Selling Well and an 80 Location Cookie Franchise with Bennett Maxwell

Episode 65.  In this Lifetime at Work podcast episode, Greg Martin interviews Bennett Maxwell, the founder and chairman of Dirty Dough, a booming gourmet cookie franchise. 

Bennett recounts his transformative journey from being a Mormon missionary in Mexico to excelling in door-to-door solar energy sales, eventually leading to the creation and rapid expansion of Dirty Dough. 

Listeners will gain insights into Bennett’s philosophies on living well, financial success, brand creation, and the profound impact of effective sales techniques. The discussion delves into the challenges and triumphs of building a scalable business in the food industry, raising substantial capital, and working with seasoned industry leaders. 

It highlights Bennett's strategic approaches to franchising, the importance of organizational structure, and the emotional and financial ramifications of success. The episode also provides practical advice on connecting with advisors and emphasizes the pursuit of joy and fulfillment in business and life, over merely chasing financial goals. 

• 00:00 Introduction to the Podcast and Guest 
• 00:54 Bennett Maxwell's Early Life and Career Beginnings 
• 01:27 The Journey into Door-to-Door Sales 
• 03:26 Transition to the Solar Business 
• 07:38 Investing in Dirty Dough 
• 10:59 Challenges and Innovations in the Cookie Business 
• 12:36 Franchising and Business Growth 
• 16:50 Marketing Strategies and Owner Involvement 
• 18:25 Doubts and Financial Challenges 
• 21:44 Raising Capital and Leadership Changes 
• 23:08 Equity Deal and Acquisition 
• 25:12 Reflections on Money and Success 
• 26:57 The Illusion of Financial Goals 
• 32:58 Building a National Brand 
• 42:14 The Importance of Advisors 
• 46:32 Final Thoughts and Contact Information

Transcript

Intro (part 1)

Greg Martin: [00:00:00] My name is Greg Martin, and this is the lifetime at work podcast, where I interview founders, investors, and advisors about their careers and life's work. Let's get to it. 

My guest today is Bennett Maxwell, the founder and chairman behind Dirty Dough, a leading gourmet cookie franchise that has grown like crazy in the last three years, and you can find in 25 States across the U S in this conversation, we cover Bennett's start as a Mormon missionary in Mexico, how he learned to be a great door to door salesman, selling his solar business and getting into cookies, philosophies on living well, the meaning and pitfalls and value of money, how, and why we create brands and the big impact they can have.

The role of sales and doing what we're good at. And he shares some big news about his business and next steps. Please enjoy my interview with Bennett Maxwell.

Bennett, thanks for joining me on the Lifetime at Work podcast. Yeah, 

Bennett Maxwell: I'm super excited to be here, Greg. [00:01:00] Thank you. 

Greg Martin: Could you start with a brief overview of yourself, how you began your career, where you are now? Just give us the short and we'll dive in from there. 

Bennett Maxwell: Yeah, I grew up in Utah. One of nine kids towards the end, seven of nine kids with a single mom.

 so a lot of entrepreneur activities, I guess, my brothers, after graduating high school, did Cutco knife served a Mormon mission. For two years in Mexico, which was a great time, came back. And I, and then I got into the door to door world, pest control, satellite, Vivint alarms, solar. And then solar kind of led me into cookies naturally.

Greg Martin: Gotcha. You had nine kids in your household. Did you feel like you were very similar to your siblings or did you have a lot of differences or how did, how did you stand out from, from that? 

Bennett Maxwell: Yeah. , so my mom had nine kids. There's three kids. With their first husband and then six with the other.

And you, and you can definitely see the personalities between I'm, I'm a lot more similar to the. Second batch [00:02:00] of kids, you know, very analytical kind of, more of the mathematic engineering mindset where the older three are more on the creative side. but I think what I guess differentiates me the most is I think I dove into the sales and entrepreneurship a lot.

More and maybe even at a younger age, dropping out of college to do door to door sales wasn't the strategy that everyone wanted for 

Greg Martin: me. None of your siblings did that? None of my other siblings did that. Okay. I'm curious in a large household like that, whether you are just naturally competitive or whether you Are finding that and whether that just pushes you to do, to do stuff, to do more.

Bennett Maxwell: Oh, I think, I think absolutely. And, and the first thing that came to my mind was the dinner table. Like the first time I set a dinner table and passed around mashed potatoes was on my mission when I was 20 years old, it was always buffet style. You know, it was like, there's nine kids. Here's all the food.

Come get it. If you eat quick, then you get seconds. And if you don't, sorry. 

Greg Martin: Yeah. [00:03:00] So the 

Bennett Maxwell: first thing that came to my mind, yeah, competition with food, but we were all very competitive in, in sports and, and academics and stuff. And then now looking at, you know, all nine, even the one, the few that I've pursued a career with Facebook, like he still runs a side business and developed an app and things like that.

So even the ones that have their. Full time career. Everybody's kind of got a side gig for whatever reason it's, it's in us. 

Greg Martin: Interesting. Interesting. Okay. So you, you get into the solar business doing door to door. What's, I feel like it's a, no one has a very many good things to say about the door to door, kind of that sales.

People don't generally don't like sales in a lot of ways, but then that kind of door to door is amongst the worst. How did you find it? Did you take away some, some helpful things early in your career though? 

Bennett Maxwell: Yeah. In Utah, you cannot not find it. So you have a very big Mormon culture and you serve these two year missions that like the mission that I went on, you don't know where you're going.

It's here. You're, you're going to [00:04:00] Tijuana, Mexico for two years. Oh, wait, you don't speak Spanish. It's okay. I'll put you with a Spanish speaking companion that also doesn't speak English and you'll figure it out. And it's okay, you call home twice a year for an hour, each time mother's day and Christmas, you know, but you just learn that .

Work ethic of just grinding and figuring stuff out. And it's all about the art of persuasion, right? It's just, you're selling Jesus and religion and all of this other stuff. So you come home from a mission here and you have, and I'm not even exaggerating. I, I, You have 10 different companies begging you to go sell for them.

You're not applying for jobs. If you're a 22 year old former missionary in Utah, the top five door to door companies in the world, as far as size are all in Provo, Utah, right down the street from Brigham Young university. So yes, absolutely. Like all of the, that, whether it was the mission or the door to door cells, when I dove into it, I just read rich dad, poor dad, and I learned that he made a lot of, uh, backing up work to learn, not to [00:05:00] earn in your twenties. So I took that to heart. What his rich dad gave him advice was go sell Xerox machines for the sales training. So when I, I never looked at door to door kind of as a career, but I did look at as a really good stepping stone to become a professional, I'm going to get rid of the word , salesmen, and people like a professional communicator.

And then that is going to translate it. Everything. Right. So I think that it served me, it's been serving me pretty good. 

Greg Martin: Gotcha. Okay. And then how did you get into the solar business? Was that what you were selling initially? Or did that lead to being in the solar? 

Bennett Maxwell: Yeah. So every year I switched companies and industries on purpose, because I wanted to learn from more different companies, and learn how to sell different products, because it's okay, yeah, I know how to sell, you know, a few million dollars with a pest control in the summer, but could I do it with direct TV?

Could I do it with smart home systems? And each time you kind of get more confident and you also realize the pattern, sales is sales, you know, persuasions, persuasions, communications, communication. After doing solar for a few months, my [00:06:00] brother called me up and he's like, why are you knocking doors still?

I'm like, just cause that's all I know how to do, you know, he goes, why don't we do this online? I'm like, let's get Facebook leads. Let's get. You know, let's, let's close them or the phone. I'm like, I just don't know how to do any of that. So, but that's his background is, is, is the marketing processes, on all of that.

So that's where the idea came from. He's let's just do this together. So we kind of piloted it, hired some people out of the Philippines. Uh, bought some leads. They would call the leads. I would just show up to these appointments, no more door knocking. I'd show up to confirmed appointments, people ready to listen to solar.

So after we ran, you know, uh, several of those appointments, I'm like, I like not knocking doors, but still the best part of sales is the presentation, you know, kind of that, at least for me, that, that thrill that you get from Oh, sweet.

I gave them what they wanted. This is a mutual agreement. It's a win for me as a salesperson, one for the company, one for the customer. So after we tested it out, then it's okay, let's try it out. So we recruited one person, recruited two people. And anyways, it just kind of went from there, but it started out with, you A phone call for [00:07:00] my brother saying, Hey, do you want to try this online?

And it's sure, let's pilot it. It worked. And then it was pretty much the same as what I was already doing. He handled a lot of the other aspects of the business, but like finding salespeople, recruiting them, training them. That's what I was already doing. It was just now for my own organization.

Greg Martin: Gotcha. Okay. And so tell me how that evolved then and where, and I know at a certain point, then you became involved in. the restaurant side of things, but not before you left or not before you, you exited that business. But how did you build that business up? And then sort of what happened to you as you got closer, to what became an exit, 

Bennett Maxwell: Right. As I was getting into solar, I invested into dirty dough. It was, Cookies being sold out of a dorm room apartment at out of Arizona state. The guy posts on Facebook, looking for some money to open up a storefront. So I invested in 2019, solar, the solar company, January of 2020 is when we launched it.

And then the first storefront opened up shortly after that, as far as dirty dough goes [00:08:00] at the end of 2020, the big focus in solar was If you've ever heard of the book, E Myth Revisited, the entrepreneur myth of don't own your own job, own your own business. And this is how one of the activities is build your org chart on however you want to your business to look like in two, three, five years, whatever.

And then start with each position, build your standard operating procedures, and then you graduate to the next step. Position, right? And then you slowly work yourself out of the business. So within, we, we started, my brother forced me to do that stupid activity, which ended up being not so stupid. We started that right from day one.

And within a year we were both. Pretty much completely out of the org chart. And then I'm pushing this dirty dough owner and Hey dude, let's franchise it. I live in San Diego. This is a great market. And he goes, I actually want out of this business. It's hell. I work a hundred hours a week. You know, it's just not, not worth it.

I was a little worried about losing my investment. Also, I just listened to a podcast saying buy real estate and businesses to build true wealth. And I'd never bought it. Businesses and [00:09:00] everyone considered it. I just was in real estate. So I thought kind of, you know, what the hell I have a little bit of time.

I've replaced myself out of the business. I do have a little bit of extra capital. I'm scared of losing the capital I've already invested. So I'm going to roll the dice and see if I can't figure this out because I didn't have any franchising or food or restaurant history before that. 

Greg Martin: So you're into the solar business.

You've figured out how to get the engine to work. Did that make you. Were you a little, you were sounding like you were looking for the next opportunity then, like it was, uh, were you bored? I guess it's almost sort of my question, did your mind sort of need the next project and that's what brought you to, to that?

Bennett Maxwell: I guess in a way, because I did want to buy a franchise, I wanted him to franchise. I wanted to open up a store, but I was also looking at looking at it as yeah, I'm not going to go get another full time thing. This is kind of a side deal. And that's when I bought dirty dough, the same thing. That was my thought process.

I'm running another company, so I'm part time. So if I bring on a lot of other part time partners, you know, a lot of part time part timers equal a few [00:10:00] full timers. That was my thought. Process. Then I brought on an advisor who told me I was an idiot and I had to, everybody who owns 5 percent or more equity had to be full time or else it's just not going to work out if we're going down the route later on to raise money.

Cause investors don't want to see dead weight on the cap table. So I was able to, I guess, clean a lot of that up. But about six months into, uh, buying dirty dough, the opportunity, somebody offered to buy the solar company and it was a sales word, like Pretty much all 1099 contractors. Yeah. It was a company, but like not a real company.

I didn't know anybody wanted to buy it, but somebody wanted to buy it. And I was like, I will take that. I never thought I was just in it for you know, the sales commissions and the money along the way until we wanted to close up shop, but the opportunity presented itself. So I sold it and then dove full time in dirty dough.

Yeah. Three summers ago, three years ago. 

Greg Martin: So now you're left with, or not left with, you've now, uh, now all this time from off your one business to now focus. Tell [00:11:00] me about learning, like what were some of the big eyeopening things that you learned , early days of a cookie company and you know, was, was that guy that sold you the business, right?

Was he, was it awful? Did you find yourself quickly wanting to just to get out? Yep. 

Bennett Maxwell: Yes. And yes. Now, but, but you got to analyze what are the awful parts about it? Labor is a big, awful part, not only hiring and just dealing with it, but there's such high turnover. Especially when you're doing cookies and you're doing it all by hand.

So if you're going to work a shift, Greg, I would call it the, we called it the baller because all you did is came, came in and weighed the dough by hand and balled it. You know, and you do that for five or six hours and you're spent over five, 10 degrees with your back. You're going to last two weeks.

And that was one of the biggest headaches. And then also waste, you know, I'm mixing the cookies and a customer comes in, I get distracted or whatever. And there's just a quite a bit of waste. So it was, yes, it's a headache. Labor and cost of goods, I think are definitely the biggest. Big two [00:12:00] items that everybody focuses on the restaurant space.

So how do you simplify that? And that was kind of my first task, which I landed on centralizing the production. So rather than having every store make their own product, we make all the product pre portion it, get economies of scale, ship it out to each franchise location, frozen, and then they just pop it in the oven, press start.

Cause every cookie cooks for the same time. Temperature, fan speed, ovens are programmed. You can operate out of, 500 square feet with one employee. So as it was here, the pain points, let's try to solve them. Although I'm not going to say we've solved them all because I still have plenty of pain points.

Greg Martin: Okay. So how many locations did you have when you bought, when you, when you initially bought it? Just the one. Okay. 

Bennett Maxwell: Yeah. 

Greg Martin: So how many do you have now? 

Bennett Maxwell: We have 80 something open, maybe 80, 85. I bought it. The first year was a little bit of revamping coming up with the model. And then we franchised and yeah, our first store opened up two summers ago.

And then since then it's just been trying to breathe. 

Greg Martin: [00:13:00] Yeah. And so what's the experience for someone who's never been into a store? It doesn't have a sense for, for what the business is exactly. What can you expect when you enter into one of these, one of your stores? 

Bennett Maxwell: Dirty dough is a gourmet cookie franchise.

You know, cookies are a third of a pound. Uh, they're typically baked every hour, serve fresh. Or, you know, biggest competitors crumble. If that kind of puts it in, into everybody's mind, but what is the, the experience and the differentiation? Of their the product itself, dirty dough means the dough is dirty.

At least that's what it means since I've taken it over. So we focus more on the mix ins of the cookie. So almost every single cookie is either stuffed with something or has multiple layers. So we claim that the world's first three layer cookie, you have a peanut butter dough on the outside with a chocolate dough in the middle with a hot fudge inject injection, something like that.

So that's, that's the product itself. The look and the feel of the company is very much surrounding The mission statement, which is all about finding joy and fulfillment, despite life's dirtiness. [00:14:00] And it's giving the message of life. Does it need to be perfect for it to be enjoyed just like these cookies?

Life could look plain and boring and messy on the outside, but they're delicious inside. Right? So there's kind of all that, uh, messaging built in. We care about your feelings. The inside matters. Most life gets messy and that, and that's okay on the packaging, on the. Ovens on the windows. But that's the, I guess the bigger purpose or message that I'm trying to get out, that gets me a little bit more excited than just selling cookies.

Greg Martin: Yeah, the cookies are pure comfort, right?

When you are having one and one is warm in particular. So a lot of the cookies, then when someone comes, you're actually there encountering a warm cookie. I imagine that's just over, your expectations are here and that's probably exceeding them when you're like, wow, this is just, just baked. 

Bennett Maxwell: Yeah, the good part about owning a cookie business is if you show up to any Gathering of people anywhere you show up with some warm cookies, you are accepted and well received.

So it's very easy to walk into elementary schools or businesses where the fire department and give [00:15:00] out free cookies, promote the business, you know, give out the flyers and all of that, because everybody is very warm and welcoming when you have warm, welcoming cookies. 

Greg Martin: What's the business model like then?

Have you, and for you have a franchisee, who's, who's, Trying to take over your vision and you obviously care and want them to uphold it. But then they also care about obviously financials. What's the pitch and how, you know, how lucrative is that for someone who's going to operate a individual location?

Bennett Maxwell: Yeah, the pitch is simplicity. I'm sure there's a lot of other simple concepts, but we definitely advertise ourselves as one of the most simple. food concepts. I mean, we have stores in, I don't know, 25 states. You could walk into any of those stores today, grab any flavor of cookie, put it on a cookie sheet, press Start on the oven.

Right. And it's going to be baked. And you can operate out of a few hundred square feet with one employee. So it's how do we look at the market trends in the past? We know that food is cyclical. We know that we're in this cookie fad. How do [00:16:00] you protect yourself from the downside? I think it comes down to mitigating the risk on your fixed expenses.

So if you can operate on an 800 square feet rather than 1800 square feet, your rent is a lot less. If you're not paying employees 20 an hour in California to do this with the dough, That's already done for you. But, but that's the model you can open up the store for very low overhead, you know, a few hundred grand because you're not buying all the mixers and things, and then you can operate it at much lower overhead as well.

So really the simplicity. And then from there, the top line sells, you know, there's a lot of. Hype in the cookie world right now. And there's a lot of stores really crushing on the, on the top line cells. So if your top line, you know, that the higher those are, the lower your bottom line, uh, expenses and your fixed costs are obviously you're pulling in more money.

Greg Martin: You know, 80 plus stores, what makes a really good one and what makes one that may be underperforming? Is it all, is it heavily location? Is it, is it demographics? [00:17:00] 

Bennett Maxwell: Yeah, it's, it's, I, I would say yes to both of those, but I think the bigger one is just effort.

Like my brother just opened up a dirty dough in the San Diego area in Poway. And when I was telling you, we went to, you know, elementary schools and businesses, and it was just, it's very easy to go out there. You get a four box of cookies that, you know, what's your cost on that a few bucks. And you show up to a business and say, Hey, we will give all of your customers a free cookie on us.

I guess through you, everybody who ends their Taekwondo class, you can give them a free dirty dough cookie on you in order for them to redeem it. They just need to come into the store, download the app and show us. So it's now I get all of these customers into my door. They're already in the same retail parking lot.

And then. It's only costing me a dollar and a cookie to get their name, phone number, email address, and try the product. And it's very easy to do that with, I think we, in an hour, we visited seven businesses. And seven out of seven of them said, yeah, we'll give out free cookies to all of our customers.

Right. It's just, [00:18:00] but there's a lot of owners that don't want to do anything. You know, it's kind of like, I'm going to hire a dealer. College kid that had, that was a assistant manager at Starbucks and then hopefully talk with her every three months. And it's that's, that's not going to work. You still have to run and manage your business.

But I think the involvement of the owner is the biggest differentiator between Really successful in a not so successful business. 

Greg Martin: there was probably a moment where you, you had to make this decision that you were going to go in all in on cookies and buy this guy's business.

And, and, and jump in and decide Hey, am I going to become this cookie guy all of a sudden? Like, why did you do it? And what were you thinking? And was there a, was there any doubt in your mind of Hey, I shouldn't have, shouldn't have done this. Or, or were you, did you really feel like you were all in?

Bennett Maxwell: Yes, a lot, a lot of doubt. There's always been doubt always will be doubt probably. Cause you're just like, man, was it the right thing? So honestly, it had nothing to do with cookies. I would cookies weren't on my [00:19:00] radar. It was just really a business opportunity that I saw that I wanted to, you know, shoot my shot at it.

So a lot of it, when I mentioned that podcast of just Hey, you should buy businesses. I'm like, I'll try it. You know, what's the worst that can happen. Solar was great, but you're spending 50 grand a month in ads and you have a three month time window from the time you spend the ad till you get paid.

So it was very cash heavy. So launching it was pretty hard and pretty scary, uh, to comfort me. I told myself, okay, if this fails, it costs me, you know, a hundred grand or 200 grand, whatever it is. But I do think I learned more than if I went and got a four year degree. So that's kind of how I justified it in my mind.

And that's how I got through the first year of dirty dough. I'm like, crap, this is going to fail. Crap. This is going to fail. What if this fails? What if this fails? Oh, it needs more money. Now it needs more money. And then I kept telling myself, okay, money doesn't matter. Money comes and goes, but I am gaining this experience.

And if I could keep my mindset on that, then [00:20:00] it's a little bit easier to live and run the business. 

Greg Martin: I guess. Yeah. What was the source of your, the big doubts you had initially? Was it when something bad happened and it was more in yourself of whether you can, you can do it or, or, you know, what caused that sort of the most anxiety for you around in the early days, especially on the business.

Bennett Maxwell: The endless pit of money that needs to be dumped. I mean, at first, you know, it's okay, now we need, we're losing five grand a month or 10 grand a month. Cause you only have one store, but yet you're gearing up to franchise. So you have to hire all the corporate side and you're gearing up to provide cookies for all these franchises.

So now you're a cookie dough manufacturing company, and then you have to deliver the cookies. So you're also logistics company. So we quickly went from, okay. How do we make payroll? Okay. I could put in an extra 10 grand here or 5 grand there, 20 grand. And then it was like, okay, payroll is 150 grand.

Uh, we can no longer do that anymore. So a lot of it was just like, man, when is our breakeven point and how quickly are going to, we get there. [00:21:00] And it's the, every time I have to invest another dollar knowing like crap, am I going to get this back? If it were, if I did the slow growth, I don't think I would have had all of that anxiety and the stress of.

always having to raise money like every month to make sure that we survive. If you go the fast, the fast route, it's, it's stressful. It's very, it's very stressful. And I think if I did it again, I'd go a lot slower. Cause like last year we went from seven to 60 stores in one year and that was, that was a lot.

Greg Martin: Did you have to take outside capital? 

Bennett Maxwell: Yeah. We've raised just, just under 10 million in the last year. Two years. And we were done raising now and I feel like I'm a new man that I don't have to be begging people for money all the time. 

Greg Martin: So you've just sold the business. And, uh, and you're going along with it though, to keep growing.

Is that, is that the impression? Yeah. Feel free. I mean, any parameters around and why, why'd you do it? Why'd you sell the business? 

Bennett Maxwell: About a year and a half ago. Again, raising capital. Cause I haven't stopped raising [00:22:00] capital. Cold LinkedIn messages. I mean, again, go back to the door to door world that none of that scares me anymore.

Right. Got in contact with the former CEO of Jimmy John's. His name is Greg Majewski during their rapid growth. And we were past the point that he, that his group invest, cause he owns a company called crave worthy brands. Now they're up to 15 portfolio brands. Anyways, he told me all the mistakes I was making and how dumb I was.

And I am like, I love you. Can you be my advisor? So I brought him on the advisory board and then towards the end of last year, it was very apparent that I had outgrown my leadership ability on how fast we were growing. I mean, we have over a hundred franchisees, we've sold 400 something franchises.

Like I don't know what the hell I'm doing. I did bring in an experienced CEO right off the bat. Who started the company called Maui while we smoothies and coffee at its peak, you know, 650 plus locations. But fast forward now, now we're a food manufacturing company and a logistics company and a franchise company and running a dozen corporate stores.

So I'm talking with Greg, we were looking for a new CEO. And our [00:23:00] other CEO, Jill is going to move to president. And he just said, Hey, let me come do it. He goes, I already have the team in place. It's not just me. I got the whole crave worthy team. We'll plug in. So we did a services for equity deal. In January of this year and he's fixed most all of my mistakes.

He still has a few more to fix but he's been doing a phenomenal job and it's just very clear and apparent to me what it is. To watch a 30 year vet that's opened up 2000 restaurants across a dozen different brands versus a solar guy, how they run and operate the company. And my biggest concern obviously is my franchisees, like how do you line them up the most for success?

So a few months ago, Craveworthy, you know, they had their equity percentage and they said, Hey, Would you be open to a full acquisition through a stock swap? You know, we're growing quick and then you can help because my skill set is on the sell side. You can help sell franchises for the other brands as well.

You do what you want to do. I'm good at operating. I'll do what I want to do and it should make a little, you know, a good marriage. [00:24:00] So a few months in the making, we had to close September 30th by midnight. And I got an email from their attorney at 11 58 Eastern time saying got all the docs. And I'm like, yeah.

Greg Martin: Why does it always have to be like that, right? The last minute, but it does. Right. So, congratulations and, and, uh, that, that, that sounds exciting. Do you. Now, at this point, have any regrets, uh, or do you have any doubts, or I should say, around, around that? Is there, is there, is there a scary part about it, or are you, do you feel a lot more all in than you were last time?

Bennett Maxwell: Scary part about the stability of, of the company and the stress that comes along with it? 

Greg Martin: Yeah. 

Bennett Maxwell: Oh, I think, I feel a thousand times. Less stress because crave worthy has a lot more money than us. They're backed by a lot larger people than we ever have. All the money that I've raised has been angel investors.

We've been an LLC taxes and S corp. So you go and you pitch people. They're like, yeah, we'll give you a million bucks. And you're like, okay, but. We can't accept your money through a fund. So then you have eight people invest personally. [00:25:00] And then, you know, we had 20 something people on our cap table right now.

They're not dealing with all that, you know, they have the larger well backed. So I feel a lot more, I guess, security in the deal both for me and the franchises. 

Greg Martin: Yeah. It's funny that money becomes and never really ends, stops being the thing that is worrying you. Do you, have you found that? I've thought about this over the time that , you've got, I mean, You don't actually need a lot of money to survive, to live off, to whatever.

I'm sure you weren't, uh, especially when you were in Mexico and doing your mission work, , you can find a lot of those things, but then you get into this business and you mentioned it a sort of a few times, just being that being the big worry that you had, have you reflected and thought about that and the meaning of money to you?

Bennett Maxwell: Yeah. When I sold the solar company so this was three years ago, I'm 31, I was 28 and I had this goal and this. Thing that I told myself that millionaires don't have. Issues, right? So if I could only be a millionaire and if I could do that before I'm [00:26:00] 30, then everything's going to change. so I just dedicated everything to achieve that goal.

I got up to 310 pounds at my five foot eight stature, just like a little round bowling ball. Didn't have, wasn't spending the time with my kids that I should be, didn't have the best relationship with my wife. All to reach that million dollar mark. And then I reached it and it felt amazing for a few days or a few weeks or whatever.

But your brain just goes back to your normal state, your equilibrium. And I was lucky to, after that wore off, I immediately set the 2 million goal. No, I need 2 million. I'll feel better with 2 million. Luckily, as soon as I set that goal, I also realized that I've done that my whole life. You know, when I make my first hundred thousand dollars, life's going to be, when I get married, when I started business, when I do a million in revenue, when I do 10 million in revenue, and it's just it's always right around the corner and that's how your brain works.

And it is an illusion. So yes, I, I [00:27:00] have thought a lot about that and I think it is a complete illusion as far as if I can only get this material goal, which is usually money, then everything else will. Shape out, but really what we're after is not the material goal. We're after an emotional state We want to feel a certain way and we think that that material goal will help us get there and it could be true But usually it's not so my belief is don't have financial goals as your primary goal Your primary goal should be emotional based because there's nothing that humans do that isn't to feel a certain way So then it's okay.

I want to feel more joy and fulfillment throughout my life. Maybe Starting a company will help me do that. Maybe being a millionaire will help me do that. Maybe having a hundred franchisees will make, uh, will help me do that. But those aren't my goals. It's it's the joint fulfillment, despite life's dirtiness.

Cause I don't want to have to wait to sell my next company again, in order to tell give myself a break on relaxing and spending more time with my family and traveling and all of that. 

Greg Martin: Right? Yeah. Sometimes the money is just an easy way to [00:28:00] evaluate life, right? If that's all you're going to do it, if that's all you're going to, that's actually a very.

Numeric achievable like in if you look in a lot of corporate learnings, you read books and stuff like that. And they often say, come up with KPIs and like specific goals, numerical goals and set them. And that is kind of what money is, right? At the same time, it in and of itself isn't fulfilling.

KPI in and of itself isn't fulfilling. It's what it brings, but sometimes it's just, I don't know. I also often think of the easiest way to just have a goal because you can, it's just a number, right? You can, you can very tangibly say, did I achieve this or not? 

Bennett Maxwell: It's a lot easier to say, I want a million dollars or a hundred thousand or a billion dollars than how do I want to feel?

And how often do I want to feel that? And how, and, and how often do I want to be with my family and how often do I want to take vacations and what's my work life balance going to be? That all takes a lot more thinking and, you know, just willpower and and focus than just setting a goal and going for it.

Right. At least I think so. 

Greg Martin: Have you thought about the [00:29:00] outwardness of it? The, that we need to show people the goal and, and that we have it, you know, I, maybe we do this less, but obviously a bigger house, a nicer car. That is a lot of ways that we feel like, you know, whether we're doing that for ourselves actually or whether we're doing it for other people because they can see it.

Bennett Maxwell: I mean, I think it's for sure other people. So again, going back to why I don't think the finance goal should be your, your, you know, a hundred yard goal, maybe the first 10 yards, uh, but not the a hundred yard goal, because it, it, it comes down to again, just how we want to feel on a certain day, month, whatever, what is that emotional state?

And how am I going to laser in on that as much as possible? And it just, it takes a lot more work than. I just want a few extra dollars. But what are you going to do with those extra dollars? How are you going to spend that? And you usually don't define it. It's like the, the thought process I went through is more money equals more time freedom, more time, freedom equals more [00:30:00] vacations, vacations.

I go on those with my family and I love my family. It turns out I'm happy with my family. So if only I could have a million dollars, I could be with my family and be happy. And it's no, if I would have set the, if I would have set. sat down and said, okay, what do I really want? Which I, I think it's joy and fulfillment despite life's dirtiness again.

Having it as much as, as frequently as possible. That's what I really want. Now, how do I go achieve? And then you set your sub goals. So your KPIs and your financial goals are kind of sub goals, but it's no, I want money because I could then buy a house. What is lacking in your emotional psyche that says that you need a bigger house than what you already have?

Why do you need that external validation? Even if it comes to, I want more money because I want to help people. Why do you feel like you have to help people and you're not as fulfilled Yeah. So I think it's just, I get fascinated by that. I started diving in once I started, once I sold the solar company, I dove into therapy and consciousness and dabbled a lot with psychedelics.

And I'm just like, yeah, it's, [00:31:00] it's kind of opening up my mind to a whole new way of looking at the world, particularly in, particularly in, uh, goals and success, you know, money based. 

Greg Martin: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I, it's something I've noticed is I don't consider myself a rich person by any means, but I, I listened to sort of these podcasts a lot.

And, uh, Tim Ferriss is one for instance. And I'll listen to him do certain things. And I'm like, you're just really complicating this. Like he, everything he just really complicates. And I think it's just because he's had all this success and he's done all these things and he has nothing to do, but sit there and overthink things.

And, uh, and I, I, and I wonder, I think that's just what happens when, you know, you just, you. You just get consumed by these very, you know, what are the simple thing I want to, you know, I want to go hang out with my friends, so I'll go do it. And he's what, how do I allocate all the time to do that?

And what, you know, and it's just Tim, like you've just, anyways, I just, I've noticed that in amongst some of the people I've, I've followed and listened to where they've had, you know, that type of success. I 

Bennett Maxwell: mean, I think it's the, the type a may or may not have [00:32:00] ADHD. You know, that's the, that's a lot of the entrepreneurs out there.

With that mindset, is that high efficiency? Like I have to plug in the GPS address to the cafe or the, uh, whatever I'm going to the street. I know how to get there. I've driven there a million times, but I need to know if I should take state street or the freeway. Cause one's nine minutes, one, one's 10 minutes.

It's like that hyper focus on trying to optimize everything. I personally feel like that's very harmful. I'm trying to change that. Because it it's when you're always focused on maximizing performance and maximizing your return, when are you in the moment? When are you actually present? Right. Cause if you're maximizing something you're planning and if you're planning, you're thinking in the future.

So complete 180 of how I've always lived my life. But the last two, three years, I'm like, okay, I need to slow down and I need to not care if I'm in traffic anymore. I need to stop changing lanes a thousand times to get there two minutes faster. So it's something that I've been working on a lot in my personal journey.

Greg Martin: No, that's, that's hard though. I wanted to ask you about the [00:33:00] brand and creating a brand. You mentioned it, doing it really quickly and scaling. Do you have to do you have to do it quickly? for something like this. And I, I just, I see, so I work a lot in that space where I'm working with companies that are brands.

I see a ton of entrepreneurs. Usually they're quite capital starved, actually, like they've, you know, because it's kind of unlimited. You could just spend more money on ads and kind of promote your product more, but you only have so much. So you do what you can, but they are all trying to create a brand.

They've got something, they're trying to tell the world they're out there. You have advice for them. And I'm thinking more in particular on the speed, but just more generally on How to do that and how to create that brand and get it out there, the brand that you want. 

Bennett Maxwell: One of the reasons that I left solar to get into franchising is I, solar was great.

But I couldn't ever see it becoming a national brand. You know, and for whatever reason I wanted a national brand. Now I'm in a, I'm going against what I just said, and I'm recognizing that. Like, why do I need a national brand [00:34:00] and go fix that? Because it's not worth all the hassle to build a bent national brand, to maybe feel that emotion that you're wanting to fill anyways, but I wanted a national brand and then it's Hey here's the company that.

It has the potential. Now, do I, how do you go do it? To come, let's, let's say you need a hundred locations to become a national brand, however, you don't want to define it. And each location costs you 300, 000. I don't have 30 million. So how do you go and get a national brand? That's where franchising comes in.

The franchising model set up correctly, I think is, is wonderful. Like we have the product that you've already tried. You love it. You want to buy a franchise, you know, your local community, you're going to pay for everything. To build that franchise, build it out, but you were going to do that anyway, if you opened up your own business, but now you're opening up something with an established product and established name, and then you're paying a percentage of your royalties.

To corporate, but you're saving a lot of money on labor because you're also buying the dough from us and we get [00:35:00] economies of scale on from our flour, sugar, butter, to then mixing thousands of cookies at a time, machine portioning it so franchising it is the way. And that was the advice I got. Do you want to grow quick?

Franchise. Do you want to go quick? Quick. And do you have anything proprietary to what you're doing? The answer for me was no. Yeah, we have some specialized machines, but I didn't build them. Somebody else could go find the same machines and use them. So that was the advice go franchise. Now the benefit of growing quick is yes.

Now, when we open up stores. There's a lot of people that already know the brand. I mean, we're still obviously very small, but that helps a little bit. The bigger help is because it's a centralized production model. You need volume to get the discounts. So. But I, I would go back and say, why do you want the national brand?

Is it worth it? Do you want to have, I mean, I, I spoke with somebody who had two gyms above La Jolla. He lived above one of them in La Jolla, you know, San Diego area made great money, then [00:36:00] expanded to 30 gyms until COVID hit, then went bankrupt. And he's yeah, yeah, the good old days. Running two stores, making good money, surfing three times a week.

And I'm like, why do we leave that? You know, why do we leave the good life to go get a better life when it's not really better?

Greg Martin: move forward. Like you just, you can't, you feel like it's not, but it may go back to your point about living in the moment. We're up, may not be good at that. We're we're geared towards thinking about the future and what it could be regardless of what we have now. 

Bennett Maxwell: Yes. I don't know. So part of the, I've always defined, here's my mission statement, joy and fulfillment, despite life's dirtiness, joy, instead of happiness, because happiness, you can't have that all the time, but you can have a joyful life and have sad moments, which is completely acceptable.

I in fulfillment because I think you get. Fulfillment from progression. I think progression is essential. I'm now flipping that as I dive into more, uh, philosophy books. I'm like, no, I think that's [00:37:00] societal base that you have to have progression in order to be fulfilled. Still undecided on that, but I do feel like the majority of us.

Either that's true, or at least we think that it's true, that you have to be getting bigger, better, stronger in order for you to be happy. 

Greg Martin: What do you feel like you're good at? Do you feel like it's sales, and that you should, and that that is where you want to go? You mentioned that with this, with this deal to sell to Craveworthy, it's now you, you selling.

And you experimented and you were a CEO for a while. And I think it sounds, anyways, I'm not sure if this is just you being being uh, naive about it or, or just you know, sometimes you don't know how good you are about yourself, but like, where, where do you feel like your strengths lie, having been sort of a CEO and a salesperson over time?

What are you good at? 

Bennett Maxwell: Definitely the sales, but I'm going to broaden it out a little bit more and say communication. Friday, so one business day before the deal is supposed to close, we get on the board meeting 9 00 AM. And the whole thing is falling [00:38:00] apart. Everything is falling apart. I think what I'm good at and what I learned through cells, but it applies to everything else is actually narrowing down to what the problem is.

You know, it's because you get that, you knock on the door, not interested. Oh, I already have this. And it's every, the first five things they tell you is just to get you off the doorstep. You know, it's not actually that they're not interested in paying zero dollars down to immediately cut their bill in half and go green and fix their bill for the next 20 years by going solar.

Of course they want my product. Right. So really diving into and separating the smoke screens from the actual concerns, uh, and then just focusing on that concern. I think that that's what I'm good at. I think that that translated to helping me raise money when I had no experience on okay, what are you looking for?

What are you not looking for? And that's how I start every sales presentation, whether it's investor relations and raising money to selling a franchise to selling solar, it's always, what do you want and what do you not want at the beginning of this presentation, but diving into both of those until I [00:39:00] get everything they want and everything they don't want.

Greg Martin: And 

Bennett Maxwell: then now that's the easiest sell in the world. Right. But I, skillset lies. 

Greg Martin: Gotcha. And then, so, and is that also what you like to do? Have you realized, because you've done some different things, and you've been attracted away from that, it sounds but is that where you now feel like you should be?

Bennett Maxwell: Yeah, it's the, uh, I did sales to you. I have two months, loved it. And I'm like, then I went and recruited 40 guys, 40 college kids to move from Utah to North Carolina. And I had to recruit them, train them hold them accountable. Everything was a hundred percent commission based overrides and all of that.

And then I realized, Holy hell, that was just like herding cats and babysitting. I'm never going to do that. It was great. You know, as a 22 year old, I maybe made just over a quarter million in four or five months, but I'm like. That's not what I want to do. I'd rather just go sell a higher ticket item and not worry about the sales and the recruiting and still, you know, make similar money.

So I did that for a few years and then I forgot that [00:40:00] I hate managing. And then I got into solar. I mean, I started a solar company and then dirty don't like, no, no, no. I need to keep reminding myself I like doing this. I don't need to have the control. Every once in a while, my brain just forgets about it.

I'm like, no, I want to be the guy in charge, managing and all that. But the, I just, the. Risk versus reward or the stress versus reward. I don't feel like it pays off for me. 

Greg Martin: The promotion, uh, it sounds you know, promotion is always good, but maybe you sometimes have to say, no, you don't want that. And, uh, and it's, you know, you're not always trying to be the boss to everyone you want to be finding that place.

Cause there's only so many bosses. Most of us are not bosses in the sense of you know, we're, we're running a business. Uh, but it's interesting. I read not too long ago, that book, uh, from David Epstein range. Have you read that one where it's just about, You know, rather, you know, there's a way of being where we talk about specialize.

Like you've got to specialize like crazy and, and that's how you can become really good at something. But this book is all about sometimes people with a broad set of skills are [00:41:00] actually really helpful and effective in the world because they can think about something a bit differently. And so I'm curious whether for us, what that means and for young people, you know, whether, Hey, should I really just hunker down on this one thing that I like, or should I be out there trying to do different things?

It's just different philosophy. 

Bennett Maxwell: If I recall the back to that same book, the rich dad, poor dad, maybe that's the only book I've ever read. And I'm just joking. I, I'm 90 percent sure they talked about that, you know, become proficient in a lot of things because you don't want to be the smartest person in the room.

You, you need to have an accountant that's smarter than you and taxes, but you need to speak the language. But you're not the accountant. You need to speak the legal, the legal language, but, but you're not the attorney. So I do think there, there is truth to that. Like you need to know what's going on in the aspects of the business.

While recognizing that, I guess your limits, I could either dive into a few aspects or oversee a lot. And if I'm trying to oversee a lot, I need to recognize that I can't dive into any of them and really just be a better manager of people. And refine reporting and all of [00:42:00] that. 

Greg Martin: So, what would your advice then be to someone who is trying to figure out where to focus, how to focus their career, given what you've been through in your experience?

Bennett Maxwell: I think finding something that you like doing is very important, but before even finding that, I think, All of the times I wanted to give up with dirty dough or with solar it was a lot easier with dirty dough. The, and the pressure was a lot higher, but it was, man, I just want to not work and deal with all of these complaints every day from a thousand different customers and whatever.

Anyways, but I would always fall back. I'm like, okay what, what would I be doing if I'm not doing dirty dough? I think I'd be trying to fulfill my mission statement, which is, you know, finding. Despite life's dirtiness in myself and others. How would I do that? I would want to focus on mental health and mindset because I think that's where joint fulfillment comes from.

And I'd also want to focus on helping others become entrepreneurs by lowering the barrier of entry to [00:43:00] entrepreneurs, because that's given me a lot of joint fulfillment. And then I think. Oh, wait, I'm already doing that. Literally. That's how I set up dirty dough. So it all of those scares of dude, I just want out of, I'm like, no, I'm literally doing everything I want.

I just need to remind myself on that scale back a little bit, realign with that mission statement and go from there. So I think finding that ultimate goal. On an emotional basis is very important. And then once you find that go get advisors. I didn't know what a board of advisors was until I stuck, took a startup course after my, after I exited solar.

Greg Martin: Yeah. 

Bennett Maxwell: I just thought there's a board of directors, which actually, you know, vote and do all that stuff on your company. No, you can get people, high level people. The first advisor that I got, uh, he founded a company called info space. 30 billion IPO has had a lot of other exits since then. And he's teaching me about advisory boards.

So it's no, you can get these people for half a percent to a percent and half of equity. I'm like who wants a half a percent of one store? You know, like we're not even a [00:44:00] franchise yet. But I learned about that. So anyways. I got him. We gave him a percent and a half in equity. And now I get a call him three years later.

He's been my biggest resource for percent and a half of equity from a company at the time that didn't was worth nothing. And you also subject it to a two year vesting period. So if it doesn't work out, you're, you're not just forking out that, you know, percent and a half of equity, hoping that it works out.

If it doesn't work out, you have a way to legally bring that back. And keep that with the company. Then he brought on my second advisor, Steve Hart, largest. Property management franchise or in the nation. So I think just surrounding yourself with really good people in the form of advisors or however you can do that, I think is essential because there's, you just, you don't know what you don't know.

I came into this knowing that I didn't know everything because luckily, and that kind of forced me or prompted me to get. Good CEOs and advisors. And that has been, I think the best, best decision. I don't, there's no way we would still be standing here with if I didn't do that, I would have made too many bad decisions.

Greg Martin: Yeah, no, it's hard. I [00:45:00] mean, you, you, you, I find you can ask anyone for advice anytime, but if they're not sort of, Current on what's going on. And if you don't feel like you can call on them all the time, you know, on a regular, somewhat regular basis, they just don't know enough about what you're doing to be as helpful, but you get them into business there and give them a little bit of equity.

And, and for them, it's, it's kind of fulfilling something from them as well. Right. Where they're like I don't want to actually have to operate this business or be too involved, but I'd love to give advice. Cause advice is, is, you know, sometimes very easy to do. So how did you find those people? Were they, did you just use your good sort of sales skill to say sales skills?

Yeah. Are you. I, 

Bennett Maxwell: I use my cutco and my missionary referral skills because all of those were all just referrals. So again, I get taught what an advisory board is and immediately I'm like, okay, I need this and who better to have on my advisory board than the guy teaching me about advisory. So that's how I got my first one.

The second one I asked him. Okay. How do I build my advisory board? He said, let me bring in Steve, see if he's interested. So then he got Steve and then I'm asking other people for, for referrals. And I ask an employee [00:46:00] named Tracy. I'm like, Tracy, who do you know? That could be a potential advisor. Oh, I know Jill summer.

Hey, she's the founder of Maui wowee, you know, 600 plus locations, very similar in the food space. Connect me with her. She ended up becoming CEO. But same thing with referral. Now I just sold to. Crave worthy. He was an advisor for a year. Then we partnered as management services and then he acquired everything.

How did I contact him? LinkedIn cold messages, baby. 

Greg Martin: All right. So some of the good, that's awesome. Yeah, I know. Try it all and see what works and, and yeah, it's awesome. Okay. I really appreciate you being, I guess, in the podcast today. Do you, if people want to follow you? Or obviously, I mean, it sounds like they, uh, you've got, you're all over the place in terms of dirty doughs to go find one, if you need comfort cookie, but how can they best reach and follow you?

Bennett Maxwell: Yeah. Bennett maxwell. com has links to all my social media. I run a podcast based on joy and fulfillment, any information on dirty dots on the website. 

Greg Martin: Awesome. Okay. I will link to that as well. Bennett. Thanks a lot for being a guest in the podcast today. [00:47:00] 

Bennett Maxwell: Thanks, Greg.

Greg Martin: Thank you so much for listening. If you're a fan of the podcast, please rate or like it on Spotify or Apple. That always helps in getting the podcast out to more people. You can also follow us in the podcast on LinkedIn and share, or just even like any of the content that is coming out there or from my page that also always helps promote it.

I'll have lots more great episodes coming for you in the future. And until then, it's good to stand out.