom. I'm going to create a new charger. That's not a superior
00:15:55.400 charger. That's just to get us to go buy the fucking new one. You know, and companies,
00:16:00.300 people get like for me, I get pissed at that. You know what I mean? Cause you're not genuinely
00:16:04.620 improving your product. So new features do not mean improvement. No, do not release or promote
00:16:13.220 a new version of your product unless it's genuinely better than the old version. Don't think that you're
00:16:19.740 going to trick the consumer just to generate cashflow. That's what these people think, you know,
00:16:24.700 and it works, but it's not going to work for very much longer in the way things are. People are
00:16:28.500 getting smarter, right? You lose integrity. Yes. Yeah. And, and, and, and it, they lose that by
00:16:33.760 Apple doing that. They're losing that super little by little, they're losing that super culture.
00:16:38.920 They created, you know what I mean? Every year they come up with the iPhone. It's the same fucking
00:16:42.560 thing with, you know, and it's $700 and you've got to, you know, it might have one or two little
00:16:48.160 features on it that are different, but is it an improvement? That's debatable unless it's a non
00:16:53.520 debatable. Yes, this is a fucking improved product. You shouldn't come out with it if you want to
00:16:58.260 maintain the integrity of your following. Right. You know? So, um, I think there, yeah, I mean,
00:17:05.580 there are a lot of people who for a long time have just been like, Oh, if Apple release releases it,
00:17:10.620 I'll buy it. But that's only going to go so far over time. People are going to start thinking,
00:17:14.460 okay, why am I doing this? Well, not only that, their sales are going to continue to decline,
00:17:17.960 decline, decline, decline. And they're going to get on a slippery slope to where once they do that
00:17:23.440 for so long and their sales start to slow and slow and slow and other companies are truly innovating
00:17:28.760 and bringing out better improvement products, they're going to, what they're going to lose is
00:17:33.800 that fucking passionate Apple, you know, coolness that they, which is what I said a minute ago is
00:17:42.120 what they're selling. And when they lose that and, and then they, and then they try to start
00:17:46.860 innovating again, it's like starting from scratch. Right. You know what I mean? They've
00:17:52.140 tainted their name. The company's not going to come back the way that it did. So, um, you know,
00:17:58.220 I, I see a lot of companies that do that shit just to generate sales and I get that, but it's,
00:18:03.240 I don't know, maybe I'm wrong, man. Maybe it fucking works. I don't know. It seems to work.
00:18:07.780 They're the richest company in the world, but you know, I also know that on the ground floor,
00:18:13.500 which they can't fucking see from their tower that they've built, people get tired of that
00:18:17.920 shit. You know what I mean? And eventually people get enough tired that they give somebody else a
00:18:22.460 shot. Right. So it might be a good strategy for now, but where's it going to be in 20 years? Right.
00:18:28.480 Right. You know what I mean? And with that question, we're going to wrap up. Ask Andy
00:18:33.380 at the MFC. I mean, that's a good question, man. That's, that's a debatable question. I'm sure
00:18:37.400 if you had somebody like Seth Godin in here or Gary Vee or any of these guys, I'll have to get
00:18:41.480 those guys in there. Dude, it would be awesome. They'd have other opinions that might not,
00:18:45.360 you know, or other points that might, you know, prove me wrong on that. I, that's just what I see.
00:18:50.220 No, it's good. You know, and I'm a small business guy. I'm not a fucking multi-billion dollar. I mean,
00:18:55.220 yes, we do a lot of business, but we're still small business, you know? So I, I could, that answer,
00:19:01.520 you know, that's how I see things. I don't necessarily, I don't fucking know everything. It's
00:19:07.400 just how I see things from my, my perspective and experience. When you're, when you're up here in
00:19:11.920 this, you know, trillion dollar building that they fucking built or whatever, and you're looking down
00:19:16.680 on the ground floor, you can't always see what's actually going on from that perspective. You know,
00:19:22.460 I see people producing products all the time that are not necessarily any better, uh, just to generate
00:19:31.160 sales. And eventually people are like, dude, fuck that. They're just trying to get my shit.
00:19:34.740 Right. And that's not, that's not how, you know, you build a long-term passionate following.
00:19:41.220 Right. You know, Harley Davidson has a long-term passionate following. They don't fuck,
00:19:45.680 they've had some of the same models for 20, 30 years because there is no improving it.
00:19:50.040 Right. You know what I mean? Yeah, no, that's true. Um, so I don't know. Good stuff. Yeah. Maybe.
00:19:57.900 Could be good. No, it is good stuff. Like I said, ask Andy at the MFC. Well, I can't talk today.
00:20:04.240 Ask Andy at the MFCEO.com. Thanks for tuning in guys, or I guess you didn't really tune in. You
00:20:10.280 kind of downloaded or I don't know, linked guys. Thanks for the reviews too. Um, we're getting
00:20:15.240 more and more reviews still, still some of you guys are slacking. You know, we don't ask for much.
00:20:20.760 We don't charge. I asked that you leave a review. Um, I would appreciate it if you guys did that for us.
00:20:26.880 Uh, and I'll say it the other way, leave a fucking review because people seem to get a kick out of
00:20:34.740 that. But yeah, you know, I mean, what the fuck, man, we're in here putting in this time, trying to
00:20:38.660 answer questions and give some good info for free. It's there's some great reviews though. Some of
00:20:42.880 you people have really taken it to a next level by your reviews. They're, they're amazing. It seems
00:20:48.920 like we have either people that are just willing to pour their heart out and be awesome. And then we
00:20:53.200 just have people that are like, fuck it. I'm not doing a review. Yeah, definitely. All right.
00:20:57.040 Well, that's it. All right, guys, we will see you on Tuesday. Bye.
00:21:13.200 All I do is work. All I do is work. All I do is work. All I do is work. All I do is work.
00:21:19.640 All I do is work. All I do is work. All I do is work.
00:21:23.200 All I do is work. All I do is work. All I do is work. All I do is work. All I do is work.