Episode 35: Lee Wells | Trust In Business

In this episode of the 'Ranch and Table' podcast, host Lee Wells discusses the importance of trust in business, particularly focusing on consistency and honesty in operations. He shares experiences from his own restaurant, Wells Cattle Company, emphasizing the impact of menu accuracy, consistent hours of operation, and positive customer relations on maintaining trust. Wells also advocates for supporting other businesses and avoiding negative commentary. He underscores the necessity of honoring promises to customers and the detrimental effects when trust is broken, using examples from his industry.

Transcript

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Welcome to the ranch and table podcast,  where we discuss all things related to our Texas ranch and  our ranch to table restaurant located in downtown Rockwall.  I'm your host, Lee Wells. Welcome back to another podcast, the ranch and table, and glad to be back with you today. Thank you for taking the time to.

It has been a week or two, I have been a little busy opening up another restaurant and another location and life goes that way sometimes, but it's good to be back. Thank you for your patience. And let's get into some of this great discussion today. Today's podcast is brought to you by.

Wells Cattle Company, Burgers and Pies, Downtown Rockwall. And of course, our Wells Burgers Express out in Caddo Mills next to the fire department downtown. And that's where I've been for the last four weeks is grilling every day out there in that truck. Getting it going, making sure everything is running good.

Got a great team in place coming together. It's just taken a lot of time to get things going and get it going well.  Of course, we've had some great weather,  not really some ice and snow and really cold temperatures that we've had to deal with. So anyway, it's been fun and challenging and all of the things, but today we are brought to you by Wells Burgers. 

If you haven't had one yet, I still don't know what you're waiting for. Maybe you live far away, but if you're in this area, come by and see us. Better beef makes for better burgers and you don't get better beef than from our ranch and whole ground steaks, roast brisket, all the cuts go together to make our hamburger meat.

And so come try it out. We'd love to have you. And as always, thank you for listening. Thank you for taking your time. It is no, it's an honor. I'll just tell you, it's an honor to have you listening. I try not to waste your time. If you've listened to my podcast, I have a very dedicated idea. And that is that I don't want to waste your time.

I want to get right into things. Try not to ramble, try to give you something. Of some some point and something maybe to help your business or life or whatever it might be. Thank you for joining in. Today I want to talk about a topic that we've touched on in the past, but really haven't just explored this topic directly.

And it's it's the topic of business trust or trust in business. And I think we all know that you have to trust a business to walk into it. There's a surface trust that they're going to offer a viable product. They're going to sell it at a fair price. And you're going to be treated with respect.

I think those are basic trust elements that you have to feel and understand before you try something. But it's a lot deeper than that. Really. The trust issue goes both ways and it's a lot to it. I want to get into it with you today and help you understand at least my perspective here. And maybe we can learn something together.

It's true that relationships in general,  They live on trust. They're built on trust. They exist on trust. And, in relationships, there's big trust issues that everybody understands when you are monogamous and you are dedicated to that  significant other, there are certain things you do and certain things you don't do to establish trust and keep it.

But there's also  a whole subset  of more subtle. Trust things that you do that, can hurt someone's feelings or not, or. Maybe they're not the big trust issues, they're the smaller ones, but they all go together to build great relationships or tear them down. And I think the same is true in business.

We know that there are the big issues that we all try to pay attention to and work with, but let's look at some that today that may not be something that you've thought about, or maybe something that you've dealt with. I don't know. Let's get into it. I believe that trust  on the surface  is that we do what we're going to say we're going to do.

Now, what does that mean? How does that look as far as how a business is structured? I think that first of all, we have to tell the truth with our menu. Now this is a little more subtle than it comes across.  You have to tell the truth with your menu. Of course, the price that's on the menu has to be the price you ring up.

That's basic trust. That's one of the big ones. However, the more subtle one that I want to talk about is, if we say we're going to offer an item, we need to offer the item.  It needs to be available.  And if  we don't have it over and over when we say we're going to have it, That has a negative effect on that customer.

Now, there are some caveats. Barbecue for one is a caveat. They smoke meat for 8 to 12 hours. When they're out because they have to restart that whole cycle. And you don't just go grab a brisket and have it ready in 30 minutes. And those are understood things.

At our restaurant we have pies that we make. We make certain number of pies in the morning before we open. Once we open it's almost impossible to get back and start baking pies with the way our kitchen's set up. If you come to our place on a Friday night at 8 o'clock or Saturday night at 8 o'clock, there's a good chance we're out of pie.

But there's a reason for that. I don't ever want to be out of hamburgers when you come or French fries when you come. I don't want to be out of lettuce. I don't want to be out of things that are expected to be on that menu and not expected to run out. And the more subtle thing here is that you have what your menu says you have, unless it's one of these items that are understood that it can go away for the day.

There's a chain store in our area and we don't go anymore. It's a decent restaurant. It's fine. But it's, it gets so frustrating because you go  and one night we went to try to eat there and they were out of, I think we counted six. Or eight different things that we tried to order and they were out of that's not an exaggeration That's how bad It was so bad that we wanted a chicken fried steak one of the kids or somebody we want a chicken fried chicken or?

Chick fil a, they were out of cream gravy. So they said we could substitute brown gravy. And so we said, all right we don't usually eat Chicken fried steak with brown gravy, but we'll do it tonight or whatever chicken fried chicken, whatever it was, they come back and they said now we're out of brown gravy.

We just served the last one and it was not late. It was it was frustrating is what it was. It was maddening because you couldn't even get one of the combination plates with shrimp and fish because they were out of shrimp. It was just really hard. To deal with and that was not just one time That became the norm for that restaurant.

We don't go back because don't get your heart set on something And then find out that they're out of it again It's just not it's not cool and it breaks down that relationship and that trust to the point where it's just not worth trying and you hate that for them.

But as far as I know, they haven't fixed any of that is still going on. And so we just aren't just not going to do that. And people have the right to not put up with that, that people, customers have the right to not submit themselves, not subject themselves to that kind of treatment. And when it happens,  As if someone doesn't care who's ordering, who's running this kitchen, who is deciding how much of something to bring in and have available.

That person needs to be talked to or fired or whatever, because, anything can happen. We could run out of something at our restaurant. We could run out of say avocados or something and I would hope you'd be understanding but I hope that every time you come, we're not out of that because if so you call me, you message me directly and I'll get on it because that's just frustrating when that happens.

The second part of this trust relationship and doing what you say you're going to do is your hours of operation.  There is not a faster way, in my opinion, to ruin a customer relationship than to say you're open on this day at this time and not be open.  That is one of the hardest things to overcome as a customer.

And really there's no excuse or reason that they should have to, because it's your schedule as the business owner. That's your idea. That is your liberty to set up when you're gonna be open and when you're gonna be closed. No one's arguing with you that you should be open on a Sunday if you're not.

No one's arguing with you that you should be open till midnight if you close at 10. Nobody's going to argue with you on that. But if you say that you're going to be open on that day and at that time and you're not,  that's frustrating. I Oh, I hate it when you get your heart set on something and you're traveling, you get there, and then they're closed for some reason.

Now, of course, we know ice and snow can happen. We know. Sometimes the health department can get in and check your water temperature and you're two degrees shy of where it needs to be and they shut you down. There are things that can happen if you listen to my podcast. I hope you understand that i'm pretty reasonable  When i'm talking about these things i'm not a zero tolerance kind of guy I understand that there are times and I think general public Customers understand that there are times Where you have to change the schedule that we were going to go eat somewhere.

This was last year, I think, and we get over there and there, there's a note on the door that says closed for a family funeral or something like that. What are you going to say? What are you really going to do? How are you going to get mad at somebody? The funeral wasn't planned, the death wasn't planned.

It was something that they had to deal with. And it's something that they had to do. You can have a little mercy for that. But if you just walk up to a building, and it's supposed to be open, and it's dark, and the open sign's off, that's frustrating. That's stupid, is what that is. And and so within reason, I would say without a specific big reason, you should always be open the days and times that you say, or it's going to hurt you.

It's going to destroy your business because the more people you treat like that. You break that trust that you would be there when you said you would be there and it doesn't take I've told people when I'm Consulting with restaurants. I think it only takes maybe twice or three times and they're done I don't have a scientific study for that But in my mind in my experience when somebody breaks your trust two or three times There's a good chance they're not going to give you that fourth or fifth opportunity to do that to them again.

And it's really important. It's really important to be open when you say that you are because it breaks that trust when you're not. And I believe that's one of the quickest ways to ruin your business is not be there when you say that you're going to be there. Customer relations is another place where, and this is more obvious, but it's one of those places where  A trust can be broken and it's not going to come back.

It's not going to heal. It's not going to get, they're not going to get over it. If you're arguing with customers,  you're not going to win.  Now there's times where I have to explain things to customers. I would never argue with anybody, but I've had to explain to people. That's not why we do it.

That's not how we do it. You got us confused with someone else. We've never done it that way. I'm sorry that you felt like we did. One of the big things, and I don't know why this is but in our restaurant from day one, six and a half years ago,  people believe that we have banana pudding. We have never had banana pudding.

Not one single time, not one single day.  In our restaurant, have we ever, not even for a special occasion or a special of any kind, had banana pudding? And I'll tell you why. I'll tell you why we don't have banana pudding. Banana pudding doesn't keep. It won't keep even for a few hours because the bananas turn and it looks  To me, it's, it looks inedible when you got black splotches in this creamy goodness, it just ruins it.

It ruins it. And so the lifespan of banana pudding is so short. We have never had it, but people will swear up and down that they've had our banana pudding and it was the best they ever had. It's the weirdest thing I've ever seen, but it's happened many times, and I'll have to tell them. I'm sorry ma'am.

I'm sorry, sir.  I've been here every day. I'm a part of this operation. We have never and they'll just think that we had and it's funny. But we never have. Sometimes you have to explain yourself and you're not arguing and you're not being hard headed. You're just saying, no, that's not the way it is.

And sometimes they get upset or whatever. There's times you can't avoid it, but I promise you, there's some people that I know. Who are so hard headed we've had to let people go at our restaurant because they would not let it go that They were right and the customer's wrong. Now, let me tell you I'll be the first to tell anyone the customer isn't Hardly ever right the customer is always right that saying the customer is always right? 

The customer is rarely right, but it doesn't matter  What matters is that they're heard that they are that they feel like that they're getting through that they're able to work out a situation for the best outcome of both of you, which is not someone standing there toe to toe arguing with someone.

It's trying to figure out a way to get it solved. And one of the things that I teach my staff is you have to learn to yield to the customer. Yielding  means that you come together in a way.  To fix a situation where a good outcome Happens where you find a way? To yield to merge with their expectation if we can do that even if we say hey mistakes, sorry  And maybe we didn't make a mistake.

There are times many times where someone thought they ordered cheese or thought a burger came with cheese or whatever, and they didn't come out with cheese, we look at the ticket in the back. We would never bring a ticket out to them. Look at the ticket in the back it's not on the ticket.

And I'll bring that burger back and I'll say, throw some cheese on here.  And they'll do it.  I'm not going to go back and charge that person for that cheese. I'm going to merge. I'm going to, I'm going to do my best to yield to a place where we can have a good outcome and we can keep a customer. Because I promise you, a 1 piece of cheddar cheese is not worth losing that customer over.

It happens sometimes. They think a burger comes with fries. I don't know why.  Maybe they didn't read the menu well, maybe the menu was confusing to them. I don't know, but they think that they're getting fries. I promise you, I'm not going to lose a customer over a couple bucks. I'm just not going to. I'll go get them some fries and I'll put it on the table and say, Here you go.

Sorry about that. Even though we weren't wrong,  they were technically wrong for assuming, or maybe the person putting the order in. Didn't hit the button right. Who knows? Who cares? Who cares?  It's got to be fixed. It's got to be made right. And I refuse to lose a customer over a couple bucks. I'm going to bring them some fries.

I'm going to be nice about it. I'm going to, I'm going to play it off Oh man, sorry that happened. I don't know what happened exactly, but here's the fries. If you need anything else, let me know. Can I get you any sauces? Can, and I try to merge our disagreement or our problem into a solution where I'm okay at the end of the day, and they're okay at the day.

Now there are some times, and there are some businesses where you can't quite do that, that easily. When there's legal contracts, where there's stuff going on you have to decide how to handle these things for your situation. But. For me, it's not lose, not worth losing a customer over just to have an argument, just a fuss over two bucks.

I'm not going to do it because when that person leaves angry, they leave upset, they leave somehow I was trying to get one over on them. They're not coming back. You're not going to win. When that trust is broken, it takes so much effort to ever build it back. And sometimes it just can't be. And so you don't fight.

You don't fuss. You don't say I'm right. Another thing that we don't do is I don't want, I don't want my staff taking a receipt out and showing a customer or asking for a receipt. I used to have someone that did that and they're a family member.  And I ask them, please don't do that. They were very type A.

They were very rigid in the way they thought. And they were like if it's on here, we'll make it right. It doesn't matter if it's on the receipt. It could have been our mistake when we put the receipt together. It could have been, their mistake for not reading something correctly.

It doesn't matter. What matters is, We keep a customer at the cost that we're affording and that we're available to afford. And we don't fuss about it. And we don't go get the ticket and make a spectacle out of it. We try to merge that situation to a solution so that we can.  Hold that trust together almost at any cost.

And you have to decide that for your situation. But if you're losing customers over two bucks, shame on you. If you're losing customers over four or five dollars, and they're never coming back, that's stupid. Because we have customers that come in, I've got some customers come in multiple times a week, but we have customers that come in every, a couple times a month regular.

And if I were But if I were to mess that up over and over and mess that relationship up over  and throw that trust out,  it's going to hurt my bottom line if I keep doing that. So it's just never worth it to me to fuss over little things like that. It just, it's to me, it's just not worth it.

It's not worth being right. I don't want to lose. I don't want to lose a customer over two or three dollars worth of french fry potatoes It's just not something I want to do and I don't think you should either here's the next one. Oh the real good way to lose trust in your relationship with your customer is Changing your price Now, the price needs to be clearly marked and that's the price that you charge them.

And as long as everything is on the up and everything is the same, you'll never have trouble. You'll never have a problem with it. But when they see a differential in price that they weren't expecting, that's a horrible way to lose a customer. And that's a real fast way to lose that trust. I talked about in a couple episodes ago, I talked about discounts and discount games and the destruction that discounts bring you can go back and listen to that.

If you haven't heard that, please go listen to that. I think that was one of my better episodes. When somebody gets a different price than someone else, even if it was your, you're doing a couple of days ago or yesterday to give somebody a half off. For a special and then they come pay a full price the next day.

There's not really any recollection or any reconciliation in their mind that's okay. If you could do it yesterday, their mind says, why can't you do it today for me? And it causes a place for trust to be fractured and it's not worth it.  And like I said in that episode, every discount you give comes directly out of your pocket as the owner.

Nobody else shares that cost. Your staff doesn't share that cost. The electric company won't share that cost. The gas company and the trash company won't share that cost. Your food service or whoever else you're. You've got in there in the overhead. They're not sharing that cost with you. You are taking 100 percent of that discounted price out of your pocket, away from your family and giving it out the door for some hope.

That you're going to get a customer to come pay regular price some other time. You need to go listen to that episode if you missed it, because it's a pretty good one. And I think I make a lot of sense. But don't change your prices. Don't let them fluctuate. Don't say one thing one day and then do another thing another day.

That's a real fast way to ruin the trust of your customer. And then I'm going to wrap up with this.  Never ever speak ill.  of any other business owner.  That is a surefire way  of destroying the trust  that you think you're building  with that customer of somebody else's.  And it will never work.  I'm going to say that again because maybe you're on the treadmill, maybe you're driving in traffic and you miss what I said.

Never ever speak ill of another business owner ever.  To my knowledge, I have never spoken ill  of anyone. One time there was a guy that thought I did. He misunderstood the situation. I didn't. I have never that I know of spoken ill.  Or run down or been negative  about another business owner. It's, it is my DNA to not do that because I have been taught from a young age, a person who will talk. 

To you about someone else will talk about you to someone else and it's just the way it is a Gossiper is going to gossip to you and then turn around and gossip about you to someone else now I'm not trying to preach. I'm just telling you the way human nature works Someone with loose lips will go to you and talk and I promise you before You can get out of the room if they see someone else they will talk about you.

And so I know that And I know if I talk bad about someone, they're going to turn around and tell someone that I did.  And that's going to come back and hurt me. I just don't talk bad about any other businesses. I don't want to do that. Now, I'll tell you, I will be honest, and sometimes people mistake the two. 

Sometimes, if I call it like it is, and I don't mind someone calling it like it is with me,  if I make a mistake,  And they call it if I do something someone didn't like, man, come talk to me about it. I have big shoulders. I can take it. Not only can I  run my mouth on this microphone, but I can take it as well in real life.

I'm a big boy, I can take it.  But when you start running down, I don't like this word competition. I don't, I've got another episode out there about there's no competition, but you know what I mean when I say. Competition in this instance people doing the same thing you're doing  Don't ever do it  Because it will come back and it will bite you.

I was talking to a guy I went to school with this week he came by for some burgers and we were talking he's in the automotive repair industry and he was My brother in law working with me up there at the truck had put his car in the shop with Another shop across town. I said you know  He went down there and talked to so and they're gonna work on that car and that guy said he's a good mechanic He'll take care of it. 

And You know that meant a lot to me that meant the world to me to hear this guy Which I went to school with and grew up with for him to say so and so down there is a good mechanic, he'll take care of him.  I like that.  He could have said hopefully it turns out. All right. He's okay. I've heard some things either way. 

What that would have done would have made me question  my friend's ethics  in my friend's ability to do his job.  We're four weeks old and in cattle mills.  And I heard this week, somebody came to me, a friend of mine that eats with us often. He's Hey, somebody said, they didn't enjoy your burgers.

They didn't like your burgers. And he's got his own restaurant.  And I thought to myself, that's too bad.  That's too bad.  Not that he didn't like my hamburger. I don't care. There's plenty of people who love our hamburgers. I'll live.  But it disappointed me  that someone would  not support because of jealousy or not support because they felt  something.

I don't know whatever the reason was.  And I'm thinking to myself,  that's not the way you build a business. That's not how you build. Trust in the community. That's not how you do it. And of course, I would never tell you who that is because I don't ever want anyone to think I'm not supporting a business.

I support every business. I support them whether I love their food or I don't. No one's gonna know. If I don't love their food, I am going to go, I am going to support, I am going to, I'm going to be cheerleading for them behind their back in front of their face and on social media because I am a believer in small business sticking together.

That's why I do this podcast. That's why we're here right now is because I want other small businesses to maybe pick up on the discussion that we're having and say, you know what, that's a good idea. Maybe I need to quit doing that. Maybe I need to start doing that. I don't know. Maybe there's one little piece of a podcast that someone catches and they're like, man, that, that little key right there.

I think that the fact that my business was doing better helped me be successful. Nothing would make me happier. Even if they're selling burgers, nothing would make me happier than to hear somebody is doing better because of something that we talked about on this podcast. I am pro business. I am pro small business.

I think that we stick together. I think that we all do better together. I think the better that we do.  Individually, the better we do collectively, I have been a champion for every restaurant, every business downtown Rockwell since we started because I'm a firm believer that the better we all do, the better we all do.

And somebody said the other day, it's been a, it's been a couple of months ago now, that Wade's landing down there, they're coming in.  And they're putting a lot of money in that building. They're making it nice. Are you worried about that? Are you nervous about that? I said no, I'm not worried at all because the better downtown does, the better we all do.

Here's how I'll explain it to you. If I'm the only guy, which I'm not, but if I'm the only guy doing well, downtown Rockwall, and again, I'm not, there's a lot of great restaurants, but if I'm the only one doing well, and everything else is just.  Just bottom of the barrel, no good.  That's going to hurt me. 

Because people aren't going to go downtown to eat. They're going to go out on the highway. They're going to go into Dallas. They're going to go somewhere else. And they're not coming to downtown. Downtown won't be a destination.  Because nothing else is any good. But Wells is good, great, whatever. 

But that hurts me.  And of course, we have a lot of great restaurants down there. I hope. that I have helped  all of those restaurants be better by us being better. I hope that I am helping Wade's Landing be successful.  Not that they necessarily need me, but I hope I'm contributing to their success by our success being next door. 

I hope that us being on that corner of downtown has encouraged other people to rent space and to open business and to do things downtown because we're doing better together and it's a destination and the more people who can come to downtown for whatever reason, buy socks or candles or dresses or cheesecake or whatever, I don't care.

If you're coming downtown Rockwall, you're better, we're better because we're all better together. I'm not running anybody down. I'm not going to do it.  Now, I'll call it truth.  I'll call truth.  But I won't run them down.  So when you run down someone in the business, you not only hurt  yourself, but you run the potential of losing that customer because now you're bringing a negative thought, a negative outcome into something that has no reason to be anything but positive. 

We could all do our own version of burgers across  cattle mills just like we do across Rockwall. And we could all get along because there's more people eating out these days in cattle mills than ever in the history of the Earth.  And there's a place for all of us to get along. There's no reason for us to try to tear someone else down to hope to get A customer out of that exchange you get a whole lot more, you know the saying with honey than you do with vinegar and so  Just be nice.

Don't speak ill of other business owners if anything  Lift them up find something to be positive about we have been next down there The closest burger joint next to Boots Burgers since we opened. Now, Boots Burgers, if you don't know, has been there since 1967. They are I said that right, 67. They have been down there forever.

Out of their little house corner of the house. Not their house's little, but the, there's a shed thing out of the side of their house that they cook burgers out of. And it's a cool place. You should go. While they're open, while they're still going I don't, we, no one ever knows how long they're going to last in this thing because of their family and all that.

I don't know. I want you to go experience Boots Burgers. It does not hurt my feelings that you do that.  They're good people  that we're Facebook friends. I've had plenty of Boots Burgers in my life. There is no reason why I should ever be ugly.  about them.  And really it doesn't matter how they act towards me.

I don't know. I think we're cool, but it doesn't matter.  I'm always going to say when someone brings up boots, I always say they're legends.  Those guys, they've been doing this forever. I'm the new guy. I'm almost seven years here, six and a half years. I'm the kid. I'm the new kid. I'm just glad they let me be here.

That's honestly what I tell people. I would never say anything negative about them. What is there negative to say?  They do their thing the way they do it. They've been doing it a long time. I do my thing. You can like them and like me at the same time. It's not a competition that we have to win. It's not us or them.

It can be all of us together and  don't speak ill  of people that are in business, build them up. I'll wrap up with this. I'm in the beef industry. We're pretty big in the beef cattle industry.  I buy a lot of cattle.  We got a lot of beef going on.  I support every beef producer  anywhere. 

In this community, in West Texas, in Nebraska, wherever. I'm going to support beef.  I may not agree.  with how they do things on their day to day basis. Now hear me out. I may not agree that they do things the best way for the cow or the best way for the beef that we eat. That's a, that's an honest assessment of how we all decide to do business. 

I'm going to support  100%  Every person that puts their boots on and goes out and feeds cattle and produces beef for this country.  I'm going to support them. I may not agree with everything they do, but you'll never hear me run them down because we're in this together. We're trying to feed a nation. We're trying to feed people.

And ours is a little different, of course. It's marketed that way. It's built that way. It's supposed to be that way. It doesn't take away from someone else doing it differently. I'm not going to run down anyone doing  the best that they can do to provide for their family and to do a good job. Don't speak ill of other business owners.

It just breaks trust.  It destroys trust rather than giving  the customers that you think it's giving you All I'm closing up with this  and I may get some flack for sharing this because And i'm not being negative It's just an example Of what i've been talking about. There is a business in our area  And they just sold to an another owner  and i'm gonna be very careful what I say because  This could get out and go right back to them and someone show it to them And that would be fine.

If that happens, I'm aware of what I'm saying.  They said, and I know the owner that sold the company.  They, he sold the company under the idea that it would stay the same. That the menu would stay the same. That the process would stay the same. That the products would stay the same. And then the new owner could then add some things to  the basics of what was on the menu. 

I know this firsthand, this is not rumor. This is me talking directly to these people, to the owner.  He offered to stay on for 30 days for a month for free. Wasn't going to charge him anything. Wasn't going to cost him a dime. He was just going to stay to make sure that they knew how to prepare.  The different parts of the menu.

I'm being careful so that  nobody knows exactly what I'm talking about. They declined that. They said, no, we got it. We know what we're doing. We don't need you to stay. He's I will stay. I want to make sure this product stays and the community stays with the name that stays. I want to make sure it all works.

Ah, we got it. I went on. To their website on to Facebook when they were announcing this change, and I said hey guys My suggestion is keep everything the same you got lines out the door every day. It's a very successful business ready made business  That's my suggestion and they said and I've got the screenshot they said  Many you stay in the same.

We're just putting out some pictures of some things that we're going to add to the menu. Cool.  Cool. No problem. Zero problems. Three weeks goes by and they open up.  The pictures that I see  are in no way, shape, or form  what that 

company had put out before.  It was completely different.  And these were the staple items that were on the menu, not new.  And someone said, not me, someone else said, that doesn't look like what  we're used to. And I'm leaving out names to protect the innocent in myself.  And they came back and they said didn't you understand that we've had  a restaurant before?

We've had,  we've done this before. This isn't our first time.  And I, stupid me, I said,  That doesn't look like what we're used to.  And then that's when they said, don't, didn't you know that we've had  a previous, this isn't our first rodeo. We know what we're doing.  And I went back and got the screenshot of them saying that the menu wasn't going to change, that what the products weren't going to change. 

And  they obviously did.  Here's my point for sharing this. I don't want to run anybody down. I'm not saying any names.  Here's my point.  If they were not going to keep the product the same, they should not have kept the name the same. Because now they're in a trust breach with everyone that walks in that door, thinking they're getting the old product under the old name,  and it's not.

Secondly,  it's disingenuous,  it's  Not telling the truth. If you buy a company, and say you're going to keep it the same because that was a condition of the sale, and then, when it's done, tell the previous owner, I don't need you, we got this, and they never wanted to learn the ways that were, they were supposed to be buying into to continue. 

So now, every time that someone walks in, thinking they're getting what they've gotten for years, it's completely different.  They would have been better off, in my opinion, to just change the name.  Just put their name on it and roll.  But instead they tried to leverage the old name and success with their methods.

And it was, it's not true. It's just not true.  Now, is their stuff better? I don't know. But that's not the point. The point is, when you say you'll do something,  Say it's staying the same, and it doesn't stay the same,  you have breached the trust of every customer that comes in after that. It would have been just much simpler, easier, and truthful to just put the new name up, they bought the building, and all the stuff that was in it, and this is going to be their product, because it is their product anyway. 

Rather than trying to  pull a fast one, and try to leverage the business that the other company had built.  I'm saying that because that's a very  open and direct  breach of trust  and that can happen and we know we're doing that when we do that.  Those people knew they were doing that when they were doing that.

When they didn't  let that old owner stay on for 30 days to make sure everything moved over and did right. They were trained. They didn't want to be trained. They from the beginning knew they were going to do their own thing anyway under the old name. It's not fair. It's not fair to the customer.  It's not fair to the customer who walks in not knowing that and it's just not fair to run a business that way.

You're breaching trust. And the number one thing we have in this industry is trust, that we do what we say we will do, that we are who we say we are, and that we're the same and we do it consistently. That's the key to trust. And don't ever.  Don't ever breach that trust because that customer will be gone forever. 

All right.  I think I'm done.  Trust is one of those things that is very near and dear to my heart. I try to be truthful and honest in everything I do. If I ever catch myself in a situation where it doesn't seem like I am, I'm quick to apologize and explain,  but it's not cool when trust is broken and it's not easily healed.

Just like in a relationship. It's not easily healed when a business relationship is  In a broken trust situation. It's just hard. Just be honest just do what you say you're going to do and and trust is something that we need to hold very close to our heart in business as, as well as in life.

And trust is one of those things that is strong, but fragile.  If you honor it, you protect it. People will fight for you, but if you let it go, you'll lose all of those people. And they won't be back,  man. It's I'm just so glad that you came onto this podcast. And I'm glad I had time to do this.

I made time tonight to sit down and share this with you. Thank you for listening. If you don't have my book yet, it's called burger brilliance. And you can get that at the restaurant at the Rockwall location. Leewellsofficial. com. Get it at Amazon, Walmart, Target, Barnes and Noble, all the dot com.

Get it if you'd like and read it. I hope it helps your business. I hope it helps you think through some of the things that we. That we do and have been good for us And I hope that helps you grow your business and are successful Put more money in your pocket send your kids to college all the things that you want to do in life and as always send me feedbacks send me a Lee Wells official, you can send me a message anytime it comes straight to me.

I'd love to hear your opinions on this. You of course can also help share this on social media, tell someone about the podcast that would help get more people listening and involved. And I appreciate all of that happens in today's episode has been brought to you. by Wells Cattle Company, burgers and pies in downtown Rockwall and now in downtown cattle mills.

So I hope you come by and see us and I hope you enjoy the food. And if there's ever anything that ever happens that you don't agree with, you can always message me and let me know what's going on. I'll do my best to explain it and do my best to make it right for you. I'm Lee Wells on the ranch and table podcast until next time we say Adios, farewell, goodbye,  good luck, so long.