The CEO's Humility Paradox: Why You Work For Your Employees

Hey, Prof G. This is Lee in Florida.

I'm a 36-year-old married father of two young boys.

I'm also a dentist, and my question is around my job.

I've recently been fortunate enough to find my way into a very successful practice with an excellent reputation that sees numerous very wealthy families as patients.

Thankfully, I found it very easy to interact with pretty much all the patients at the practice, if I just be myself.

And the welcome has been warm, and the selling dentists and staff have been enthusiastically endorsing me to all their patients.

As I take over ownership of the practice, I am faced with the obvious reality that I am definitely not the friendly, jovial, 71-year-old man that these people have known for the better part of their lives.

I'm new.

I love for all the practices patients to stick around, and so far things have gone really well in that regard.

My wife and I have found a small modicum of success, but interacting with a mega wealthy and billionaire class is pretty new to me.

I'd like your input or thoughts on tailoring an exceptional experience to all of my patients, but perhaps particularly to the mega wealthy patients the practice sees, so that everyone who walks in and out feels special, feels important, feels valued, and leaves feeling like their dental team genuinely cares about them.

Because we do.

Thanks.

So first off, you know, take pause and recognize your achievement.

And it sounds like you've struck a relationship with a dentist who wants to hand over his practice or slowly but surely sell your practice.

So you're in a great spot.

And I think you and your your partner should feel really good about your achievements now.

With respect to your question around how to handle the kind of wealthy class, I don't speak for the wealthy.

What I can tell you is people, just they say people eat with their eyes.

I think people evaluate a dental practice with their eyes.

Are the people in cool figs or whatever it is, scrubs,

Does the place look good?

Do you have a cool Nespresso machine?

Like just a nice, clean, professional feeling space.

The staff that greets you, how professional they look, how computer generated is automated.

Are you sending people reminders via text message?

Does your site look clean?

You know, all that good stuff.

The billionaire class, in some, I think they just want competence.

But I think that's what everybody wants.

I don't think we're that... I'm not a billionaire.

I guess I would describe myself as wealthy, but I'm far, far from a billionaire.

All they want is competence.

Friendly, competent, get them in the chair.

This is what's going on.

Hi, how are you?

And just hire outstanding people.

Now, hiring outstanding people on a staff means, quite frankly...

firing a lot of people.

That doesn't sound aspirational, but it means paying them a little bit extra, but demanding more from them, that they're very good at what they do, that they look good, that they're presentable, that they have, you're all in kind of the same uniforms, that the place looks fantastic, that you have new technology, and that when you find good people, you, I've always found you want to find, you want to hold people to a higher standard and then pay them at a higher standard.

But I don't think that they're much different, if you will,

than quote unquote middle-class families.

I think they appreciate they want to get in and out.

They want to know that you're very good at what you do.

Go through the customer experience.

I used to do this as a consultant.

From the moment they park to the moment they get out of the car, what is the first thing they see?

How do the windows look?

How does the technology look?

What do they see in the waiting room?

What's the vibe like?

What's the music playing at a low volume?

What's the technology you're offering them in the store that signals or in the chair that signals the innovation?

What's the follow-up?

What does the text look like?

What does the design look like?

Every single touchpoint.

And then obviously you've got to be great at what you do in the chair, but I think it's more about signaling innovation through a variety of touchpoints and kind of a 360 around the consumer.

But I don't have any, I really don't think you need to be thinking about

how and why to treat people who are very wealthy differently.

What I would suggest is that you and your wife be as social as possible, because the reason I saw Dr. Spodek and Del Rey is that, like everything else in my life, all my friends now are my kids' friends' parents.

So I think there's definitely an advantage to being as social as possible and putting yourself out there.

And when people hear you're a dentist, they're gonna look you up and wanna come to you.

But let me finish where I started.

And I apologize, I didn't give you any silver bullets here other than just running a great practice.

The fact that you have the discipline, the certification, and that you figured out a good dental practice to sound like it's slowly by over time, brother, you're tracking.

It sounds like you're doing really well.

And I don't think you need to overthink segmenting your consumer base and how you should treat people differently.

Just give them all fantastic service and make sure that

that the environment signals innovation.

So how did you start to use the Internet or see the Internet as a bigger opportunity?

What kinds of things were you doing just to even create awareness around what you were offering?

Yeah.

I saw the potential with Google certainly in 2003.

Once I joined the business, I started seeing it.

A book came out.

I don't remember exactly when it was one of the first books about how to use Google AdWords.

And at some point I just hired the guy.

The guy who wrote the book, do you remember his name?

Yeah, Andrew Goodman.

The guy named Andrew Goodman wrote a book.

It was like a paperback about how to use Google for your business.

Oh, I'm embarrassed to say, I didn't even, and I'm friends with him still, but we don't work together anymore.

But a friend of mine sent me the PDF.

I didn't even pay for it.

So we were one of the first, not the first nut guy online.

There was a couple other people, but we're in that freshman class, right, of people online.

So there was some distinct first mover kind of competitive advantage.

And kind of I looked at it similar earlier on.

It's like, well, if we can sell one order to one customer in every state a day,

That's 50 orders a day.

And at an average price of what, 20, 25 bucks an order?

Maybe a little more than that.

And we used to charge shipping then.

I don't remember what it was back then, but it could be a little bit more.

I don't remember, to be honest, back then.

So bottom line is I said, hey, I don't like this wholesale bulk stuff, this concession supply stuff.

I don't like selling.

I like more building and engineering than being behind the scenes.

Let's go all in.

Let's take advantage of this early mover advantage and just run faster than...

This is a stodgy industry.

Let's move faster than anyone else in our space.

We probably had, let's say, call it 150 or so products.

I started adding some more products at the time, but nothing aggressive.

And let's really utilize the power of Google AdWords.

So what did that mean?

I mean, this is 2003.

You're revamping the website.

And again, 2003 websites, these are a different world.

Because before, and we're going to get to the day when you launched it, because I think it was December 4th, 2003.

Correct.

Is that right?

Yes, yes.

But before that date, you were getting what, between one and five orders a day on average?

Yes, it could be a few orders a day type of a thing.

So what before December 4th, because we're going to get to that.

Yeah.

What did you do?

What did you put in place that was going to change the equation that day?

So we were spending very small amounts of money advertising.

Okay.

And the shift was just still not to spend that much more, but it was going from $3 a day to $100 a day.

Got it.

You were going from spending $1,000 a year to $36,000 a year.

Correct.

Which was a big deal.

Through Google AdWords.

Correct.

Okay.

So to December 4th, 2003-

is the day you relaunched this new revamped site, Nuts Online.

We launched.

The ad campaign's immediately on.

And it's like the floodgates completely open.

It goes up 10x immediately.

But if we were doing three orders a day, suddenly it's 30.

Wow.

But the reason why you saw this shift was because of the way you used Google AdWords, right?

Yes.

I mean, that was the, yes, we launched a much, the site was better.

Don't get me wrong and faster and friendlier and easier to use and so on.

But then it also, then at that point I was able to unlock, you know, unleash, begin to unleash Google.

When all of a sudden this flood of orders comes in, it's still a small team of people.

Like you guys are literally packing these orders.

How did your dad and uncle respond?

Were they like, oh my God, this is amazing.

So my dad, I mentioned earlier, but my dad's a creature of habit.

And look in the store, when we would be busy for Christmas, just in the store, he'd be so nervous.

I loved it.

He'd just be so nervous.

It was busy.

But most days it would be dead.

Like we'd be sitting there on Saturdays in the summer and it's like – I did the math.

I finally said we're shutting down on Saturdays.

We were making $2 a person an hour.

It was just like there was nothing.

There were no customers.

Nobody buys nuts in the summer unless they're at a baseball game, I guess.

But like the retail business was dying anyway.

There was nothing doing.

So he would be so nervous when it was dead too.

Yeah.

So here, right.

It just like, it's just like, boom, boom.

Like, like, cause suddenly you're talking about, it could be a few an hour.

Right.

And he says, shut it off.

He said, shut it off.

He said, shut it off.

Cause he was so nervous because again.

It was just us.

We have to do the work similarly.

You got to fill those orders.

Like, we're the laborers.

And, you know, there might have been some expletives said, but it's like, if you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen.

I told them, go home.

We got this.

And tell me this story because this is a crazy story.

And it actually got you tons of press.

But what was the story?

Yeah, so this post-apocalyptic drama, like you said, got canceled on CBS.

And fans decided to protest because in the last episode, there was this historical illusion, and it talked about the details matter less, but the U.S.

general says to the Germans, nuts, like we're not going to surrender, nuts.

So fans decided to send nuts in protest to CBS.

In the show, a character said nuts in response to something like,

Yeah, I think it's a true story.

Okay.

I forgot if it was the Battle of the Bulge or Battle of the Stone.

I don't remember.

But the general says nuts, so fans decide that's their rallying cry.

Nuts.

And they're going to send nuts to CBS.

To protest CBS's decision to cancel the show.

Correct.

So we see these strange orders coming in and my cousin says, hey, what the heck's going on here?

I'm scared.

There's people placing orders for one pound bags of different types of nuts, often cheap nuts, like mixed nuts and shell or peanuts.

Yeah.

Shipping to CBS.

In New York?

Yeah, their New York office.

Okay.

So my cousin was like, hey, we can't ship this stuff.

We have to cancel it.

And I said, hold on.

Let me just do some research here.

And I find out what's going on.

The show's canceled.

And I'd never seen the show.

And by the way, were they sending it to a specific person at CBS or just a pound of nuts to CBS?

I'll get her name wrong, but something like Nina Tassler or something like that.

Okay.

I just looked her up.

Nina Tassler.

She was at CBS.

there's a lot of energy here.

And I said, let's go, let's do something here where you have like all these people, it's super inefficient and it's expensive to ship a one pound.

The shipping is freaking $8 or something like that.

Let's harness this energy.

You know, when you're a fundraising drive, they have the thermometer type of a thing.

I said, let's go, let's get up a thermometer.

And this is where I've always heard this expression, you know, man plans and God laughs.

And then,

Probably for the next three weeks, I didn't sleep.

Wait, so sorry, on the website, let me understand this, you had a banner or something that said, hey, if you don't want CBS to cancel Jericho, click here?

Save Jericho, right?

Save Jericho, send peanuts, and we're going to make it super easy.

Give $10, give $20, give $50, whatever this is, because we had a gift certificate functionality.

And we'll send nuts to CBS.

We'll send nuts in bulk, in 25-pound cases, freshly roasted peanuts, because that was our shtick, still is our shtick.

And everyone came to us.

We start collecting so much money.

I think very quickly it goes to $40,000.

How many pounds of peanuts did you end up sending to CBS?

So the number I remember was we shipped 40,000 pounds of peanuts.

40,000?

That full truckload of peanuts.

What did they do with all those peanuts?

I don't know.

I don't remember such a long time ago.

I think they ended up donating them.

We gave them...

addresses of where to send them where people could use them.

I mean, just the publicity that you got out of that.

National Enquirer more than once, which was quite embarrassing.

I mean, and by the way, this was they decided not to cancel it.

They decided to renew it for another few.

Well, it was only seven more episodes, but they did.

They agree.

And and I guess they actually appreciated the stunt.

They like invited you to meet the cast.

Yeah.

They flew me out.

I was the celebrity at the fall CBS fall lineup party.

Mind you, I slept at my friend's dorm or whatever the hell I stayed, you know, I walked there, you know, people come and live in scenes.

Um, this cast were kissing me.

Um, and these were like famous people, but yeah, they, they, and then when Nina Tassler brought it back and if she says, just please stop sending the nuts.

Yeah.

But for us, I mean, our website crashed at one point in time.

We were on like K-Rock and all these places where like the traffic was unbelievable.

Interestingly, from a business standpoint, we then did some analysis on, hey, did these people become customers and come back?

Not really.

But what I realized was we're getting links, as you can imagine, mattered a lot then.

New York Times, that's a lot of authority.

It's lending.

Ultimately, when you'll get a kick out of this, when the campaign was done, I then redirected that page to our Nuts page so our rankings would go up once everyone was done with this thing.

Wow.

Welcome back.

My winner is Papa Bagel, which is trying to go where few bagel shops have gone before nationwide.

Papa Bagel has 16 stores now, seven of them in New York.

But as Bloomberg reported, the company has embarked on an ambitious plan to open 300 locations across the country, which would give it more stores than Sweetgreen.

It might have the money to pull it off.

Papa Bagel is profitable, valued at $60 million dollars.

and majority owned by a private equity firm that's also invested in bougie food names like Erewhon and Levain Bakery.

It also has a bunch of celebrity backers, including JJ Watt, Michael Phelps, and Paul Rudd.

If you're unfamiliar with pop-up bagels, congrats on not being addicted to social media.

These bagels have become a viral sensation for their grip, rip, and dip approach.

You can't get a bagel sandwich there,

These bagels come in orders of three, six, and 12, and you're supposed to dunk them into a tub of cream cheese, chips and salsa style.

But don't call it a flash in the pan.

Pop-Up Bagels likes to say it's, quote, not famous, but known.

It's unclear whether being known is enough to conquer the United States,

Unlike other food categories, bagel stores face major hurdles in expanding.

Maybe the only one that's earned chain status is Einstein Bros, with more than 700 locations, while the rest are mostly hyper-local mom and pop shops.

Toby, does pop-up bagels have staying power?

I don't know.

I do think they are quite delicious, mainly just because I usually get them when they're warm.

And that's the basic elements of a great bagel is if it comes out warm.

But yeah, this started out of a Connecticut backyard during the pandemic.

It was self-taught trial and error bagel maker, Adam Goldberg, kind of harnessed a lot of grassroots energy and just literally started selling these from his house.

And then eventually they had a store in this back alley next to a bike shop.

And

it did just become a viral sensation.

One, because it is different.

I mean, the bagels come unsliced.

They don't really have a traditional hole in the middle that you see.

You tear them and then dip them in the smear.

So it just already had a built-in layer of novelty to it, and then it just quickly started to spread from there.

The fact that it can break from normal bagel orthodoxy in New York and still attract an audience,

is one of the reasons why you start to see private equity circling a little bit, start to see maybe this does have staying power outside of the northeast area.

So I do think, too, that it is easily franchisable.

These stores are small.

Their average store size is 700 to 1,200 square feet, not big at all.

Their opening cost is 300K to 900K, which is a lot cheaper than Einstein bagels, which can cost you

A million bucks.

So I do think maybe that can also play a role in making this a franchisable opportunity.

The fact that it's just such a small footprint.

It's just fascinating to think about why no very, very few bagel stores have gone national.

And you mentioned Einstein Bros.

I don't think anyone would say that's a particularly good bagel.

It's just so hard.

to maintain consistency for your bagel into more than a dozen shops.

The logistics are very hard.

It's very labor-intensive, but it's also, at the same time, low-margin business.

A lot of people don't really get bagels after 1 or 2 p.m., so the sales window is extremely tight.

There's a lot of challenges facing pop-up bagels as it wants to expand.

But every time it does expand, there's a new store opening.

It's kind of like there's new Buc-ee's or a new In-N-Out that opens somewhere off the beaten path.

Because there's huge events.

They just opened one in Harvard Square in Cambridge, and they threw a huge block party.

They're coming to Atlanta.

So they're clearly running a pretty successful playbook when they do open a new store.

The trouble and challenge is going to be maintaining consistency when they open a new store.

And I think the big question here is, is this a viral social media trend or is this a brand with staying power?

Because, I mean, go back through the annals of food trends.

There are things that peak really high.

I mean, the cronut, for instance, this was going to take over the entire world, but then it just kind of slowly fades away from relevance.

Is this a gimmick, the fact that you tear it and the fact that it's not a normal bagel?

Or is this a new paradigm in bagel making that people actually are going to stick with?

I think that is the big question as they try to scale.

So I've had one experience with pop-up bagels last year.

I went because I just wanted to try it, right?

People were talking about it.

So I went and I was like, can I get a bagel?

And they said, no, you need to get three bagels.

Yeah.

And that kind of rubbed me the wrong way.

So I have a little personal beef with pop-up bagels.

Yeah, I guess you just got to bring your friends.

But I was just, you know, a normal person wanting to get a bagel.

And I had to pay for three bagels plus this huge tub of cream cheese.

They say it's to create a social experience.

So I wish them the best.

I'm just sharing, you know, the one personal experience that I had where I had to get three bagels when I just wanted one.