The Blind Spots That Keep Businesses Small | The Gregory Vetter Podcast

For years, Greg assumed the most successful people in business knew something he didn’t.

There had to be a hidden strategy. A private playbook. Some closely guarded secret that would finally make everything work.

There wasn’t.

What he eventually learned was simpler and far more uncomfortable: every entrepreneur, product, and business has a blind spot. The difference between growth and stagnation often comes down to whether you can recognize yours before it becomes an expensive lesson.

In this episode, Greg and Moe examine the parts of entrepreneurship that rarely make it into the motivational speeches.

Greg revisits the early days of Tessemae’s and explains how an uncompromising commitment to quality created a product that loyal customers loved but that the broader market did not immediately understand. The dressing was real, fresh, and made with olive oil. It also solidified in the refrigerator, created confusion on the shelf, and became a barrier to purchase.

The answer wasn’t to abandon quality.

It was to understand the consumer.

By reformulating the product without sacrificing what made it special, the company created something the wider market could adopt—ultimately increasing shelf sales by 300 percent.

That lesson extends far beyond salad dressing.

Greg and Moe discuss:

• Why starting a business is often the easiest part
• The blind spots that quietly prevent companies from scaling
• Why a great product can still fail with bad packaging
• The difference between personal preference and consumer demand
• How to remove barriers that give customers a reason to say no
• Why authenticity and memorability matter as much as quality
• The danger of being only slightly better than everyone else
• Why entrepreneurs search for secret strategies that do not exist
• How personal blind spots affect careers, relationships, health, and performance
• And why progress often begins when you admit that you may be the problem

The episode also explores the emotional reality of entrepreneurship: the swings between abundance and uncertainty, the irrational amount of risk founders accept, and the discipline required to keep moving when the outcome is unclear.

There is no perfect strategy that eliminates difficulty.

There is only the willingness to look honestly at what is not working, fix it, and keep going.

Because the obstacle you can see can usually be addressed.

It’s the one you refuse to see that costs you everything.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Don't make dumb mistakes along the way. You're probably going to be very successful. The key for people trying to start something, you need to recognize your clients in the product or in the service. What are you missing? Fix that. And then that is actually how you're gonna Greg Vetter Podcast. I think everybody gets locked up in the beginning of just starting. And they don't realize that's the easiest part by far. And um if you can get that situated properly, that's why I want to start that thing, which I think we will do. Yeah, we just need to post a video. Yeah. Let's start a business together with Greg Vetter.

SPEAKER_01 0:45

Oh, yeah. I was thinking about the other one that we didn't post yet, but I think I was it's in my mind to post it was the uh what's it worth to you? We still got that in in in the cubby hole too.

SPEAKER_00 0:57

Oh yeah. But I think the the thing with let's start a business together, all of the people I talk about or talk to are missing something. Right? Like they think their product's great and it's not great, taste bad, or the packaging's horrible, or they're targeting the wrong audience. We did a lot of those. We did a lot of those wrong in the beginning. Thank God our product tasted so good and the story was great. Packaging, eh, in the beginning, uh, in the words of Ed Callahan from Planet, it had folksy charm, right? Our hand lay our hand-drawn labels dipped in wax. Uh, but it tasted great, the story was great, it was memorable. So we could figure out and fix a bunch of the problems along the way. But everybody's dealing with something. There's a blind spot that everybody has. And I think if you can fix the blind spots in the beginning, the strategy side will take care of itself for the most part. I see so many people only talking about the strategy in the playbook, which I thought was really unique and special when I didn't think that I had the playbook. I thought there was a mystery to the playbook. What am I missing? These people are holding the secrets to themselves. And if I only bring them in, they'll let me in on this magnificent secret of how to do it. And there is no secret. If you've got a great product and you've got great packaging and you're relentless and you don't make dumb mistakes along the way, you're probably going to be very successful with that product. But you can walk through, and it's the same with the service, it's the same with anything, right? We did it with Portagon's, we've done it with vodka, we've done it with electric boats, we've done it with salad dressing, we've done it with salads. Uh, the list goes on and on and on. And the key for people trying to start something, it's like you need to recognize your blind spot in the product or in the service. What are you missing? Fix that, and then that is actually how you're gonna scale. And, you know, I I see so many people, and they're so because you have to be a crazy person to start a business. And so you got to be stubborn, you've got to be a little crazy, you have to love adventure and love risk, and all of that requires a mentality and a personality to basically give somebody the middle finger and say, go fuck off. You know, I'm gonna do it my way, and I'm willing to basically go down in a fiery blaze if it doesn't work, because maybe I'll learn something in the process and my life will be better for it, and I'll develop character and I'll develop resilience and I'll become a person that I want to be anyway, even if the if the product fails. But you don't have to endure the level of suffering that I have endured if you acknowledge and recognize your blind spots.

SPEAKER_01 4:27

Yeah, uh the level of suffering. What what what are you what what are you talking about? What what level of suffering are you just talking about like trying to the the the suffering of trying to figure out what you were missing, and at the end you found out you really wasn't missing anything at all?

SPEAKER_00 4:47

It was just the that's a piece of it. Another piece is just trying to jam a square peg and a round hole. Because you thought it fit there, because it should fit. People should want it. This is better for them, they should love it. Gotcha. This is the best option. We've done it the best way, it's the highest quality. You should love it. Why don't you like it? Why don't you love this? Why are you not telling your friends? What do you not understand about how magnificent this thing is? And you found out what from that? Well, each each example's different, but originally with our salad dressing when we were using olive oil and it solidified in the fridge, because that's what real olive oil does, people didn't understand it on the shelf. It looked weird, it looked completely frozen. They didn't realize it's because it's olive oil and there's no preservatives and there's no thickening agents, and it's just olive oil, lemons, garlic, mustard, sea salt, and it's going to be the best dressing you've ever had. But the people that knew loved it. Such a small percentage of the population. And so then we had to kind of come to the realization that like we're on such an extreme side of quality, we're not reaching the people that actually need a better for you product.

SPEAKER_01 6:12

Even though it was in Whole Foods, and we think all the people who are looking for better for you products go there. Yeah. But that wasn't the case.

SPEAKER_00 6:21

It was the case because we demoed the shit out of it. At that one particular one. Right. Well, at all of them, right? We demoed the shit out of stuff at Whole Foods. But when we got into mainstream grocery stores, and you know, some of these retail chains have 3,500 stores. You couldn't do every single one of those. Not every week. Yeah. We could do them once a month, and we had success in that in that time frame. But what we realized was like nobody cared as much as we did. We were like on such an extreme end of quality that we needed to tear it back a little bit and provide something that was still five times better than everything else on the shelf, but maybe wasn't the most perfect extreme version of what it should be. So we had to reformulate it. We used organic expeller press sunflower oil instead of olive oil. It didn't solidify in the fridge. And we tried everything, right? But we had to maintain flavor because that's what people wanted. And we found the best version of what the masses could widely and openly accept and adopt. And it worked, right? It increased our shelf sales by 300%. And we won the Nielsen Design Impact Award. And I think with people and brands and products and services, sometimes they're doing what we originally did, which was it, they're on the opposite ends of they're either like so extreme with quality nobody wants it, and it's too expensive and they can't pay for it. Or um, and it's probably not the extreme end on this side, but it's right in the middle, they just basically create something that everybody else is also doing. Theirs is just like a tiny bit better, and nobody really cares about the tiny bit, and so they're just lost in the middle. Right? They're lost in a sea of bottles and jars.

SPEAKER_01 8:20

And this is consumer packaging goods specifically. So, what should a person focus on then? Like, like, what do you think would move them or get them in a right position or good position to just work it? Everybody's got something different.

SPEAKER_00 8:36

So I was on a panel and there was a potato chip company, and it's the best potato chips anybody has ever had. Their packaging is so bad that there's there's no way anybody's gonna walk down an aisle, see that, and buy that potato chip. Because it doesn't stand out on the shelf. Well, it's so ugly, it it is making you not buy it.

SPEAKER_01 9:01

Even though it's the best potato chip in the world, right? Yeah, so this is like a whole bunch of buckets that you need to put time in. So this week I need to do this. Yeah. Or get this to however long it takes, get the package into a good place. Okay. So in that order, it would be get the product good. Well, make the product the best.

SPEAKER_00 9:22

Yep. You gotta the first thing you do is the product needs to be the best. It needs to stand on its own, and you walk into a meeting, and nobody can deny it. There needs to be zero barriers to purchase on the actual product side because a buyer and a consumer already has their habits, they've already got their shelf space set up. They're looking for a reason to tell you no. They're not, you think even though they scheduled the meeting, yeah, they want to tell you no. Yeah. Right? So the product's got to be great. The next piece is the packaging because everybody's busy. The the millennial mom, that's what we used to call her. I don't know what she is anymore in terms of the main shop or of the household. They might be a different generation.

SPEAKER_01 10:14

They almost might be a grandmother now. That may be true. Grandma's getting younger, not to deviate, but we don't need to talk about that. That's true.

SPEAKER_00 10:22

Um, but they're in a grocery store, it's busy, life is happening, all hell is breaking loose. How are you gonna pop on a shelf? Nobody does the right work there. A lot of it is well, I think this looks good. Well, I don't care what you think. What does your consumer think? Right. Joe Dirt at the fireworks stand. You ain't got no whistling bungholes. I like snakes and sparklers. It's not about you, it's about the consumer. Uh, which is a universal truth. So understanding, okay, what is gonna pop, what's gonna be special, what's gonna be unique, and what's not just gonna fade into a wall of everything else that is already there. Because you walk down an aisle, it's rare you see something that's beautiful and pops. My wife I do, I take the picture of it. 100%. I do the same, and my wife buys it, and then we try it. Then it's rare if beautiful packaging delivers on quality. So then you're like, okay, there we are. Then the next piece is this kind of zero barriers to purchase. What is preventing somebody from buying it? So it's usually the nutrition facts, then it's the ingredient label, then it's potentially the sir certifications, and then it's, you know, going back to the ingredient side, it's like red flags within the ingredient panel. Yep. So what are what is gonna prevent somebody from buying For me it's the sugar.

SPEAKER_01 12:13

I immediately, that's the first thing I look at is okay, how much sugar is in it? Right. Because right now I want zero sugars, zero added sugars. Or at the most, two, three, maybe five percent sugar, zero added sugars. Just because I'm trying because you want that six pack. Yeah, I'm trying to get that six pack. See, yeah. So so right now that's where I'm at. That's where I'm looking at, you know, even in protein bars, yeah, you know, uh protein shakes. Of course. You know, I'm looking at that call out on the front. Zero, it might say zero sugars. Well, now I'm now I'm looking at it where it says zero added sugars. Yeah. So I'm like, oh, okay, now I gotta turn around. Oh, but it has 5% sugar. So they get you with that one little word.

SPEAKER_00 12:58

Well, and again, that just goes back to all right, is the product good? Is the packaging good? What are the barriers to purchase? Am I taking care of that? Um, and then it needs to be memorable, it needs to be authentic, and it needs to be something that is gonna stick in your mind and become an actual name on your grocery store list, not just salad dressing, not just energy drink, not just vodka mixer or whatever, your brand should be so good that it says Tessie Mays on it, or it says this, like there is no replace, like on Instacart. It's uh if this is sold out, do you want us to buy the the next best option? It's like no, refund my money. Yeah, because I want this shit right here. And if you can kind of get those in line, you've got a fighting chance. Then you can start working on all the strategy stuff that everybody says is so secretive and magical, and at the end of the day, you could just fucking put it in Claude and get that shit in three seconds.

SPEAKER_01 14:17

Yeah, for the most part. I'm I'm working on strategy, like I believe as in my toolbox of things that I can do that may be the weakest tool in my toolbox.

SPEAKER_00 14:29

But you're working on it.

SPEAKER_01 14:30

Yes, I am working on it, and it will come.

SPEAKER_00 14:33

Yes, and it's going to come. So I I think in the beginning, before you ever get to the strategy side, you gotta develop the thing that people are not gonna be able to say no to. Because then, from a sales perspective, it's so much easier to sell. Because they go, Well, I don't like it. You go, okay. Who do you think's better? Well, I think this is better. It's not. Here's why. You're wrong. This is going to increase your sales by boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And this applies to everything. This is not just a product. This is personal training services. This is management consulting services. This is, you know, portable toilets. This it everybody needs to be able to have something where you can stand or sit across from somebody and have a deal that they cannot refuse, which goes back to my guy Frank Lucas, American gangster, blue magic. Blue magic. And, you know, we built Tessie Mays off of that theory, which was a better product for a better price, and you eliminate the competition.

SPEAKER_01 15:56

I mean, that's that's a universal law for anything, just like you said.

SPEAKER_00 16:01

But nobody does it, man. Right? Maybe they have a better price, but the product isn't as good. Or maybe the product's amazing, but the price is so far out of reach of their consumer that they need to change that up. Right. I mean, everything you need to know about business, Frank Lucas, baby. He's me. He's out there killing people at breakfast.

SPEAKER_01 16:30

That's how packet. You don't rub it, you dive that. But yeah, but um God dang. I don't know what else, what else, what else we got going on?

SPEAKER_00 16:42

Well, um, I think from an entrepreneurial perspective and the business of life, that translates to everything in life. And we all, again, from a blind spot perspective, like if we just talk about that and you're business of life? Yeah, and you're trying and you're trying to figure out, well, why aren't I getting a promotion? What aren't you seeing about yourself? Why aren't I playing on my sports team? What aren't you seeing about yourself? Why is my marriage suck? What aren't you seeing about the situation? And if you can look at every situation with open eyeballs and really look at it from somebody sitting on the other side of the table, and I'm not saying everybody's wrong on the other side of the table, but you're obviously not seeing something. And you could use sports, and I tell this to my kids all the time. What's your job on the sports team? And we'll just use football as a universal example because it's so easy. If you're a wide receiver and your job is to catch the ball, yeah, and you don't catch the ball, you ain't a wide receiver. No, you can want to be a wide receiver all you want.

SPEAKER_01 18:14

But how'd you get that job in the first place if you can't catch the ball?

SPEAKER_00 18:17

Well, so many people just they're fast, they can run routes, maybe they can catch it in practice. But once they get in the game under the pressure.

SPEAKER_01 18:25

Once they get in the game under the pressure, they're not doing it. Or not doing it as good as they want to be pressed. As they should be. So it's a progress through the level. They might been good in little league, high school, they're good in college, but it's and all those present different types of pressure, different level, different devils.

SPEAKER_00 18:42

Well, and you need to you need to figure out what is your blind spot, what are you not seeing, what are you not recognizing, how are you not training properly? That's good you say that because that's what I'm doing right now.

SPEAKER_01 18:53

Figuring out my blind spots, you know, talking to Chat GPT. It'd be remembering everything and type in there. And then it just gives me like feedback over the last year. Well, you remember when you said this? I find it reason you bring this up. You've been doing these projects and blah blah. I'm like, huh. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:13

Well, and again, I think for you specifically, you have to do so many things that it's a little hard for you to just like stop doing the 20 things you have to do and focus on the one weakness, right? So it's probably gonna take you a little bit longer to develop the weakness side into a strength because you're every single day you're doing so many different things. And that's what ChatGPT said.

SPEAKER_01 19:47

Oh, really? It was like you do so many things, you're like, you have moments, and then you're doing chosen acres, then you got locked in, then you're doing you're doing quenchers, then you have Gregory Vetter Podcast, and then you're doing Ultra Fresh. They were like, when the person becomes wealthy, you're like, it usually just focus on one thing and they do that one thing really good. He said, You're doing so many things, but I don't think they know that's my job in a sense.

SPEAKER_00 20:15

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, as like the creative mastermind behind it all for sure. But you know, with people specifically, it's it's easiest to like take one thing that you're trying to do, and then just figure out where your blind spots are, figure out what you want to do, figure out what needs what gaps need to be filled in, and then fill them in. You know, it's like that boxing movie, um, the true story of that New Jersey boxer, and haven't seen that one. He broke his back in a car accident, and um, who was the actor? He just played Goose's son in Top Gun Maverick. You know, he's got the scar on his lip. The actor. Oh, hold on. The young guy. I can't remember, but I know, I know, I know, yeah. So he's a boxer. He comes back after a broken, it's a true story. Comes back after a broken back, lifts at night. No one knows he's downstairs. He's got fucking screws in his head to stabilize his neck and spine. He's fucking lifting with screws in his head. He goes, I'm coming back to box, I'm gonna win the world championship. Everyone's like, No, you're not, dude. You're gonna be lucky if you're gonna be lucky if you walk. Comes back, wins it, makes a bunch of money, rides off into the sunset. He's doing an interview in the movie, it's the final scene, and this reporter's like, Man, you've had a wild life. It's crazy. You know. Um what's the what's the greatest. lie that you've ever been told. And he goes, It's not that easy. And she starts reframing the question. He goes, No, no, no, no, no. That's the greatest lie. That it's not that easy. Because if you just do the thing that they say you can't do, then it's done. And it is that easy.

SPEAKER_01 22:27

And then the movie ends and you're just like that's like a loaded response. And the only thing is is I've been seeing well I've been seeing on Instagram is just been this uh trending audio I guess. It was like it's you. You're in your way. Yeah I've seen that. Yeah I've been seeing that and that kind of reminds me of what you just said that speaks to like it's you and I think just on a I guess all around standpoint sometimes that is it. Yeah. It'd be like you just need to you know what you need to do you just need to do it. And then that you know boils down to what we always talk about is consistency being uh persistent in all the things of of that nature. Right.

SPEAKER_00 23:23

It's just it's the discipline of the fucking day man.

SPEAKER_01 23:29

And just and just doing it. You get your episode and you go. Yeah like I said I think I said it before I I haven't been getting up at four like I was doing at one point in time but and when I do get up I've been I've been getting better sleep because I haven't been getting up at four but I have been going to bed late in the getting I can't also kind of fell back into the tunnel of scrolling on that phone and then you know but and sometimes I've been feeling feeling uh like not working out. Yeah but then I was like okay I I gotta work out I might let a day go by I'd be like okay I gotta work out but I like the results because I've been liking all the comments I've been getting especially from my wife like ooh my baby got muscles yeah so I like that so that always gets me back into the motivation of like okay I can't lose it now I can't I can't go back to you know yes well and I also think what really helped me when I got into like really stressful times which naturally get you out of your routine I wrote down what is my perfect day yeah you said that before and I wrote out my perfect day and it's very easy anybody can have that perfect day every single day.

SPEAKER_00 24:47

It's just my perfect day.

SPEAKER_01 24:49

Yeah you know what else uh I heard scrolling came across this guy who was like woo you know being an entrepreneur everybody wants to bid but you know entrepreneurs is a wide range he said one second you're rich you're rich and about two weeks later you're you're cutting off stuff like I don't need that spring water I don't need that subscription let me cut that subscription off is that in two three weeks later you're back rich again you're hiring new people you're planning another vacation and then another two weeks you're back again like okay I need to cancel that vacation and I thought that was so funny I was like it's so fucking true man I thought that was so funny I was I was like God that made me that made me laugh and I was just because I was just thinking about something prior to that and then just all of a sudden that popped up and I just bust out laughing dude nothing is more true than I said is that entrepreneurship like like when in entrepreneurship do you get past that level when you sell it for a shitload of money and you stop doing stuff.

SPEAKER_00 26:08

Yeah you just have to stop yeah because I think if you sell it and then you're gonna want to do something else 100% and then you invest that money that you just dude I got a fucking buddy he sold one business immediately doubled down into some other shit that was booming for a second then the that type of industry started going down a fiery blaze he's writing checks to keep that business afloat keeps writing checks and the next thing he knows he's like back to where he was almost before he fucking sold it and he's just like dude what the fuck did I do but it's that mentality of going back all the way to the first things we said on this podcast today it's like you got to be a little fucking crazy you got to be very persistent you got to be able to endure you gotta you gotta be able to just like accept risk in weird non-conventional non-traditional completely irrational amounts yes and when it's going great is going great it's great beyond anybody's wildest dreams and when it's going not great it's hard to process that level of stress you're like I'm gonna die like okay what do I need to do I'm gonna fucking die I need to find something to do yeah yeah I I can I can I can understand that because but I guess is it's uh it's the business of life yes it's the business of life and I guess I guess when you double down you double down that's just what you do but when is it not the time to double down when do you like okay I need to put away a cushion i'm trying I'm trying to figure that out right now and I think I'm close of like all right dude like built these up let's sell those let's start focusing on businesses where you're not buying or doubling down $10 million worth of fucking lettuce at a clip you know what I'm saying you're like all right dog I think I'm good here yeah but that I mean that's everything in the hey that that's life that's life baby that's life I mean like like like our boy Hunt said everything requires a certain amount of work yes and it has this certain amount of hardships do you want to be in shape or stress that requires a certain amount of consistency.

SPEAKER_01 28:44

You need to wake up you need to work out all these days you want to be fat you can be fat that's also take all this medicine you got to go to these doctors and now you got to worry about illnesses coming in.

SPEAKER_00 28:58

Right it's choose it's choose your type of suffering choose your heart choose your heart choose your level of suffering and the old adage of like cry now laugh later uh yes laugh now cry later and you know I've just built my life around I'm gonna suffer in the ways that I can control that have a net positive benefit later on exercise entrepreneurial risk you know shit like that so that when I look back in a year or two years or three years or four years or whatever I'm like I'm really glad I went through that because I'm better today than I was then all right all right this was a shorty but a goodie go go mo in the house I'm back at it my friend said I'm getting a little bit better in front of the camera.

SPEAKER_01 29:58

Yeah I'd be like I try to do what I can you know if you know if it was more of a comedic podcast I'd probably be a little bit more annoying.

SPEAKER_00 30:08

Well we have those are my strength. Yeah we have we have some guests coming in the future that are comedians. So I'm looking forward to you chiming in.

SPEAKER_01 30:19

I will I'm gonna mic myself up behind it.

SPEAKER_00 30:21

Hell yeah. Alright Greg Venner Podcast see you next time