From kitchen to shelf with LLance Kezner.  Former tech executive LLance Kezner shares how he turned his passion for home cooking into Millie’s Sipping Broth, a specialty food brand offering savory, health-conscious beverages in tea bag form.

LLance discusses his journey from corporate leadership to entrepreneurship, the challenges of scaling a food business, and the milestone of landing his award-winning product on Walmart shelves nationwide.

LLance Kezner is a former tech executive who transformed his passion for home cooking into a thriving specialty food business alongside his wife, Lori.

Together, they’ve crafted Millie’s Sipping Broth, a unique line of flavorful, health-conscious broth blends in tea bags that have earned them three internationally recognized awards for excellence in specialty food.

Most recently, their entrepreneurial journey reached an exciting milestone with Walmart awarding them golden tickets to bring Millie’s Sipping Broth to the soup aisle nationwide.

LLance and Lori’s innovative spirit and dedication continue to redefine the way people enjoy comforting, convenient beverages.

LLance lives in the Seattle, Washington area.

From Kitchen to Shelf:

Episode Host: Henry Lopez is a serial entrepreneur, small business coach, and the host of this episode of The How of Business podcast show – dedicated to helping you start, run and grow your small business.

Resources:

Books mentioned in this episode:
[We receive commissions for purchases made through these links (more info)].

• Sales Mastery: Cast Your Way to Success: Unleashing the Art of Sales through tried and true fishing techniques by Michael Schiller

Other Podcast Episodes:

You can find other episodes of The How of Business podcast, the best small business podcast, on our Archives page.

Sponsor:

This episode of The How of Business podcast is sponsored by Federated Computer.

The typical Federated Computer customer saves 75% or more on their software bill and gets great software, top-notch customer service and support, and a software solution that is uniquely installed for your business without any surveillance or breaches of privacy.

Federated Computer has a special offer for the How of Business listeners – Enjoy 30% off on their already low prices when you use the coupon code “BUSINESS”.

Learn more about the Federated Computer, take advantage of this special offer, and reduce your software expenses, at Federated.Computer.

We have received compensation from this sponsor partner. We only accept sponsorships from companies who we believe provide products and services that are valuable for small business owners.

Transcript:

The following is a full transcript of this episode. This transcript was produced by an automated system and may contain some typos.

Henry Lopez (00:16):

Welcome to the How of Business. This is Henry Lopez, and my guest today is Lance Kesner. Lance, welcome to the show.

LLance Kezner (00:23):

Hi, Henry. It’s nice to be here.

Henry Lopez (00:24):

Well, looking forward to this. On this episode, I’m joined by Lance Kesner. He’s a former tech executive who turned his love for home cooking into Millie’s sipping Broth. We’ll explain what that is, but it’s a specialty food brand that’s transforming the way people are enjoying flavorful health conscious beverages. Lance shares his journey. He’s going to share his journey from the corporate leadership career to entrepreneurship, the challenges and triumphs of building a business with his wife Lori, and their exciting milestone of bringing their award-winning broth brand blends to Walmart shelves nationwide, which is a huge, huge next scaling step. You can find all of how a business resources including the show notes page for this episode. We’re going to have a promo code there. If you’re interested in looking at the product and buying this product, the Millie’s Sipping Broth product, be sure to go to the show notes page for this episode for a promo code, and you can find that along, as with my coaching programs and all of those resources at the how of business.com.

Henry Lopez (01:30):

I also invite you to please consider supporting this podcast on Patreon. And wherever you’re listening, please subscribe so you don’t miss any future episodes. Lemme tell you a little bit more about Lance. Lance Kesner, as I said, is a former tech executive who transformed his passion and home cooking into a thriving specialty food business. Alongside with his wife Lori, they’ve crafted, again, Millie’s sipping Broth, which is a unique line of flavorful health conscious broth blends in a tea bag, so in a tea bag form. And they’ve earned them three international recognized awards for excellence and specialty food. And most recently, as I mentioned, we’re going to explore how they have been selected by Walmart, what’s called the Golden Ticket Opportunity, to now have it on Walmart shelves. So that’s really exciting. He’s going to share that journey and some of the challenges of getting there. He and his wife live in the Seattle, Washington area. So once again, Lance Kesner, welcome to the show.

LLance Kezner (02:34):

Hi, Henry. Great to be here.

Henry Lopez (02:36):

Absolutely. Let’s just start briefly the journey you have as I was researching it, at least based on what I saw on LinkedIn, a varied experience. This is not your burst for first business venture, but let’s start from the beginning. What did you end up doing career-wise out of university?

LLance Kezner (02:54):

Well, I always had an interest in international business, international relations, and so my father was in the import business and he welcomed me in to learn all about that. So right out of college, I started working with him and traveling and spending a lot of time in China doing imports and developing product lines for distribution in the United States. So that’s really where I learned everything I can imagine about making a product, building a brand, dealing with customers, good customers, bad customers, getting customers. So that’s really where I got my feet wet.

Henry Lopez (03:56):

Yeah, tremendous experience. What a great opportunity that was to learn. Yeah.

LLance Kezner (04:01):

Yes, absolutely. It was right after China opened up after the Tiananmen Square, so things were very, very new

Henry Lopez (04:12):

While West, if you

LLance Kezner (04:14):

Will it. It really was the Wild West. Very exciting.

Henry Lopez (04:19):

Yeah. So obviously you were in an entrepreneurial family, those influences were there, although you studied, I think it was political science as you alluded to. Yes. Did you want to go into business or was this just an opportunity that was there? Tell me about that.

LLance Kezner (04:36):

I think that growing up in a family business where my parents were in charge of their own destiny was predestined for me. I grew up very much with my father’s attitude of the only way you’re going to make it is if you do it yourself kind of thing. Now having said that, I did work for other companies and learned what I could and kind of realized what he had told me was true. But yeah, I think it was just kind of in the cards all along.

Henry Lopez (05:20):

So one of the things that can happen that I’m always interested in is when children of business owners sometimes only here at the dinner table, the problems, the headaches, and they end up thinking, I want none of that. Did you get that impression of business is hard and it’s painful, and all I hear is lawsuits and problems, or did your parents or did you see, like you said, both sides of it?

LLance Kezner (05:46):

Well, as I got older, I realized what the problems meant and my father, we actually went through a bankruptcy where we lost our house and everything like that. So I faced it impactful. Oh yeah, I was older when that happened. Not that it was easy, so I got to see the good and the bad firsthand. I got to live it. And yeah, there are certain things that I avoid that kind of send him down that path, but there are things that I learned where I didn’t have, you don’t have to create problems for yourself. And that’s really where I learned those lessons. I think the most important part was that I was eager to learn lessons from the issues that I saw. And here’s another thing too, that I didn’t really have a choice in facing these things. They were just there. And I think as an entrepreneur down the road, you can’t bury your head in the sand. You really do have to face the things, and a lot of times it’s not as bad as they seem, but just being able to stand up to them and not be afraid to try and solve problems is probably the biggest thing I learned from that whole experience.

Henry Lopez (07:25):

Well said. And a lot of key takeaways there. Thanks for sharing that and what it did not do, because a lot of times when that happens, oh God, business is very risky. I’m going to go the safe corporate route, but it doesn’t seem like it had that impact on you. You were well aware enough, and I suspect you must have gotten this from your dad as well. It’s like, okay, here were the mistakes we made, let’s learn from them the lesson. Don’t try your hand in business. That was not the lesson, it seems to me,

LLance Kezner (07:54):

Right? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

Henry Lopez (07:57):

Alright, so what were you doing then when this idea for Millie’s Broth comes to you? What were you doing at that point in time?

LLance Kezner (08:07):

Yeah, so I had been in the import business with my father, family business, family Dynamics. I decided I need to separate and kind of go out on my own and I’d always been tech oriented. And so I explored business during the.com boom, here in Seattle area is very, very vibrant. And so I joined some technology companies early on and became a VP of business development. But in 2009 when the economy collapsed, I lost my job and my wife and I decided, let’s really take things into our own hands again. And we had always been passionate about food and what we could do with food. Both of us, our hobbies are really artsy kinds of things and creating things. Both of us have that in common. And I had created a garlic product that I just used myself for cooking, and that’s really where we started by taking this and commercializing it and bringing it to the market. That’s really where we got our experience from

Henry Lopez (09:35):

With the garlic product.

LLance Kezner (09:37):

Exactly. Yeah.

Henry Lopez (09:39):

So that was a product you already had on shelves or you were selling online or whatever the case might be.

LLance Kezner (09:45):

Yeah, we started it from zero, and that’s where we learned all about the ins and outs of creating a food product, the labeling, the manufacturing, the marketing, what it took to bring on customers, what it took to satisfy them, and we also learned where the limitations were in the market for products like that. I think that was probably the biggest thing that we learned because it helped us understand what we wanted to do going forward. Was it going to be this garlic product, which by the way, we won international, this Sophie Award at the Fancy Food Show in New York. We won outstanding product of the year, a year and a half after we created this product and we were on the front cover of Specialty Food Magazine. We didn’t know what hit us. We got the Oscar award for food for these people who just were playing around with something in their kitchen. So that’s kind of how we started.

Henry Lopez (11:00):

What was the impact of that? Were you then hit by demand that you could not satisfy? Or what was it the opposite?

LLance Kezner (11:09):

I think we were hit with all kinds of demand, all kinds of knockoff copycats. We got inquiries that we didn’t know. We didn’t know where they were coming from, and realized that there were some pretty big companies that were testing our capacity and they realized that we were very small and that there’s no way that we’d be able to supply them. It was like a fire hose really all at the same time.

Henry Lopez (11:45):

I’m assuming some of them testing to see how easily can we kill you if we understand what your limitations are. Yeah,

LLance Kezner (11:52):

Totally. Oh, we ran into that as well. And it really tested our production capacity, our production partners, our manufacturing, all of these things that you don’t really think of when you first start up. You have to build your experience with each of these things, but we got them all shoved into our face at the same time.

Henry Lopez (12:21):

Yeah, amazing. Now, is that a product that you still offer or what happened to that product?

LLance Kezner (12:26):

Yeah, we don’t offer it any more only because of the Millie sipping broth really took our focus and really took off in a much bigger way, and we realized that we needed to concentrate on what was really working.

Henry Lopez (12:48):

And I think I want understand of it’s related to a point you made a moment ago, this product now milli sipping broth, it seems like it’s an alignment where you wanted, which was a product that could reach mass market or larger market, hence Walmart. You’re trying to say that with the garlic product, it was more of a specialty boutique store kind of product, or am I missing something there?

LLance Kezner (13:14):

So the garlic was more of a specialty item, and in the food business, it’s what we found out is it’s really easy to start in the specialty area because that’s where people are. That’s where the early adopters are. That’s where they’re a little more forgiving and the products are, they are specialty, they’re not mass market. But we realized that if we were going to make it in the business, that we needed to really go for a bigger category. So when the idea for Millis came along, there was a huge gap that we saw that we could fill, and it really did fit everything we were looking for.

Henry Lopez (14:12):

And then why in the format of a teabag and explain that. Explain what we’re talking about here.

LLance Kezner (14:20):

So the idea came from, and by the way, when we were doing this business, it wasn’t like we were only focused on that. Both myself and my wife, Lori, were working consulting jobs, other jobs on the side to help fund our life and our business. And so Lori was still teaching as a teacher. And so she used to take a bullon cube with to school to have in between classes in the afternoon because she wanted something savory and hot to drink. And I said, let me make something that’s a little healthier for you,

Henry Lopez (15:03):

A lot less salt, probably

LLance Kezner (15:04):

A lot less salt, a lot less artificial ingredients. I put together kind of a dry mix of stuff, and she saw that in the cup. It was all over the place. She said, why don’t you put that in a tea bag so I can just steep it

Henry Lopez (15:23):

Brilliant

LLance Kezner (15:23):

Like tea and then drink the broth. So I literally, in our kitchen, Lori and I, we were taking apart lipin tea bags, emptying out the green tea, putting in this mixture and then stapling it back together. We made about 10 or 12 of them, and she took them to school and put them in the teachers break room, and everyone went crazy over them, and we looked at each other and thought, oh, okay. I think we have something here.

Henry Lopez (15:53):

Yeah, yeah. It’s a brilliant example of how you began here by a need. You had a desire, you had a product you were using and developing it that way initially, if I’m getting it right, I’m always curious, since you’re on the point of that feedback. Often what I see happens is our friends and coworkers tell us how wonderful this is, so therefore the world must love it too. But there’s a big gap there as you know, much better than I. But where I’m going with this is how did you then test it more broadly? Or did you take that as enough to tell you there’s a market for that?

LLance Kezner (16:33):

Well, we knew from the first product that we created that we needed to get exactly what you were saying. We needed to get independent verification of our idea from people that didn’t know us. And so we were fans of create a product and see if you can sell it. We want to move away from getting people to taste it and all that kind of stuff. We want to go right to the people that it would impact the most, which are retailers who thought they could sell it. And so we right away went into designing a package, putting it into a format that retailers would buy. And so since we were already going to places where these specialty retailers were going to or selling,

Henry Lopez (17:37):

So they’re talking about the different shows where they show up at. Of course, you already had connections with some of them.

LLance Kezner (17:43):

Right, exactly. So we would go there, put it on the shelf, get people to taste it, and right away they started buying it. And simultaneously, we had a booth at the Pike Place Market in Seattle on the weekends. And so we started selling it there also, again, people we didn’t know. And yeah, that’s where we got the confidence to keep expanding it.

Henry Lopez (18:14):

That’s wonderful. That’s wonderful. And then, so that obviously of course then refined and drove the packaging and the price point is what are people willing to pay for this? What did you initially compare it to say, well, maybe we think it’s in this ballpark, or we’re going to package is similar. Was it still the T as a comparison, or what did you compare it to, if anything?

LLance Kezner (18:35):

Yeah, that’s a great question. Since we knew that we were kind of crushing two categories together, we’ve got the tea category and the soup category. We literally could do whatever we wanted, but it still needed to be within reason. So we kind of took a price point that was okay in the specialty food arena as kind of our price point. We didn’t really think about it as a tea necessarily, but anything under 1295 was pretty good in the specialty market since we knew that. And so that’s kind of where we started.

Henry Lopez (19:24):

1295 for a package of multiple or one

LLance Kezner (19:28):

For 12 servings. 12

Henry Lopez (19:30):

For 12. 12 serving 1295 for 12. Got it. Thanks. Interesting. Brilliant, brilliant. So where did the name Millie come from?

LLance Kezner (19:38):

Millie was the name of my wife’s mother, and the reason why we named Millie’s is because she used to bring people together around food Friday nights to kind of get everyone together, talk about their weeks, share their stories, and it was a way for her to connect with everybody. And so we wanted to do that. And then also, there was a funny story about how Millie used to make broth, and we found out that the broth really came from a can of Swansons. And so it was a very funny way that we kind of connected with her and we really wanted to honor her because she was a very big impact in our lives.

Henry Lopez (20:41):

What a beautiful tribute. And there’s that connecting story, which makes it even better, I’m assuming then, is that one of the threads that influences the branding of the product, meaning using this as an opportunity to sit and converse one would over a cup of tea?

LLance Kezner (20:58):

Absolutely. One of the things that we, and we backed ourselves into this idea, it’s not that we started off with this idea, but what we realized is that people need more tools to help them deal with stress and anxiety now more than ever. And food is a direct correlation to comfort. And so that’s why we call Millie’s Comfort Food in a broth. And it really helps you be satisfied. It helps you to stop and take a minute, make a cup of this for yourself, just like your mom or your grandma or anyone significant in your life would do to take care of you. And we realized that that’s what people were doing with our product. It’s something we didn’t signal to people to do it. That was just part of how we created it, but it was happening, and that definitely entered into our messaging and to the way that we wanted to communicate how you use the product.

Henry Lopez (22:20):

Yeah, no, that’s wonderful. I can see that all coming together and even, of course, the process of making it, it’s not just something you’re throwing into the microwave. There’s a process there that all adds to that, the value of it for us emotionally, if you will. Absolutely.

Henry Lopez (23:29):

All right, so from the time you come up with this initial idea, you’re testing it and making it with your own tea bags to, it’s on some retailer’s shelf. What timeframe are we talking about? More or less there

LLance Kezner (24:34):

Probably a three month process. Wow.

Henry Lopez (24:38):

Very short. Again, this is because of your experience, that seems like a really fast period of time. No.

LLance Kezner (24:45):

Well, we did that with the garlic too.

Henry Lopez (24:48):

Interesting.

LLance Kezner (24:49):

I didn’t waste any time. And one of the biggest pieces of advice that I got when we first started in the food business was don’t make it yourself. Do everything you possibly can to not make it yourself, because you will get bogged down in all kinds of needless details. You’ve got to find someone else to make it for you. I see. So we had that knowledge,

Henry Lopez (25:19):

That mentality and approach, because the time needs to be spent getting the word out, selling it, getting placed, all of those kinds of things. Yeah,

LLance Kezner (25:27):

Exactly. Which is a completely different discipline, and especially with food. It needs to be manufactured in a safe environment, needs to be manufactured according to FDA regulations and everything like that. And the co-packers who do that are specialists in that. So we moved very quickly. The garlic one was the same, and we did it very quickly and I had this attitude, let’s see if we can get this to fail as quickly as possible. If no one’s going to buy it, let’s move on.

Henry Lopez (26:08):

You want to know? Yeah, right. Brilliant. Now here, a little bit more challenging in finding that co-packer, because we’re not talking about a basic product here. The packaging, the TBA component of it is unique. So did you have a challenge finding someone that would do it?

LLance Kezner (26:24):

Oh yeah. It took probably six years to kindly find the right partner. We went through about four different partners a lot. It was we were growing and then we would reach the limits of their capabilities, but then technology would change. We would have different requirements, but I think the bottom line was is that we would just reach the limits of certain capabilities and we had to either, if we wanted to grow, we had to figure something else out.

Henry Lopez (27:18):

And right now who you’re doing it with, is it stateside? Is it overseas combination?

LLance Kezner (27:24):

No, we do, everything is made in the USA and that’s why we were able to work with Walmart.

Henry Lopez (27:29):

Okay. That’s one of the things that they look for. Yeah. Okay. Excellent. Alright. You touched on the funding. It sounds like you self-funded this at least initially, is that correct?

LLance Kezner (27:41):

Yes. Yep. Credit cards working two or three jobs. Yeah, everything.

Henry Lopez (27:51):

Is the business profitable now?

LLance Kezner (27:53):

Oh yeah, we are profitable, yeah.

Henry Lopez (27:56):

And have you had to take in any other money as you’ve made these leaves as you’ve grown, especially now with Walmart, or is it still all bootstrapped?

LLance Kezner (28:05):

We partnered with a company a couple of years ago that allowed us to bring on capital sales operations in order to scale it at a rapid pace. And so we were very lucky that we attracted an organization that understood our vision and has helped us expand that, especially during covid when we kind of went viral with the whole thing. I mean, it just kind of hit an inflection point that really gave us our partner confidence in where this could go.

Henry Lopez (28:57):

And the structure that you have now, this money we’re talking to about, it’s all lending structures, no equity that you had to give up at this point?

LLance Kezner (29:06):

No. It’s a pure partnership. So we’re partners in the brand

Henry Lopez (29:12):

And

LLance Kezner (29:15):

It was a very good fit. Yeah, no doubt. And has been a very good fit for the past five years. Really. Fantastic.

Henry Lopez (29:22):

That’s fantastic. Alright, I want to go back to a tactical question since we’re on it here specifically. What is the advice you’d give to someone who is developing a product for the first time, a food product, let’s stay with that. And they have that big challenge of trying to get into that first retailer. The advice I’ve always been given and give is to try to start local, regional, locally owned. Is that the advice you offer or what do you recommend to people to get started to get on that first shelf?

LLance Kezner (29:52):

I think the best thing to do is to find the place where people are looking for what you have. That’s the first thing

Henry Lopez (30:05):

For you. In part that was Pikes Peak

LLance Kezner (30:07):

Market. Yeah, pike Place Market. They’re looking for locally made products that fit into the theme. So we were making garlic and at the market, they’re selling produce and all these things, so it fit and that’s the first place. Now what’s different about when we started versus now is the online capabilities and the online marketplaces did not exist like they do now. And so there are a lot of different things going on now that make it a little bit different.

Henry Lopez (30:51):

Right. Okay. Alright. Let’s talk about the Walmart opportunity because that’s huge new. Is the product on the shelf yet or to be on the shelf at Walmart?

LLance Kezner (31:01):

No, it is on the shelf. We had to keep it secret for about a year and yeah, I think it’s been on the shelf now for four weeks.

Henry Lopez (31:16):

And where do I find it?

LLance Kezner (31:19):

In the soup aisle? Just down

Henry Lopez (31:22):

From, so I would find can soups or dehydrated soups, kind of packaged soups of any kind.

LLance Kezner (31:28):

Exactly. It just down from the Campbell soup takes up about half of the space and then you keep going and then you’ll see ours at eye level.

Henry Lopez (31:38):

Wonderful. Millie’s sipping broth. Alright, so tell me about this exciting process. How does one even get invited to potentially, well maybe explain that whole process at a high level and what it means to get awarded this opportunity.

LLance Kezner (31:54):

So Millie’s was given the opportunity to meet with Walmart through what they call the open call. So every year Walmart does an open call for domestically made products that could go into Walmart, that’s food, hard goods, soft goods, anything that Walmart can sell. And so they asked for a one paragraph introduction to the product. I sent that in and 7,000 products were proposed to Walmart. And then they decided to meet with 800 out of that. And what they did was they split up the 800 and brought 400 of them to the Walmart campus in person and then the other 400 online to do virtual meetings. So we were invited to come on campus in person for meetings with the buyers.

Henry Lopez (33:05):

And is that in part because you had a product that you have to taste? Does that not have anything to do with it?

LLance Kezner (33:13):

No, I don’t know. I really don’t know. It may have been that we’ve kind of intrigued them because they ask for samples ahead of time.

Henry Lopez (33:23):

So the 400 that get invited to campus are the top 400, if you will, perhaps. Yeah. What other prerequisites were required for you to even apply? In other words, did you have to already have a product on the shelf somewhere?

LLance Kezner (33:40):

Oh yeah. They wanted to see that it existed in other retailers stables and we had some great reference accounts and we showed them that. They also obviously were looking at our social media to see what kind of engagement there was. And then the story we had about kind of going viral during Covid, we were discovered by Weight Watchers International and put on the front page of all their products websites. Wow. Huge. And marketed to four and a half million Weight Watchers subscribers. So they were buying our product from Weight Watchers during Covid, which was amazing.

Henry Lopez (34:31):

As you’re describing this, this is classic, this is the overnight success that’s taken six plus years to build, right? Yep. There’s a lot of work that you’ve done, a lot of successes that you’ve had to be able to get now on this stage, but going back to that conversation we were having earlier, was this your vision from early on to get it to this level of mass market, if you will, a Walmart level?

LLance Kezner (34:59):

It was definitely our vision to get it to a national retailer, but being careful to make sure that there was enough demand for it. We didn’t want to blow our chances by getting it into wide distribution just to sit on the shelf and have no one buy it. And that’s

Henry Lopez (35:23):

One of the worst things that can happen to a product, obviously.

LLance Kezner (35:28):

And it’s an ongoing issue. It’s not something that you can sit back on your laurels. It’s a challenge. I always tell people it’s easy to get it on the shelf. It’s hard to get someone to go back and buy it over and over and over again.

Henry Lopez (35:47):

Well said. That’s where components of merchandising come in, branding, all of those different components come into play then. Yes.

LLance Kezner (35:57):

Branding is now fractured into social proof. You’ve got, what are these people saying about this? Or discovery even discovery is critical and that’s all off shelf. It’s all off shelf that’s being driven.

Henry Lopez (36:21):

Right. Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense. Okay. How much pressure or how much impact did they have on you having to adjust your pricing? Retail pricing that is,

LLance Kezner (36:32):

Yeah, we went in, so luckily our partner had a lot of experience in working with their channel, and so we were very aggressive and met them in a way that I don’t think they were expecting. We knew what to expect. We had, luckily, our manufacturing capabilities and our scaling capabilities were at a point where we knew that our costs were going to be in line with what they were expecting. And I think that’s also a reason why they put us in so many stores right up front.

Henry Lopez (37:14):

Yeah, yeah. So this partner that you’re alluding to is the same partner as the funding partner. They

LLance Kezner (37:19):

Provide

Henry Lopez (37:20):

This type of consulting as well?

LLance Kezner (37:23):

Yes.

Henry Lopez (37:23):

Yeah. Invaluable. I think that sounds like that’s been for you in many regards.

LLance Kezner (37:27):

Incredible. Yep. Yep.

Henry Lopez (37:30):

Now you’ll continue to offer it online at Walmart and at other retailers, correct?

LLance Kezner (37:36):

Yeah, we’re, let’s see, we’re in about 2,500 stores right now. And then by January we’ll be in about 3000 locations.

Henry Lopez (37:51):

Okay. Alright. So I asked you specifically about some advice on getting into a store, but let’s take a step back. When people come to you, which I’m sure they do all the time, now I’ve got an idea for a food product, where do you tell them to start?

LLance Kezner (38:08):

I think it’s just like any other product, which is why do people need it? That’s the most critical thing I always laugh at. I don’t laugh. I mean, I look at some people’s ideas, especially in food where they’re going to create another barbecue sauce. Okay, why does someone need your barbecue sauce over the millions of other ones that are out there? What problem is it solving? And I think that’s lacking in the food business where you’re solving a problem with us. With Millie sipping broth, the problem we’re solving is there was no savory hot beverages available in the category. So if you needed something to drink that wasn’t coffee, tea, hot cocoa or cider, that was it. It was hot. You could drink hot water.

Henry Lopez (39:16):

That’s improvised like your wife was doing with the Bullon cube.

LLance Kezner (39:19):

Exactly.

Henry Lopez (39:19):

That’s all.

LLance Kezner (39:20):

Exactly.

Henry Lopez (39:20):

So you reinvented or created a subsegment that didn’t exist before.

LLance Kezner (39:26):

Exactly. And then what happened was people started using it for the exact same reason my wife was, which is to compliment their wellness routines. So they were integrating it on a daily basis with a snack substitute or adding protein and having a savory hot protein drink instead of a sweet protein drink or using it to break a fast, or even if they were going through medical treatments or they were just ways in which they wanted to kind of cut down on calories, cut down on carbs in order to make their days go better and their wellness routines to be successful.

Henry Lopez (40:16):

Yeah. Brilliant. And then I think the other thing that you knew you had to do is you had to quickly beyond get beyond the people who are going to tell you how much they love it. And that’s what the Pikes market did for you to validate it with an unknown audience that they would in fact pay for this.

LLance Kezner (40:32):

Absolutely. We were selling broth in the middle of summer. It was like a hundred degrees outside and people, they were coming and buying it and taking it with them.

Henry Lopez (40:44):

Right. Completely related, but off of the business topic, you had mentioned the family dynamics earlier on. You work with your spouse now, how do you make that work?

LLance Kezner (40:54):

Yeah, I mean we spend a lot of time together and during Covid we spent even more time together. I think that the fact that we both really have different kinds of talents is huge and we both respect those boundaries. That makes a big difference because my parents used to work together and I witnessed good times and bad times when that was going on. So again, I learned a lot of ways to kind of make that work. And there are challenges and we both kind of know when to back off, which is good. And we’ve been doing this now for over 10 years, so something’s working well.

Henry Lopez (41:48):

Yeah, I’m hearing I think also delineation of roles. Is that part of it?

LLance Kezner (41:54):

Huge. Yeah. Really important. And I think, but we also know when the other person needs to be called out on an assumption and just double checked and not be afraid to do that, which my wife does all the time.

Henry Lopez (42:12):

I couldn’t imagine. Well, great. That’s fantastic. That’s wonderful. And it does work out. Alright, we’ll start to wrap it up. I know we’re going to have a code, a coupon code or a discount code. You tell me what you call it so that if somebody wants to try this, they can go to the website. So tell me about that.

LLance Kezner (42:30):

Yeah, so when you use the coupon code, you’ll get 20% off of your order and we love to get your feedback. We love to see your millis mugshot. A lot of people take pictures or videos. Love that with our product and their favorite mug. So we’d love to see your mugshot on our social media and featured on our website.

Henry Lopez (42:59):

Wonderful. What is the website?

LLance Kezner (43:01):

It is millie’s sipping broth.com.

Henry Lopez (43:06):

And Millie’s is M-I-L-L-I-E, correct?

LLance Kezner (43:12):

Correct. And if you can’t remember how to spell Millie’s, all you have to do is go to sipping broth.com and it’ll get you the same place.

Henry Lopez (43:19):

It’ll redirect. Wonderful.

LLance Kezner (43:21):

Yes. Yeah.

Henry Lopez (43:22):

Excellent. Yeah, so take advantage of that. I’ll have the coupon code, it’ll be created by the time this episode goes live, so when you’re listening to it, it’s live, it’s available. Just go to the show notes page for this episode@thehowbusiness.com, get that coupon code. I’ll have a link there as well, so you don’t have to remember the website and go and take advantage of this and try this great product. Obviously it’s at a great price point, so it’s not about that. If you don’t want to try it online, you’re going into Walmart, you know where to look for it in the soup section and look for the brand there and try it. Wonderful product and certainly worth trying. Okay. I’m always looking for a book recommendation. Is there a book that comes to mind, Lance, that you would recommend to us?

LLance Kezner (44:03):

Yes. I’m going to tell you about a book my friend Mike Schiller wrote, which is Sales Mastery Cast Your Way to Success, and it’s about unleashing the art of sales through tried and true fishing techniques. And so Mike, I’ve known Mike for a long time and he’s the consummate entrepreneur sales guy and what he wrote in this, and it’s an easy read, it’s a really quick, easy read on Amazon. What he put together was how his love of fishing really taught him these ways in which you can sell and not get bogged down in the rejection or anything like that. In fishing, you’re not always going to catch a fish, but if you know the best ways to coax the fish to jump on your line, you can apply the same principles to sales techniques.

Henry Lopez (45:13):

That’s wonderful. Love it. Love the analogy. Commend that book.

LLance Kezner (45:15):

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Henry Lopez (45:17):

I’ll have a link to it on the show notes page as well for this episode at the how of business.com. Alright, we’ll wrap it up with these last two questions. What’s one thing, Lance, you want us to take away from this conversation that we’ve had? If I’m thinking about it from the perspective of getting a product to market, certainly to the level that you’re at, what’s one or two key takeaways you’d like us to take from this?

LLance Kezner (45:41):

Don’t waste any time, don’t overthink it. Really focus on the simplest application of your product and get it out there. Get it in front of people who might buy it. Don’t waste any time because I think if you overthink it, you’ll start to run into the issues that prevent things from actually happening. And in this case you will figure out what works, what doesn’t work, and you’ll be able to move forward whatever that direction is.

Henry Lopez (46:20):

Love that. I refer to it as the MVP approach, right? And so this is another example of a type of business where it allows for that as opposed to getting it quote perfect before you launch. Only the market is going to tell you whether it’s somebody wants or if it’s too salty or if it’s too sweet or it’s too expensive, whatever the case might be. You got to get it out there as quickly as possible, is what you’re saying.

LLance Kezner (46:44):

Absolutely. Yep, yep.

Henry Lopez (46:46):

Alright. Tell us the website again that you want us to go to learn more and to try the product.

LLance Kezner (46:51):

Go to sipping broth.com.

Henry Lopez (46:55):

Excellent, excellent conversation. Thanks so much, Lance, for being with me today of being so transparent with your journey, the experiences that you’ve had. I appreciate you taking the time to be with me today.

LLance Kezner (47:07):

Thank you. It was great. Nice meeting you. And thank you for everyone for listening.

Henry Lopez (47:12):

Thanks Lance. This is Henry Lopez and thanks for joining us on this episode of The How of Business. My guest again today is Lance Kesner. I release new episodes every Monday morning and you can find the show anywhere you listen to podcasts, including the How a Business YouTube channel, and at my website, which remember, that’s where you’ll get the coupon code for 20% off on one of these products of Millie’s sipping broth, just go to the how of business.com. Thanks again for listening.