Ep. 30 - Control Your Brand While Expanding Fast

Scaling a business is the point where most founders accidentally break what they built. Growth often feels like a choice between staying small and high-quality or going big and watching your standards evaporate. John Mautner joins us to break down how he navigated this exact crossroads while taking a simple roasted nut cart from the streets of Orlando to an international stage.

We sit down to discuss the mechanics of establishing a business model that survives expansion without requiring the founder to be in ten places at once. We get into the strategic shift from company-owned locations to a controlled licensing model, the nightmare of maintaining product consistency across borders, and the reality of protecting your brand’s "secret sauce" when you aren't the one behind the counter. John explains the specific decision-making framework that allowed him to scale the operation while keeping a tight grip on the customer experience.

The unglamorous truth is that rapid growth is often a logistical war of attrition that tests your mental health as much as your bank account. You have to be willing to sacrifice the "ego" of owning every location in exchange for the systems that allow the brand to breathe on its own. Viewers will walk away with a clear understanding of why infrastructure must precede imagination and how to identify the exact moment your business is ready for a global footprint.

If you care about operational systems, brand protection, and the transition from operator to owner, you’ll get a lot from this. Please subscribe and share this episode with a founder who is currently hitting a growth ceiling. When you look at your current business model, what is the one task you are most afraid to hand off to someone else?

Transcript

Orlando Cart And The Scent Sell

SPEAKER_01 0:07

Welcome back to the Radical Moderate podcast. I am your host, Pat O'Brien. And for those of you who listened last week, we are uh picking up with the remarkable story of serial entrepreneur John Mottner, who, when you left us last, when you left us on the cliff, you had big you had this vision for global domination of your roasted nuts, and you had kind of taken over Orlando. And I say that not with too much arrogance. You were already in uh you had started with the Orlando Magic basketball arena, but then uh Disney got jealous that somebody had something they didn't have, and you're you're you're now in Orlando. So let's you're gonna have to go back and listen to last week's episode if you want to know how he got into Orlando, but you've cut these, you've got these stands, and go ahead and describe again what they are, but then take us what happens next to build this company uh that you founded.

SPEAKER_00 1:08

Well, the cart itself, if you can imagine, is about six feet by three feet. It has a copper kettle with a flame underneath it, and the almonds are roasted right there, so that are mixed around with cinnamon, sugar, vanilla, and they're spun around, and then they're poured out, and the scent of the cinnamon fills the air within a hundred feet of the cart, um, which is a big selling point. But then you pour the almonds out, they're all hot, and then you bag them up and sell them.

SPEAKER_01 1:31

They're golden brown and crispy and delicious and crunchy and I'm now wondering where are my samples? Like I'm looking, there's nothing on the table, but uh be that as it may. I'd like to torture you, Pat. It's okay. Yeah, well, now I gotta go get the product. You you know what you're doing. Okay, so you you've kind of in literary, and I'm not even kidding, you've kind of conquered Orlando, which you had to start somewhere. Yeah. Where does it go next, though? Because you're trying to, you're doing all this kind of by yourself at this point in the street.

Calls From Around The World

SPEAKER_00 2:02

Yeah, I mean, I really am. I mean, I'm I'm ordering, I'm hiring, I'm firing, I'm training, I'm building carts, I'm uh dealing with supply chain and accounting functions and really just everything and and working a lot, you know. Um, but after about two years, I've got these locations up and running, and I'm actually making some money, and I'm in these theme parks. What's interesting about being in the theme parks, and special Orlando, which was almost an accident why I ended up there, but I just felt it was the right thing to do. But the payoff about Orlando was that there's about 40 to 50 million people a year from all corners of the globe that come there with their families for a vacation. I mean, the you know, Universal Studios, Disney World is like a huge global draw. It is shocking how many people, tens of millions of people from around the around the world, want to go to Orlando. Okay. So every day um people would see my carts from all corners of the globe. And without me even saying, you know, anything to them about what I was doing, people would approach me from multiple countries and cities around the US and North America, South America, and they would say, I saw your cart. You know, I would get a call from people saying, I saw your cart. I saw the long line of people all day long. We tried the product, it's golden brown, crunchy, and delicious. I've never seen this before. And actually, I want to get a cart. How do I get a cart? How do I buy one? And it, you know, it didn't occur to me that people would react like that. But I had the vision initially that someday uh they will be roasted nut carts all over the world. My literally, that sentence is what I thought about all the time. Roasted nut carts all over the world. That was my mantra. That was a vision that maybe was somehow planted in my brain that I wanted to chase down. And somehow by putting that out there, uh, people connected to it. Don't ask me how it works, but it did. Okay. So every single day, I would get a phone call from like Seoul, South Korea, London, England. Oh my god. Um, from Dallas, Texas, from you know, uh all over the globe. People were calling me on a daily basis saying, I saw the cart. How do I get one of these? And I sort of had to respond to them. So there's a couple of approaches I could take. One is I could just continue. I have six or seven, I think seven locations in Orlando at that time, and I'm company-owned all of them. I had employees and payroll and all this stuff I had to do. And I thought to myself, well, if I'm going to open one up in Seoul, South Korea, who do I know in Seoul, South Korea I can trust that's gonna love it, pay attention to it, do a great job every day, you know, and manage it successfully and not steal, it's all cash business. They're not stealing the product or our money. I mean, who do I know? And the answer is I don't know anybody in Seoul, South Korea. Um, so taking a company-owned approach was not going to work. It just simply would be, in my opinion, a complete disaster. I know there are people that own lots of locations that are company-owned, but it just wasn't something realistically I could do on an international basis or even go out of Orlando, step out of Orlando. It's gonna be lots of problems. So that wasn't the approach I took. What do you think the approach I did take, though, to go out and expand and scale?

SPEAKER_01 5:38

Well, my loyal listeners know that I grew up a McDonald's franchisee, and I'm currently a Sonic franchisee. So I'm hoping that you decided to be the come the franchise owner.

SPEAKER_00 5:48

Yes, I became the franchise or and I actually built a business in a box. So for$25,000, the cart would come crated, fully assembled. There is the everything you need, all the utensils, cleaning supplies, your startup supply of your my secret cinnamon and sugar syrup that came in a gallon container, uh cinnamon, sugar, and vanilla, but I can't don't tell anybody because they'll have to kill you. Um and all starter supply of almonds. And I got I sold them the equipment, I sold them the packaging, uh, I helped them with the location assistance to get open. I would include training. Uh, they paid a royalty on all the all the sales of the product, and I just sort of put the business in a box and I started shipping carts to different people that wanted to get them. And the cart would arrive fully assembled, you uncrate it, uh, plug it in, and you're in business. It's that simple. And they had to figure out the location part of it. I would help them do that, but I wanted to focus on the niche I was in. Now, what makes stadiums, theme parks, arenas so good?

SPEAKER_01 6:59

Well, I I loved what you said in the last episode is you've got people who are already spending a lot of money, they're trying to have a good time, and it's very dense. It's very and and it's dense for a short period of time. It well, at least in the Orlando Magic studies, right?

SPEAKER_00 7:15

The games by compression in a few hours, right? Yes.

SPEAKER_01 7:18

So yeah, it's you got to find those kind of places. Like, what's an example of one of the first one or two outside of Orlando where these things were placed?

SPEAKER_00 7:26

So I was at the cart in at Universal Studios. I don't know why I remember this, but I'm at the cart with my apron on, roasting a batch of almonds. This couple walks up to me and they say, We've been spying on you for the last two days. I'm like, Well, thank you, but what does that mean? He goes, We live in Rio de Janeiro, and we saw we've been looking at this, and we've never seen this before. And we think this would go be very successful in Rio. And I want to get a cart, so I'm like, okay, so she bought a cart, I shipped it, um, helped her get into a location. Um, and she really became sort of my first uh franchise operator uh that I ever had, you know. Um and you know, the thing about and I have no idea whether it would go well internationally, it seems to go well in Orlando, but will people in Texas, Soul South Korea, Rio de Janeiro, will they like it? Well, funny enough, they loved it. Um and and so you know, when you when you have a product that seems to be universally uh appealable, people love it, um, why not just take advantage of the market and get really specific on the niche? So I I started just franchising the carts, but our niche was stadiums, theme parks, and arenas. I had very good experience, as you say, high compression. In a matter of three hours, there might be 80,000 people for a soccer game in Rio, or 30,000 people for a hockey game or basketball game. Um, so you have people for a short duration of time, happy to spend money, they're there, they're willing to have a good time, etc. etc. Theme parks are great, they're open every single day, 10 or 12 hours a day. They never close, um, they get tons of traffic. Um and I mean, for instance, at Epicot Center, there were literally 10 million people a year walking by my cart. That's wild. I mean, how where can I get that kind of international exposure? And because so many people from around the world saw the cart, it really fueled the franchise business. So I built a business in a box, I started franchising it, and over the next five years, I had roasted nut carts all over the world. Now, when I started with my first cart, it was failing. Five years later, I have roasted nut carts all over the world. Now, what was the one thing I was doing? It was the vision and the statement of roasted nut carts all over the world. I don't want to get esoteric, but I do think if you think about something long enough and you believe in it and you take action, you can accomplish practically anything. I'm sort of a living example of that.

Stadiums Theme Parks Airports Niche

SPEAKER_01 10:15

You you really, yeah, I mean, I've heard people say, you know, speak it into existence and this sort of thing. And I think it's more, I think it can go both ways. I mean, if you're reading a book and somebody's telling you just think positive and all that, I mean, that's one thing, but to kind of talk about, you know, what I want the radical moderate to be about, it is it is saying to yourself, if I believe in something strong uh enough, if there's a market for it, and that's the big if, because there's there's a lot of people who I'm not gonna have on my podcast because they tried tried and failed so many times. And my father is an example of that. He he he was an entrepreneur. He had a, I don't think I would have told you would know this, he had a popcorn machine when he was a teenager, right? And there was a little softball park down the street, and when he wasn't running it, he'd he'd pay his brothers to run it, and he had a nice little business. Sure. That I'm a wannabe entrepreneur in that regard, but he didn't get, you know, his big opportunity was not when he was 16 years old with a popcorn machine, his big opportunity was 47 years old answering a phone call from someone who said, Have you ever heard of McDonald's? That's all he needed to know. He's like, I'm in because he had the skill set. And I think that, you know, you did you here's a question before the Nutty Bavarian, right? Did you have something similar, or did you just strike it with the very first venture? Because that's the odd part of your story.

SPEAKER_00 11:48

I think I struck it with the very first venture. Prior to that, I thought I need to sort of get a job, you know, be in corporate America. But the concept, or just work for someone, but I but I just felt like underneath all that, I kind of felt like I'm gonna go work my ass off for somebody, they're gonna get rich, and I'm just gonna be an employee and never benefit from what I'm really worth. You know, so why am I doing this to myself? Well, I gotten married and I need a job, and it sounded cool, so I took the job, but I also felt like just there's something wrong with working with for someone else. Yeah, I feel like I can do it for myself and and fail or not fail, I can benefit from that experience and challenge myself. And you know, it's not for everybody. People feel like that's safe. It's safe to have a nine to five. I got kids, I got a bills, I got blah blah blah, whatever the heck that is. And I just saw through all that and realized that, you know, I'm not gonna spend my life doing working for someone else. I've got to, I'm 26, I've got to try. You know, in the worst case, all right, I really tried and fine, I'll go back to work with somebody else. But I was never gonna be able to pay myself what I thought I was worth working for someone else. And I just felt that for some reason. But prior to that, prior to starting the Nunny Bavarian, I had just had jobs, yeah, all kinds of jobs.

Vision Self-Belief And Risk

SPEAKER_01 13:23

Doing what you thought you're supposed to do. And by the way, I think it's I think it's always been like this, but I would say in today's economy where you have AI, it it's it's omnipresent and it's clearly gonna change industries, there's not really a safe path. You know, I mean, people who were in tech 30 years ago, 15 years ago, maybe even during COVID, they were so in demand, and everybody's gonna have them. And now the market has turned. Capitalism is it's been disruptive, and now they're like, hey, you know, with AI, we can we can get code monkeys and all these people to do the job. And that it to me, that's the beauty of capitalism, the destructive nature of it. Sure. I I think though, uh, you know, what you did, I I think people make their own luck. You got a little lucky that the very first big entrepreneurial play, there was a market for that. But here's a question. You look actually, for those who didn't listen to part one, you talked about how as a kid you were mixing the ingredients and doing your own stuff. Do you attribute that? Were you born with that? Were there was there some parental influence going on? A neighbor who was a chef? Like what how did this get started?

SPEAKER_00 14:44

No, I mean, I I I actually, if I look back at my history, my family history, I come from a family of entrepreneurs. I wasn't really aware of that fact at 10 years old, but I found out I was, you know. Um, my my dad was the college professor and he took that path, you know, as in which, you know, college professors don't make a lot of money, but you know, you get 10-year and it's secure, and that's what he did, you know. Um, he did well, but I mean, you know, it's I I I've just inherently thought, and even when I'm six years old in a classroom, 12 years old in junior high, high school, I'm looking out the window going, for God's sakes, can they teach me something I could use out there? Because I don't feel like anything I'm learning in this classroom is going to benefit me in the real world. And I wanted to get out in the real world and learn about it, not in the classroom, but applying yourself and challenging yourself to try things. I'm always about trying things. What's the worst possible thing that can happen? It didn't work, but I think there's a lot of value in just experimenting and trying something. Now, do I recommend everybody quit their job today and start a business? I would, okay, if you have a niche product and you get it in front of customers, millions of them that don't care what it costs, and you really believe in what you're doing, you know, it's so hard to do what we do that if we don't fully love it and fully believe in it, you'll never make it through, you know. But I felt like I was having so much fun just running down the dream.

School Misfit To Entrepreneur

SPEAKER_01 16:17

In any case, going back to well, what I was gonna say when you when you talk when you're talking about looking out the window at the school, it brings me back to a couple episodes I've done prior to this, two different ones actually. So I think my second episode was on public education, and I was on the school board at one time, and and just how I don't think I don't think the business model works. I think that the the model is broken and it's and that sort of thing. But then fast forward into an uh I forget which episode it was, but I did an episode about a book called The Element, and it's it's the premise of the book is that there's a lot of different kinds of intelligence, you know, easily a dozen, but the the author theorizes there might be as many as a hundred. Right. And and I I was picturing you, John, in that classroom, and whatever they were trying to sell you, you weren't buying, but you had all these other talents and skills, but the public education system works like here, you've learned we've we have taught you geometry, which is what we told the public we would do. Right. You must now take this test on geometry to prove that we did our job, and you're just like, I don't know anything about this and like could care less, but yet you did because otherwise they're gonna expel you.

SPEAKER_00 17:38

And I think right. Well, I have to admit that I was a C minus D student most of my career. Perfect. I I I was you know, it's funny is that you know, the the A students work for the C students. I don't know if you knew that or not, but they didn't.

SPEAKER_01 17:50

It's the same thing. I think they say the A students in law school become judges and the C students become the rich. So it all worked out. I I want to touch, uh I want to uh go down the road uh some of these individual stories. You mentioned uh uh a couple from Rio de Janeiro. Yeah, and and the frame I want to put it in is when when that phone call came to my father, it completely changed his life. But guess what? It completely changed my life, you know, and the opportunities I've been given. Yeah. I think in the franchise model uh specifically, I know that at one time, I don't know if the the statistic is still true, but at one time, McDonald's, the franchise system in McDonald's created more individual millionaires than anything like in the history of the world. And I don't know what kind of stats you have for the Nutty Bavarian, but I I'm sure you've got some stories of some individual people who, had you not intervened, they would have had a much different situation. Give us an example or two, if you will.

Service Sensory Marketing And Gut Instinct

SPEAKER_00 18:54

So I'll just go back to the uh, because you mentioned the Brazilian franchise operator, got her a cart, sent it down there, got her open, uh, and we opened at the Rio de Janeiro airport. Why are airports good? Millions of customers, captive audience, nobody cares what it costs. Those are some of the criteria for going in there. She opened up, um, and it was just an immediate success. People love the product. Um over the next 30 years, because she's been a business over 30 years, she has now 500 locations throughout Brazil. And she's really built carts. You want to talk about building wealth? I mean, she has a a company that is doing several hundred million dollars a year, and so it has made her a millionaire, it has made other people's millionaires. I mean, you get enough carts going, you really can have a great lifestyle. It's you know, you can you can build wealth through your business. Um, you know, and and I'm it anyway, so it's it's about finding people that get it. And initially in the beginning, I never advertised get a cart, carts for sale, franchise, whatever. I never I never even thought about that. But people were approaching me saying, How do I get a cart? So the franchise path is what I took. I started buying the company that built all our carts, we were their biggest customer. Uh, we started designing and building our own cart, uh, our own copper kettle machines, roasted nut machines. It just seemed to make sense, right? We uh became one of the all largest almond consumers in the country, you know. Uh, we never actually, and people would always say, Why didn't you go into retail? Like put them in little jars and put them on shelves at grocery stores.

SPEAKER_01 20:41

Wait, I I think I know the answer. I think I know the answer. Could it be? Because this is a product that you have to have the sensory perception because the scent of cinnamon is is flowing through the air. Yes, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 20:56

Eventually that happened where we would have little packages and grocery stores, but that was decades later. It was focusing on the niche and the business. Make everything fresh right in front of people, be friendly, be fast, give them a sample, follow the steps of service. People are staring at the kettle, going looking like this. What you know, explain the roasting process, engage the customer and what's going on, even if it's for 10 seconds, engage them a little bit. Um, and you'll get a customer that will come back again and again and again. It's interesting for stadiums and theme stadiums and arenas, the same people come back, you know, year after year, game after game. They have season tickets, so they walk up to the car and go, give me two, give me three. I know what I know what they are. I don't need a sample, just give me some, right? But at theme parks, you have a new group of people every single day going through. So that produced a lot of international exposure. Um, and being Orlando, I think, was the key factor. If I had gone to Tampa, Florida, I don't think. It would have been much slower to get the kind of traction I got by just simply on a whim pulling off the highway and going to Orlando and just saying that's where I'm going to be. Sometimes trusting yourself, not questioning every little thing, just you know, any mistake that I've ever made, trust me, I've made some big ones. But it's because I didn't listen to my gut, you know, about what feels right and what doesn't feel right. Oh, virtually anything in business or in personal life has happened, has not worked out because I wasn't true to myself. And lit, you know how some you have that little voice in your head? You know, I listen to that all the time. I just call it my gut sense. But if something feels really right, um, follow it. If it doesn't, don't do it. And I think we need to tap into that intuition or whatever it is. And maybe it's just the universe bumping you along a little bit to put you in the right spot to help you down the road. You don't even know it at the time. But that was a decision that it's almost like spur of the moment, one second decision, pull off the road and go to Orlando and open up a roasted nut cart.

SPEAKER_01 23:10

It worked out. It worked out.

SPEAKER_00 23:12

So you asked me, is there a magic to it? I don't know. But I think people need to be more brave and get out of their own way and trust their intuition, whether it's anything in their personal or professional life. You you know, this we're not, I don't want to seem morbid, but none of us get out of here alive. Sure. So you have a very limited time frame to be here. So think about every single day what you can do to make something happen, whatever it is, learn something new, try something new, experiment. You don't have to quit your job if you have a job, but you try try and do something on nights and weekends. Like your dad had that popcorn cart, right? I mean, he seemed to have the same kind of thing I have, which was I want to make people happy and I think it'd be fun. And why don't we just try it and sell popcorn, right? You know, you probably would ask your dad, why did you go do that? But it just it's because it felt right.

SPEAKER_01 24:10

Yeah, he yeah, it it's all of that. I mean, just going back to my dad for a second, he was the guy when we would travel, he had to, we had to stay in a hotel that had a bar because my mom was like tired and he's got kids and all that, and I'm I'm youngish, you know, eight years old or something. My dad had that need for social interaction. He wanted to go down and sit at the bar. He's traveling, he wants to meet people, wants to have conversations. He didn't know who might change his life and that sort of thing. And I think I I love I love your message there. We've got we've got a f a few minutes left. Um but the I want to close the book on the Nutty Bavarian and then talk about a couple things real quick. You you did sell out at one point. How long had you been in, and when did what year did you actually sell out of the time?

Selling The Company And Next Act

SPEAKER_00 24:59

I started in 1990. By 1996, I had built this business and I had a bit of a management team, and I took out a partner that bought half the company for up from me. I I I was literally working a hundred hours a week. I wasn't spending time at home. I'm traveling, opening roasted nut carts, um, meeting the working with the franchise operators, just building this sort of, I felt like I was building an airplane while I'm flying it. You know, I think I need a wing and I need a copilot and I need an engine. It's sort of like that for years. But when you do that, when you get something, you have to give something up. And I think I gave up a lot of things with my my kids. I was just not home, you know, and my marriage sort of dissolved itself because I am putting everything uh the only thing that was I was focused on was building the business. And I realized that, you know, as cool as that is and great as that is, there's a cost to doing that. So I had to have sort of throttle that back. Well, I started spending more time with my kids. Um, I I decided I think I need to sell the company. Now, at that time we had about 500 locations, and I I I sold the business and frankly I made enough money where I could have sat on the beach, frankly, probably for the rest of my life and done nothing. I can't, I couldn't do that. Like today, there's 5,500 locations, the same management team I put into place, they've just over the last you know 20 years plus have 10xed it, you know. Wow, and it's great. It's great. Now people say, Well, why did you do that? I I think I think I got bored, to be honest with you. I like build I'm a builder. I like building things. I like from the ground up, I like making things happen. Once it's once the ship is sailing, it's up and running. For whatever reason, I just feel like there's more to do, you know. So that's what happened. Yeah, yeah. And what year was that final? It was about 1995, 96.

SPEAKER_01 27:03

So you were only in the business for uh like five or six years. Wow. Yeah, yeah. What it what well I I always want to be truthful with my audience, and I I think it was uh the first party ever said that I called this a remarkable story, and and that is, and I don't think we're we're probably not gonna have time today to get into what you've done for the for the rest of your life.

SPEAKER_00 27:27

But I did make my mission in the last 25 years to help entrepreneurs build very profitable companies, very high growth businesses. I built one of the 500 fastest growing companies in America. I mean, system-wide sales exceeded 100 million in five years. Like people are asking me just briefly, how did I do that? I thought that's important. Why don't I spend some time doing that? And I just have been doing that for a long, long time. I sort of feel like I've become an accidental business coach. But a thousand companies later, I have transformed, helped them uh find a better path to get to where they want to go. You know, roasted nuts was great. It was fun, it made me a successful person. And it's been in business over 30 years. It's continue, it's it's like never-ending. That's great. But how can I be do something more meaningful to help others build businesses and be successful? Because when you've done when when I got to experience what I did and share that with others and they get to experience it, it's life-changing in a lot of ways. I don't ever think a bag of almonds is going to change everybody's life. It's fun, it's a snack food, etc. But really what's most important, if you take a business that is trying to get going or just plateauing or slowing, and you get them on the right path, they do a few things that dramatically changes it. That's extremely life-changing for those business owners. So I've been doing a lot of that amongst a whole bunch of other things.

Business Coaching Program And Closing

SPEAKER_01 28:57

I know you're a pretty open and accessible guy. Tell us your website if somebody wants to kind of figure out they they want to just reach out to you, maybe just get some advice. What is that website?

SPEAKER_00 29:07

So it's learncosi.com. Cosi is the Cycle of Success Institute. And I developed a one-year structured program that entrepreneurs go through month by month by month, and they absolutely transform their businesses. You know, and so it's learncosi.com is the website.

SPEAKER_01 29:25

Well, I uh anybody who's interested, and I I with my audience, I never know exactly are they do they want to hear about business? They want to hear about politics and public policy. Well, where I'll end the show this week, uh, and again, thank you for being on. I've I've enjoyed this. I think there's so many different threads that are getting tied together here because it really struck me the way you described your school experience. And, you know, at that point, through the production line, the factory assembly line of education, you were viewed as average and not supposed to achieve kind in best case. And and then yet you're able to do something that maybe the force that they put on you there to be something you just were not, right? Maybe when you're standing out on those streets and free, free, yeah, maybe that just said, I will not go back to that lifestyle. I know I can do this. And I think the power of self-belief is at the end of the day, I mean, it you can move mountains and change society.

SPEAKER_00 30:28

So I think at the end of the day, what you think about is what you become. If you literally think about something all the time, it will actually you become that thing, whatever that thing is. I mean, Henry Ford said if a person can do something or not, they're probably right. It's just about what you want to go do.

SPEAKER_01 30:45

I love it. All right, folks, we're gonna end the show uh this week. I I I said it was a remarkable story, and I'm sticking to it. And that is the POV of POB.