Turning Logs into Luxury: Leroy Hite’s Firewood Revolution

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Leroy Hite of Cutting Edge firewood is revolutionizing the way people experience a firepit and also how to use premium firewood to change the taste of your food. Leroy started in the firewood business and had started like most "FIRWUD4SALE" - After that venture ended, he did a stint in the corporate world until he got the SIGN to start again with a new twist on firewood delivery and experience. The premium service he has started and grown has become an excellent story of ideas to operations to scaling. Give it a listen around the fire! Did you know our amazing voices can go beyond just the microphone? Yes, we have video! Subscribe to our YouTube channel here!

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GOLD NUGGETS:

(11:36) - Entrepreneurship and Firewood Innovation

(30:45) - From Corporate Job to Firewood Business

(36:42) - Entrepreneurial Journey in the Firewood Industry

(47:37) - Revolutionizing the Firewood Industry 

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Leroy’s Links:

Website | www.cuttingedgefirewood.com 

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Book Mentioned: Good To Great

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Previous guests on The Small Business Safari include Dale Cardwell, Amy Lyle, Ben Alexander, Joseph Sission, Jonathan Ellis, Brad Dell, Chris Hanks, C.T. Emerson, Chad Brown, Tracy Moore, Wayne Sherger, David Raymond, Paul Redman, Gabby Meteor, Ryan Dement, Barbara Heil Sonneck, Bryan John, Tom Defore, Rusty Clifton, Duane Johns, Jason Sleeman, Andy Suggs, Chris Michel, Jon Ostenson, Tommy Breedlove, Rocky Lalvani, Amanda Griffey, Spencer Powell, Joe Perrone, David Lupberger, Duane C. Barney, Dave Moerman, Jim Ryerson, Al Mishkoff, Scott Specker, Mike Claudio and more!

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If You Loved This Episode Try These!

• Lessons for Business from Hiking the Appalachian Trail | Jerry Travers

• Turning 23 Years of McDonald's Franchise Ownership to an Entrepreneurial Lifestyle

• Attracting High-Value Clients with Irresistible Marketing Messages | Daniel Den

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Have any questions or comments? Connect with me here!

From the Zoo to Wild is a book for entrepreneurs passionate about home services, looking to move away from corporate jobs. Chris Lalomia, a former executive, shares his path, discoveries, and tools to succeed as a small business owner in home improvement retail. The book provides the mindset, habits, leadership style, and customer-oriented processes necessary to succeed as a small business owner in home services.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
So when you say normal firewood company, it's
the crappy little cardboard signwith red letters that says
firewood and it's spelled wrongwith a number.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
F-I-R-W-O-O-D.
That's right, number four,s-a-l.

Speaker 1 (00:16):
Right Firewood for sale.
I know that company.

Speaker 3 (00:19):
That's great.
So that was your company,genius, all right.

Speaker 1 (00:23):
So you feel sorry for them, so you want to buy their
wood.

Speaker 3 (00:27):
It's actually you know what You've got to play to
your market, bro, because you'relike oh, I'm going to get these
poor country boys.
Welcome to the Small BusinessSafari where I help guide you to
avoid those traps, pitfalls anddangers that lurk when
navigating the wild world ofsmall business ownership.
I'll share those gold nuggetsof information and invite guests
to help accelerate your ascentto that mountaintop of success.
It's a jungle out there and Iwant to help you traverse

(00:53):
through the levels of owningyour own business that can get
you bogged down and distract youfrom hitting your own personal
and professional goals.
So strap in adventure team andlet's take a ride through the
safari and get you to themountaintop.
Let's get ready to rock androll.
Everybody's time to chop somewood.
Alan, you know that's what wedo.

(01:14):
When we got to go to work, yougot to chop wood.
I don't know if you ever heardthat, but my, my coach used to
say that football is like lalame.
You gotta start chopping wood,son.
We got to go.
Chris is on fire today.
I'm on fire today because weare teasing this one up.
This is going to be a lot offun, not your typical uh startup
.
This is not some it thing.
I dreamt it up.
But before we get there, thisone's way more fun, I think.

(01:36):
I think this is going to be alot more fun too, because it's
actually real, it's tangible anduh, again, you're on fire and
it's smoking.
It's smoking, oh my god.
We could keep doing this allday long.
You're all right.
You're in fuego.
I am in fuego, all right.
Well, I guess we should getstarted, although what I do?
Gotta give some props to my kid, right?
just yeah, I think so yeah yep,so uh, you know, as we go

(01:58):
through the journey of life andstarting a biz uh, you know,
I've been doing it for 16 years.
The kid's 22.
Now he just graduates from UGAAll he ever really knew was
either I was gone and then, whenI was back, I ran a business.
He was telling me that theother day he says I really don't
remember much before youstarted the business that feels
good, doesn't it, dad, that I'vebeen?

(02:19):
at it for that long?
Yeah, of course, he said, but Idon't want to do anything with
your business, so, um, so thegood news is so what's there?

Speaker 1 (02:27):
a little silver lining on this conversation or
is it just more, you know,airing of grievances during his
graduation.
It really was.

Speaker 3 (02:34):
Uh, he did say thank you, but uh, what do you mean?
But I mean, that's like, it'slike no offense.

Speaker 1 (02:40):
But wait, you can't say that because you're still
gonna rip somebody up, but uhwas this after you gave him his
graduation gift or before uh, sohis graduation was gift.

Speaker 3 (02:48):
Was this huge party we threw for him, uh, this
weekend, um, and plus the factthat we put him through four
years of school and if he doeseverything right, we will pay
for his law school.
So he is going to law school.
So there is a bittersweetending of this because, as, as
you know, you need a lawyer.
Yeah, and now I don't have topay as much for him.
So I got to get him through.

(03:09):
So good news is too for me,he's going to trial law.
Really that's what he'sthinking, I don't know.
And then I got my daughter,who's going to be a PA, who was
home this weekend and alsoripped on my lifestyle and told
me I gotta dial it back a littlebit.
And I said you know.

Speaker 1 (03:23):
To that I mean, they have the perfect professions to
take care of you, I know right,I'm setting myself up for
retirement and weight issues andeverything else I mean I'm fat,
obese, I'm, I'm obese, as weall know.
Uh, because that's no, you'resolidly overweight.
No, no, you're striving forthat I'm striving for that.

Speaker 3 (03:38):
I gotta drop five more.
Okay, that's not bad yeah, soI'm getting down there, Right.
But yeah, the lady.
Well, you're in the obesecategory.
What I'm like, lady, I need tosleep.
But they changed the rules.
I found that out too.
Really.
No, not really no, anyway we'reback to it.

Speaker 1 (03:55):
All right, can we get to our guest A couple of days
in the holding cell?

Speaker 3 (04:09):
Probably get you out.
That's probably true, you know.
Actually, it would drive me out.
Leave me out probably be a goodthing to do.
All right, ladies and gentlemen, we have got to talk about
something.
This could be so cool.
So we got leroy height here,who left corporate america on on
his own terms, as I researchedand found out so we're going to
find out why but started thisreally cool thing called cutting
edge firewood.
You're like okay, it's afirewood company.
No, it's not, man, it ispremium firewood.

(04:30):
You're like, right now you'resitting there going no, they're
in a market for that.
Yeah, no, so I can't wait toget into all this, because, if
you say it just like that and uh, we talked to lee right before
I got here, he's from themountains, you know, it's that.
Um, you know woods, wood man,or is it no?

Speaker 1 (04:45):
it is not bite your tongue, I know right.
Oh, my god, you're gonna get anedumacation today right, leroy,
welcome to the show man.

Speaker 3 (04:52):
Thank you so much.
Glad to be here.
All right, let's jump into this.
So I gotta start back to thebeginning.
Um, and that's right, we gottacheers because I didn't drink
enough over the weekend.
Let's keep going.

Speaker 1 (05:02):
Hair of the dog baby tuesday dead air is always so
good on a podcast oh, you loveit.

Speaker 3 (05:09):
All right, lock and load everybody, start driving,
start listening.
Here we go.
So, leroy, before you came upwith this idea, you were.
You went to college.
You said, man, I'm gonna do thecorporate thing.
Uh, did you think you're gonnabe an entrepreneur ever?

Speaker 2 (05:23):
so not till college.
So I went to barry and they hadan entrepreneurial program
while I was there and started afew different businesses,
including a different firewoodcompany, which is where I first
caught the vision nice, allright.

Speaker 3 (05:38):
So you tried it out a little bit in college when you
were doing a side hustle, goingto school doing your thing,
barry college, which, which isthe distinction of having I
don't know, but I know it's likea cruise ship for everybody
that went there.

Speaker 2 (05:52):
I don't know what's that mean, I went there and I
don't know what that means.
No, I guess not.

Speaker 3 (05:58):
There we go, esoteric references.
It is the largest college inthe nation by landmass world
world whoa largest campus.

Speaker 1 (06:12):
so you did you harvest the firewood on campus
small, 27 000 acres geez, sothat's nice yeah, so berry
college was founded.

Speaker 3 (06:20):
Uh, conjunction with ford family and another person.

Speaker 2 (06:25):
No, so it was founded by Martha Berry and um, that's
why I did that.
And uh, uh, she caught theattention of a lot of important
people in the country at thetime.
So, um, teddy Roosevelt at onepoint visited and was a fan, and
um, yeah, henry ford was a fan.

(06:46):
So the um, henry ford or fordfoundation actually still
donates money to the school andhe built like basically a castle
on campus.

Speaker 3 (06:56):
So yeah, so that that's why I brought that up,
because I'm from detroitoriginally, and that's why I
said ford.
And who else?
Oh, you mean barry, who theynamed the college?
Yeah, that's why I said Ford,and who else?

Speaker 1 (07:04):
Oh, you mean Barry, who they named the college.
Yeah, that's that Right.
All right, so you're at school.
You're narcissistic?

Speaker 3 (07:09):
Yeah, that'll lala me a university, you know, funny,
you should say that no, allright, I will.
I'm short about.
Uh see what's going to take a50 million.
I'm about a 49.99999 millionaway.
All right, let's keep going,shall we?
Let's dream big, all right.
So you went off.
So you decided to go to work.

(07:29):
Uh, go into corporate world,start working ish yeah, kind of.

Speaker 2 (07:34):
So.
Um, actually did that firewoodcompany a year in school and
then a year after school.
Um, so, um, two buddies of minewhen I was a junior right after
I got married um spring break,junior year, um, quite normal um
, do you get married in panamacity or no?

Speaker 1 (07:55):
it was planned and everything.

Speaker 2 (07:56):
Oh wow high school sweetheart, um working at
chick-fil-a, um fastest, uh, umdrive-through crew, still ever
hold the record.
How about that, you and yourwife?
No, I don't know that weactually do, but it wouldn't
surprise me if you actually haveawards like that.

(08:16):
I uh um.
We work fast and so we are verycritical anytime we go through
the drive-thru.
Um the uh but uh, um.
So two uh buddies of mine umstarted it and wanted me to run
operations, gave me like a smallpercentage of ownership and, um
, we did it.
Um, uh, fun rent.

(08:39):
A fun random fact uh, um, in2007, um, when I first started,
we um split firewood over thesummer, um, which was the worst
summer ever.
That's when the lake almostcompletely dried up and holds
the all-time record where, inatlanta, there were 10 days

(08:59):
where it was above 100 degreesin a row.

Speaker 1 (09:02):
Um, I can't remember the last time it got above and
there was a burn ban, I'massuming yeah, he's out there,
he's out there chopping wood Iwas chopping and not even
thinking about that.

Speaker 2 (09:12):
But uh, um, so um, did that, sold it the firewood
just normal firewood company.
Um, and that winter.

Speaker 1 (09:21):
Um, so when you say normal firewood company, it's
the crappy little cardboard signwith red letters says firewood
and it's spelled wrong with anumber f-i-r-w-o-o-d.

Speaker 2 (09:35):
That's right number four, s-a-l right firewood for
sale.

Speaker 1 (09:40):
I know that company that's great.

Speaker 3 (09:42):
So that was your company genius, all right so you
feel sorry for them, so youwant to buy their wood it's
actually you know what you gotto play to your market, bro,
because you you're like, oh, I'mgonna get these poor country
boys on a break and get somemoney.

Speaker 2 (09:55):
I don't know if we want to get into that, but I
have all those stories that Iheard, especially in the early
years when I did all thedeliveries.
But the uh, um, you know theone-legged, uh, the one legged
guy that delivered firewood, theguy that forgot to put his uh
truck in um park and it rolledand totaled the mercedes so that
firewood was actually eventhat's the most expensive

(10:18):
firewood in the world not mine.
But uh, um, so we did that andum, we actually bid for kroger.
The kroger account for theentire southeast for their
bundled firewood and thefirewood industry for seven
bucks.
Yes, the the firewood industryat the time was so advanced that

(10:38):
to get the kroger account forthe entire southeast I don't
remember, I think it's like athousand stores but um, they
gave you a username password,gave you a url and you would log
in.
It was a reverse bid andwhoever put in the lowest number
won the account.
So three college students wonthe account for the entire south
.
Oh my god, with no equipmentand no idea what we were doing,

(11:00):
how'd that go?

Speaker 3 (11:03):
surprisingly, no one died, um so we got that going
for us.
So good news good news gottalook at the right right side is
that we won the account forkroger at the lowest bid which
nobody ever, has ever, ever,ever gone on to be a millionaire
because they were the lowestbidder for everything ever so.
But good news nobody newsnobody died.

Speaker 2 (11:25):
Yeah, I mean both.
Both the other guys were, uh,finance majors, so they knew if
you put numbers into aspreadsheet that that meant it
was true, um, so that went great.
Um, we bought hundreds ofthousands of dollars of
equipment and, um, and thingsbroke every single day.
So I taught myself how to fixthem, then taught myself how to

(11:47):
use them, the, the equipment.
And then, uh, um, we hired abunch of people on Craigslist,
set up a, uh, um, an assemblyline and, um, um, we've had like
30, 35 people out there a dayusing heavy equipment.
At one point, um, someequipment was stolen and the

(12:08):
police asked for information onour employees.
And, uh, um, the next day Ilook up and 25, 30 cops are
walking onto the place andapparently 15 of our employees
had outstanding warranties.
I asked for a.
Uh, I didn't really, but I andI I've thought since I should
have asked for like an awardCause I basically did the cops

(12:30):
jobs.
Yeah, you set a record, youjust you collect all the
criminals in your County.

Speaker 3 (12:35):
Doesn't he get like a FOP award?
He gets like the police awardfor finding the most criminals
in one spot, cause they're allworking with you every day,
which let's go back that.
Yep good news is nobody diedonly 15 people got arrested all
right, so you guys are off onthis venture filling this thing
out.
How long did this last?

Speaker 2 (12:54):
so, um, you're in school and then, a year after
school, realized we could notkeep up with kroger.
So, um, we tell them, hey, wecan't keep up with Kroger.
So, um, we tell them, hey, wecan't keep up.
Um, and then I sat down at atable and, um, I was like, okay,
we have a bunch of firewood.
We as a group came up with anidea of making a homemade kiln,

(13:16):
and then I came up with a newidea of how to deliver firewood
just sitting at a table, staringat a piece of paper for about
two hours.
And, interestingly, when Istarted cutting edge firewood,
that's how, where I started atbut and then continue to improve
.
But really, what that told mewas firewood was incredibly

(13:40):
backwards, completelyundeveloped.
You stare at a piece of paperfor two hours and you can
completely revolutionize theindustry.
So what I came up with is buy atruck and trailer what's called
a mini skid steer.
It's basically looks like aride behind lawnmower with
tracks and you can put forks onthe front of it.
So what that allowed you to dowas carry eight loads of

(14:05):
firewood and it would only takeabout 18 hours to do the
deliveries.
So you know, easy day comparedto, that's 18 hours.

Speaker 3 (14:14):
It's called easy day.
Welcome to entrepreneurship.
Right, that's it.
They probably didn't say thatfirewood.

Speaker 2 (14:21):
No, they did not.

Speaker 3 (14:21):
They did not.
I don't think the academicsever go.
Hey, so you want to be anentrepreneur?
Right, how many days?
And uh, so it's an eight hourday.

Speaker 1 (14:27):
Yeah, no, 18, yeah, 18 hour days, my friend because
the episode that just droppedthis week was the guy who owns a
construction company, amongother businesses, and he only
gives it an hour a week.
Remember that one.
So well, all right yeah, sohe's.

Speaker 3 (14:40):
He's the other side.
Uh, do what I know.
We talked to him.
Chaz Wolf has three businesses,apparently you have a time
management problem.
Well, yeah, well, he's the onedelivering the firewood.
You don't deliver firewood inan hour, bro.

Speaker 1 (14:54):
I got to get it.
I got to eat loads, I got toget into the weeds in this just
a little bit.

Speaker 2 (14:59):
You got to find the wood, yeah, and it has to be dry
, yeah I mean, and you'resupplying a thousand Kroger
stores and then whatever you'redoing now, when we were getting
Kroger wood that it's better ifit has fungus on it and some rot
and it won't burn.

(15:20):
That's a plus actually.

Speaker 1 (15:24):
You almost sound like you're joking, but maybe not.

Speaker 3 (15:29):
I think he knows a little bit more about wood than
you do.

Speaker 1 (15:31):
bud we're going to start talking wood.
Are you going to start?

Speaker 3 (15:36):
making wood jokes.
I can't no, not yet.
I want to hear more about this.
We've got to keep going.

Speaker 1 (15:41):
I know.
That's why I'm asking thesequestions.
We've got to go back to thefact that he's delivering.
We've got to go back to.
Where does he get in the wood?
Where do you get the wood?

Speaker 2 (15:49):
Well, At the time we were just getting we were
getting it from anybody Well,actually we were getting it from
loggers.
We had a firewood processor, um, and this is 2008.
Um, the firewood processor was$150,000 piece of equipment.
Um had a circular saw.
Um that was a six foot diameter.

(16:12):
It would take 50 foot trees andthrough a bunch of mechanics,
um spit out firewood, um thingsthat would just constantly break
.
And then we had, um a huge.
You own that equipment.
The company did yeah, yeah, wehad that.
We rented what's called aknuckle boom loader that would
grab the trees off the back ofthe 18 wheelers and put it on

(16:34):
the ground.
And then we had what was calleda yell 7800 turbo, which they
don't make anymore and is theall-time largest um skid steer,
which is basically a bobcat.
Um, that was a fun um thing todrive.
You felt like you were in amech um, but um, you would pick
it that it up and then put it onthe firewood processor.

(16:55):
And it had a conveyor.
It would just spit it, it wouldgo up the conveyor, fall on the
up and then put it on thefirewood processor.
And it had a conveyor.
It would just spit it, it wouldgo up the conveyor, fall on the
ground and then, when it wastime to set up the assembly line
, you would dump it onto theconveyor that was on the
assembly line and people wouldstand by and put it in bags, and
then somebody would take it andstack it on a pallet, then it

(17:16):
would get wrapped and then itwould get put in the back of a
truck so in theory.

Speaker 1 (17:20):
So kruger's wood was just green as could be oh it, it
.

Speaker 2 (17:23):
I mean it's terrible now.
Then it was a monstrosity.
Um, there really were nostandards, it was just a brace
uh and you could imagine likethat's going with the lowest
bidder bro.
You could like imagine like I'ma firewood company owner and I
have five hundred thousanddollars invested in it and I

(17:45):
supply kroger year after year,and then some dumb idiot college
kids come and outbid me andthen just pull the rug out from
under me.
So of course the firewoodindustry didn't go anywhere.
But, um, so we told them wecouldn't do.
It came out with a new way the18 hours.
Um, I came up with that.
We did it for like a month.

(18:06):
Um, with that model Um, and whythat was innovative was other
before that you would throw thewood in the back of your 1982
F-150 that was semi-rusted out,throw the wheelbarrow on top.
You would go do one delivery.
It would take 30 minutes to getthere, 45 minutes to get there,

(18:31):
and then you would wheelbarrowit back and forth.
That would take you three hours.
And then, um, you wouldwheelbarrow it back and forth.
That would take you three hoursand then you would drive back
and basically you're looking atlike five hours per delivery.

Speaker 1 (18:44):
And so 120 bucks right and it's.

Speaker 2 (18:47):
It was at the.
It's basically at the point ofI think I'm making money and
then you have to.
You realize you're getting wearand tear on your chainsaw and
on your truck and then yourealize you're actually losing
money, and so that was theinnovation and what made me
realize, okay, this is anopportunity, because nobody has

(19:10):
ever looked at this industry butwife got laid off, and so we
shut that down and laid off fromwhere.
No, not chick-fil-a, oh, thankgod god forbid, they've never
laid anybody no, they um.

Speaker 3 (19:27):
I don't think that all right, so mama was keeping
you alive.
Yeah, he doesn't have kids atthat time?

Speaker 2 (19:32):
Absolutely yeah, no kids.
Um, we, uh, um, um.
So we shut that.
So we shut that down.
Um and um went and workedactually at Chick-fil-A for a
year, thought about becoming aopera, opera, um an operator
owner at Chick-fil-A yeah.
That was not for me for sure.

(19:54):
Um, but uh, um, and then um,and during that time, like, I
had fancy firewood in the backof my head and I was like, dear
God, please get this out of myhead.
Let me focus on a normal career.
Fancy firewood is a weirdobsession.
Um, but it would not.
F three, 50 with the flatbedwould come to the drive-thru and

(20:17):
I'd be like, oh man, I wish Icould have that and deliver some
firewood that would deliver alot of wood right, so they're
coming to the chick-fil-a andthey're like hey, I need a, uh,
spicy chicken.

Speaker 3 (20:28):
Hey, how much is that 350 full?
Can you?
How much wood can you put inthe back of that truck?

Speaker 1 (20:32):
that is not a normal man's fantasy.
I just want to Right Exactly Idon't think it's unmanly.
I mean it's manly.

Speaker 3 (20:40):
It's definitely not a normal man, right Right,
because when the chick comesthrough you're like, hey, baby,
can you open your skirt a littlebit?
Whoa, chris, that's why I'venever hired a chick.

Speaker 2 (20:56):
That's you never worked at chick-fil-a.
Exactly.
I had impure thoughts.

Speaker 1 (20:58):
You're going, your thoughts I'm gonna tell
chick-fil-a do not hire chris,right, please don't hire me, but
, but, but always.
You need to go to confessionnow well, that's yeah, I.

Speaker 3 (21:05):
It's coming up saturday.
Okay, yeah, I go.
Yeah, I get it all taken careof, do they?

Speaker 1 (21:09):
just do everything all week.
Block off a big chunk of timefor you to come in and unload do
?

Speaker 3 (21:14):
uh, we can't, we, we don't have enough time for that.
That's the therapy uh podcastthat I'm on, uh, talking about
all the work I've had to do toget to where I am today, even
the fact that I just got to beable to say that and now we go
back to firewood.
All right, so he saw the 350.
So you still had in the back ofyour mind you're like I can
make this a business becausethis is the entrepreneur, this
is the thing right?

(21:34):
is it firewood, firewood?
He does.
He actually does the slingblade firewood firewood, but
he's got.
He's got the entrepreneurship.
That's the bent.
That's the thing, you know.
We just got in talking withanother guy who talked about,
you know, risk tolerance.
I don't know if your risktolerance is going to be high
enough for you to start a biz,but you got to have that passion
and you've got to keep lookingand your optimism.

(21:56):
The whole time you're like Iknow I can make this work, I
know I can make this work, Iknow I can.

Speaker 2 (22:01):
Everybody's like if you say so crap, I was.
I was way too scared to startit.
I was like this is such a weirdobsession, like firewood, um.
But I just like there was justa there's.
It was flipping, stuck in theback of my head, um, and it just
wouldn't go away.
And so I went from chick-fil-a,got a job at enterprise
rent-a-car.
I could tell you many storiesthere, but we'd whoa, for hours,

(22:23):
time out show.

Speaker 1 (22:25):
Oh, that's why I was waiting for this, that's all
right, I had a little bit of apit stop there myself, so oh,
alan worked at enterpriserent-a-car for 14 years 14 years
that.

Speaker 3 (22:36):
So I saw your profile and I shared that with him
right before.
I'm like, hey, alan, we're notgoing to talk about that till we
get the podcast because, uh,one of the things we have talked
about we've been doing thispodcast now for two and a half
years, guys.
You know we're doing this.
You guys been listening to usum, alan cut his teeth at
enterprise and one of the things.
While we'll talk about it, itwas a great experience.
You know that.
Yeah, absolutely yeah, and youloved it, because they only hire

(22:58):
the best of the best and theytrain the shit out of you to
make sure that you can be betterand if you're not good, goodbye
yeah, it's amazing customerservice training, it's amazing
sales training, it's amazingleadership training so business
boot camp, absolutely it's.

Speaker 1 (23:13):
So you're 18 hours of cutting firewood.
We're like man.

Speaker 2 (23:16):
I'm saying it's a normal day at enterprise it was
a lot better than getting, uh,yelled at, cussed out by that
guy with the big red nose thatwas obviously drunk, because I
want to rent him a car, um, andhaving to make him happy because
otherwise my area manager wouldchew me out yeah, but yeah what
, what level did?

Speaker 1 (23:35):
you get to a regional vice president see, he was a
big dog, dude.

Speaker 3 (23:40):
Hey, now alan was big daddy, that's why we got him on
.

Speaker 1 (23:43):
I was, I was.
There's a key.
That's the most important wordin that sentence there's a
reason alan's on the podcast,everybody.

Speaker 3 (23:50):
If you haven't been doing this for the last two and
a half years with us, youprobably haven't.
Let me just go back it all up.
The reason I begged alan tocome on this podcast and co-host
with me is he is the mostsuccessful failed entrepreneur
I've ever met by.
People continually ask him tocome back and talk.
He comes back, talks toeverybody and of course he he
failed.
Right, guys, I all failed, Imean most successful failed

(24:11):
entrepreneur.

Speaker 2 (24:12):
Well, I'm the most successful person you've ever
met.

Speaker 3 (24:14):
That's not rich, ah well we're gonna argue at that
table.
I've had.

Speaker 2 (24:20):
I've had three people in the public recognize me in
the last month just out walkingaround um and um, like walk up.
And you're like are you leavingmy height?
And I'm like, oh, this is weird, I started a firewood company,
yeah, you can't be yelling at mebecause I don't work on houses.

Speaker 3 (24:38):
You can yell at Chris , you can't yell at me, and I
definitely did not look at yourwife like Chris would have.
So there's no way you know whoI am.

Speaker 1 (24:49):
But when somebody recognizes him, he probably
doesn't cringe like you might.

Speaker 3 (24:54):
Well, we call it the Pub publics and they call it the
kroger thing.
And if you're at the grocerystore, do you want people, when
people come up to you, go?
Hey, chris, you're like, yeah,um, yeah, I had a great
experience with your guys.
Look, oh, thank god yeah thecheeks unclench, everything
comes back down because you'rewait you're waiting for the.

Speaker 1 (25:11):
Uh, the grout failed comment or something.

Speaker 3 (25:14):
Oh yeah, or yeah, and I'm, I'm reaching down for the
corner of the cob going.
I'm just gonna beat you and ifI knock you out then you won't
know this.
Three for a dollar right now.
So so there you go, soobviously very successful.
And then back to alan.
Uh, so, um, the failedentrepreneur is still here and
still rocking, and now is inanother business, completely and

(25:36):
completely rocking it.

Speaker 1 (25:37):
That's why I have failed and succeeded in both the
corporate and entrepreneurialworld.

Speaker 3 (25:42):
So I've got this mile wide, inch deep thing going on
yeah so, but you guys, I lovethat you guys share the
enterprise story, because wetalked about this so you learned
a lot about for hours so you goto business boot camp, you go
to enterprise but you're stilllooking at.
Guy comes in and says, hey, yougot a dually.
No, you want to that bad maybe.

Speaker 2 (26:04):
Yeah, you want to put firewood on it that and and um
you know, people that aresuccessful at um enterprise
highly respect them.
Um for sure, um, it's a rough,um rough environment.
Um, but it uh, um, it's a sharkyeah, it's a shark world yeah,

(26:25):
it's shark war.

Speaker 3 (26:26):
I wasn't consulting and but.
But I'll tell you, man, ironsharpens, iron sharks are sure
you're you shark, I mean youwere.
You're like it probably raisedyour game, because that's what
happened when I went toconsulting.
It raises your gate.
You're like all.
It probably raised your game,because that's what happened to
me when I went to consulting.
It raises your gate and you'relike all these rough edges I had
coming out of engineering andbeing a manufacturing and being
a machinist polished the crapand it taught me sales.

Speaker 2 (26:46):
Absolutely Taught me sales, really taught me how to
look at a P and L.
Um nice, uh, you might've it.
Might've taught you to breakrules here and there and really
think outside the box in someareas.
It's creativity.
Creativity and problem solvingCreative problem solving.
And we're definitely notallowed to repo cars, even

(27:10):
though I did repo cars, becauseotherwise I wouldn't get my
commission check.

Speaker 1 (27:16):
But you got to do what you got.
That's the, that's the lessonthere.
I I just love.

Speaker 3 (27:20):
If you guys can't see , this is the podcast.
Al just gave him the knowingwhat nod and wink going.
You're right, we don't repocars, but you want your
commission check you.
Get that car back bro yeah, Ilove it so you learn.

Speaker 2 (27:34):
I mean, you get to learn, and you get to learn
somebody else's nickel thereexactly and it's, it's
definitely like if I, if I hadto do it all over again and that
was the only way to learn it Iwould do it again and that is
the only way you'll carry thoselessons for the rest of your
life it shapes how you thinkabout business and it makes
business really simple in yourmind yes, and and I I learned um

(27:57):
how to take the camaro and parkit around back and hide it,
because the branch managerwasn't allowed to get rent that
car because he wanted to driveit home that night
unless it was the last one onthe lot, so I'd make sure every
single other one was rented outover the weekend, and then
that's what we would take upinto the mountains and go hiking

(28:18):
.
So, um it, it allowed me, yeah,to think outside the box nice,
all right so enterprise.
The first time I've said thison podcasts you know what, and
you know what we're good at.

Speaker 3 (28:30):
the good news is, yeah, yeah, we got one guy who,
uh, he wouldn't come on thepodcast until this one guy died.
And so now is all the storiesare out there, and Paul and I in
fact, I just talked to Paul theother month, three weeks ago I
talked to him and he was likebrother, I've been on so many
podcasts and he goes.
I still go back and go.
You're one of the best, I'mlike that's right.
But he came on and startedtelling stories about the old

(28:51):
days of home improvement sales,but the mafia had to die before
he could tell their stories.
So all right, but you're offthe hook, so let's keep going.
Enterprise.

Speaker 2 (29:00):
And then you're, you started so from there, um got a
job, a respectable job, atgeorgia pacific downtown atlanta
.
Um in the wood industry, yeah,actually.
So there is a little obsessionwith wood, absolutely.

Speaker 1 (29:18):
Go ahead, Chris.
Come on, I do too.
I mean we're kindred spirits.

Speaker 2 (29:24):
I'm going to expect to see some orders coming soon,
all right, but so I got a job atGeorgia Pacific and firewood
would not leave my mind.
Georgia, pacific and umfirewood would not leave my mind
.
I?
Um grew up in a humble meansand unincorporated ringle.
Georgia.
One of eight kids, uh,basically poor um, and I drove a

(29:46):
93 geo prism um five speed withoriginal red prism in the house
.

Speaker 3 (29:54):
I've actually ridden in a prism.

Speaker 1 (29:56):
Were you driving that car when you met your wife?
Oh yeah, oh my God, she's anangel she is.

Speaker 3 (30:01):
You know, honestly, she is an angel.

Speaker 1 (30:03):
You could see through that.

Speaker 3 (30:04):
Have you ever ridden in a prism?
Yeah, I swear to God, I thinkthe thing they forgot to put in
there were shocks.
Yeah, among other things.
I mean you walk out.
You're like what just happenedEither I just had the best
massage in my life or or Ibarely have teeth left.
Oh my God, yeah, every single.
I mean not a bump, not acrevice, not a you know, that's

(30:25):
when you know a woman loves you.
And get to the rest of the story.
Um, I'm gonna pick you up on mygeo prism and we're gonna go to
arby's.
All right, everybody, you gotta.
You can't take a break yetbecause you gotta listen.
Don't forget, go out there, manlike us, follow us check this
out.
Leroy's gotta come back.
We gotta hear the rest of thestory.
So, geo prism, and now you'rerocking down in georgia, pacific

(30:48):
, in downtown atlanta,respectable job, so got a job
there.

Speaker 2 (30:54):
um, it applied and um , um, they asked me how much, um
what I want to make if theyoffered me the position, and I
said 50 would be phenomenal.
And they said, great, we'lloffer you 60.
Um, which doesn't happen toooften, but uh, how euphoric were
you at that oh my God, yeah,and it was.

(31:15):
Was, but it was a weirdsituation.
I didn't looking back on it.
Um, they told me they wanted meto come in and change the um
culture in this tiny littlecorner.
It was, I don't know, five orsix people in this little work
area and, um, the next newestperson had been there for 15

(31:38):
years and they told me that Iwas making more than all of them
.
Um, what I didn't realize whenI went in was my immediate boss
was also one of them, and also,what I didn't know until after
the fact is, the person thatwanted me bring me in uh, some
executive.
I don't know how high up he is.
The person that wanted me tobring me in, uh, some executive.

(32:00):
I don't know how high up he was, but he moved to a different
division about a week after Istarted, so um two months in.
We call that the grenade, bro.

Speaker 3 (32:07):
Yeah, that's the grenade in corporate America.
That's a grenade.
Hey, leroy, oh good.
Hey, grenade.
Hey, leroy, oh good.
Hey, look at you, oh my god,you're full of optimism and
spirit.
I love you.
You know what?
Here's what I want everybody inthere is a big pile of shit and
you're going to mold my pile ofshit or get them out of here
and make it work and I know youcan do it, no, and a week later

(32:30):
go.
Hey, um, yeah, I just gotpromoted over to be a marketing
VP, right, good luck with that,lee.
Hello.

Speaker 1 (32:36):
Hello, but you're naive.

Speaker 2 (32:41):
I'm naive and young and optimistic.
First one in the work everymorning and last one to leave,
and making the big jack, that'sright, and the big jack, that's

(33:02):
right.
And so, two months in that, 93,geoprism, um, with 266 000
miles on it, it, it dies um.
And in atlanta it was gonna Idon't even remember, but it was
gonna cost five thousand dollarsto fix it and I sold it for
scrap metal for so, and my wifeand I had joked for a while that
when that car broke down, thatI would buy a truck and start
the firewood business on theside.
So, uh, um, that Saturday wifegoes out of town and I had never

(33:28):
done this before.
I woke up and I fasted andprayed the entire day and by the
end of it I was like, okay, Ithink god's calling me to start
this business.
Um.
So I was like, okay, I'm gonnado it on the side.
I got this nice um, chris, haveyou ever fasted?

Speaker 1 (33:46):
look at the look on chris's face.
Have you ever fastedintentionally?
For how long?

Speaker 2 (33:54):
no way I've been playing.
Midnight and 7 am doesn't count, oh shit, dude.

Speaker 3 (34:01):
That's just wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.
No, I wait, I'm waiting to hearthis.
So because you fasted, youprayed and then you went out and
bought a brand new ruby redf350 with a flatbed without her
being here.
Did you know you?

Speaker 2 (34:16):
didn't buy that without even.

Speaker 3 (34:18):
Not even I was waiting for you to say and so I
left and I went and bought thattruck which she was gone, and
like if she stayed with you, bro, that you have just wait, just
wait, that's not saying I prayedand fasted, that it was not
what came out of it.

Speaker 1 (34:32):
I'll tell you.

Speaker 3 (34:33):
A red costco and that number comes back at 750 when I
was just going over there fortoilet paper.
Yeah, and she goes hey, I justsaw that.
So now that she's retired,right.
And I said, hey, everythinggoes to the business.
But I have her on my businesscard now so she can see all the
purchases.
So she's over there, cha-ching,cha-ching, cha-ching, cha-ching
, you know thousand dollarslater every month.

(34:54):
But I go to costco for theoffice and she goes what's this
costco charge for 750?
I'm like, oh, really, that'sthe one you're worried about,
girl.
Really that after all theseyears, that's the one all right,
so just wait, it's a matter ofperspective.

Speaker 2 (35:08):
It's all right, my wife might be as famous as me,
actually, for being the ultimateentrepreneur I think we want
her on after would you like?

Speaker 1 (35:17):
I think I would like to hear her story.
Well, what was?

Speaker 3 (35:19):
it about that?
We're not even going to askafter we're going to get her
email and find out why the um.

Speaker 2 (35:25):
So that happens, I decide I'm going to start this
business on the side.
I have a nice you still haveall the equipment right
somewhere, nothing you got nohe's long gone.

Speaker 3 (35:35):
He's enterprise now he's at george.
I just figured he had like asplitter in the backyard.

Speaker 2 (35:39):
So for I got nothing.
I actually had uh, it's nottrue, I had several boxes of
matches with the logo from theprevious company.
Okay, a few of those are stillin my garage um, I hope that'll
go in the museum.
Hold those, yeah, hold thoseexactly so um talk to the wife
when she gets home and I'm likeI'm gonna start this on the side

(36:01):
she's supportive for it.
Um, I go into work on mondayand they fire me, and so I'm
like what what?
Yeah, they didn't even knowthis was what.

Speaker 3 (36:12):
Nothing, uh, nice, and I'm like oh, you're
apparently this is obviouslyyou're a faith-based guy, so I
get it.
So you went.
This is a god thing.
Yeah, absolutely.
God wants me to do firewoodbecause and yeah, and alan, as
the uh son of the minister, youwould have to agree a hundred
percent and as a catholic guy, Iwould go.
That's a sign and I would likebaby.
So tell me what you did,because I'm telling you what I

(36:34):
would have done by 10 o'clock.
I'm at.
I'm at the dealer.
I've got a three, 50 flatbedred in my name, ruby red.

Speaker 2 (36:42):
So since we brought up my wife, she actually found a
F three, 50 flatbed onCraigslist with the trailer, so
got up.

Speaker 1 (36:52):
Wow, she just got promoted, yep.

Speaker 3 (36:56):
And, dude, you can't leave.

Speaker 2 (36:57):
That's true love, oh exactly, oh my god wow, I didn't
even actually tell the story ofuh when.
So we started dating when wewere 17 and for my 18th birthday
she bought me an xbox and acopy of halo.
So I married her.

Speaker 3 (37:11):
Perfect woman, yeah, exactly wow, you're acting like
that's a big deal to you, dudeyou see your Pong we grew up
with Pong.
We didn't even have Pong.
We grew up with mud.
You know what?

Speaker 1 (37:22):
We grew up, I bought you a Tonka truck.
It's the equivalent.
Huh, it's the equivalent of aTonka truck.

Speaker 3 (37:27):
Yeah, we grew up with .

Speaker 1 (37:41):
hey, I just made this stick string through it and I'm
playing cowboys and indians.
No, you can't say that wordanymore.
Well, that's what we did.
We were kids.
We're old alan.
He said I got, I got it, I gotit all right.
We, we don't even do that.
No, we don't.

Speaker 3 (37:45):
I've never played halo in my life, you know,
actually I tried to play haloonce with my kids.

Speaker 2 (37:48):
I'll try to go through the whole podcast
without calling all boomers,because that's very offensive.

Speaker 1 (37:52):
So I'm not.
I'm not offended he'll actuallyhe'll never be offended, but
I'm a gen xer so I get offended,oh whatever I played halo once
with my son and it lasted 20minutes and every time I
appeared, somebody shot me.
I never even got a chance tolearn how to use my whatever.
Yeah, right, yeah, I'm likehave 45 things on their handles.

(38:14):
Let me run around a little bitone stick, bro, that's.

Speaker 3 (38:17):
I had one stick and a button atari, bro.
That's all I.
And then we had pong in thebeginning.
I mean we were cutting edge,not to use the word.

Speaker 1 (38:24):
Oh, I did way to bring it back to fire all right,
okay, so you got the truck andtrailer all right.

Speaker 3 (38:29):
So here we go.
Monday you're fired and nowyou're like screw this, I'm like
I'm, I'm going.

Speaker 2 (38:33):
Jeez, apparently, this is happening.
I got zero plans in place.

Speaker 3 (38:37):
He says geez, that's not the word I would use Keepers
, keepers.
We're getting closer.
Let's work down the alphabet alittle bit.
Let's work up to the real one.
It's the F word.
Yeah, flippin, oh jeez, oh geez.
Oh, my goodness, you know, I'mso flipping.
Glad you guys fired me.

Speaker 1 (38:56):
That's exactly what I would have said I am flipping
out of here.

Speaker 2 (39:03):
Yeah, that's right.
I said the so maxed out seven,eight credit cards, got a
personal loan.
That's what my financialadvisor told me to do.
No, just kidding, I really didmax out the credit cards and get
the personal loan.
Um, and that summer I tried tobuild another homemade kiln.

(39:24):
That whole process didn't workout.
There's a crazy story that, um,another god thing that I'll try
to fast pace it.
Um, um, while I was out, of theuh.

Speaker 1 (39:38):
Um, chris needs more bourbon.
Hang on, dude, I can't well,he's going.

Speaker 3 (39:41):
God man, I'm, I'm all in all right, because this is
not holy water, he went homemadehe went homemade kill and I'm
like dude this is our soldierbourbon, not holy water deep and
we're doing so how?

Speaker 2 (39:55):
I mean I had no idea what had been going on.
I hadn't been keeping up withthe firewood industry.
The New York Times, Fox Newsdidn't keep up with the firewood
industry.

Speaker 1 (40:06):
The fact that you even refer to it as an industry
is still blowing my mind.
Which is what's cool about it?
He made an industry out of anindustry that wasn't an industry
.
He just established that we'reseasoned.

Speaker 3 (40:19):
This kid's going to kill us.
He is killing us.

Speaker 1 (40:21):
He's going to kill this industry bro, are you
saying kiln and season?

Speaker 3 (40:26):
He's killing it.

Speaker 2 (40:28):
You like how he did that.
I did three in a row Out of allthe puns you could do.
That's like a one out of ten.
So hey, so hey, you're on theboard, baby, you gotta wait
while I was at barry, my, m, myentrepreneurial ember on the
largest campus in the world theall.

(40:52):
Right back back to the story sowhile I was gone, there was so
get this.
How crazy it is.
Um, I thought I was going tobuy firewood from a guy that had
been selling it up in upstateTennessee.
Turned out he had shut down hisbusiness.

Speaker 1 (41:08):
That means went to prison Illegal aliens.

Speaker 2 (41:11):
There's another joke there about going to prison and
firewood industry.
I don't know if we'll get tothat, but uh, um, the uh um we.
So while I was gone, there hadbeen an invasive species, the
ash borer beetle, that hadentered the united states and
the usda and the forestryservice teamed up and made all
these uh regulations and uh um.

(41:35):
And they said and they made itwhere, um, in order to move
firewood greater than I think itwas 50 miles, you had to put it
in a kiln for three hours andget the internal temperature to
300 to 130 degrees.
It was a blessing in disguise,wasn't it Exactly?
And that made it so.

(41:56):
There was an industry that hadkilns and it just so happened
that the only supplier in theentire Southeast that could do
what I needed happened to be inAtlanta.
So I bought.
So I found him by coincidence.
He sold me firewood, agreed tokeep it in the kiln for 48 hours

(42:18):
, so much longer than the threehours required.
He sold me firewood, agreed tokeep it in the kiln for 48 hours
, so much longer than the threehours required, and I would go

(42:43):
pick it up in my trailer and Ihad baskets on a pallet and I
would use the Toro Dingo, alsoknown as the mini skid steer,
that had the forklift on thefront of it and um.
So first season gets going andum, it takes a few months really
to get rolling.
Um but um, I'm, once I get busy, working those 18 hour days,
driving around and buckhead witha 20 foot gooseneck trailer on
the back of a 12 foot bed.
Um, got some stories there aboutgoing down one ways and having
to back up into busy Atlantastreets where they didn't have

(43:04):
stops.

Speaker 3 (43:05):
Nobody gives a shit if you're doing that and they're
a peep in and I'm telling youwhat you want to talk about God
and faith.
Yeah, it happened All right.
I want to know.
Yeah, because we got to get toit.

Speaker 1 (43:15):
What's he doing?
No, no, no, talk about theexperience today as a customer.
I call you up, yep, so Ipreviously.
I go to kroger, I pay nine.
Yeah, whatever you don't evencare.
You write that number becauseyou're like, all right, great, I
got that number, I get the foodit's a and for, just like four

(43:35):
pieces of wood that are going tolast 12 minutes and smoke out
the house.
Yeah, so there's got to be adifferent solution.
All of a sudden, I see one ofyour really cool yard signs.
I call it.
What happens?
Yep, so we.

Speaker 2 (43:50):
It depends on where you live.
If you're in atlanta,chattanooga, nashville,
greenville, charlotte or in inbetween, you can order a box and
it gets shipped to you, or youcan order our patented rack.
The rack is patented.
It's airbrushed, comes with acanvas cover and we have a

(44:13):
patent on it and it can be movedwith a hand truck.
We put it wherever you want it.
When you reorder, we take theempty one and replace it with
another full one.
So when I started the businessit took me two hours per
delivery and that was with theinnovation.
And now it's about 15 minutesonce we show up and it gets
delivered with a nice, beautifultruck delivery artisan and a

(44:35):
polo, just like I'm dressed nowwith delivery artisan.

Speaker 3 (44:39):
Did you hear that delivery artist?
Again, he's disrupting anindustry.
This is the part that you take.
Take lessons, everybody right?
Because if you're a mechanic,we're all supposed to be greasy.
If you're a handyman, you'resupposed to be full of paint and
caulk and you got stuff allover you, but no, we put the
professional image on it.
That's why I'm wearing thetrusted toolbox outfit as well,
and that's how we do it.

Speaker 2 (45:00):
The first four years, the number one joke I heard and
I heard it all the time was wow, you got all your teeth.

Speaker 1 (45:08):
Solid and you're like , yeah, I've heard that one.

Speaker 3 (45:10):
So your, your main Metro markets are.
Atlanta, charlotte, nashville,nashville.

Speaker 2 (45:20):
Chattanooga and greenville, and so that's our
delivery artist in service, andthen we ship to the rest of the
country the boxes of firewoodcooking wood, pizza wood boxes,
and then we also have theultimate package, which is five
of the racks that come, and itcomes with a hand truck so the
cooking wood is a differentanimal.

Speaker 3 (45:35):
Yep, what so that's?
Is that a different?
It's a different?
Price point it's so.
It's a a different, it's adifferent price point.

Speaker 2 (45:39):
it's, so, it's a, it's, it's the same raw material
, it's um, it's just how it'spackaged.
So we have stuff that's for,like, a big green egg or kamado
joe, and then we have stuffthat's cut to pizza for pizza
ovens.
It's really just the size ofwhat you're cooking in, and and
that determines the size of thewood.

(46:00):
So, for instance, if you'reusing a small big green egg, you
can't put a 16 inch log in it,right.
So?
So we sell the chunks and theneight inch splits, so what?

Speaker 3 (46:10):
you've just done is taken, the firewood and that's F
I R W?
O D for 120 for a cord,delivered, and you know, I may
or may not take out yourmercedes and he may or may not
show up with teeth.
And you've turned this into apremium service and so it's
working.

Speaker 2 (46:28):
The way I like to put it that summarizes it a minute
and a half is a fire is like abeautiful sunset.
There is no one on earth thatdislikes it.
Take a 95 year old man fromEthiopia, a three-year-old girl
from Georgia.
They will sit in front of afire and stare at it.
It's universal, it's primal,it's unifying.

(46:49):
After a stressful day, I cantake a whiskey sitting in front
of the fire.
I think deep thoughts.
Um, blood pressure goes downand my wife can come out and all
of a sudden the mood changes.
It's romantic.
Um three my uh daughters cancome out and make s'mores and

(47:10):
memories they'll have for alifetime.
Teenagers will put their phonesdown and talk to their parents
around a fire.
You're making lifestylememories, yes, and it can be at
the center of a wedding party.
And then I make incredible foodwith our cooking wood.
It's not just a heat source,it's an ingredient.
So whether it's steaks, pizzaor barbecue, it tastes amazing.

Speaker 1 (47:33):
Shut up, chris, alan.
Shut up, chris.
I'm listening.
Keep going, keep going, leroy.

Speaker 2 (47:37):
That I love the experience I'm really not
offering.
I'm not offering a commodity,it's an experience.
Experience is made up of threethings, so I love that
experience.
On one side, and before we gotinto the industry, the industry
standard was wood would sitoutside for 12 months, rot,

(48:01):
literally have mushrooms growingout of it, and the business
strategy, the branding, thecustomer service and that
overall customer experiencematch the product quality of
rotting wood.
So what I like to compare it tois bottled water.
Well, except it would be likegoing into your backyard getting
a bucket and getting water outof a puddle that's muddy, and

(48:27):
that's what the industrystandard was when we started
Skip getting the water out ofthe well, skip tap water, skip
the sunny water, skip Aquafinaand went to liquid death or
whatever fancy water and a glassbottle you like, and that's
what we did with Firewood.
But really it's all around theexperience, which is made up of

(48:52):
three things, which is branding,customer service, product
quality.
Product quality I've brokendown into we want to be better,
both aesthetically our productsare all beautiful and
functionally.
They all function better andnot just and when I mean better,
I mean best in class.
Nobody else in the world offersproducts to the level that we

(49:16):
do.

Speaker 3 (49:17):
All right.
So you're're well, you'retalking about wood dude, all
right, yeah, so how do you dothis?
So here in atlanta you'reprocessing everything.
How do you, what are we doingand how big are you?
I mean, let's, let's just talkbig revenue right now.
What's the big top line number?

Speaker 1 (49:34):
if you want he may not want to answer that.
All right, all right, millions,millions, he's got his doctor.
That's all I wanted.

Speaker 3 (49:44):
That's the number I wanted, because we've all seen
it $120 firewood for sale.
Get a cord, pretty sure we'rethe biggest in the world.
So he's one million.
A little cheers on that.
Yeah, hell yeah, let's go.
Let's go do it, because I'mtelling you, as you're talking,
you talked about the experienceand what you did and you're
revolutionizing a business andyou're offering a product.

(50:05):
You're right for 95 of thepeople out there.
Hey, the same for you, man, butlook, he found the five percent
.
And I'm telling you, guys, Ihappen to know some of those
five percenters and right nowthey'll buy it.
Right now, they'll buy it.
Right now, they'll buy it rightnow.
You know who I'm talking aboutmy NASCAR buddies, my other
entrepreneurs here in Atlantawho really love a fire, and the

(50:28):
guy sitting here to the right ofme who really likes to cook.

Speaker 2 (50:31):
What neighborhood do you live?

Speaker 3 (50:32):
in.

Speaker 1 (50:34):
Yeah yeah, he's making him sound like he's some
sort of a beggar.
I am, you know, hanging on tohis rich next door friend.
I'm driving by Geo.

Speaker 3 (50:43):
Prism, baby Prism at the house.
Let's go.

Speaker 1 (50:49):
So what would you say is the most important of those
three for your success?
I mean, if you had the qualitybut you didn't have the service,
or you got the service, youdidn't have the quality?

Speaker 2 (50:58):
That depends when you're sitting on a stool, which
of the three legs is mostimportant.

Speaker 1 (51:02):
Oh, come on.

Speaker 3 (51:05):
Don't get like that with me.
You know what that's enterprise, I'm an enterprise.
Steel sharpens steel baby.
Damn you, leroy.
Good answer, all right, let mego back to this.
So how the hell are youmarketing this?
So, all right, cash is king.
You got the cash figured out?
Yep, you got.
You're figuring out theoperations.
You'll.
You'll scale it yep.

(51:25):
Now, how the hell are youmarketing this?
And where are you doing?
Because we have seen your signslike plop down, like 2800 got
junk, like, hey, you want to?
Uh, college hunks.
I've seen this sign.

Speaker 1 (51:37):
It's a good looking sign.
It's a great, this sign.
It's a good-looking sign it's agreat-looking sign.
It makes me want to burnsomething.

Speaker 2 (51:41):
Best yard sign in town, yeah, it is.

Speaker 1 (51:44):
I think so.
Look at me and I'm jealous.
Well, you know you don't haveyard signs.

Speaker 3 (51:49):
I do have yard signs, but I don't do what he does
because I don't do guerrillamarketing, because would cheapen
the brand, but he is sellingway over me.
So what else are you doing?

Speaker 2 (51:59):
you have sales guys out there, no, no.
So, guys, we're really, we'red2c, um, e-commerce, um, even in
our local deliveries.
You can call us, you can textus, you can email us to place an
order, but, uh, um but um.
Or you can place an order onthe website and uh, that's

(52:20):
nationwide, that's 48 statesright there 48 states.
Let's go and um and with that.
So people place an order, payfor it and then we schedule a
delivery, whether it's we shipvia ups, ship via freight or our
delivery artisans bring it toyour home um, right, so you have
a.

Speaker 3 (52:39):
Uh, so you actually have two businesses, right, you
have the main fact you have tosource it, manufacture it, and
you also have.
You have a delivery arm, butyou also have an.
You also have an installationarm.
The way I look at it, becausethere's really like multiple
businesses in one.

Speaker 2 (52:53):
It's kind of a.
It's it's kind of a uh, um,opportunity would be the right
way of saying it, because it'san entire industry that was
completely undisrupted.
So the question is should wefocus on that fire butler
service, where we bring the firepit, we bring the firewood, our
fire butler burns the wood,makes a big, beautiful fire,

(53:16):
your wedding party and um, andthen everybody sees the logo.
Should we focus on that?
No, should we focus?

Speaker 3 (53:24):
on, hang on, wait, applause, applause.
Chris is applausing that.
One.
A hundred percent, bro.
Go the other way.
Go away from working inpeople's houses.
Go away, as a guy who's ahandyman remodeler, go away,
thank you, or should we focus onthe cooking wood?

Speaker 2 (53:43):
that is very inexpensive to ship nationwide
and it's a very scalablebusiness.
But um, a large box of firewoodthat cost 149 dollars lasts the
average person two years, sothe same year retention is
really low.
Restaurants or we have I won'tmention names because I'm saying

(54:08):
it like this but we havecelebrity chefs that use our
stuff and their restaurants donot.
So restaurants do not buy Yetis, they buy the Styrofoam cooler.
That's why the styrofoamcoolers are still in business.
Um, so we always haverestaurants that buy from us
some high-end um, usually umhigh-end um restaurants around

(54:30):
the country that like ourspecialized wood.
Um, but we're definitely vastmajority b to c um?

Speaker 1 (54:37):
is it?
Is it all oak or do you havedifferent species?

Speaker 2 (54:40):
We have premium oak, we have artisanal hickory, we
have wild cherry, orchard appleand we have redolent firewood.
All those are firewoods.

Speaker 3 (54:53):
Wait, hang on Last one.
What was that one?
Yeah, redolent.
Redolent.
Is that a berry?

Speaker 1 (55:00):
I don't know what that means know.

Speaker 2 (55:01):
I'm going back to berry.
You know, what's great abouthaving a firewood company is I
do what I want, respect myauthority, so I come up with
names.
That is a species that I cameup with a branded name before I
freaking love it.

Speaker 3 (55:14):
It's like my, my, all of a sudden Mahi Mahi.
Whoever came up with that nameand nailed that one has made a
mint Mahi Mahi.
That's like fish they find inthe middle of nowhere.
So for cooking wood we have.
I literally just had my in-lawssay Mahi Mahi and now we're
having Mahi Mahi at the end.

Speaker 1 (55:33):
You should pick your Mahi Mahi over a redolent wood.

Speaker 2 (55:36):
I don't like I want redolent.
Don't advise cooking overredolent, oh really, because it
smells like a christmas tree, sooh, it would taste like uh um
gin diamond or no?
Uh what?
No, it would not taste like gin, it would taste like, uh, um,
turpentine.
Subtle difference like it's afirewood, not a cooking wood.

(55:57):
For cooking wood we have um oak, hickory, cherry, pecan, apple,
maple and savannah heat allright, leroy, you completely
become an expert in this world.

Speaker 3 (56:09):
And here we are.
We're coming to the end of this.
We gotta get, we gotta getgoing.
You don't want to know whatsavannah heat is we're gonna get
there, but I do you know, youdidn't even.
We haven't even gotten to thepoint.
I actually thought her on stage.

Speaker 2 (56:24):
You haven't even asked about the time that I went
to my wife when she was eightmonths pregnant and I said hey,
babe, I know we have two littlegirls at home and you're eight
months pregnant for third.
Let's sell our house and investit in the business.

Speaker 1 (56:37):
That might be episode two.

Speaker 3 (56:41):
I think we have to have him back, and I think so.
Oh my god, that's a teaser.
Hey, everybody, we can't dothat on this one.
Guys, I know your attentionspans are tight.

Speaker 1 (56:48):
You, we're doing this between drives, we're doing
whatever we're doing, all rightso you know, not everybody's
like you, chris, no, no, some ofus really enjoy it, uh sorry
what, what, oh, let's go back toit, guys.

Speaker 3 (57:00):
I know we're going to have to have Leroy back because
he's close to us.
This has been awesome, just forthe record.
He's going to come back andhe's going to bring us some wood
.
Live remote in your backyard.

Speaker 2 (57:12):
Yeah, we're going to do it.
What's your credit card?
I'll have a delivery made.

Speaker 3 (57:17):
By the time we're done.

Speaker 2 (57:19):
I've got three cards.

Speaker 3 (57:20):
I'm going to give you , uh well, actually one credit
card and three delivery places,because I've got three friends
right now off the bat who lovethis stuff.
So obviously the wood.
You figured out a way to offera premium service.
And what is a commoditybusiness, correct?
And this is hey, I can cleanyour house.
Hey, I can come be a handyman.
No, I figured out a way to do apremium service and it's

(57:41):
working.
And I'm in the millions, I'mnot in the hundreds of thousands
.
That's right.
Let's rock and roll.
Let's do this thing.
Put that up there.
He's going to show it.
We're going to put a picture upof his cauldron that he does
Leroy it's.
How can they find you online?
Let's go ahead and get it outthere.

Speaker 2 (57:57):
So first visit cuttingedgefirewoodcom.
But I am also on LinkedInfairly active under Leroy Height
.

Speaker 3 (58:07):
All right, cuttingedgefirewoodcom, you can
go anywhere because, by the way,as we talked about we, not only
are we worldwide, we areuniversal, we are
enterprise-wide Intergalactic,we are inter-wide Intergalactic,
we are intergalactic, we goeverywhere.
Everybody out here you got tocheck this firewood out, so what
makes it different?
I don't know, man, try asampler.

Speaker 1 (58:27):
I'm thinking about a gift box of firewood.

Speaker 3 (58:30):
You're right, just order it up, you know what.
Order it up and see if it'sdifferent.

Speaker 1 (58:40):
Maybe it's not for you right, because not everybody
can drive a maserati.
Do you want to?
Not everybody.
You know great food andlifetime experiences, yeah, so
we got a rock and roll man.

Speaker 3 (58:46):
Let's get out of here .
Let's make this thing happen,guys.
Leroy height, cutting edge,firewood, gonna make it happen.
You got to go.
Huh, he is a man, he is.
And the fact that, uh, hiswife's still with him, that's
pretty cool.
All right, guys, keep going upthat mountaintop, make it happen
.
You can do this too.
Find out a way.
You're not a commodity, you areunique.

(59:08):
Let's get out of here, let's go.
Cheers everybody.