Speaker:
00:00:00
- Say the name of the company for me.
Speaker:
00:00:02
- Ferio Tego.
Speaker:
00:00:03
- Ferio.
Speaker:
00:00:04
- Ferio Tego.
Speaker:
00:00:05
- Tego.
Speaker:
00:00:07
- Ferio Tego.
Speaker:
00:00:08
- Boy, I think this morning in the shower,
Speaker:
00:00:10
I said it six different ways,
Speaker:
00:00:12
in my head.
Speaker:
00:00:12
- Let me hear all of them.
Speaker:
00:00:16
- Ferrario Tegow.
Speaker:
00:00:17
- Great. No.
Speaker:
00:00:21
- Fierro
Speaker:
00:00:23
Tigo.
Speaker:
00:00:24
- That one I hear a lot, not correct.
Speaker:
00:00:26
- (laughs) Now you're gonna mess me up.
Speaker:
00:00:28
What is it?
Speaker:
00:00:29
- Ferio Tego.
Speaker:
00:00:30
- [All] Ferio Tego.
Speaker:
00:00:31
- Ferio Tego.
Speaker:
00:00:32
(hip hop music)
Speaker:
00:00:33
- [Rob] There's a story inside every smoke shop.
Speaker:
00:00:35
With every cigar and with every person.
Speaker:
00:00:38
Come be a part of the cigar lifestyle at Boveda.
Speaker:
00:00:41
This, is Box Press.
Speaker:
00:00:44
(soft music)
Speaker:
00:00:52
Hey everyone, welcome to another episode of Box Press.
Speaker:
00:00:54
I am your host, Rob Gagner.
Speaker:
00:00:56
I am at 2021's PCA show and I am sitting next to
Speaker:
00:01:00
Michael Herklots.
Speaker:
00:01:01
Now, the name is, not just the myth and the legend,
Speaker:
00:01:05
but he is a legend,
Speaker:
00:01:07
but, he's here now with his brand new brand,
Speaker:
00:01:09
Ferio Tego.
Speaker:
00:01:10
Michael, thank you so much.
Speaker:
00:01:11
- Ferio Tego, good to see you my friend. You're good?
Speaker:
00:01:15
- I'm great.
Speaker:
00:01:15
- 9:00 a.m. in Las Vegas.
Speaker:
00:01:18
- We gotta be the only people
Speaker:
00:01:19
up and moving at this point, right?
Speaker:
00:01:20
This is it.
Speaker:
00:01:21
- Yeah. People with kids, people that get up early.
Speaker:
00:01:25
- Yes.
Speaker:
00:01:25
- And insomniacs.
Speaker:
00:01:26
- And people with interviews at 9:00 a.m.
Speaker:
00:01:28
Thanks for booking this at nine, by the way, in Las Vegas.
Speaker:
00:01:31
That was thoughtful.
Speaker:
00:01:32
Really appreciate that, bro. - You have a
Speaker:
00:01:33
busy schedule, man.
Speaker:
00:01:34
You told me-
Speaker:
00:01:35
- No, you're right, you're right. I signed up for this.
Speaker:
00:01:37
- There's three people at my booth, you said.
Speaker:
00:01:40
And earlier would be better, so I said,
Speaker:
00:01:41
"Well, let's just crack at it in the morning."
Speaker:
00:01:43
- I said this was perfect, and I can't thank you enough
Speaker:
00:01:46
for having me.
Speaker:
00:01:47
- We got coffee. We got cigars.
Speaker:
00:01:49
We're smoking the Prestige.
Speaker:
00:01:51
- Timeless Prestige.
Speaker:
00:01:52
- Timeless Prestige.
Speaker:
00:01:53
This is great, in this format,
Speaker:
00:01:55
is this really popular format?
Speaker:
00:01:57
- Well, in the six by 38,
Speaker:
00:01:59
I would think this would just rule the world,
Speaker:
00:02:02
as it turns out, nobody wants this format at all,
Speaker:
00:02:05
except for you, me and like seven other people.
Speaker:
00:02:08
(Rob laughing)
Speaker:
00:02:09
So as we bring back Timeless Prestige,
Speaker:
00:02:11
unfortunately we're not leading with
Speaker:
00:02:13
the six by 38 Especiales,
Speaker:
00:02:16
but in 2022, we are gonna bring this back.
Speaker:
00:02:18
- Great. Well, the 2% sales will go to
Speaker:
00:02:21
- [All] Us.
Speaker:
00:02:22
- Exactly. That's it.
Speaker:
00:02:23
- There's so much to talk about with you
Speaker:
00:02:26
and what's going on
Speaker:
00:02:27
and you have so many years of experience.
Speaker:
00:02:31
Just for my consumers
Speaker:
00:02:33
and the people watching this show that may not be listening
Speaker:
00:02:36
to the KMA interviews that you do and all the other ones.
Speaker:
00:02:40
What I love about your journey the most,
Speaker:
00:02:43
is that you started out as a consumer at 19,
Speaker:
00:02:47
moved into working retail,
Speaker:
00:02:49
moved into managing a retail store,
Speaker:
00:02:52
moved into being a basically,
Speaker:
00:02:56
what would you say?
Speaker:
00:02:56
The VP of Nat Sherman?
Speaker:
00:02:59
So that role is very much all encompassing
Speaker:
00:03:02
on the manufacturer side.
Speaker:
00:03:04
So consumer, retail, manufacturing.
Speaker:
00:03:09
Who else in this industry has that breadth,
Speaker:
00:03:12
of lineage? - I don't know.
Speaker:
00:03:14
- [Rob] Not a lot.
Speaker:
00:03:15
- And that's a poor answer,
Speaker:
00:03:18
but what I've appreciated about my own journey is
Speaker:
00:03:25
I come from a small town.
Speaker:
00:03:28
I come from a family of hardworking folks.
Speaker:
00:03:30
- What small town, where?
Speaker:
00:03:32
- Northeast Connecticut.
Speaker:
00:03:33
It's called Danielson, Connecticut, very small town.
Speaker:
00:03:37
But I was brought up with this idea that
Speaker:
00:03:42
you're not entitled to something. You have to work for it.
Speaker:
00:03:44
And you work hard.
Speaker:
00:03:46
I was so excited to get a job at 15 and 10 months,
Speaker:
00:03:51
because that's when you could get your first job.
Speaker:
00:03:53
- 15 and 10 months?
Speaker:
00:03:54
- 15 and 10 months.
Speaker:
00:03:55
You could do Driver's Ed
Speaker:
00:03:57
and you could get your first job.
Speaker:
00:04:00
And for me, that was, I just couldn't wait to work.
Speaker:
00:04:04
- What made you wanna work?
Speaker:
00:04:05
What about school?
Speaker:
00:04:07
- Oh, I went to school.
Speaker:
00:04:08
- Yeah. But like school didn't excite you.
Speaker:
00:04:10
You wanted to get out
Speaker:
00:04:11
and do stuff. - No, school excited me,
Speaker:
00:04:12
music excited me.
Speaker:
00:04:14
But I wanted a job.
Speaker:
00:04:17
I wanted to transact.
Speaker:
00:04:19
All my jobs were always retail, customer-facing.
Speaker:
00:04:23
I worked in a pharmacy.
Speaker:
00:04:24
I worked in a donut shop.
Speaker:
00:04:27
There's something about that engagement.
Speaker:
00:04:28
The fundamental, basic piece of taking someone's money
Speaker:
00:04:33
and putting it in a cash register
Speaker:
00:04:35
and giving them some change and saying, "Thank you."
Speaker:
00:04:38
That
Speaker:
00:04:39
basic kind of thing is great. - I gotta ask, right there,
Speaker:
00:04:43
when you did that, did you do it perfectly?
Speaker:
00:04:46
You gave them exact change back, always?
Speaker:
00:04:50
- I gave them everything they were entitled to or more.
Speaker:
00:04:52
I would round up to them. - You know what I did?
Speaker:
00:04:54
- [Michael] You stuck it in your pocket?
Speaker:
00:04:55
- I rounded up.
Speaker:
00:04:56
- And you put it in your tip jar?
Speaker:
00:04:57
- No, I rounded up, I was just like,
Speaker:
00:05:01
"I'm not gonna grab four pennies.
Speaker:
00:05:03
I'm just gonna give you a nickel and a dime."
Speaker:
00:05:06
By the end of the day, my till was short $4 and 13 cents.
Speaker:
00:05:11
My manager had to sit down and talk to me and she goes,
Speaker:
00:05:13
"What is going on?"
Speaker:
00:05:14
And I go, "Oh, I just was rounding up.
Speaker:
00:05:16
I thought it was more efficient."
Speaker:
00:05:17
She goes, "Yeah, no,
Speaker:
00:05:19
we're a publicly traded company.
Speaker:
00:05:21
We gotta count for every dollar." (laughs)
Speaker:
00:05:23
- No, I was to the penny.
Speaker:
00:05:25
The only thing I would do though is try and upsell.
Speaker:
00:05:27
If I knew it was gonna be like $8.01, I'd be like,
Speaker:
00:05:30
"Why don't you throw a munchkin in the deal?
Speaker:
00:05:31
It's like another 60 cents."
Speaker:
00:05:34
And then I'd round them up, I'd upsell.
Speaker:
00:05:35
- And you won't be jingling with all this
Speaker:
00:05:36
change in your pocket. - Exactly.
Speaker:
00:05:37
But I'd upsell.
Speaker:
00:05:38
But back to your question,
Speaker:
00:05:42
my journey,
Speaker:
00:05:46
in hindsight, looking back,
Speaker:
00:05:48
what I appreciate about my experience
Speaker:
00:05:52
is the fact that
Speaker:
00:05:55
I've been able to do every job.
Speaker:
00:06:00
There was no visions of grandeur walking in.
Speaker:
00:06:02
I didn't say,
Speaker:
00:06:06
"I wanna own a cigar company," when I was 19.
Speaker:
00:06:09
I started in the business as a passionate hobbyist
Speaker:
00:06:14
that couldn't afford the hobby, as a music student.
Speaker:
00:06:18
- [Rob] No one can, when they first start,
Speaker:
00:06:19
in my opinion. - So, I had to get a job.
Speaker:
00:06:21
And so I got the job, in cigars because I figured
Speaker:
00:06:24
that was the best way to do my hobby and not have to pay,
Speaker:
00:06:28
because I couldn't afford it.
Speaker:
00:06:30
And over the years,
Speaker:
00:06:34
as my jobs have changed,
Speaker:
00:06:37
those opportunities have evolved.
Speaker:
00:06:40
In my head, I'm still a passionate hobbyist.
Speaker:
00:06:45
I'm just 41 now instead of 19.
Speaker:
00:06:47
And so,
Speaker:
00:06:50
my excitement for just having a job
Speaker:
00:06:52
has evolved a little bit too.
Speaker:
00:06:53
Now I need to make sure
Speaker:
00:06:54
I pay for my house and do all the extras.
Speaker:
00:06:58
But it comes from the same place.
Speaker:
00:07:00
And when I look back now, over 22 years in the industry,
Speaker:
00:07:06
the fact that
Speaker:
00:07:09
I spent six years in the same job.
Speaker:
00:07:14
No promotion, no extra button or a badge.
Speaker:
00:07:18
I did retail sales
Speaker:
00:07:21
for six years.
Speaker:
00:07:24
No promotion.
Speaker:
00:07:25
You know what I mean?
Speaker:
00:07:26
I just did the job.
Speaker:
00:07:27
- There is no promotion,
Speaker:
00:07:28
unless you wanna manage the store, in my opinion.
Speaker:
00:07:30
- Right. And that role wasn't open.
Speaker:
00:07:32
Because my boss had it.
Speaker:
00:07:33
And so that meant that's it, that's the job.
Speaker:
00:07:35
And I think
Speaker:
00:07:37
for a lot of young people today,
Speaker:
00:07:40
there is this need for constant badges and trophies.
Speaker:
00:07:45
- That's a good point.
Speaker:
00:07:47
The need to try to climb that corporate ladder
Speaker:
00:07:49
or whatever ladder system,
Speaker:
00:07:52
for promotions or increases in pay
Speaker:
00:07:56
for millennials, they have a short attention span.
Speaker:
00:08:00
For that.
Speaker:
00:08:01
- But the fact is that's not the way the world works.
Speaker:
00:08:05
At least not the world that I grew up in.
Speaker:
00:08:07
And so if I show up to work,
Speaker:
00:08:10
in the same job today that I had yesterday
Speaker:
00:08:13
and I get a check, you don't owe me anything else.
Speaker:
00:08:17
You know what I mean?
Speaker:
00:08:18
- [Michael] That's the contract.
Speaker:
00:08:19
- Right.
Speaker:
00:08:20
- That's it. And it's my job,
Speaker:
00:08:22
to exceed your expectations in a way
Speaker:
00:08:25
that you look at me and say,
Speaker:
00:08:27
"I need this guy to stay,"
Speaker:
00:08:29
- That's key.
Speaker:
00:08:30
- "And this guy's gonna grow."
Speaker:
00:08:31
And that also means that
Speaker:
00:08:33
I was fortunate enough to have managers
Speaker:
00:08:36
with balanced egos where they weren't afraid to promote me.
Speaker:
00:08:42
Right? And to get behind me. - Yeah. That can happen.
Speaker:
00:08:43
- Because I wasn't out to eat their lunch.
Speaker:
00:08:45
I wasn't out for their job.
Speaker:
00:08:47
I just wanna do my job and I wanna get paid for it
Speaker:
00:08:49
and I wanna deliver,
Speaker:
00:08:50
and I wanna exceed your expectations.
Speaker:
00:08:53
That's what I want to do.
Speaker:
00:08:54
- Exceeding.
Speaker:
00:08:55
- Six years, in the same gig. - Yeah. Exceeding the
Speaker:
00:08:57
expectations to me is the most important part
Speaker:
00:08:59
because, Drew Emmer one of the guys that works for us,
Speaker:
00:09:02
he said it really well,
Speaker:
00:09:03
"I always want Boveda to get more out of me,
Speaker:
00:09:07
than what they pay me for."
Speaker:
00:09:08
I want you, as the employer
Speaker:
00:09:12
to get more than what you pay me for, always.
Speaker:
00:09:14
- Always.
Speaker:
00:09:15
- Because if it's the opposite,
Speaker:
00:09:17
you might be on the chopping block.
Speaker:
00:09:20
- When I got to Nat Sherman,
Speaker:
00:09:21
our first store director that I hired
Speaker:
00:09:25
was a very good friend of mine
Speaker:
00:09:27
that used to run a steakhouse called Rothmann's,
Speaker:
00:09:29
his name is Pat Felitti.
Speaker:
00:09:31
And we were right around performance review time,
Speaker:
00:09:33
and there were a couple of people who were very disappointed
Speaker:
00:09:36
because they had met expectations.
Speaker:
00:09:39
And that's where they lived, meets expectations.
Speaker:
00:09:41
Which is not a bad review,
Speaker:
00:09:42
Right? - No.
Speaker:
00:09:43
- You meet expectations,
Speaker:
00:09:44
- [Rob] That's great. - You're doing your job.
Speaker:
00:09:47
And one of the employees, this is like 2011.
Speaker:
00:09:51
One of the employees was like, "Yeah but, yeah but,
Speaker:
00:09:53
I did this, I did this, I did this, I did this."
Speaker:
00:09:55
And Pat goes, "Congratulations,
Speaker:
00:09:58
you don't get extra credit for doing your job.
Speaker:
00:10:00
(Rob laughing)
Speaker:
00:10:01
You want extra credit? You have to do extra."
Speaker:
00:10:03
And that stuck with me forever,
Speaker:
00:10:06
after I heard him say those words,
Speaker:
00:10:08
"You don't get extra credit for doing your job."
Speaker:
00:10:10
That's right.
Speaker:
00:10:12
And I apply that to this.
Speaker:
00:10:15
So, I work really hard to create a blend that's unique,
Speaker:
00:10:20
that smokes great, that burns great,
Speaker:
00:10:23
that tastes great, that's the same every year.
Speaker:
00:10:27
And that is meeting expectations.
Speaker:
00:10:29
You know what I mean?
Speaker:
00:10:31
I don't get extra credit
Speaker:
00:10:32
for making great cigars every year.
Speaker:
00:10:36
That's not enough.
Speaker:
00:10:37
The only way we get extra credit is to do more
Speaker:
00:10:39
and exceed expectations.
Speaker:
00:10:41
It's a hard thing to do in this business, man.
Speaker:
00:10:43
- So, that resonates with me because
Speaker:
00:10:46
the typical marketing jargon is quality and consistency.
Speaker:
00:10:51
If you're not doing quality and consistency
Speaker:
00:10:53
for your cigar brand, in this market,
Speaker:
00:10:57
probably shouldn't be in it.
Speaker:
00:10:58
Because that's, doing your job. - You can't be in it.
Speaker:
00:11:01
- Yeah, right? (laughs)
Speaker:
00:11:02
- And you won't be, by the way.
Speaker:
00:11:03
- Right, no. Yeah.
Speaker:
00:11:03
- Even if you think you should be,
Speaker:
00:11:05
the general voting population
Speaker:
00:11:08
with their wallets and pocketbooks,
Speaker:
00:11:10
will make sure that you are no longer in the business.
Speaker:
00:11:12
- Exactly. It's a foundation to what you need to do,
Speaker:
00:11:16
but it is not, like you said, extra credit. (laughs)
Speaker:
00:11:19
- Right. And then, so how do you earn the extra credit?
Speaker:
00:11:23
That's the hard part, in this business.
Speaker:
00:11:25
- Well, answer your own question because you of all people,
Speaker:
00:11:28
would be in the best seat to answer that.
Speaker:
00:11:30
How would you earn extra credit with the consumer?
Speaker:
00:11:37
Is it the band?
Speaker:
00:11:39
Is it the artwork?
Speaker:
00:11:41
- That's the extra.
Speaker:
00:11:42
So if everyone's making good cigars,
Speaker:
00:11:46
and they are.
Speaker:
00:11:47
I mean, let's face it,
Speaker:
00:11:48
there are great cigars in every booth on this floor
Speaker:
00:11:52
there are great cigars. - Let me tell you, too,
Speaker:
00:11:53
great cigars, with bad bands.
Speaker:
00:11:56
You know what I mean? - Could be bad bands,
Speaker:
00:11:56
could be good.
Speaker:
00:11:57
- [Rob] Artistically, you know what I mean?
Speaker:
00:12:00
- I'm not gonna talk about
Speaker:
00:12:01
good or bad. - But there is.
Speaker:
00:12:03
- There are great cigars in every booth on the show.
Speaker:
00:12:05
So, how do you exceed expectations?
Speaker:
00:12:08
I think gets into
Speaker:
00:12:12
what that brand proposition is.
Speaker:
00:12:17
For me,
Speaker:
00:12:19
and I think I applied this
Speaker:
00:12:21
as I worked for Nat Sherman for 10 years,
Speaker:
00:12:24
and I'm certainly applying it now, with Ferio Tego.
Speaker:
00:12:30
I really believe
Speaker:
00:12:33
in honesty,
Speaker:
00:12:35
in clarity and authenticity.
Speaker:
00:12:39
That is our driving force.
Speaker:
00:12:44
As much as I love
Speaker:
00:12:47
the romance and fanfare of stories
Speaker:
00:12:50
from a marketing perspective.
Speaker:
00:12:55
For us,
Speaker:
00:12:57
that gets a little thick.
Speaker:
00:13:01
And what we are doing now, especially as Ferio Tego,
Speaker:
00:13:06
but we did it to a large degree
Speaker:
00:13:08
at Nat Sherman International too,
Speaker:
00:13:11
is leading
Speaker:
00:13:13
with gratitude, first.
Speaker:
00:13:16
Honesty, transparency,
Speaker:
00:13:19
and
Speaker:
00:13:22
humility.
Speaker:
00:13:24
A little bit of grace, a little bit of elegance.
Speaker:
00:13:27
And what you see is what you get, with us.
Speaker:
00:13:30
There's no secrets, we're open,
Speaker:
00:13:33
we're truthful, we're honest, we're hardworking.
Speaker:
00:13:39
And we are, hopefully, dependable.
Speaker:
00:13:42
And we're gonna continue to do
Speaker:
00:13:43
the same thing we did last year,
Speaker:
00:13:45
the same thing we did five years ago
Speaker:
00:13:47
you're gonna get next year and the year after that.
Speaker:
00:13:49
Because, when you are completely honest, transparent,
Speaker:
00:13:53
and authentic, it's awfully easy to be consistent.
Speaker:
00:13:58
When you start putting the layers of paint
Speaker:
00:14:01
and trying to craft new messaging,
Speaker:
00:14:03
and then you have to stay on your talking points
Speaker:
00:14:06
and you have to remember what you're supposed to say,
Speaker:
00:14:08
it's a lot of work.
Speaker:
00:14:09
And I'm not willing to do it. You know what I mean?
Speaker:
00:14:11
I would much rather just be honest,
Speaker:
00:14:15
keep people up to date,
Speaker:
00:14:17
allow the product to speak for itself,
Speaker:
00:14:19
give credit where credit's due.
Speaker:
00:14:21
I didn't roll this.
Speaker:
00:14:24
I helped create it,
Speaker:
00:14:28
but the Quesada family makes this,
Speaker:
00:14:30
this is their tobacco, they roll it.
Speaker:
00:14:32
I'm not
Speaker:
00:14:34
Don Miguel Herklots,
Speaker:
00:14:35
(Rob laughing) I'm Michael Herklots.
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00:14:37
I'm a gringo that lives in New Jersey.
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00:14:40
You know what I mean?
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00:14:41
I don't wear guayaberas.
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00:14:42
That's ridiculous.
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00:14:44
I don't wear a Panama hat.
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00:14:46
I don't stand in the middle of a field
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00:14:48
and smell green leaves.
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00:14:50
None of that is authentic to me.
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00:14:52
What's authentic to me is
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00:14:53
the relationships I've built over 22 years
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00:14:57
and developing product that I believe is great,
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00:14:59
and then relying on the people that know it best
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00:15:02
to continue to produce it and get behind me,
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00:15:05
and we deliver that to market and people continue to buy it.
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00:15:08
That's as authentic and honest and transparent as I can get.
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00:15:13
- With a retailer, that honesty part, is key.
Speaker:
00:15:17
But where do you feel like
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00:15:19
sometimes companies might slip up in honesty
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00:15:22
with the retailer, that hurts the retailer the most?
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00:15:25
Or the consumer?
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00:15:27
You can translate that either way.
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00:15:28
Like a brand that really wasn't completely honest
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00:15:31
about something.
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00:15:32
And then ultimately the end consumer has to pay for it.
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00:15:40
- I don't wanna answer that in any way
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00:15:42
that would be disparaging to another company.
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00:15:45
But, one thing that I think is so unique about our business,
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00:15:50
there are lots of
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00:15:52
similarities and adjacencies to the wine world.
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00:15:56
But, in the wine world,
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00:15:58
there are governing bodies of the industry
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00:16:02
that require a certain level of transparency.
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00:16:07
You have to disclose your alcohol content.
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00:16:10
You have to disclose some level of blend.
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00:16:14
If you wanna call yourself a particular wine, right?
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00:16:16
You have to be X percent Sangiovese,
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00:16:18
or it has to be X percent Cabernet to be X.
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00:16:21
- Basically the terroir, where it's from, right?
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00:16:26
- There are qualifying criteria for you to claim
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00:16:30
that what you say is what it is.
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00:16:32
Well, we don't have that.
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00:16:37
For a fact,
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00:16:38
there is a lot of marketing license
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00:16:42
that is allowed to be taken,
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00:16:44
when you are talking about product.
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00:16:46
Whether you're talking about seed,
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00:16:47
or you're talking about blend.
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00:16:51
And the reality is
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00:16:52
that it's our job to keep the blend the same every year,
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00:16:55
despite the fact that the ingredients change, right?
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00:16:58
Right?
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00:16:59
So what we say it was when we launched
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00:17:01
is probably very different than what it is
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00:17:04
eight years later.
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00:17:06
Because you have to adapt to keep the experience the same,
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00:17:09
the blend changes, but we don't update that.
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00:17:13
We tend to say that it's the same
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00:17:15
from a marketing ingredients standpoint.
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00:17:18
And so that starts bending truth,
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00:17:21
which is totally cool.
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00:17:22
But the problem is,
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00:17:25
as consumers have really
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00:17:28
embraced the idea of connoisseurship,
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00:17:32
and trying to
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00:17:35
learn and memorize the facts,
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00:17:38
and then equate that to experience.
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00:17:40
The reality is, that in some cases,
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00:17:43
consumers are learning false information.
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00:17:47
Because what they're applying as fact,
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00:17:51
that
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00:17:53
a drying effect on the palate,
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00:17:57
or a dark ash equals
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00:18:00
this particular tobacco
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00:18:02
or magnesium in the soil
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00:18:03
or all these things.
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00:18:05
The reality is, that those facts have changed over time,
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00:18:10
but you've memorized
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00:18:11
and memorialized in your brain
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00:18:14
that that little factoid applies
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00:18:17
to this little tidbit of information.
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00:18:21
And so, you learn wrong information.
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00:18:24
And now the problem is you share
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00:18:26
wrong information because
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00:18:28
it only takes about six months to be an expert.
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00:18:31
You know what I mean? That's really all you need.
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00:18:32
You need three or four reviews.
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00:18:35
You need to smoke a handful of cigars,
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00:18:36
and you need a small population of followers
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00:18:39
before you become the provider of information.
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00:18:42
And so, now that information starts being shared
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00:18:46
based on wrong facts.
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00:18:48
And before you know it,
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00:18:49
this very educated population
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00:18:51
is educated with the wrong information.
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00:18:54
That's problematic.
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00:18:56
So, going back to your question,
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00:18:59
the need for transparency and honesty,
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00:19:04
I'm not disparaging anyone who takes a different strategy,
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00:19:10
but for us, we need as much open transparency,
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00:19:15
not just so people understand our product,
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00:19:17
but so that we are educating
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00:19:20
a consumer base with real information.
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00:19:25
If our consumers are really educated
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00:19:27
with the right information and the right set of facts,
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00:19:30
and our retail partners
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00:19:32
are educated with the right set of facts,
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00:19:35
that's a much healthier environment for us to win in.
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00:19:39
- Right. Blending to me,
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00:19:43
is a hard aspect to get around.
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00:19:47
You have many years of experience.
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00:19:50
Do you remember the first day
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00:19:52
you went to try to figure out how to do blending?
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00:19:56
Were you nervous?
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00:20:01
- When I was 24,
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00:20:08
I started going down to the Dominican Republic.
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00:20:11
The general manager of Davidoff at the time,
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00:20:13
guy David Kitchens, great mentor of mine.
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00:20:16
He used to go down every year on vacation
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00:20:18
and spend time with the Quesada family.
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00:20:20
And one day he's like,
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00:20:22
"Come on this trip, just come take five days off,
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00:20:24
come with me."
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00:20:25
I had no money. He's like, "Don't worry about it.
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00:20:27
I'll help you out. Just cover your flights.
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00:20:29
I'll pay for your hotel."
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00:20:30
And he was really generous.
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00:20:31
- So it was a personal trip, not a work trip?
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00:20:33
- No, no, it was a vacation.
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00:20:35
And I went down and I spent time with the Quesadas
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00:20:38
and we just hung out in the factory.
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00:20:39
And that was my vacation.
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00:20:40
It was just hanging out.
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00:20:42
Smoking cigars.
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00:20:43
- Were married at the time?
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00:20:44
- No.
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00:20:46
24. I was 24, I was a kid, man.
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00:20:48
I was single
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00:20:50
and it just sounded like a great idea.
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00:20:52
And I was grateful for the opportunity.
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00:20:54
And that really turned into this,
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00:20:56
what has now become
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00:20:57
a very special relationship with the Quesadas
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00:21:01
and they are my family.
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00:21:03
I give that as context because
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00:21:06
what they would do when we would go down there
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00:21:08
is just simple things like,
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00:21:10
"Hey, taste this, taste this. Oh, we're working on this,
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00:21:13
we're playing with this, taste this."
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00:21:17
I've always been
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00:21:20
driven to figure out the why, in everything.
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00:21:23
So I would taste something
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00:21:26
and ask, "Well,
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00:21:28
why is it spicy?
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00:21:30
Why is it strong? Why does this suck?"
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00:21:32
- I like your style.
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00:21:33
- I don't like this. Why does this suck?
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00:21:36
That push to get to the why,
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00:21:39
really
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00:21:41
allowed me to learn
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00:21:43
this kind of cause and effect piece.
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00:21:46
- My brain works the same way.
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00:21:47
I have to know why, so I can be more educated on
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00:21:51
what to do with that.
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00:21:53
It's not necessarily, - So I don't repeat a mistake.
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00:21:54
- I'm questioning, are you sure?
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00:21:57
It's okay, but why?
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00:21:59
And then, okay, great.
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00:22:00
So now I know, and I can adjust when that happens.
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00:22:05
- It was not a deliberate,
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00:22:08
today is July 12th and I'm gonna start blending today
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00:22:12
and let's figure out
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00:22:14
how this works. - Just happened organically.
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00:22:15
- It was incredibly organic.
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00:22:17
It was really because the Quesadas were so generous and open
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00:22:21
about just allowing me to learn on their time
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00:22:24
with their tobacco, with their people.
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00:22:28
And so, as time went on,
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00:22:31
one of the things that really stands out
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00:22:33
when the Quesadas
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00:22:36
were going to do the Quesada 35th.
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00:22:39
- I heard this story.
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00:22:41
- So it was like 2008, nine something.
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00:22:43
- They kept it a secret from Manuel.
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00:22:45
- Yes.
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00:22:46
But they called me. I'll never forget.
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00:22:48
I was in New York, at my desk,
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00:22:52
Davidoff Madison Avenue,
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00:22:53
phone rings, it's Raquel and Patricia.
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00:22:56
And they say, it was like a Tuesday, and they were like,
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00:23:00
"You need to come to Santiago on Friday."
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00:23:04
And I was like, "Oh my God, Manolo's sick.
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00:23:07
what happened?" - Oh.
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00:23:08
- And they're like, "No, no, no, everyone's fine.
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00:23:11
Everything's fine.
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00:23:12
But we need you to come down this weekend."
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00:23:17
And I was close with the girls
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00:23:19
and the young ones, as Manolo calls them.
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00:23:22
And I was like, "Okay."
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00:23:23
And they're like, "But don't tell our dad."
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00:23:24
And I'm like, "What is going on here?
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00:23:26
This is not good."
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00:23:28
So I show up,
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00:23:29
they pick me up in the airport
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00:23:31
and I've been going down for five years, six years
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00:23:33
at this point,
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00:23:34
they've never picked me up at the airport.
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00:23:35
They pick me up at the airport.
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00:23:36
I get in the car,
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00:23:38
no one's saying anything.
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00:23:39
I'm like, "What the hell is going on?
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00:23:41
(Rob laughing)
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00:23:42
What am I doing here? What's going on?"
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00:23:45
We show up, now where the factory is today,
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00:23:48
was a tobacco warehouse and processing facility,
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00:23:52
we show up there.
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00:23:55
I get out of the car.
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00:23:56
The whole crew of young ones is there.
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00:23:58
I sit down and was like,
Speaker:
00:23:59
"Would someone, please tell me, why am I here?
Speaker:
00:24:02
And what's going on?"
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00:24:03
And they said, "Okay, we wanna do a cigar.
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00:24:06
We wanna do it under the Quesada name.
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00:24:09
We wanna make it different.
Speaker:
00:24:11
You need to help. What do we do?"
Speaker:
00:24:14
And they had all these bales open.
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00:24:15
There were like three employees that were there
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00:24:17
that were moving bales over for us to taste.
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00:24:19
And I was like, "Holy, okay. Let's start."
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00:24:25
And we smoked crazy tobaccos.
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00:24:30
And we actually said,
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00:24:31
"Okay, what we have to do first
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00:24:33
is make sure that this does not taste like a
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00:24:37
typical Fonseca, S.A.G. product."
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00:24:41
So, we started with
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00:24:44
unfermented tobacco.
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00:24:47
Let's start with this.
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00:24:48
This just came in out of the field.
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00:24:50
So let's smoke this and taste it raw
Speaker:
00:24:54
and figure out if that doesn't taste like
Speaker:
00:24:56
what the cigars typically taste like out of this factory,
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00:24:59
then that's where we're gonna start.
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00:25:01
I think three of us threw up almost immediately.
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00:25:04
- [Rob] Oh my God!
Speaker:
00:25:05
- Because it was high ammonia, high nicotine.
Speaker:
00:25:07
It was a terrible idea.
Speaker:
00:25:08
(Rob laughing)
Speaker:
00:25:09
But it allowed us to taste something in the building
Speaker:
00:25:12
that didn't taste like everything else had tasted.
Speaker:
00:25:18
That was probably
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00:25:20
the best learning experience, was working on that product
Speaker:
00:25:24
because we figured it out together,
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00:25:28
the whys.
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00:25:29
We lit up that tobacco.
Speaker:
00:25:31
Why don't we use unfermented tobacco?
Speaker:
00:25:33
I know, it makes you vomit, right?
Speaker:
00:25:35
(Rob laughing)
Speaker:
00:25:35
But we got to experience the why.
Speaker:
00:25:37
We had real discovery.
Speaker:
00:25:39
But then we also realized that there was some unique flavor
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00:25:42
in some of that young tobacco.
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00:25:44
So, we started playing with it, just a little piece,
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00:25:47
a quarter of a leaf, in the middle
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00:25:50
to change the profile in a really dynamic way
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00:25:54
that when you add all these other brilliant tobaccos
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00:25:57
and that one little piece that is so different,
Speaker:
00:26:01
it takes the experience of this cigar
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00:26:04
and completely made it new and different,
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00:26:08
when you compare it through the lens
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00:26:10
of everything that had come out of that factory before.
Speaker:
00:26:13
So, learning those whys,
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00:26:15
hands-on, on a Saturday afternoon, throwing up,
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00:26:18
(Rob laughing)
Speaker:
00:26:19
was the greatest blending tutorial of my life.
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00:26:24
- [Rob] I love it.
Speaker:
00:26:26
- Then we were on a roll.
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00:26:27
Then we also had Manolo's blessing and buy-in
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00:26:29
after he was a little angry.
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00:26:32
After we presented.
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00:26:36
It wasn't my job,
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00:26:37
but I still got to participate with the Quesadas.
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00:26:40
When I did join Nat Sherman,
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00:26:43
and it was time to really resurrect
Speaker:
00:26:48
what had been a highly respected,
Speaker:
00:26:52
but nostalgic brand,
Speaker:
00:26:55
when it was time to take this to a new direction,
Speaker:
00:26:58
because of the Quesada's generosity
Speaker:
00:27:00
and allowing me to play and allowing me to participate,
Speaker:
00:27:03
first of all, they were the first ones I went to.
Speaker:
00:27:06
And in fact,
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00:27:07
this is the first blend we did.
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00:27:09
- [Rob] Really?
Speaker:
00:27:09
- Was the Prestige, this blend.
Speaker:
00:27:11
- Phenomenal.
Speaker:
00:27:12
- It was number 10 cigar the year, Cigar Aficionado,
Speaker:
00:27:16
the year we released it.
Speaker:
00:27:18
Incredible man.
Speaker:
00:27:19
- And that 35th anniversary.
Speaker:
00:27:22
- Was dynamite.
Speaker:
00:27:23
- Yeah. It was dynamite.
Speaker:
00:27:26
You also said something very interesting,
Speaker:
00:27:29
which I wanna clarify is,
Speaker:
00:27:31
they said they wanted to put their name on it.
Speaker:
00:27:33
At this time, they did not have Quesada
Speaker:
00:27:37
on a cigar name.
Speaker:
00:27:38
- [Michael] Ever.
Speaker:
00:27:39
- So, not only are you keeping the secret from Manuel,
Speaker:
00:27:43
you're putting the Quesada name on a cigar
Speaker:
00:27:46
that he's not advising,
Speaker:
00:27:48
and you're trying to create a brand new blend,
Speaker:
00:27:51
like you said,
Speaker:
00:27:52
that doesn't taste like anything else in their lineup.
Speaker:
00:27:54
- Yup.
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00:27:55
- That's three major hitters
Speaker:
00:27:57
that you gotta hit out of the park.
Speaker:
00:27:58
- So that was '08, maybe.
Speaker:
00:28:01
I was 28.
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00:28:03
I had never been in that country without Manolo's blessing.
Speaker:
00:28:06
We put all this together.
Speaker:
00:28:08
On Saturday and Sunday.
Speaker:
00:28:11
Manolo has no idea I'm there.
Speaker:
00:28:13
And we decide Monday,
Speaker:
00:28:15
we are gonna present.
Speaker:
00:28:17
Because I said, "There's no way
Speaker:
00:28:17
we're just gonna pitch this idea. We have to present."
Speaker:
00:28:21
So, we put together a PowerPoint
Speaker:
00:28:24
to present this idea to Manolo.
Speaker:
00:28:26
And I was leaving Monday afternoon.
Speaker:
00:28:29
So we get to the factory early, before Manolo,
Speaker:
00:28:31
which is early, because Manolo gets to the factory early.
Speaker:
00:28:35
And I'm sitting in this conference room, having a coffee,
Speaker:
00:28:39
completely shaking in my boots,
Speaker:
00:28:42
what is gonna happen when he walks in?
Speaker:
00:28:44
Manolo walks into the factory,
Speaker:
00:28:46
and I can hear his voice, which is this booming,
Speaker:
00:28:48
thunderous, incredible voice.
Speaker:
00:28:50
And he walks by the conference room and he goes, "Hello."
Speaker:
00:28:53
And then he walks back and he goes,
Speaker:
00:28:56
"What the hell are you doing here?"
Speaker:
00:28:58
(Rob laughing)
Speaker:
00:28:59
And I was like, "Manolo, don't be mad.
Speaker:
00:29:00
Hold on a second. We got a little thing."
Speaker:
00:29:02
Turns around, Raquel and Patsy are there
Speaker:
00:29:04
they're like, "Papi, hold on."
Speaker:
00:29:07
He just goes into his office, closes the door.
Speaker:
00:29:10
So I'm like, "Okay, this is where we're starting."
Speaker:
00:29:13
So, I went into his office and I was like,
Speaker:
00:29:14
"Manolo, we wanna present you with something."
Speaker:
00:29:19
And he's like, in his classic Manolo, shaking his leg,
Speaker:
00:29:23
looking at me, he's like, "Okay, 10 o'clock."
Speaker:
00:29:27
And it was like seven.
Speaker:
00:29:29
I was like, "Do you have time now?"
Speaker:
00:29:32
He's like, "10 o'clock."
Speaker:
00:29:33
All right, 10 o'clock.
Speaker:
00:29:35
We suffered in this conference room
Speaker:
00:29:36
for like two hours, until 10 o'clock.
Speaker:
00:29:39
He came in and we presented the whole thing,
Speaker:
00:29:42
and why we did it and apologizing for showing up.
Speaker:
00:29:45
And we have these blends.
Speaker:
00:29:46
And we want you to taste them.
Speaker:
00:29:47
And we wanna do this different.
Speaker:
00:29:48
And it has to be Quesada, the whole thing.
Speaker:
00:29:50
And he goes, "Okay, thank you very much."
Speaker:
00:29:54
And he stood up and he left the room.
Speaker:
00:29:56
- He didn't give you an affirmation,
Speaker:
00:29:58
a blessing? - That was it.
Speaker:
00:29:59
- Nothing?
Speaker:
00:30:00
- Nothing.
Speaker:
00:30:01
And I'm like, "Well, now what?"
Speaker:
00:30:04
And now I gotta go to the airport.
Speaker:
00:30:05
I haven't even got a hug from this guy.
Speaker:
00:30:07
(laughs) You know what I mean?
Speaker:
00:30:08
I finally, I went into his office and I'm like,
Speaker:
00:30:10
"Manolo, we have to leave. And I'm sorry."
Speaker:
00:30:14
And he's like, "Son, I'm proud of you,
Speaker:
00:30:18
but don't ever do this again."
Speaker:
00:30:20
(Rob laughing) And I was like, "Got it.
Speaker:
00:30:21
I'm gonna go to the airport."
Speaker:
00:30:23
And he was like, "Okay, bye."
Speaker:
00:30:24
And that was it.
Speaker:
00:30:25
But man, what that did,
Speaker:
00:30:32
I think it affirmed to Manolo that
Speaker:
00:30:36
his time
Speaker:
00:30:37
and his hard love over all those years,
Speaker:
00:30:42
forcing people to learn the hard way, it paid off.
Speaker:
00:30:46
And we did deliver,
Speaker:
00:30:49
and we exceeded his expectations.
Speaker:
00:30:51
And so much so that he made a blend,
Speaker:
00:30:54
after we pitched the idea,
Speaker:
00:30:56
he decided to make a blend.
Speaker:
00:30:58
We did a tasting at Davidoff in New York,
Speaker:
00:31:02
with Gordon Mott and Dave Savona.
Speaker:
00:31:05
- [Rob] Oh.
Speaker:
00:31:05
- Blind tasting of our blend and Manolo's blend for 35th.
Speaker:
00:31:12
Blind tasting.
Speaker:
00:31:13
And we sat upstairs in this beautiful little lounge
Speaker:
00:31:16
that we had in the Davidoff store.
Speaker:
00:31:18
And Manolo said, "One of these blends, is the young one's.
Speaker:
00:31:21
And one of these blends is us, the old ones," meaning him,
Speaker:
00:31:27
"And I want your opinion."
Speaker:
00:31:28
Before we launched something,
Speaker:
00:31:29
he wanted Savona and Gordon Mott's opinion on these blends.
Speaker:
00:31:35
We did a blind tasting and we won.
Speaker:
00:31:38
And he said, "Son of a bitch."
Speaker:
00:31:40
(Rob laughing)
Speaker:
00:31:41
Great. And that's the blend we went with
Speaker:
00:31:43
and it was incredible.
Speaker:
00:31:44
- That's great.
Speaker:
00:31:45
- Incredible.
Speaker:
00:31:46
- People still talk about that blend today.
Speaker:
00:31:48
- I think I have five left.
Speaker:
00:31:50
- Wow. - Five sticks.
Speaker:
00:31:52
For me, I look at that as,
Speaker:
00:31:55
it's like looking at a yearbook.
Speaker:
00:31:57
You know what I mean?
Speaker:
00:31:58
Every time I look at it,
Speaker:
00:32:02
I'm transported back to that moment in time,
Speaker:
00:32:05
where now in hindsight, I was 28.
Speaker:
00:32:08
You know what I mean?
Speaker:
00:32:09
Raquel was probably 30.
Speaker:
00:32:11
We were kids.
Speaker:
00:32:12
We had no business doing that.
Speaker:
00:32:14
- And I just wanna clarify,
Speaker:
00:32:17
Manuel is his proper name,
Speaker:
00:32:18
and you guys call him, as family members, Manolo.
Speaker:
00:32:21
That's like his nickname, right?
Speaker:
00:32:24
- So, Manolo,
Speaker:
00:32:27
this is the way Manolo says it,
Speaker:
00:32:28
which I can hear him saying it,
Speaker:
00:32:30
Manolo, and then Manolito,
Speaker:
00:32:34
these are diminutives of a proper name.
Speaker:
00:32:36
So Michael,
Speaker:
00:32:38
Mike,
Speaker:
00:32:39
Mikey.
Speaker:
00:32:40
- [Rob] Right.
Speaker:
00:32:42
- Manuel,
Speaker:
00:32:43
Manolo,
Speaker:
00:32:44
Manolito,
Speaker:
00:32:46
is the same thing.
Speaker:
00:32:47
- [Rob] Got it.
Speaker:
00:32:48
- Manolo is the diminutive,
Speaker:
00:32:50
familiar version of Manuel.
Speaker:
00:32:53
- Got it. Like Robert for me, people call me Rob.
Speaker:
00:32:57
- And then Rob and then Bobby or Robbie, right?
Speaker:
00:33:00
Depends how familiar you get.
Speaker:
00:33:04
Manolo
Speaker:
00:33:04
is a very familiar way of saying
Speaker:
00:33:07
Manuel's name.
Speaker:
00:33:09
- Yeah. Because my cousins call me Robbie.
Speaker:
00:33:12
- And you wanna punch them in the throat every,
Speaker:
00:33:13
no I'm just kidding. - No, I love it.
Speaker:
00:33:15
Like you said,
Speaker:
00:33:17
it's that closeness.
Speaker:
00:33:18
It's that endearment of
Speaker:
00:33:20
you knew me, when I was crapping my pants
Speaker:
00:33:23
and running around trying to keep up with everyone.
Speaker:
00:33:26
- It's funny, man.
Speaker:
00:33:28
When someone calls me, Mike,
Speaker:
00:33:30
and I don't care what you call me, no problem.
Speaker:
00:33:32
But, when someone calls me Mike,
Speaker:
00:33:34
for me, that's like,
Speaker:
00:33:36
this is someone from high school.
Speaker:
00:33:38
For sure.
Speaker:
00:33:39
Because I was always Mike.
Speaker:
00:33:41
If someone calls me Herk,
Speaker:
00:33:43
Herk was college.
Speaker:
00:33:45
- Oh!
Speaker:
00:33:46
- So when someone calls me Herk,
Speaker:
00:33:47
I'm like, "Dude, who's here from Boston?"
Speaker:
00:33:50
You know what I mean? - [Rob] Yeah.
Speaker:
00:33:51
- And also Herk, for some reason
Speaker:
00:33:52
the Ashton crew, they all call me Herk.
Speaker:
00:33:55
And there's like a handful of other people
Speaker:
00:33:56
that call me Herk.
Speaker:
00:33:57
But Herk is so specific.
Speaker:
00:33:58
If someone calls me Herk,
Speaker:
00:34:01
that's an inside baseball-
Speaker:
00:34:03
- You're ready to get a shot thrown in your face.
Speaker:
00:34:05
Let's go party. - Totally.
Speaker:
00:34:06
And if someone calls me Mikey,
Speaker:
00:34:08
that was my first year at Davidoff,
Speaker:
00:34:10
people called me Mikey.
Speaker:
00:34:12
If someone calls me Mikey...
Speaker:
00:34:14
- Like who's from Davidoff?
Speaker:
00:34:15
- Right. That's a very specific moment in time.
Speaker:
00:34:18
- That's so interesting.
Speaker:
00:34:20
In high school and grade school.
Speaker:
00:34:23
So, we're just transitioning into high school,
Speaker:
00:34:26
but I went to two different grade schools,
Speaker:
00:34:28
both private Catholic schools.
Speaker:
00:34:31
At one, I was Robbie Gagner,
Speaker:
00:34:34
which is not the French way to say my last name.
Speaker:
00:34:36
It's Gagner.
Speaker:
00:34:38
So, I corrected that when I went to the new school
Speaker:
00:34:39
in seventh and eighth grade.
Speaker:
00:34:41
I was Rob Gagner.
Speaker:
00:34:43
This was part of my growing out of my adolescence.
Speaker:
00:34:47
So it's, Robbie Gagner, Rob Gagner.
Speaker:
00:34:50
We go to high school, the two schools now meet, right?
Speaker:
00:34:54
They're both Catholic schools.
Speaker:
00:34:55
We're going to a Catholic high school.
Speaker:
00:34:57
And somebody says, "Oh, do you know Robbie Gagner?"
Speaker:
00:35:02
And they go, "No, but I know Rob Gagner."
Speaker:
00:35:05
(laughs) It's the same person,
Speaker:
00:35:06
(Michael laughing) it's me.
Speaker:
00:35:07
And they come to eventually find out,
Speaker:
00:35:09
"Oh, we were talking about - Talking about the same cat.
Speaker:
00:35:10
the same person," it was me.
Speaker:
00:35:12
I just found that very interesting
Speaker:
00:35:14
that you try to graduate your name
Speaker:
00:35:16
to a more refined and mature person.
Speaker:
00:35:20
- Well, I will tell you, what that example highlights for me
Speaker:
00:35:23
is what I experienced when I went to college.
Speaker:
00:35:27
You get very few moments in life where you can reset.
Speaker:
00:35:32
- Right.
Speaker:
00:35:33
- Where you show up to a completely new audience,
Speaker:
00:35:36
and in that moment,
Speaker:
00:35:39
you can be anything you wanna be.
Speaker:
00:35:42
When I grew up,
Speaker:
00:35:45
I was always into theater and music and acting.
Speaker:
00:35:49
But I was a pretty shy guy.
Speaker:
00:35:51
- Really?
Speaker:
00:35:52
- Yeah.
Speaker:
00:35:53
I was okay getting on a stage. No problem.
Speaker:
00:35:56
I could jump on a stage and
Speaker:
00:35:57
- Playing the drums. - perform, whatever.
Speaker:
00:35:59
Acting, singing. No problem.
Speaker:
00:36:02
Three people are having a conversation
Speaker:
00:36:04
on the other side of the room,
Speaker:
00:36:05
there is absolutely no way
Speaker:
00:36:07
I'm walking over and introducing myself. None.
Speaker:
00:36:09
I will stay by myself.
Speaker:
00:36:10
- I would totally think somebody who enjoys sales,
Speaker:
00:36:13
would not be that way.
Speaker:
00:36:16
- But it's different, when you're sales you're on stage.
Speaker:
00:36:21
Right? I'm in character.
Speaker:
00:36:22
When I'm behind a register- - See, I'm not, it's just me.
Speaker:
00:36:25
I wanna have that conversation
Speaker:
00:36:26
with those three people over there,
Speaker:
00:36:27
because I find it interesting and I'll go seek it.
Speaker:
00:36:30
- I couldn't do it.
Speaker:
00:36:31
- [Rob] See?
Speaker:
00:36:31
- Unless I was in costume and character.
Speaker:
00:36:33
So, if that's part of my job, I can do it
Speaker:
00:36:35
no problem at all.
Speaker:
00:36:36
But if I'm off the clock,
Speaker:
00:36:39
just me, as an eighth grader
Speaker:
00:36:42
and those are four people having a conversation,
Speaker:
00:36:43
I don't know them, there's no way I'm going in.
Speaker:
00:36:46
But, I didn't wanna be that way.
Speaker:
00:36:49
And I knew that I could jump on a stage
Speaker:
00:36:53
without paralyzing stage fright.
Speaker:
00:36:56
I knew I could jump into character
Speaker:
00:36:58
and perform and do all those things.
Speaker:
00:37:01
It was something about that,
Speaker:
00:37:02
that I just had a problem with.
Speaker:
00:37:04
When I got to college...
Speaker:
00:37:06
So I grew up in a small town,
Speaker:
00:37:08
and I was a big fish in a small pond, musically.
Speaker:
00:37:14
I was the drummer.
Speaker:
00:37:15
I got all the gigs, we performed a lot.
Speaker:
00:37:18
It was great.
Speaker:
00:37:20
I remember getting to college,
Speaker:
00:37:21
and I was also in a small town where my father grew up,
Speaker:
00:37:24
and my grandfather grew up,
Speaker:
00:37:26
so if I said, "Herklots," people would say,
Speaker:
00:37:28
"Oh, your dad's Doctor Herklots.
Speaker:
00:37:30
Your grandfather was at the college,
Speaker:
00:37:33
he owned the newspaper, right?"
Speaker:
00:37:34
All this.
Speaker:
00:37:35
When I got to college,
Speaker:
00:37:36
I remember, I was in line for registration
Speaker:
00:37:39
and they were like, "Name?"
Speaker:
00:37:40
And I said, "Herklots."
Speaker:
00:37:41
And they said, "Could you spell that?"
Speaker:
00:37:43
And I realized, it was probably one of the first times
Speaker:
00:37:44
someone asked me to spell my name.
Speaker:
00:37:46
And it was a light bulb.
Speaker:
00:37:47
- [Rob] Oh, wow.
Speaker:
00:37:48
Because I was like, "No one knows me,
Speaker:
00:37:50
this is totally new.
Speaker:
00:37:51
If I started speaking in a British accent right now,
Speaker:
00:37:54
no one would have any reason to think
Speaker:
00:37:55
that I'm not from England."
Speaker:
00:37:57
Do you know what I mean?
Speaker:
00:37:58
- [Rob] Right.
Speaker:
00:38:00
- That was a moment for me, where I was like,
Speaker:
00:38:01
"Okay,
Speaker:
00:38:04
shy is over.
Speaker:
00:38:08
I get to start fresh, no bias, no preconceived ideas.
Speaker:
00:38:12
So, Michael Herklots, at Berklee,
Speaker:
00:38:15
is going to be a very different person
Speaker:
00:38:17
than Mike Herklots, from Killingly.
Speaker:
00:38:20
I know I can do it. I'm gonna do it."
Speaker:
00:38:22
And I became way more outgoing, way more engaging,
Speaker:
00:38:26
way more social.
Speaker:
00:38:28
- Perfect timing.
Speaker:
00:38:29
- Perfect timing, you get that reset.
Speaker:
00:38:31
Just like you.
Speaker:
00:38:32
- [Rob] Yes.
Speaker:
00:38:33
- One quick change in pronunciation of your last name
Speaker:
00:38:36
allowed you to take on something different, right?
Speaker:
00:38:41
Evolve a little.
Speaker:
00:38:42
Polish a little.
Speaker:
00:38:43
- Right.
Speaker:
00:38:44
- And continue on.
Speaker:
00:38:45
You're not different,
Speaker:
00:38:46
but you're just kind of fine tuning and tweaking
Speaker:
00:38:49
as you go.
Speaker:
00:38:51
I think that it's such a unique opportunity for folks
Speaker:
00:38:54
that a lot of people don't take the opportunity
Speaker:
00:38:57
to see when there is the opportunity for a reset.
Speaker:
00:39:00
- You gotta see it.
Speaker:
00:39:01
- And a restart. You have to see it.
Speaker:
00:39:03
And for me,
Speaker:
00:39:05
I was
Speaker:
00:39:07
Boston Michael, Berklee Michael,
Speaker:
00:39:09
was very different than New York Michael.
Speaker:
00:39:12
When I moved to New York and started working Davidoff,
Speaker:
00:39:14
that was another one of those resets.
Speaker:
00:39:16
That was nine years of my life at Davidoff.
Speaker:
00:39:19
When I joined Nat Sherman, that was another moment.
Speaker:
00:39:22
It was that, "Okay, Nat Sherman Michael Herklots,
Speaker:
00:39:24
will be different than Davidoff Michael Herklots."
Speaker:
00:39:27
So, you tweak and you polish and you figure out, right?
Speaker:
00:39:30
What's the next chapter? - [Rob] I love it.
Speaker:
00:39:32
- And now here we are, Ferio Tego Michael Herklots.
Speaker:
00:39:35
I'm completely out of ideas.
Speaker:
00:39:36
So what you see is what you get.
Speaker:
00:39:37
But I think those
Speaker:
00:39:38
are really important moments. - It's still too new,
Speaker:
00:39:39
we don't know what we're gonna get.
Speaker:
00:39:40
- [Michael] That's right. And we're still evolving.
Speaker:
00:39:41
Let's face it.
Speaker:
00:39:43
- Yeah, you're selling a ton here at the show.
Speaker:
00:39:45
- (laughs) Bro, let me tell you,
Speaker:
00:39:49
we are the only booth at this show with
Speaker:
00:39:53
nothing to sell, no prices, no product, no samples.
Speaker:
00:39:57
I have nothing but hugs, stories, and you know...
Speaker:
00:40:02
- So you go to a trade show with
Speaker:
00:40:05
no inventory.
Speaker:
00:40:06
- [Michael] Yup.
Speaker:
00:40:07
- No price sheet.
Speaker:
00:40:09
- [Michael] None.
Speaker:
00:40:10
- Just to set the record straight for everyone out there,
Speaker:
00:40:12
that's probably the number one thing
Speaker:
00:40:13
people walk around and ask for, "Can I get your price list?"
Speaker:
00:40:16
I don't have one.
Speaker:
00:40:17
- And a sample. - Do they just look at you
Speaker:
00:40:18
like, "Did you show up to the show?"
Speaker:
00:40:21
- Well, let's be clear.
Speaker:
00:40:23
This was not plan A.
Speaker:
00:40:24
- [Rob] No. - Right?
Speaker:
00:40:25
I was not thinking four months ago,
Speaker:
00:40:29
"I got this great idea, trade show,
Speaker:
00:40:31
we're gonna show up with nothing."
Speaker:
00:40:33
That was not plan A.
Speaker:
00:40:34
But,
Speaker:
00:40:36
while I'm sure while everyone can appreciate the fact
Speaker:
00:40:39
that production requires a certain amount
Speaker:
00:40:42
of agility and flexibility.
Speaker:
00:40:44
Particularly, at the tail-end of a pandemic.
Speaker:
00:40:48
It is what it is. - Yeah.
Speaker:
00:40:50
- However, this organization was not as flexible.
Speaker:
00:40:54
So when I said, "You know what? We're about 45 days late.
Speaker:
00:40:57
Do you think we could push this trade show
Speaker:
00:40:58
to September 15th?"
Speaker:
00:41:00
- Just for you?
Speaker:
00:41:01
- Yeah, they said, "No."
Speaker:
00:41:02
They were unwilling to do it.
Speaker:
00:41:03
So, what do we do?
Speaker:
00:41:05
- He's a legend, but he's not that big of a legend.
Speaker:
00:41:07
- So what are we gonna do?
Speaker:
00:41:09
What was important to Ferio Tego, to us,
Speaker:
00:41:11
was that we have to be here.
Speaker:
00:41:14
This is the first opportunity to be with our peers,
Speaker:
00:41:17
in almost two years, we have to be here.
Speaker:
00:41:20
And so if that means that we have to be here differently,
Speaker:
00:41:24
that's what we have to do. - I commend you for taking it.
Speaker:
00:41:26
Beause you gotta do it. - We had spent the money,
Speaker:
00:41:28
we had invested in our membership,
Speaker:
00:41:29
it was one of the first things we did
Speaker:
00:41:31
once we formed the company, was we joined PCA.
Speaker:
00:41:34
Immediately.
Speaker:
00:41:35
And then we made sure that we had our deposit for our booth.
Speaker:
00:41:38
Immediately.
Speaker:
00:41:40
We had no plan.
Speaker:
00:41:42
But we still made sure
Speaker:
00:41:43
that we were set up with this association.
Speaker:
00:41:44
- Whether you got product or not.
Speaker:
00:41:46
You're going to the show.
Speaker:
00:41:47
- We're going to the show.
Speaker:
00:41:48
- Because this show, really is the bread and butter
Speaker:
00:41:51
and the lifeline of this industry, in my opinion.
Speaker:
00:41:55
And maybe you don't agree.
Speaker:
00:41:57
But when I came here, my first time,
Speaker:
00:41:59
I was like a kid in a candy store.
Speaker:
00:42:01
Walking around, looking at the amazement of the booths.
Speaker:
00:42:04
My jaw was practically open the whole time.
Speaker:
00:42:06
And somebody came around the corner
Speaker:
00:42:08
and saw the expression on my face and said,
Speaker:
00:42:10
"Are you new here?"
Speaker:
00:42:11
- First day?
Speaker:
00:42:12
- Yeah.
Speaker:
00:42:13
And I think it was Liana Fuente.
Speaker:
00:42:14
And I'm like, "Yes, I am."
Speaker:
00:42:16
- I can remember that feeling.
Speaker:
00:42:18
My first show, which was Nashville,
Speaker:
00:42:22
I think 2003, was my first show.
Speaker:
00:42:25
And it was absolutely the same.
Speaker:
00:42:27
My experience has changed.
Speaker:
00:42:28
I don't come in jaw-dropping.
Speaker:
00:42:31
But, my perspective has changed.
Speaker:
00:42:33
And so now I look at the show floor
Speaker:
00:42:36
as a representation of our industry.
Speaker:
00:42:40
And think to myself, "Wow, this is still
Speaker:
00:42:45
a very special, intimate, unique industry,
Speaker:
00:42:50
when you look at this floor."
Speaker:
00:42:53
But going back to your point,
Speaker:
00:42:54
so yes, this show, is the show.
Speaker:
00:42:57
There are lots of shows.
Speaker:
00:42:59
And they're all important and they're all meaningful
Speaker:
00:43:00
and they're all different.
Speaker:
00:43:01
But this is it.
Speaker:
00:43:02
- This is.
Speaker:
00:43:03
- But the reason this show is the show,
Speaker:
00:43:05
is because this association, is THE association.
Speaker:
00:43:10
I think this is the work that PCA is doing right now.
Speaker:
00:43:13
Because it's no secret
Speaker:
00:43:14
that over the last two or three years,
Speaker:
00:43:17
PCA has had some ebbs and flows
Speaker:
00:43:21
of identity
Speaker:
00:43:23
of support.
Speaker:
00:43:24
But, let's not forget.
Speaker:
00:43:27
The Premium Cigar Association,
Speaker:
00:43:29
is the association, trade association
Speaker:
00:43:33
for the premium cigar industry, full stop.
Speaker:
00:43:36
And so what that means is,
Speaker:
00:43:38
the PCA is not a seven-day event.
Speaker:
00:43:42
The PCA, - Feels like it.
Speaker:
00:43:44
- is a 365
Speaker:
00:43:46
day a year
Speaker:
00:43:48
association.
Speaker:
00:43:51
And because they are the leading association
Speaker:
00:43:53
of our industry, that's why this show, is the show.
Speaker:
00:43:56
So, there's obviously work to do as an association.
Speaker:
00:43:59
There's work to do as an industry.
Speaker:
00:44:03
There are a lot of differing opinions
Speaker:
00:44:06
on how to make this all better and more meaningful.
Speaker:
00:44:10
But, when you look at this show,
Speaker:
00:44:13
this shows you that we are way closer aligned
Speaker:
00:44:16
than we are apart.
Speaker:
00:44:19
That's a fact, as an industry.
Speaker:
00:44:22
There's obviously still work to do,
Speaker:
00:44:23
but that's why we're here.
Speaker:
00:44:24
With no samples and with nothing to sell
Speaker:
00:44:27
and with no prices, because this is the association
Speaker:
00:44:31
of this industry and we have to be here,
Speaker:
00:44:33
and we have to participate.
Speaker:
00:44:35
- So for you, it's just, hugging, shaking, kissing babies.
Speaker:
00:44:39
- And asking for patience, understanding and support.
Speaker:
00:44:42
And we're getting it.
Speaker:
00:44:44
It's been outrageous, man.
Speaker:
00:44:45
- You've earned it.
Speaker:
00:44:47
- Well, we're trying to earn it.
Speaker:
00:44:49
We haven't earned it as Ferio Tego.
Speaker:
00:44:55
There's no credit due.
Speaker:
00:44:57
We just started over, right?
Speaker:
00:44:59
It is what it is.
Speaker:
00:45:00
- No extra credit given, until you do the work.
Speaker:
00:45:02
- So I'm proud of my time with Nat Sherman.
Speaker:
00:45:05
I'm proud of my time with Davidoff.
Speaker:
00:45:07
I'm proud of my contribution, I hope,
Speaker:
00:45:09
that was meaningful for the last 20 years in this industry.
Speaker:
00:45:12
But standing in that booth for the last three days,
Speaker:
00:45:15
as Ferio Tego,
Speaker:
00:45:17
I don't get extra credit, for 20 years in the business.
Speaker:
00:45:21
I'm sorry I don't have prices.
Speaker:
00:45:22
I'm sorry I don't have product yet.
Speaker:
00:45:25
But all I can do is shake hands
Speaker:
00:45:28
and ask for support.
Speaker:
00:45:32
And we're getting it.
Speaker:
00:45:33
And I'm grateful for it.
Speaker:
00:45:37
- I would be, as well,
Speaker:
00:45:39
grateful for the support of retailers.
Speaker:
00:45:41
Because that retail line,
Speaker:
00:45:44
is the most important part of your business.
Speaker:
00:45:47
And you've had so much experience with that,
Speaker:
00:45:50
with Davidoff and Nat Sherman,
Speaker:
00:45:52
and building a sales team from scratch.
Speaker:
00:45:55
And then having to have a portfolio
Speaker:
00:45:57
that can support a shop with the proper amount of SKUs
Speaker:
00:46:01
that bring people in for new stuff,
Speaker:
00:46:04
but also bring people in for the regular stuff.
Speaker:
00:46:05
The stuff that I think you said it so well,
Speaker:
00:46:08
that they rely on.
Speaker:
00:46:09
That they wanna smoke every day,
Speaker:
00:46:11
or wanna smoke on a regular basis.
Speaker:
00:46:13
And you also said, after the pandemic of COVID
Speaker:
00:46:17
that that's what's gonna be the primary driver
Speaker:
00:46:20
to get the consumer back into the retail shop.
Speaker:
00:46:24
Here's what we have.
Speaker:
00:46:25
Let's not focus on releasing a bunch of new stuff.
Speaker:
00:46:28
And I know that was all with Nat Sherman,
Speaker:
00:46:30
but do you still believe
Speaker:
00:46:31
that's what's bringing people back into the shop?
Speaker:
00:46:33
What does the shop have, that I normally always smoke?
Speaker:
00:46:37
And let me get back to socializing with my friends.
Speaker:
00:46:40
- There is a
Speaker:
00:46:45
cultural, common theme.
Speaker:
00:46:50
We have meme stocks now, right?
Speaker:
00:46:54
- Meme stocks?
Speaker:
00:46:55
- Meme stocks. These stocks that get shot up,
Speaker:
00:46:58
people make a ton of money on them.
Speaker:
00:46:59
- [Rob] Oh, sure.
Speaker:
00:47:00
- But they're not based on fundamental cores.
Speaker:
00:47:04
The people analyze the stocks and we have no idea
Speaker:
00:47:06
why they're rocketing, but they are.
Speaker:
00:47:10
And we also know they're gonna crash.
Speaker:
00:47:12
But great, you can make money. - At some point.
Speaker:
00:47:14
But you're hoping
Speaker:
00:47:14
you're gonna catch it. - There are meme coins,
Speaker:
00:47:17
within the crypto world.
Speaker:
00:47:18
They show up out of nowhere.
Speaker:
00:47:19
There's no use case.
Speaker:
00:47:23
It's a meme coin and people can jump on, ride it,
Speaker:
00:47:26
and then they go away and you have to find the next one.
Speaker:
00:47:29
I think there's a culture of meme cigars.
Speaker:
00:47:31
And that's not a criticism,
Speaker:
00:47:33
because I think meme cigars,
Speaker:
00:47:35
I call them meme cigars.
Speaker:
00:47:36
I think they're great.
Speaker:
00:47:38
These little one-off, in and out,
Speaker:
00:47:41
this constant rhythm and cadence of new release.
Speaker:
00:47:45
Crazy cool.
Speaker:
00:47:47
- Small, limited. - I think it's an unbelievable
Speaker:
00:47:48
unbelievable model.
Speaker:
00:47:49
I think it's great.
Speaker:
00:47:50
But that's not our model.
Speaker:
00:47:53
Our model is,
Speaker:
00:47:54
once that cigar of the month sells out,
Speaker:
00:47:59
you know you can come back to us.
Speaker:
00:48:01
We're core.
Speaker:
00:48:02
So, if you look at Metropolitan, for example,
Speaker:
00:48:05
our Metropolitan Connecticut
Speaker:
00:48:07
has been made consistently, since 1995.
Speaker:
00:48:11
The same with our Host, Metropolitan Host,
Speaker:
00:48:13
1994. - Isn't that
Speaker:
00:48:14
having an anniversary, the Metropolitan brand is?
Speaker:
00:48:19
- It is,
Speaker:
00:48:20
I'm not sure we're gonna be organized enough
Speaker:
00:48:21
to celebrate it, but it is.
Speaker:
00:48:23
- Well, how many years has it been in-
Speaker:
00:48:25
- It was 1994, 1995.
Speaker:
00:48:27
We're actually now approaching
Speaker:
00:48:30
40?
Speaker:
00:48:31
1994.
Speaker:
00:48:32
2024.
Speaker:
00:48:34
We are going to approach a pretty big anniversary.
Speaker:
00:48:37
- [Rob] Wow.
Speaker:
00:48:38
- Timeless is celebrating 10 years next year.
Speaker:
00:48:42
But
Speaker:
00:48:44
we need things that we can depend on and rely on
Speaker:
00:48:48
in our lives.
Speaker:
00:48:51
You go to your doctor, because that's your doctor.
Speaker:
00:48:54
You go to your dentist, because that's your dentist.
Speaker:
00:48:57
You don't change dentists every time you need a cleaning.
Speaker:
00:49:00
You don't change doctors every time you don't feel well,
Speaker:
00:49:03
because you have a relationship that you trust.
Speaker:
00:49:08
That's a philosophy
Speaker:
00:49:09
that we've believed in,
Speaker:
00:49:12
that probably predated me at Nat Sherman,
Speaker:
00:49:14
but I shared.
Speaker:
00:49:16
It's one that I embraced throughout 10 years of Nat Sherman.
Speaker:
00:49:19
And it's one that we were absolutely going to embrace
Speaker:
00:49:22
at Ferio Tego.
Speaker:
00:49:23
This is not
Speaker:
00:49:25
cigar the month.
Speaker:
00:49:27
We have brands, and this is what's so interesting
Speaker:
00:49:30
about Ferio Tego,
Speaker:
00:49:31
is because we were able to acquire these brands,
Speaker:
00:49:35
we were able to carry on the legacy.
Speaker:
00:49:37
It's a legacy of consistency.
Speaker:
00:49:40
And it's a legacy of dependability.
Speaker:
00:49:42
That's an awesome responsibility to carry on.
Speaker:
00:49:45
So, moving forward,
Speaker:
00:49:48
we are going to continue to do the work we've done.
Speaker:
00:49:52
Creating a blend, is not an easy thing to do.
Speaker:
00:49:55
Maintaining that experience
Speaker:
00:49:57
for 25 years is infinitely more difficult
Speaker:
00:50:01
because the materials are changing,
Speaker:
00:50:04
and yet the experience, every time you light it,
Speaker:
00:50:06
has to be the same.
Speaker:
00:50:08
But that's something that we have been able to do, now,
Speaker:
00:50:11
since let's say 1994,
Speaker:
00:50:13
it's something I've participated in since 2011
Speaker:
00:50:16
with Nat Sherman.
Speaker:
00:50:17
And that's because we have great partners:
Speaker:
00:50:19
Quesada, Plasencia, and Davidoff.
Speaker:
00:50:22
They do the hard work.
Speaker:
00:50:24
We get to work closely with them
Speaker:
00:50:27
to make sure that we're all on the same page.
Speaker:
00:50:29
And together, we're fully aligned on what's most important.
Speaker:
00:50:33
Which is quality and consistency
Speaker:
00:50:35
and behavior of blend and experience.
Speaker:
00:50:38
And we're gonna do that.
Speaker:
00:50:40
Again, for another 10 years and more.
Speaker:
00:50:42
We're fully committed to that.
Speaker:
00:50:45
- You talk about that legacy, and Tim,
Speaker:
00:50:47
one of the owners of Boveda,
Speaker:
00:50:48
had told me,
Speaker:
00:50:50
the Nat Sherman brands,
Speaker:
00:50:54
when a baseball player would hit a home run.
Speaker:
00:50:57
- When a football player would score a touchdown.
Speaker:
00:50:59
- When a football player,
Speaker:
00:51:01
would score a touchdown. - [Michael] When the Giants
Speaker:
00:51:02
scored a touchdown.
Speaker:
00:51:03
- When the Giants?
Speaker:
00:51:03
- [Michael] Yup.
Speaker:
00:51:04
- Would score touchdown,
Speaker:
00:51:06
they would say, "Buy that guy a Nat Sherman cigar."
Speaker:
00:51:10
- Guy's name was Bob Papa, predated me.
Speaker:
00:51:15
Bob Papa on, I wanna say it was CBS Radio.
Speaker:
00:51:19
I think it was CBS Radio.
Speaker:
00:51:21
He's still on the air.
Speaker:
00:51:22
Anytime someone scored a touchdown
Speaker:
00:51:26
when Bob Papa was the commentator for a game,
Speaker:
00:51:30
every touchdown, "Give that man a Nat Sherman cigar."
Speaker:
00:51:34
I had no idea because I'm a musician,
Speaker:
00:51:35
I don't watch sports, I don't know what a touchdown is.
Speaker:
00:51:37
- I don't know what a touchdown is. (laughs)
Speaker:
00:51:39
- I can't tell you how many times
Speaker:
00:51:40
when I would introduce myself and say
Speaker:
00:51:42
I worked for Nat Sherman,
Speaker:
00:51:42
people would just say, "Give that man a Nat Sherman cigar!"
Speaker:
00:51:45
It was ingrained in culture,
Speaker:
00:51:46
- [Rob] Really? - particularly in the
Speaker:
00:51:47
Northeast, yeah.
Speaker:
00:51:49
- That is so cool. It's part of pop culture.
Speaker:
00:51:51
- Yeah.
Speaker:
00:51:52
It was incredible.
Speaker:
00:51:54
- What a weird feeling.
Speaker:
00:51:56
- Crazy.
Speaker:
00:51:57
And also really amazing point of pride.
Speaker:
00:52:00
- Exactly.
Speaker:
00:52:02
Wow. You can't pay for that.
Speaker:
00:52:04
It's unbelievable. It's amazing.
Speaker:
00:52:07
- I think
Speaker:
00:52:08
the stuff that is the most valuable
Speaker:
00:52:09
is the stuff you don't pay for.
Speaker:
00:52:11
- Exactly.
Speaker:
00:52:12
- You can spend all kinds of money
Speaker:
00:52:14
on all kinds of great things.
Speaker:
00:52:16
None of them are worth more
Speaker:
00:52:19
than the things that you just earn.
Speaker:
00:52:22
- Well said.
Speaker:
00:52:24
- It's a special part,
Speaker:
00:52:25
I think of our culture,
Speaker:
00:52:26
Nat Sherman's culture.
Speaker:
00:52:28
And it's gonna be a part of Ferio Tego's culture.
Speaker:
00:52:30
We're not gonna take anything for granted.
Speaker:
00:52:32
We're gonna earn all of it.
Speaker:
00:52:33
We're gonna work harder than anybody
Speaker:
00:52:35
because we have to.
Speaker:
00:52:37
- Right.
Speaker:
00:52:39
Like you said, you can't rest.
Speaker:
00:52:41
- You can't.
Speaker:
00:52:41
- Take it to the next level.
Speaker:
00:52:44
What is the next level for you?
Speaker:
00:52:46
Do you feel like you know it?
Speaker:
00:52:47
Or is it just gonna be something that organically happens
Speaker:
00:52:50
and you know, you're gonna push for always the best.
Speaker:
00:52:54
- Man, if we have learned anything, in the last 24 months,
Speaker:
00:53:00
it's that whatever you think is gonna happen
Speaker:
00:53:03
is not gonna happen.
Speaker:
00:53:04
(Rob laughing)
Speaker:
00:53:05
So, all you can do is be
Speaker:
00:53:09
as prepared as possible
Speaker:
00:53:12
for the fact that anything can happen.
Speaker:
00:53:16
And let's face it.
Speaker:
00:53:18
You can be as prepared as you wanted to be in 2019,
Speaker:
00:53:22
gearing up for 2020,
Speaker:
00:53:25
and as prepared as you are, or were,
Speaker:
00:53:28
you could not have seen
Speaker:
00:53:30
a global pandemic that would shut down the world
Speaker:
00:53:34
and kill hundreds of millions of people.
Speaker:
00:53:38
And what I've taken away from that is
Speaker:
00:53:43
you need to work really hard.
Speaker:
00:53:45
You need to be really prepared.
Speaker:
00:53:48
You need to think outside of the box.
Speaker:
00:53:50
But you also need to understand
Speaker:
00:53:53
that there are things in this world
Speaker:
00:53:55
that are just beyond your control.
Speaker:
00:54:00
You have to
Speaker:
00:54:02
concede
Speaker:
00:54:04
that things are gonna happen.
Speaker:
00:54:07
And it's how you respond and react to those things
Speaker:
00:54:11
that allow you to win.
Speaker:
00:54:14
We had a great business with Nat Sherman International
Speaker:
00:54:17
two years ago.
Speaker:
00:54:19
We went out of business.
Speaker:
00:54:22
Not because our product was bad or because sales were down.
Speaker:
00:54:26
It was things that were beyond our control
Speaker:
00:54:29
that forced us to close.
Speaker:
00:54:32
Our response, today, is we have a company called Ferio Tego,
Speaker:
00:54:37
but if you asked me in 2019, what my plans were,
Speaker:
00:54:39
I can tell you for sure, it was not, between you and me,
Speaker:
00:54:43
I'm thinking I'm gonna start my own cigar company.
Speaker:
00:54:45
I'm gonna call it Ferio Tego.
Speaker:
00:54:46
I'm gonna buy these brands.
Speaker:
00:54:48
It wasn't in the cards.
Speaker:
00:54:49
It wasn't in my mind.
Speaker:
00:54:50
It wasn't a goal.
Speaker:
00:54:53
But, you have to deal with the facts of the day.
Speaker:
00:54:57
You have to get above the chaos and look at your options.
Speaker:
00:55:01
And then you have to make the best decision
Speaker:
00:55:03
with the information you have
Speaker:
00:55:06
and go forward.
Speaker:
00:55:08
So, all I can tell you is
Speaker:
00:55:10
two years from now,
Speaker:
00:55:13
we're gonna be at a better place than we are today.
Speaker:
00:55:15
I can definitely tell you, two years from now,
Speaker:
00:55:18
I am gonna have sell sheets and price lists and products
Speaker:
00:55:22
at a trade show. That's for sure.
Speaker:
00:55:23
- There you go.
Speaker:
00:55:24
- But beyond that, I don't know.
Speaker:
00:55:27
- I have to say, though,
Speaker:
00:55:28
when I first heard that Nat Sherman wasn't gonna get sold,
Speaker:
00:55:32
and all the hard work you put into that,
Speaker:
00:55:34
wasn't gonna come to fruition,
Speaker:
00:55:37
I immediately thought, and Tim even said it too,
Speaker:
00:55:43
why doesn't Michael,
Speaker:
00:55:44
buy the names and start his own company
Speaker:
00:55:47
or continue on the legacy.
Speaker:
00:55:50
That thought popped into my head right away.
Speaker:
00:55:54
For you, when did it pop into your head?
Speaker:
00:55:57
- So I think it's important,
Speaker:
00:56:00
we had very specific criteria for the transaction.
Speaker:
00:56:04
Altria was very clear.
Speaker:
00:56:07
This was not a money-making proposition.
Speaker:
00:56:10
They weren't looking to sell this company and profit.
Speaker:
00:56:14
There were a lot of things that forced the decision to exit
Speaker:
00:56:19
the premium cigar business or retail business.
Speaker:
00:56:21
But they did it, I think, regretfully,
Speaker:
00:56:26
because they didn't want it to go that way
Speaker:
00:56:28
and with reverence for the legacy.
Speaker:
00:56:29
And so, the criteria of the transaction
Speaker:
00:56:32
to sell Nat Sherman International
Speaker:
00:56:34
was a mutually beneficial transaction, number one.
Speaker:
00:56:38
But the best outcome for the people in the company, two.
Speaker:
00:56:42
And number three,
Speaker:
00:56:43
to find a buyer that would carry on the work
Speaker:
00:56:47
and embrace the legacy of the brand.
Speaker:
00:56:51
COVID made that transaction impossible.
Speaker:
00:56:55
But what was never contemplated was just selling the brands.
Speaker:
00:56:59
That wasn't the deal.
Speaker:
00:57:00
The deal was to find the right fit for the right buyer
Speaker:
00:57:04
to carry on the legacy.
Speaker:
00:57:05
So, when we announced that we didn't sell,
Speaker:
00:57:08
we also announced that we did not sell the brands.
Speaker:
00:57:11
That was it, everything's over,
Speaker:
00:57:13
and this goes in the history books.
Speaker:
00:57:17
But it was following that,
Speaker:
00:57:19
because now we had to do the work of winding down
Speaker:
00:57:22
and shutting down,
Speaker:
00:57:23
which was incredibly emotional
Speaker:
00:57:25
because we were winding down a healthy business.
Speaker:
00:57:29
We were discontinuing healthy brands.
Speaker:
00:57:35
That was a real emotional drain.
Speaker:
00:57:38
And my partner Brendon,
Speaker:
00:57:40
who was the former CFO of Nat Sherman,
Speaker:
00:57:43
we were working together almost every day.
Speaker:
00:57:45
Masked up, in an office, in a pandemic,
Speaker:
00:57:48
winding down every night saying, "This sucks,
Speaker:
00:57:52
this just sucks."
Speaker:
00:57:55
And there came a point where we were just spit balling ideas
Speaker:
00:57:58
and figuring out what we're gonna do.
Speaker:
00:58:00
We know we're losing our jobs.
Speaker:
00:58:05
What if we just ask?
Speaker:
00:58:08
Maybe we just ask?
Speaker:
00:58:11
- Can't hurt to ask?
Speaker:
00:58:12
- Would you consider selling the brands?
Speaker:
00:58:13
I know you're not selling the brands,
Speaker:
00:58:14
but would you consider selling the brands
Speaker:
00:58:16
for us to continue the work?
Speaker:
00:58:19
And we approached Altria, with basically a plea.
Speaker:
00:58:23
Would you consider selling the brands to us
Speaker:
00:58:27
and allow us to continue this work ourselves?
Speaker:
00:58:30
And it was met with a resounding, yes.
Speaker:
00:58:34
Make an offer. Let's work through this.
Speaker:
00:58:35
Let's figure out how to do it.
Speaker:
00:58:36
- And you even got the Shermans involved.
Speaker:
00:58:39
- We didn't get the Shermans involved,
Speaker:
00:58:43
in any way, other than letting them know
Speaker:
00:58:45
that we were doing it.
Speaker:
00:58:47
But they were not involved.
Speaker:
00:58:50
- I thought you had said, you had even asked the Shermans,
Speaker:
00:58:53
"This is what we wanna do. We want to acquire the brands.
Speaker:
00:58:55
Are you comfortable with that?"
Speaker:
00:58:56
And they gave you a resounding, yes.
Speaker:
00:58:59
- It was fast forward.
Speaker:
00:59:00
It was once we understood that we could,
Speaker:
00:59:03
once we knew from Altria that we could,
Speaker:
00:59:05
then we shared the news.
Speaker:
00:59:07
- [Rob] With them.
Speaker:
00:59:08
- With the Shermans and
Speaker:
00:59:08
we didn't want it to be a surprise, of course.
Speaker:
00:59:11
- Sorry, that's what I meant.
Speaker:
00:59:12
And then they were ecstatic that you were going to do that.
Speaker:
00:59:16
- From the moment we started curating the idea,
Speaker:
00:59:20
to the moment we announced it,
Speaker:
00:59:22
to the moment that we announced
Speaker:
00:59:25
our distribution deal,
Speaker:
00:59:28
there has been nothing but
Speaker:
00:59:31
a steady drumbeat of support.
Speaker:
00:59:36
It's been unbelievable.
Speaker:
00:59:38
There's this real, genuine sense
Speaker:
00:59:41
that people are rooting for us.
Speaker:
00:59:46
It feels like a very unique thing.
Speaker:
00:59:49
People say that we're a family industry
Speaker:
00:59:51
and we all help each other out, and that's true,
Speaker:
00:59:54
but there's something about this
Speaker:
00:59:56
that feels very different.
Speaker:
00:59:59
About
Speaker:
01:00:02
the advocacy and the enthusiasm
Speaker:
01:00:05
and the way people are rooting for us to win.
Speaker:
01:00:11
I don't know where it comes from, but it's definitely real.
Speaker:
01:00:15
And it's definitely awesome. And it's definitely authentic.
Speaker:
01:00:19
And if this enthusiasm, in any way,
Speaker:
01:00:23
correlates to sales,
Speaker:
01:00:27
we're gonna have an inventory problem.
Speaker:
01:00:29
And we're gonna have to ask for continued understanding
Speaker:
01:00:33
and patience, no different than we're doing right now
Speaker:
01:00:35
with no samples and no price lists.
Speaker:
01:00:38
Because
Speaker:
01:00:40
we may have underestimated demand.
Speaker:
01:00:43
And I say that humbly.
Speaker:
01:00:45
If I'm wrong,
Speaker:
01:00:46
and we've forecasted correctly,
Speaker:
01:00:49
and we're gonna try and get back to stores
Speaker:
01:00:50
and we're gonna bang on doors
Speaker:
01:00:52
and we're gonna ask for the sale.
Speaker:
01:00:54
We're gonna work hard for this.
Speaker:
01:00:57
But if this enthusiasm
Speaker:
01:01:00
correlates to what is already in the market for demand,
Speaker:
01:01:08
there is an awfully bright light at the end of this tunnel.
Speaker:
01:01:11
- Phew.
Speaker:
01:01:12
- It's really exciting.
Speaker:
01:01:13
- I love how you pose that
Speaker:
01:01:17
there's a drumbeat that's happening from the outside in
Speaker:
01:01:20
to keep you going, because you play the drums.
Speaker:
01:01:22
- Because I'm a drummer.
Speaker:
01:01:23
- I love the fact that now people are playing the drums
Speaker:
01:01:26
for you, to keep you going.
Speaker:
01:01:29
- Man,
Speaker:
01:01:31
there was nothing more important in any
Speaker:
01:01:35
great performance, than the rhythm section.
Speaker:
01:01:39
You need a great bass player and a great drummer.
Speaker:
01:01:42
But nothing kills their performance,
Speaker:
01:01:44
than a drummer and a bass player that overplay.
Speaker:
01:01:48
It's all about making sure that the rhythm feels good.
Speaker:
01:01:52
And if it feels good, you've got a very happy audience.
Speaker:
01:01:56
But the minute a drummer starts throwing his sticks around
Speaker:
01:01:59
and the bass player starts going crazy.
Speaker:
01:02:00
It becomes a distraction.
Speaker:
01:02:02
And then it becomes a gimmick.
Speaker:
01:02:04
And then this band sucks.
Speaker:
01:02:06
Right?
Speaker:
01:02:06
- True.
Speaker:
01:02:09
- I think that's a learned discipline.
Speaker:
01:02:13
As a drummer, I spent a lot of time overplaying.
Speaker:
01:02:17
I spent a lot of time trying to get attention.
Speaker:
01:02:22
That's not my job as a drummer.
Speaker:
01:02:25
My job as a drummer, is to produce a foundation of rhythm
Speaker:
01:02:32
that makes everyone feel good.
Speaker:
01:02:34
And that makes the show right.
Speaker:
01:02:37
When I look at my career,
Speaker:
01:02:39
I spent a lot of time being young
Speaker:
01:02:43
and looking for attention and doing it all wrong.
Speaker:
01:02:46
It was authentic for me in the moment,
Speaker:
01:02:49
but I wore crazy suits.
Speaker:
01:02:50
I did everything I could do, to get attention.
Speaker:
01:02:53
And that becomes a distraction.
Speaker:
01:02:55
And when you are distracting, it becomes a negative.
Speaker:
01:03:01
At this point, I just wanna be a disciplined drummer.
Speaker:
01:03:07
I wanna keep a very steady rhythm, that people feel.
Speaker:
01:03:12
I want folks to be around our brand,
Speaker:
01:03:15
to be around our products,
Speaker:
01:03:17
and I just want it to feel good.
Speaker:
01:03:19
When you hear Sweet Caroline,
Speaker:
01:03:23
that is a great song.
Speaker:
01:03:25
No one talks about the drum part on that song, right?
Speaker:
01:03:28
Because it just has to feel good and everyone sings it.
Speaker:
01:03:32
The reason it's great,
Speaker:
01:03:33
is because the drummer and the bass player
Speaker:
01:03:36
do exactly what they're supposed to do on that song,
Speaker:
01:03:39
and they make it feel good,
Speaker:
01:03:41
when you get to that chorus and everyone sings it.
Speaker:
01:03:45
Our job today as Ferio Tego, is to not be distracting,
Speaker:
01:03:50
it's to be your favorite song.
Speaker:
01:03:52
That's it.
Speaker:
01:03:53
To have steady rhythm, that makes you feel good.
Speaker:
01:03:56
Every time you select it, every time you cut it,
Speaker:
01:03:59
every time you light it.
Speaker:
01:04:00
And it's as good as the last one you had
Speaker:
01:04:02
and it's as good as the first one you had.
Speaker:
01:04:05
That's our job.
Speaker:
01:04:06
- [Rob] I love it.
Speaker:
01:04:08
- And it's gonna work.
Speaker:
01:04:11
Or at least I hope it will. (laughs)
Speaker:
01:04:13
- Yeah.
Speaker:
01:04:15
Michael, I don't think we could end it any better than that.
Speaker:
01:04:18
What's coming from Ferio Tego, is going to be amazing.
Speaker:
01:04:22
You're working hard for it.
Speaker:
01:04:24
We appreciate you picking up the legacy that is Nat Sherman
Speaker:
01:04:27
and carrying it on.
Speaker:
01:04:29
Just a resounding, thank you.
Speaker:
01:04:31
- Thank you. Thanks for this platform.
Speaker:
01:04:34
Thank you for doing what you do
Speaker:
01:04:35
and allowing little guys like me
Speaker:
01:04:37
to have a platform and talk to people
Speaker:
01:04:41
and just ask for consideration.
Speaker:
01:04:43
That's all I would ask for.
Speaker:
01:04:45
One shot, maybe two.
Speaker:
01:04:47
- I think it's worth it.
Speaker:
01:04:48
- I hope it is.
Speaker:
01:04:49
- It's definitely worth it. Thank you.
Speaker:
01:04:52
- I appreciate you, man.
00:00:00
- Say the name of the company for me.
Speaker:
00:00:02
- Ferio Tego.
Speaker:
00:00:03
- Ferio.
Speaker:
00:00:04
- Ferio Tego.
Speaker:
00:00:05
- Tego.
Speaker:
00:00:07
- Ferio Tego.
Speaker:
00:00:08
- Boy, I think this morning in the shower,
Speaker:
00:00:10
I said it six different ways,
Speaker:
00:00:12
in my head.
Speaker:
00:00:12
- Let me hear all of them.
Speaker:
00:00:16
- Ferrario Tegow.
Speaker:
00:00:17
- Great. No.
Speaker:
00:00:21
- Fierro
Speaker:
00:00:23
Tigo.
Speaker:
00:00:24
- That one I hear a lot, not correct.
Speaker:
00:00:26
- (laughs) Now you're gonna mess me up.
Speaker:
00:00:28
What is it?
Speaker:
00:00:29
- Ferio Tego.
Speaker:
00:00:30
- [All] Ferio Tego.
Speaker:
00:00:31
- Ferio Tego.
Speaker:
00:00:32
(hip hop music)
Speaker:
00:00:33
- [Rob] There's a story inside every smoke shop.
Speaker:
00:00:35
With every cigar and with every person.
Speaker:
00:00:38
Come be a part of the cigar lifestyle at Boveda.
Speaker:
00:00:41
This, is Box Press.
Speaker:
00:00:44
(soft music)
Speaker:
00:00:52
Hey everyone, welcome to another episode of Box Press.
Speaker:
00:00:54
I am your host, Rob Gagner.
Speaker:
00:00:56
I am at 2021's PCA show and I am sitting next to
Speaker:
00:01:00
Michael Herklots.
Speaker:
00:01:01
Now, the name is, not just the myth and the legend,
Speaker:
00:01:05
but he is a legend,
Speaker:
00:01:07
but, he's here now with his brand new brand,
Speaker:
00:01:09
Ferio Tego.
Speaker:
00:01:10
Michael, thank you so much.
Speaker:
00:01:11
- Ferio Tego, good to see you my friend. You're good?
Speaker:
00:01:15
- I'm great.
Speaker:
00:01:15
- 9:00 a.m. in Las Vegas.
Speaker:
00:01:18
- We gotta be the only people
Speaker:
00:01:19
up and moving at this point, right?
Speaker:
00:01:20
This is it.
Speaker:
00:01:21
- Yeah. People with kids, people that get up early.
Speaker:
00:01:25
- Yes.
Speaker:
00:01:25
- And insomniacs.
Speaker:
00:01:26
- And people with interviews at 9:00 a.m.
Speaker:
00:01:28
Thanks for booking this at nine, by the way, in Las Vegas.
Speaker:
00:01:31
That was thoughtful.
Speaker:
00:01:32
Really appreciate that, bro. - You have a
Speaker:
00:01:33
busy schedule, man.
Speaker:
00:01:34
You told me-
Speaker:
00:01:35
- No, you're right, you're right. I signed up for this.
Speaker:
00:01:37
- There's three people at my booth, you said.
Speaker:
00:01:40
And earlier would be better, so I said,
Speaker:
00:01:41
"Well, let's just crack at it in the morning."
Speaker:
00:01:43
- I said this was perfect, and I can't thank you enough
Speaker:
00:01:46
for having me.
Speaker:
00:01:47
- We got coffee. We got cigars.
Speaker:
00:01:49
We're smoking the Prestige.
Speaker:
00:01:51
- Timeless Prestige.
Speaker:
00:01:52
- Timeless Prestige.
Speaker:
00:01:53
This is great, in this format,
Speaker:
00:01:55
is this really popular format?
Speaker:
00:01:57
- Well, in the six by 38,
Speaker:
00:01:59
I would think this would just rule the world,
Speaker:
00:02:02
as it turns out, nobody wants this format at all,
Speaker:
00:02:05
except for you, me and like seven other people.
Speaker:
00:02:08
(Rob laughing)
Speaker:
00:02:09
So as we bring back Timeless Prestige,
Speaker:
00:02:11
unfortunately we're not leading with
Speaker:
00:02:13
the six by 38 Especiales,
Speaker:
00:02:16
but in 2022, we are gonna bring this back.
Speaker:
00:02:18
- Great. Well, the 2% sales will go to
Speaker:
00:02:21
- [All] Us.
Speaker:
00:02:22
- Exactly. That's it.
Speaker:
00:02:23
- There's so much to talk about with you
Speaker:
00:02:26
and what's going on
Speaker:
00:02:27
and you have so many years of experience.
Speaker:
00:02:31
Just for my consumers
Speaker:
00:02:33
and the people watching this show that may not be listening
Speaker:
00:02:36
to the KMA interviews that you do and all the other ones.
Speaker:
00:02:40
What I love about your journey the most,
Speaker:
00:02:43
is that you started out as a consumer at 19,
Speaker:
00:02:47
moved into working retail,
Speaker:
00:02:49
moved into managing a retail store,
Speaker:
00:02:52
moved into being a basically,
Speaker:
00:02:56
what would you say?
Speaker:
00:02:56
The VP of Nat Sherman?
Speaker:
00:02:59
So that role is very much all encompassing
Speaker:
00:03:02
on the manufacturer side.
Speaker:
00:03:04
So consumer, retail, manufacturing.
Speaker:
00:03:09
Who else in this industry has that breadth,
Speaker:
00:03:12
of lineage? - I don't know.
Speaker:
00:03:14
- [Rob] Not a lot.
Speaker:
00:03:15
- And that's a poor answer,
Speaker:
00:03:18
but what I've appreciated about my own journey is
Speaker:
00:03:25
I come from a small town.
Speaker:
00:03:28
I come from a family of hardworking folks.
Speaker:
00:03:30
- What small town, where?
Speaker:
00:03:32
- Northeast Connecticut.
Speaker:
00:03:33
It's called Danielson, Connecticut, very small town.
Speaker:
00:03:37
But I was brought up with this idea that
Speaker:
00:03:42
you're not entitled to something. You have to work for it.
Speaker:
00:03:44
And you work hard.
Speaker:
00:03:46
I was so excited to get a job at 15 and 10 months,
Speaker:
00:03:51
because that's when you could get your first job.
Speaker:
00:03:53
- 15 and 10 months?
Speaker:
00:03:54
- 15 and 10 months.
Speaker:
00:03:55
You could do Driver's Ed
Speaker:
00:03:57
and you could get your first job.
Speaker:
00:04:00
And for me, that was, I just couldn't wait to work.
Speaker:
00:04:04
- What made you wanna work?
Speaker:
00:04:05
What about school?
Speaker:
00:04:07
- Oh, I went to school.
Speaker:
00:04:08
- Yeah. But like school didn't excite you.
Speaker:
00:04:10
You wanted to get out
Speaker:
00:04:11
and do stuff. - No, school excited me,
Speaker:
00:04:12
music excited me.
Speaker:
00:04:14
But I wanted a job.
Speaker:
00:04:17
I wanted to transact.
Speaker:
00:04:19
All my jobs were always retail, customer-facing.
Speaker:
00:04:23
I worked in a pharmacy.
Speaker:
00:04:24
I worked in a donut shop.
Speaker:
00:04:27
There's something about that engagement.
Speaker:
00:04:28
The fundamental, basic piece of taking someone's money
Speaker:
00:04:33
and putting it in a cash register
Speaker:
00:04:35
and giving them some change and saying, "Thank you."
Speaker:
00:04:38
That
Speaker:
00:04:39
basic kind of thing is great. - I gotta ask, right there,
Speaker:
00:04:43
when you did that, did you do it perfectly?
Speaker:
00:04:46
You gave them exact change back, always?
Speaker:
00:04:50
- I gave them everything they were entitled to or more.
Speaker:
00:04:52
I would round up to them. - You know what I did?
Speaker:
00:04:54
- [Michael] You stuck it in your pocket?
Speaker:
00:04:55
- I rounded up.
Speaker:
00:04:56
- And you put it in your tip jar?
Speaker:
00:04:57
- No, I rounded up, I was just like,
Speaker:
00:05:01
"I'm not gonna grab four pennies.
Speaker:
00:05:03
I'm just gonna give you a nickel and a dime."
Speaker:
00:05:06
By the end of the day, my till was short $4 and 13 cents.
Speaker:
00:05:11
My manager had to sit down and talk to me and she goes,
Speaker:
00:05:13
"What is going on?"
Speaker:
00:05:14
And I go, "Oh, I just was rounding up.
Speaker:
00:05:16
I thought it was more efficient."
Speaker:
00:05:17
She goes, "Yeah, no,
Speaker:
00:05:19
we're a publicly traded company.
Speaker:
00:05:21
We gotta count for every dollar." (laughs)
Speaker:
00:05:23
- No, I was to the penny.
Speaker:
00:05:25
The only thing I would do though is try and upsell.
Speaker:
00:05:27
If I knew it was gonna be like $8.01, I'd be like,
Speaker:
00:05:30
"Why don't you throw a munchkin in the deal?
Speaker:
00:05:31
It's like another 60 cents."
Speaker:
00:05:34
And then I'd round them up, I'd upsell.
Speaker:
00:05:35
- And you won't be jingling with all this
Speaker:
00:05:36
change in your pocket. - Exactly.
Speaker:
00:05:37
But I'd upsell.
Speaker:
00:05:38
But back to your question,
Speaker:
00:05:42
my journey,
Speaker:
00:05:46
in hindsight, looking back,
Speaker:
00:05:48
what I appreciate about my experience
Speaker:
00:05:52
is the fact that
Speaker:
00:05:55
I've been able to do every job.
Speaker:
00:06:00
There was no visions of grandeur walking in.
Speaker:
00:06:02
I didn't say,
Speaker:
00:06:06
"I wanna own a cigar company," when I was 19.
Speaker:
00:06:09
I started in the business as a passionate hobbyist
Speaker:
00:06:14
that couldn't afford the hobby, as a music student.
Speaker:
00:06:18
- [Rob] No one can, when they first start,
Speaker:
00:06:19
in my opinion. - So, I had to get a job.
Speaker:
00:06:21
And so I got the job, in cigars because I figured
Speaker:
00:06:24
that was the best way to do my hobby and not have to pay,
Speaker:
00:06:28
because I couldn't afford it.
Speaker:
00:06:30
And over the years,
Speaker:
00:06:34
as my jobs have changed,
Speaker:
00:06:37
those opportunities have evolved.
Speaker:
00:06:40
In my head, I'm still a passionate hobbyist.
Speaker:
00:06:45
I'm just 41 now instead of 19.
Speaker:
00:06:47
And so,
Speaker:
00:06:50
my excitement for just having a job
Speaker:
00:06:52
has evolved a little bit too.
Speaker:
00:06:53
Now I need to make sure
Speaker:
00:06:54
I pay for my house and do all the extras.
Speaker:
00:06:58
But it comes from the same place.
Speaker:
00:07:00
And when I look back now, over 22 years in the industry,
Speaker:
00:07:06
the fact that
Speaker:
00:07:09
I spent six years in the same job.
Speaker:
00:07:14
No promotion, no extra button or a badge.
Speaker:
00:07:18
I did retail sales
Speaker:
00:07:21
for six years.
Speaker:
00:07:24
No promotion.
Speaker:
00:07:25
You know what I mean?
Speaker:
00:07:26
I just did the job.
Speaker:
00:07:27
- There is no promotion,
Speaker:
00:07:28
unless you wanna manage the store, in my opinion.
Speaker:
00:07:30
- Right. And that role wasn't open.
Speaker:
00:07:32
Because my boss had it.
Speaker:
00:07:33
And so that meant that's it, that's the job.
Speaker:
00:07:35
And I think
Speaker:
00:07:37
for a lot of young people today,
Speaker:
00:07:40
there is this need for constant badges and trophies.
Speaker:
00:07:45
- That's a good point.
Speaker:
00:07:47
The need to try to climb that corporate ladder
Speaker:
00:07:49
or whatever ladder system,
Speaker:
00:07:52
for promotions or increases in pay
Speaker:
00:07:56
for millennials, they have a short attention span.
Speaker:
00:08:00
For that.
Speaker:
00:08:01
- But the fact is that's not the way the world works.
Speaker:
00:08:05
At least not the world that I grew up in.
Speaker:
00:08:07
And so if I show up to work,
Speaker:
00:08:10
in the same job today that I had yesterday
Speaker:
00:08:13
and I get a check, you don't owe me anything else.
Speaker:
00:08:17
You know what I mean?
Speaker:
00:08:18
- [Michael] That's the contract.
Speaker:
00:08:19
- Right.
Speaker:
00:08:20
- That's it. And it's my job,
Speaker:
00:08:22
to exceed your expectations in a way
Speaker:
00:08:25
that you look at me and say,
Speaker:
00:08:27
"I need this guy to stay,"
Speaker:
00:08:29
- That's key.
Speaker:
00:08:30
- "And this guy's gonna grow."
Speaker:
00:08:31
And that also means that
Speaker:
00:08:33
I was fortunate enough to have managers
Speaker:
00:08:36
with balanced egos where they weren't afraid to promote me.
Speaker:
00:08:42
Right? And to get behind me. - Yeah. That can happen.
Speaker:
00:08:43
- Because I wasn't out to eat their lunch.
Speaker:
00:08:45
I wasn't out for their job.
Speaker:
00:08:47
I just wanna do my job and I wanna get paid for it
Speaker:
00:08:49
and I wanna deliver,
Speaker:
00:08:50
and I wanna exceed your expectations.
Speaker:
00:08:53
That's what I want to do.
Speaker:
00:08:54
- Exceeding.
Speaker:
00:08:55
- Six years, in the same gig. - Yeah. Exceeding the
Speaker:
00:08:57
expectations to me is the most important part
Speaker:
00:08:59
because, Drew Emmer one of the guys that works for us,
Speaker:
00:09:02
he said it really well,
Speaker:
00:09:03
"I always want Boveda to get more out of me,
Speaker:
00:09:07
than what they pay me for."
Speaker:
00:09:08
I want you, as the employer
Speaker:
00:09:12
to get more than what you pay me for, always.
Speaker:
00:09:14
- Always.
Speaker:
00:09:15
- Because if it's the opposite,
Speaker:
00:09:17
you might be on the chopping block.
Speaker:
00:09:20
- When I got to Nat Sherman,
Speaker:
00:09:21
our first store director that I hired
Speaker:
00:09:25
was a very good friend of mine
Speaker:
00:09:27
that used to run a steakhouse called Rothmann's,
Speaker:
00:09:29
his name is Pat Felitti.
Speaker:
00:09:31
And we were right around performance review time,
Speaker:
00:09:33
and there were a couple of people who were very disappointed
Speaker:
00:09:36
because they had met expectations.
Speaker:
00:09:39
And that's where they lived, meets expectations.
Speaker:
00:09:41
Which is not a bad review,
Speaker:
00:09:42
Right? - No.
Speaker:
00:09:43
- You meet expectations,
Speaker:
00:09:44
- [Rob] That's great. - You're doing your job.
Speaker:
00:09:47
And one of the employees, this is like 2011.
Speaker:
00:09:51
One of the employees was like, "Yeah but, yeah but,
Speaker:
00:09:53
I did this, I did this, I did this, I did this."
Speaker:
00:09:55
And Pat goes, "Congratulations,
Speaker:
00:09:58
you don't get extra credit for doing your job.
Speaker:
00:10:00
(Rob laughing)
Speaker:
00:10:01
You want extra credit? You have to do extra."
Speaker:
00:10:03
And that stuck with me forever,
Speaker:
00:10:06
after I heard him say those words,
Speaker:
00:10:08
"You don't get extra credit for doing your job."
Speaker:
00:10:10
That's right.
Speaker:
00:10:12
And I apply that to this.
Speaker:
00:10:15
So, I work really hard to create a blend that's unique,
Speaker:
00:10:20
that smokes great, that burns great,
Speaker:
00:10:23
that tastes great, that's the same every year.
Speaker:
00:10:27
And that is meeting expectations.
Speaker:
00:10:29
You know what I mean?
Speaker:
00:10:31
I don't get extra credit
Speaker:
00:10:32
for making great cigars every year.
Speaker:
00:10:36
That's not enough.
Speaker:
00:10:37
The only way we get extra credit is to do more
Speaker:
00:10:39
and exceed expectations.
Speaker:
00:10:41
It's a hard thing to do in this business, man.
Speaker:
00:10:43
- So, that resonates with me because
Speaker:
00:10:46
the typical marketing jargon is quality and consistency.
Speaker:
00:10:51
If you're not doing quality and consistency
Speaker:
00:10:53
for your cigar brand, in this market,
Speaker:
00:10:57
probably shouldn't be in it.
Speaker:
00:10:58
Because that's, doing your job. - You can't be in it.
Speaker:
00:11:01
- Yeah, right? (laughs)
Speaker:
00:11:02
- And you won't be, by the way.
Speaker:
00:11:03
- Right, no. Yeah.
Speaker:
00:11:03
- Even if you think you should be,
Speaker:
00:11:05
the general voting population
Speaker:
00:11:08
with their wallets and pocketbooks,
Speaker:
00:11:10
will make sure that you are no longer in the business.
Speaker:
00:11:12
- Exactly. It's a foundation to what you need to do,
Speaker:
00:11:16
but it is not, like you said, extra credit. (laughs)
Speaker:
00:11:19
- Right. And then, so how do you earn the extra credit?
Speaker:
00:11:23
That's the hard part, in this business.
Speaker:
00:11:25
- Well, answer your own question because you of all people,
Speaker:
00:11:28
would be in the best seat to answer that.
Speaker:
00:11:30
How would you earn extra credit with the consumer?
Speaker:
00:11:37
Is it the band?
Speaker:
00:11:39
Is it the artwork?
Speaker:
00:11:41
- That's the extra.
Speaker:
00:11:42
So if everyone's making good cigars,
Speaker:
00:11:46
and they are.
Speaker:
00:11:47
I mean, let's face it,
Speaker:
00:11:48
there are great cigars in every booth on this floor
Speaker:
00:11:52
there are great cigars. - Let me tell you, too,
Speaker:
00:11:53
great cigars, with bad bands.
Speaker:
00:11:56
You know what I mean? - Could be bad bands,
Speaker:
00:11:56
could be good.
Speaker:
00:11:57
- [Rob] Artistically, you know what I mean?
Speaker:
00:12:00
- I'm not gonna talk about
Speaker:
00:12:01
good or bad. - But there is.
Speaker:
00:12:03
- There are great cigars in every booth on the show.
Speaker:
00:12:05
So, how do you exceed expectations?
Speaker:
00:12:08
I think gets into
Speaker:
00:12:12
what that brand proposition is.
Speaker:
00:12:17
For me,
Speaker:
00:12:19
and I think I applied this
Speaker:
00:12:21
as I worked for Nat Sherman for 10 years,
Speaker:
00:12:24
and I'm certainly applying it now, with Ferio Tego.
Speaker:
00:12:30
I really believe
Speaker:
00:12:33
in honesty,
Speaker:
00:12:35
in clarity and authenticity.
Speaker:
00:12:39
That is our driving force.
Speaker:
00:12:44
As much as I love
Speaker:
00:12:47
the romance and fanfare of stories
Speaker:
00:12:50
from a marketing perspective.
Speaker:
00:12:55
For us,
Speaker:
00:12:57
that gets a little thick.
Speaker:
00:13:01
And what we are doing now, especially as Ferio Tego,
Speaker:
00:13:06
but we did it to a large degree
Speaker:
00:13:08
at Nat Sherman International too,
Speaker:
00:13:11
is leading
Speaker:
00:13:13
with gratitude, first.
Speaker:
00:13:16
Honesty, transparency,
Speaker:
00:13:19
and
Speaker:
00:13:22
humility.
Speaker:
00:13:24
A little bit of grace, a little bit of elegance.
Speaker:
00:13:27
And what you see is what you get, with us.
Speaker:
00:13:30
There's no secrets, we're open,
Speaker:
00:13:33
we're truthful, we're honest, we're hardworking.
Speaker:
00:13:39
And we are, hopefully, dependable.
Speaker:
00:13:42
And we're gonna continue to do
Speaker:
00:13:43
the same thing we did last year,
Speaker:
00:13:45
the same thing we did five years ago
Speaker:
00:13:47
you're gonna get next year and the year after that.
Speaker:
00:13:49
Because, when you are completely honest, transparent,
Speaker:
00:13:53
and authentic, it's awfully easy to be consistent.
Speaker:
00:13:58
When you start putting the layers of paint
Speaker:
00:14:01
and trying to craft new messaging,
Speaker:
00:14:03
and then you have to stay on your talking points
Speaker:
00:14:06
and you have to remember what you're supposed to say,
Speaker:
00:14:08
it's a lot of work.
Speaker:
00:14:09
And I'm not willing to do it. You know what I mean?
Speaker:
00:14:11
I would much rather just be honest,
Speaker:
00:14:15
keep people up to date,
Speaker:
00:14:17
allow the product to speak for itself,
Speaker:
00:14:19
give credit where credit's due.
Speaker:
00:14:21
I didn't roll this.
Speaker:
00:14:24
I helped create it,
Speaker:
00:14:28
but the Quesada family makes this,
Speaker:
00:14:30
this is their tobacco, they roll it.
Speaker:
00:14:32
I'm not
Speaker:
00:14:34
Don Miguel Herklots,
Speaker:
00:14:35
(Rob laughing) I'm Michael Herklots.
Speaker:
00:14:37
I'm a gringo that lives in New Jersey.
Speaker:
00:14:40
You know what I mean?
Speaker:
00:14:41
I don't wear guayaberas.
Speaker:
00:14:42
That's ridiculous.
Speaker:
00:14:44
I don't wear a Panama hat.
Speaker:
00:14:46
I don't stand in the middle of a field
Speaker:
00:14:48
and smell green leaves.
Speaker:
00:14:50
None of that is authentic to me.
Speaker:
00:14:52
What's authentic to me is
Speaker:
00:14:53
the relationships I've built over 22 years
Speaker:
00:14:57
and developing product that I believe is great,
Speaker:
00:14:59
and then relying on the people that know it best
Speaker:
00:15:02
to continue to produce it and get behind me,
Speaker:
00:15:05
and we deliver that to market and people continue to buy it.
Speaker:
00:15:08
That's as authentic and honest and transparent as I can get.
Speaker:
00:15:13
- With a retailer, that honesty part, is key.
Speaker:
00:15:17
But where do you feel like
Speaker:
00:15:19
sometimes companies might slip up in honesty
Speaker:
00:15:22
with the retailer, that hurts the retailer the most?
Speaker:
00:15:25
Or the consumer?
Speaker:
00:15:27
You can translate that either way.
Speaker:
00:15:28
Like a brand that really wasn't completely honest
Speaker:
00:15:31
about something.
Speaker:
00:15:32
And then ultimately the end consumer has to pay for it.
Speaker:
00:15:40
- I don't wanna answer that in any way
Speaker:
00:15:42
that would be disparaging to another company.
Speaker:
00:15:45
But, one thing that I think is so unique about our business,
Speaker:
00:15:50
there are lots of
Speaker:
00:15:52
similarities and adjacencies to the wine world.
Speaker:
00:15:56
But, in the wine world,
Speaker:
00:15:58
there are governing bodies of the industry
Speaker:
00:16:02
that require a certain level of transparency.
Speaker:
00:16:07
You have to disclose your alcohol content.
Speaker:
00:16:10
You have to disclose some level of blend.
Speaker:
00:16:14
If you wanna call yourself a particular wine, right?
Speaker:
00:16:16
You have to be X percent Sangiovese,
Speaker:
00:16:18
or it has to be X percent Cabernet to be X.
Speaker:
00:16:21
- Basically the terroir, where it's from, right?
Speaker:
00:16:26
- There are qualifying criteria for you to claim
Speaker:
00:16:30
that what you say is what it is.
Speaker:
00:16:32
Well, we don't have that.
Speaker:
00:16:37
For a fact,
Speaker:
00:16:38
there is a lot of marketing license
Speaker:
00:16:42
that is allowed to be taken,
Speaker:
00:16:44
when you are talking about product.
Speaker:
00:16:46
Whether you're talking about seed,
Speaker:
00:16:47
or you're talking about blend.
Speaker:
00:16:51
And the reality is
Speaker:
00:16:52
that it's our job to keep the blend the same every year,
Speaker:
00:16:55
despite the fact that the ingredients change, right?
Speaker:
00:16:58
Right?
Speaker:
00:16:59
So what we say it was when we launched
Speaker:
00:17:01
is probably very different than what it is
Speaker:
00:17:04
eight years later.
Speaker:
00:17:06
Because you have to adapt to keep the experience the same,
Speaker:
00:17:09
the blend changes, but we don't update that.
Speaker:
00:17:13
We tend to say that it's the same
Speaker:
00:17:15
from a marketing ingredients standpoint.
Speaker:
00:17:18
And so that starts bending truth,
Speaker:
00:17:21
which is totally cool.
Speaker:
00:17:22
But the problem is,
Speaker:
00:17:25
as consumers have really
Speaker:
00:17:28
embraced the idea of connoisseurship,
Speaker:
00:17:32
and trying to
Speaker:
00:17:35
learn and memorize the facts,
Speaker:
00:17:38
and then equate that to experience.
Speaker:
00:17:40
The reality is, that in some cases,
Speaker:
00:17:43
consumers are learning false information.
Speaker:
00:17:47
Because what they're applying as fact,
Speaker:
00:17:51
that
Speaker:
00:17:53
a drying effect on the palate,
Speaker:
00:17:57
or a dark ash equals
Speaker:
00:18:00
this particular tobacco
Speaker:
00:18:02
or magnesium in the soil
Speaker:
00:18:03
or all these things.
Speaker:
00:18:05
The reality is, that those facts have changed over time,
Speaker:
00:18:10
but you've memorized
Speaker:
00:18:11
and memorialized in your brain
Speaker:
00:18:14
that that little factoid applies
Speaker:
00:18:17
to this little tidbit of information.
Speaker:
00:18:21
And so, you learn wrong information.
Speaker:
00:18:24
And now the problem is you share
Speaker:
00:18:26
wrong information because
Speaker:
00:18:28
it only takes about six months to be an expert.
Speaker:
00:18:31
You know what I mean? That's really all you need.
Speaker:
00:18:32
You need three or four reviews.
Speaker:
00:18:35
You need to smoke a handful of cigars,
Speaker:
00:18:36
and you need a small population of followers
Speaker:
00:18:39
before you become the provider of information.
Speaker:
00:18:42
And so, now that information starts being shared
Speaker:
00:18:46
based on wrong facts.
Speaker:
00:18:48
And before you know it,
Speaker:
00:18:49
this very educated population
Speaker:
00:18:51
is educated with the wrong information.
Speaker:
00:18:54
That's problematic.
Speaker:
00:18:56
So, going back to your question,
Speaker:
00:18:59
the need for transparency and honesty,
Speaker:
00:19:04
I'm not disparaging anyone who takes a different strategy,
Speaker:
00:19:10
but for us, we need as much open transparency,
Speaker:
00:19:15
not just so people understand our product,
Speaker:
00:19:17
but so that we are educating
Speaker:
00:19:20
a consumer base with real information.
Speaker:
00:19:25
If our consumers are really educated
Speaker:
00:19:27
with the right information and the right set of facts,
Speaker:
00:19:30
and our retail partners
Speaker:
00:19:32
are educated with the right set of facts,
Speaker:
00:19:35
that's a much healthier environment for us to win in.
Speaker:
00:19:39
- Right. Blending to me,
Speaker:
00:19:43
is a hard aspect to get around.
Speaker:
00:19:47
You have many years of experience.
Speaker:
00:19:50
Do you remember the first day
Speaker:
00:19:52
you went to try to figure out how to do blending?
Speaker:
00:19:56
Were you nervous?
Speaker:
00:20:01
- When I was 24,
Speaker:
00:20:08
I started going down to the Dominican Republic.
Speaker:
00:20:11
The general manager of Davidoff at the time,
Speaker:
00:20:13
guy David Kitchens, great mentor of mine.
Speaker:
00:20:16
He used to go down every year on vacation
Speaker:
00:20:18
and spend time with the Quesada family.
Speaker:
00:20:20
And one day he's like,
Speaker:
00:20:22
"Come on this trip, just come take five days off,
Speaker:
00:20:24
come with me."
Speaker:
00:20:25
I had no money. He's like, "Don't worry about it.
Speaker:
00:20:27
I'll help you out. Just cover your flights.
Speaker:
00:20:29
I'll pay for your hotel."
Speaker:
00:20:30
And he was really generous.
Speaker:
00:20:31
- So it was a personal trip, not a work trip?
Speaker:
00:20:33
- No, no, it was a vacation.
Speaker:
00:20:35
And I went down and I spent time with the Quesadas
Speaker:
00:20:38
and we just hung out in the factory.
Speaker:
00:20:39
And that was my vacation.
Speaker:
00:20:40
It was just hanging out.
Speaker:
00:20:42
Smoking cigars.
Speaker:
00:20:43
- Were married at the time?
Speaker:
00:20:44
- No.
Speaker:
00:20:46
24. I was 24, I was a kid, man.
Speaker:
00:20:48
I was single
Speaker:
00:20:50
and it just sounded like a great idea.
Speaker:
00:20:52
And I was grateful for the opportunity.
Speaker:
00:20:54
And that really turned into this,
Speaker:
00:20:56
what has now become
Speaker:
00:20:57
a very special relationship with the Quesadas
Speaker:
00:21:01
and they are my family.
Speaker:
00:21:03
I give that as context because
Speaker:
00:21:06
what they would do when we would go down there
Speaker:
00:21:08
is just simple things like,
Speaker:
00:21:10
"Hey, taste this, taste this. Oh, we're working on this,
Speaker:
00:21:13
we're playing with this, taste this."
Speaker:
00:21:17
I've always been
Speaker:
00:21:20
driven to figure out the why, in everything.
Speaker:
00:21:23
So I would taste something
Speaker:
00:21:26
and ask, "Well,
Speaker:
00:21:28
why is it spicy?
Speaker:
00:21:30
Why is it strong? Why does this suck?"
Speaker:
00:21:32
- I like your style.
Speaker:
00:21:33
- I don't like this. Why does this suck?
Speaker:
00:21:36
That push to get to the why,
Speaker:
00:21:39
really
Speaker:
00:21:41
allowed me to learn
Speaker:
00:21:43
this kind of cause and effect piece.
Speaker:
00:21:46
- My brain works the same way.
Speaker:
00:21:47
I have to know why, so I can be more educated on
Speaker:
00:21:51
what to do with that.
Speaker:
00:21:53
It's not necessarily, - So I don't repeat a mistake.
Speaker:
00:21:54
- I'm questioning, are you sure?
Speaker:
00:21:57
It's okay, but why?
Speaker:
00:21:59
And then, okay, great.
Speaker:
00:22:00
So now I know, and I can adjust when that happens.
Speaker:
00:22:05
- It was not a deliberate,
Speaker:
00:22:08
today is July 12th and I'm gonna start blending today
Speaker:
00:22:12
and let's figure out
Speaker:
00:22:14
how this works. - Just happened organically.
Speaker:
00:22:15
- It was incredibly organic.
Speaker:
00:22:17
It was really because the Quesadas were so generous and open
Speaker:
00:22:21
about just allowing me to learn on their time
Speaker:
00:22:24
with their tobacco, with their people.
Speaker:
00:22:28
And so, as time went on,
Speaker:
00:22:31
one of the things that really stands out
Speaker:
00:22:33
when the Quesadas
Speaker:
00:22:36
were going to do the Quesada 35th.
Speaker:
00:22:39
- I heard this story.
Speaker:
00:22:41
- So it was like 2008, nine something.
Speaker:
00:22:43
- They kept it a secret from Manuel.
Speaker:
00:22:45
- Yes.
Speaker:
00:22:46
But they called me. I'll never forget.
Speaker:
00:22:48
I was in New York, at my desk,
Speaker:
00:22:52
Davidoff Madison Avenue,
Speaker:
00:22:53
phone rings, it's Raquel and Patricia.
Speaker:
00:22:56
And they say, it was like a Tuesday, and they were like,
Speaker:
00:23:00
"You need to come to Santiago on Friday."
Speaker:
00:23:04
And I was like, "Oh my God, Manolo's sick.
Speaker:
00:23:07
what happened?" - Oh.
Speaker:
00:23:08
- And they're like, "No, no, no, everyone's fine.
Speaker:
00:23:11
Everything's fine.
Speaker:
00:23:12
But we need you to come down this weekend."
Speaker:
00:23:17
And I was close with the girls
Speaker:
00:23:19
and the young ones, as Manolo calls them.
Speaker:
00:23:22
And I was like, "Okay."
Speaker:
00:23:23
And they're like, "But don't tell our dad."
Speaker:
00:23:24
And I'm like, "What is going on here?
Speaker:
00:23:26
This is not good."
Speaker:
00:23:28
So I show up,
Speaker:
00:23:29
they pick me up in the airport
Speaker:
00:23:31
and I've been going down for five years, six years
Speaker:
00:23:33
at this point,
Speaker:
00:23:34
they've never picked me up at the airport.
Speaker:
00:23:35
They pick me up at the airport.
Speaker:
00:23:36
I get in the car,
Speaker:
00:23:38
no one's saying anything.
Speaker:
00:23:39
I'm like, "What the hell is going on?
Speaker:
00:23:41
(Rob laughing)
Speaker:
00:23:42
What am I doing here? What's going on?"
Speaker:
00:23:45
We show up, now where the factory is today,
Speaker:
00:23:48
was a tobacco warehouse and processing facility,
Speaker:
00:23:52
we show up there.
Speaker:
00:23:55
I get out of the car.
Speaker:
00:23:56
The whole crew of young ones is there.
Speaker:
00:23:58
I sit down and was like,
Speaker:
00:23:59
"Would someone, please tell me, why am I here?
Speaker:
00:24:02
And what's going on?"
Speaker:
00:24:03
And they said, "Okay, we wanna do a cigar.
Speaker:
00:24:06
We wanna do it under the Quesada name.
Speaker:
00:24:09
We wanna make it different.
Speaker:
00:24:11
You need to help. What do we do?"
Speaker:
00:24:14
And they had all these bales open.
Speaker:
00:24:15
There were like three employees that were there
Speaker:
00:24:17
that were moving bales over for us to taste.
Speaker:
00:24:19
And I was like, "Holy, okay. Let's start."
Speaker:
00:24:25
And we smoked crazy tobaccos.
Speaker:
00:24:30
And we actually said,
Speaker:
00:24:31
"Okay, what we have to do first
Speaker:
00:24:33
is make sure that this does not taste like a
Speaker:
00:24:37
typical Fonseca, S.A.G. product."
Speaker:
00:24:41
So, we started with
Speaker:
00:24:44
unfermented tobacco.
Speaker:
00:24:47
Let's start with this.
Speaker:
00:24:48
This just came in out of the field.
Speaker:
00:24:50
So let's smoke this and taste it raw
Speaker:
00:24:54
and figure out if that doesn't taste like
Speaker:
00:24:56
what the cigars typically taste like out of this factory,
Speaker:
00:24:59
then that's where we're gonna start.
Speaker:
00:25:01
I think three of us threw up almost immediately.
Speaker:
00:25:04
- [Rob] Oh my God!
Speaker:
00:25:05
- Because it was high ammonia, high nicotine.
Speaker:
00:25:07
It was a terrible idea.
Speaker:
00:25:08
(Rob laughing)
Speaker:
00:25:09
But it allowed us to taste something in the building
Speaker:
00:25:12
that didn't taste like everything else had tasted.
Speaker:
00:25:18
That was probably
Speaker:
00:25:20
the best learning experience, was working on that product
Speaker:
00:25:24
because we figured it out together,
Speaker:
00:25:28
the whys.
Speaker:
00:25:29
We lit up that tobacco.
Speaker:
00:25:31
Why don't we use unfermented tobacco?
Speaker:
00:25:33
I know, it makes you vomit, right?
Speaker:
00:25:35
(Rob laughing)
Speaker:
00:25:35
But we got to experience the why.
Speaker:
00:25:37
We had real discovery.
Speaker:
00:25:39
But then we also realized that there was some unique flavor
Speaker:
00:25:42
in some of that young tobacco.
Speaker:
00:25:44
So, we started playing with it, just a little piece,
Speaker:
00:25:47
a quarter of a leaf, in the middle
Speaker:
00:25:50
to change the profile in a really dynamic way
Speaker:
00:25:54
that when you add all these other brilliant tobaccos
Speaker:
00:25:57
and that one little piece that is so different,
Speaker:
00:26:01
it takes the experience of this cigar
Speaker:
00:26:04
and completely made it new and different,
Speaker:
00:26:08
when you compare it through the lens
Speaker:
00:26:10
of everything that had come out of that factory before.
Speaker:
00:26:13
So, learning those whys,
Speaker:
00:26:15
hands-on, on a Saturday afternoon, throwing up,
Speaker:
00:26:18
(Rob laughing)
Speaker:
00:26:19
was the greatest blending tutorial of my life.
Speaker:
00:26:24
- [Rob] I love it.
Speaker:
00:26:26
- Then we were on a roll.
Speaker:
00:26:27
Then we also had Manolo's blessing and buy-in
Speaker:
00:26:29
after he was a little angry.
Speaker:
00:26:32
After we presented.
Speaker:
00:26:36
It wasn't my job,
Speaker:
00:26:37
but I still got to participate with the Quesadas.
Speaker:
00:26:40
When I did join Nat Sherman,
Speaker:
00:26:43
and it was time to really resurrect
Speaker:
00:26:48
what had been a highly respected,
Speaker:
00:26:52
but nostalgic brand,
Speaker:
00:26:55
when it was time to take this to a new direction,
Speaker:
00:26:58
because of the Quesada's generosity
Speaker:
00:27:00
and allowing me to play and allowing me to participate,
Speaker:
00:27:03
first of all, they were the first ones I went to.
Speaker:
00:27:06
And in fact,
Speaker:
00:27:07
this is the first blend we did.
Speaker:
00:27:09
- [Rob] Really?
Speaker:
00:27:09
- Was the Prestige, this blend.
Speaker:
00:27:11
- Phenomenal.
Speaker:
00:27:12
- It was number 10 cigar the year, Cigar Aficionado,
Speaker:
00:27:16
the year we released it.
Speaker:
00:27:18
Incredible man.
Speaker:
00:27:19
- And that 35th anniversary.
Speaker:
00:27:22
- Was dynamite.
Speaker:
00:27:23
- Yeah. It was dynamite.
Speaker:
00:27:26
You also said something very interesting,
Speaker:
00:27:29
which I wanna clarify is,
Speaker:
00:27:31
they said they wanted to put their name on it.
Speaker:
00:27:33
At this time, they did not have Quesada
Speaker:
00:27:37
on a cigar name.
Speaker:
00:27:38
- [Michael] Ever.
Speaker:
00:27:39
- So, not only are you keeping the secret from Manuel,
Speaker:
00:27:43
you're putting the Quesada name on a cigar
Speaker:
00:27:46
that he's not advising,
Speaker:
00:27:48
and you're trying to create a brand new blend,
Speaker:
00:27:51
like you said,
Speaker:
00:27:52
that doesn't taste like anything else in their lineup.
Speaker:
00:27:54
- Yup.
Speaker:
00:27:55
- That's three major hitters
Speaker:
00:27:57
that you gotta hit out of the park.
Speaker:
00:27:58
- So that was '08, maybe.
Speaker:
00:28:01
I was 28.
Speaker:
00:28:03
I had never been in that country without Manolo's blessing.
Speaker:
00:28:06
We put all this together.
Speaker:
00:28:08
On Saturday and Sunday.
Speaker:
00:28:11
Manolo has no idea I'm there.
Speaker:
00:28:13
And we decide Monday,
Speaker:
00:28:15
we are gonna present.
Speaker:
00:28:17
Because I said, "There's no way
Speaker:
00:28:17
we're just gonna pitch this idea. We have to present."
Speaker:
00:28:21
So, we put together a PowerPoint
Speaker:
00:28:24
to present this idea to Manolo.
Speaker:
00:28:26
And I was leaving Monday afternoon.
Speaker:
00:28:29
So we get to the factory early, before Manolo,
Speaker:
00:28:31
which is early, because Manolo gets to the factory early.
Speaker:
00:28:35
And I'm sitting in this conference room, having a coffee,
Speaker:
00:28:39
completely shaking in my boots,
Speaker:
00:28:42
what is gonna happen when he walks in?
Speaker:
00:28:44
Manolo walks into the factory,
Speaker:
00:28:46
and I can hear his voice, which is this booming,
Speaker:
00:28:48
thunderous, incredible voice.
Speaker:
00:28:50
And he walks by the conference room and he goes, "Hello."
Speaker:
00:28:53
And then he walks back and he goes,
Speaker:
00:28:56
"What the hell are you doing here?"
Speaker:
00:28:58
(Rob laughing)
Speaker:
00:28:59
And I was like, "Manolo, don't be mad.
Speaker:
00:29:00
Hold on a second. We got a little thing."
Speaker:
00:29:02
Turns around, Raquel and Patsy are there
Speaker:
00:29:04
they're like, "Papi, hold on."
Speaker:
00:29:07
He just goes into his office, closes the door.
Speaker:
00:29:10
So I'm like, "Okay, this is where we're starting."
Speaker:
00:29:13
So, I went into his office and I was like,
Speaker:
00:29:14
"Manolo, we wanna present you with something."
Speaker:
00:29:19
And he's like, in his classic Manolo, shaking his leg,
Speaker:
00:29:23
looking at me, he's like, "Okay, 10 o'clock."
Speaker:
00:29:27
And it was like seven.
Speaker:
00:29:29
I was like, "Do you have time now?"
Speaker:
00:29:32
He's like, "10 o'clock."
Speaker:
00:29:33
All right, 10 o'clock.
Speaker:
00:29:35
We suffered in this conference room
Speaker:
00:29:36
for like two hours, until 10 o'clock.
Speaker:
00:29:39
He came in and we presented the whole thing,
Speaker:
00:29:42
and why we did it and apologizing for showing up.
Speaker:
00:29:45
And we have these blends.
Speaker:
00:29:46
And we want you to taste them.
Speaker:
00:29:47
And we wanna do this different.
Speaker:
00:29:48
And it has to be Quesada, the whole thing.
Speaker:
00:29:50
And he goes, "Okay, thank you very much."
Speaker:
00:29:54
And he stood up and he left the room.
Speaker:
00:29:56
- He didn't give you an affirmation,
Speaker:
00:29:58
a blessing? - That was it.
Speaker:
00:29:59
- Nothing?
Speaker:
00:30:00
- Nothing.
Speaker:
00:30:01
And I'm like, "Well, now what?"
Speaker:
00:30:04
And now I gotta go to the airport.
Speaker:
00:30:05
I haven't even got a hug from this guy.
Speaker:
00:30:07
(laughs) You know what I mean?
Speaker:
00:30:08
I finally, I went into his office and I'm like,
Speaker:
00:30:10
"Manolo, we have to leave. And I'm sorry."
Speaker:
00:30:14
And he's like, "Son, I'm proud of you,
Speaker:
00:30:18
but don't ever do this again."
Speaker:
00:30:20
(Rob laughing) And I was like, "Got it.
Speaker:
00:30:21
I'm gonna go to the airport."
Speaker:
00:30:23
And he was like, "Okay, bye."
Speaker:
00:30:24
And that was it.
Speaker:
00:30:25
But man, what that did,
Speaker:
00:30:32
I think it affirmed to Manolo that
Speaker:
00:30:36
his time
Speaker:
00:30:37
and his hard love over all those years,
Speaker:
00:30:42
forcing people to learn the hard way, it paid off.
Speaker:
00:30:46
And we did deliver,
Speaker:
00:30:49
and we exceeded his expectations.
Speaker:
00:30:51
And so much so that he made a blend,
Speaker:
00:30:54
after we pitched the idea,
Speaker:
00:30:56
he decided to make a blend.
Speaker:
00:30:58
We did a tasting at Davidoff in New York,
Speaker:
00:31:02
with Gordon Mott and Dave Savona.
Speaker:
00:31:05
- [Rob] Oh.
Speaker:
00:31:05
- Blind tasting of our blend and Manolo's blend for 35th.
Speaker:
00:31:12
Blind tasting.
Speaker:
00:31:13
And we sat upstairs in this beautiful little lounge
Speaker:
00:31:16
that we had in the Davidoff store.
Speaker:
00:31:18
And Manolo said, "One of these blends, is the young one's.
Speaker:
00:31:21
And one of these blends is us, the old ones," meaning him,
Speaker:
00:31:27
"And I want your opinion."
Speaker:
00:31:28
Before we launched something,
Speaker:
00:31:29
he wanted Savona and Gordon Mott's opinion on these blends.
Speaker:
00:31:35
We did a blind tasting and we won.
Speaker:
00:31:38
And he said, "Son of a bitch."
Speaker:
00:31:40
(Rob laughing)
Speaker:
00:31:41
Great. And that's the blend we went with
Speaker:
00:31:43
and it was incredible.
Speaker:
00:31:44
- That's great.
Speaker:
00:31:45
- Incredible.
Speaker:
00:31:46
- People still talk about that blend today.
Speaker:
00:31:48
- I think I have five left.
Speaker:
00:31:50
- Wow. - Five sticks.
Speaker:
00:31:52
For me, I look at that as,
Speaker:
00:31:55
it's like looking at a yearbook.
Speaker:
00:31:57
You know what I mean?
Speaker:
00:31:58
Every time I look at it,
Speaker:
00:32:02
I'm transported back to that moment in time,
Speaker:
00:32:05
where now in hindsight, I was 28.
Speaker:
00:32:08
You know what I mean?
Speaker:
00:32:09
Raquel was probably 30.
Speaker:
00:32:11
We were kids.
Speaker:
00:32:12
We had no business doing that.
Speaker:
00:32:14
- And I just wanna clarify,
Speaker:
00:32:17
Manuel is his proper name,
Speaker:
00:32:18
and you guys call him, as family members, Manolo.
Speaker:
00:32:21
That's like his nickname, right?
Speaker:
00:32:24
- So, Manolo,
Speaker:
00:32:27
this is the way Manolo says it,
Speaker:
00:32:28
which I can hear him saying it,
Speaker:
00:32:30
Manolo, and then Manolito,
Speaker:
00:32:34
these are diminutives of a proper name.
Speaker:
00:32:36
So Michael,
Speaker:
00:32:38
Mike,
Speaker:
00:32:39
Mikey.
Speaker:
00:32:40
- [Rob] Right.
Speaker:
00:32:42
- Manuel,
Speaker:
00:32:43
Manolo,
Speaker:
00:32:44
Manolito,
Speaker:
00:32:46
is the same thing.
Speaker:
00:32:47
- [Rob] Got it.
Speaker:
00:32:48
- Manolo is the diminutive,
Speaker:
00:32:50
familiar version of Manuel.
Speaker:
00:32:53
- Got it. Like Robert for me, people call me Rob.
Speaker:
00:32:57
- And then Rob and then Bobby or Robbie, right?
Speaker:
00:33:00
Depends how familiar you get.
Speaker:
00:33:04
Manolo
Speaker:
00:33:04
is a very familiar way of saying
Speaker:
00:33:07
Manuel's name.
Speaker:
00:33:09
- Yeah. Because my cousins call me Robbie.
Speaker:
00:33:12
- And you wanna punch them in the throat every,
Speaker:
00:33:13
no I'm just kidding. - No, I love it.
Speaker:
00:33:15
Like you said,
Speaker:
00:33:17
it's that closeness.
Speaker:
00:33:18
It's that endearment of
Speaker:
00:33:20
you knew me, when I was crapping my pants
Speaker:
00:33:23
and running around trying to keep up with everyone.
Speaker:
00:33:26
- It's funny, man.
Speaker:
00:33:28
When someone calls me, Mike,
Speaker:
00:33:30
and I don't care what you call me, no problem.
Speaker:
00:33:32
But, when someone calls me Mike,
Speaker:
00:33:34
for me, that's like,
Speaker:
00:33:36
this is someone from high school.
Speaker:
00:33:38
For sure.
Speaker:
00:33:39
Because I was always Mike.
Speaker:
00:33:41
If someone calls me Herk,
Speaker:
00:33:43
Herk was college.
Speaker:
00:33:45
- Oh!
Speaker:
00:33:46
- So when someone calls me Herk,
Speaker:
00:33:47
I'm like, "Dude, who's here from Boston?"
Speaker:
00:33:50
You know what I mean? - [Rob] Yeah.
Speaker:
00:33:51
- And also Herk, for some reason
Speaker:
00:33:52
the Ashton crew, they all call me Herk.
Speaker:
00:33:55
And there's like a handful of other people
Speaker:
00:33:56
that call me Herk.
Speaker:
00:33:57
But Herk is so specific.
Speaker:
00:33:58
If someone calls me Herk,
Speaker:
00:34:01
that's an inside baseball-
Speaker:
00:34:03
- You're ready to get a shot thrown in your face.
Speaker:
00:34:05
Let's go party. - Totally.
Speaker:
00:34:06
And if someone calls me Mikey,
Speaker:
00:34:08
that was my first year at Davidoff,
Speaker:
00:34:10
people called me Mikey.
Speaker:
00:34:12
If someone calls me Mikey...
Speaker:
00:34:14
- Like who's from Davidoff?
Speaker:
00:34:15
- Right. That's a very specific moment in time.
Speaker:
00:34:18
- That's so interesting.
Speaker:
00:34:20
In high school and grade school.
Speaker:
00:34:23
So, we're just transitioning into high school,
Speaker:
00:34:26
but I went to two different grade schools,
Speaker:
00:34:28
both private Catholic schools.
Speaker:
00:34:31
At one, I was Robbie Gagner,
Speaker:
00:34:34
which is not the French way to say my last name.
Speaker:
00:34:36
It's Gagner.
Speaker:
00:34:38
So, I corrected that when I went to the new school
Speaker:
00:34:39
in seventh and eighth grade.
Speaker:
00:34:41
I was Rob Gagner.
Speaker:
00:34:43
This was part of my growing out of my adolescence.
Speaker:
00:34:47
So it's, Robbie Gagner, Rob Gagner.
Speaker:
00:34:50
We go to high school, the two schools now meet, right?
Speaker:
00:34:54
They're both Catholic schools.
Speaker:
00:34:55
We're going to a Catholic high school.
Speaker:
00:34:57
And somebody says, "Oh, do you know Robbie Gagner?"
Speaker:
00:35:02
And they go, "No, but I know Rob Gagner."
Speaker:
00:35:05
(laughs) It's the same person,
Speaker:
00:35:06
(Michael laughing) it's me.
Speaker:
00:35:07
And they come to eventually find out,
Speaker:
00:35:09
"Oh, we were talking about - Talking about the same cat.
Speaker:
00:35:10
the same person," it was me.
Speaker:
00:35:12
I just found that very interesting
Speaker:
00:35:14
that you try to graduate your name
Speaker:
00:35:16
to a more refined and mature person.
Speaker:
00:35:20
- Well, I will tell you, what that example highlights for me
Speaker:
00:35:23
is what I experienced when I went to college.
Speaker:
00:35:27
You get very few moments in life where you can reset.
Speaker:
00:35:32
- Right.
Speaker:
00:35:33
- Where you show up to a completely new audience,
Speaker:
00:35:36
and in that moment,
Speaker:
00:35:39
you can be anything you wanna be.
Speaker:
00:35:42
When I grew up,
Speaker:
00:35:45
I was always into theater and music and acting.
Speaker:
00:35:49
But I was a pretty shy guy.
Speaker:
00:35:51
- Really?
Speaker:
00:35:52
- Yeah.
Speaker:
00:35:53
I was okay getting on a stage. No problem.
Speaker:
00:35:56
I could jump on a stage and
Speaker:
00:35:57
- Playing the drums. - perform, whatever.
Speaker:
00:35:59
Acting, singing. No problem.
Speaker:
00:36:02
Three people are having a conversation
Speaker:
00:36:04
on the other side of the room,
Speaker:
00:36:05
there is absolutely no way
Speaker:
00:36:07
I'm walking over and introducing myself. None.
Speaker:
00:36:09
I will stay by myself.
Speaker:
00:36:10
- I would totally think somebody who enjoys sales,
Speaker:
00:36:13
would not be that way.
Speaker:
00:36:16
- But it's different, when you're sales you're on stage.
Speaker:
00:36:21
Right? I'm in character.
Speaker:
00:36:22
When I'm behind a register- - See, I'm not, it's just me.
Speaker:
00:36:25
I wanna have that conversation
Speaker:
00:36:26
with those three people over there,
Speaker:
00:36:27
because I find it interesting and I'll go seek it.
Speaker:
00:36:30
- I couldn't do it.
Speaker:
00:36:31
- [Rob] See?
Speaker:
00:36:31
- Unless I was in costume and character.
Speaker:
00:36:33
So, if that's part of my job, I can do it
Speaker:
00:36:35
no problem at all.
Speaker:
00:36:36
But if I'm off the clock,
Speaker:
00:36:39
just me, as an eighth grader
Speaker:
00:36:42
and those are four people having a conversation,
Speaker:
00:36:43
I don't know them, there's no way I'm going in.
Speaker:
00:36:46
But, I didn't wanna be that way.
Speaker:
00:36:49
And I knew that I could jump on a stage
Speaker:
00:36:53
without paralyzing stage fright.
Speaker:
00:36:56
I knew I could jump into character
Speaker:
00:36:58
and perform and do all those things.
Speaker:
00:37:01
It was something about that,
Speaker:
00:37:02
that I just had a problem with.
Speaker:
00:37:04
When I got to college...
Speaker:
00:37:06
So I grew up in a small town,
Speaker:
00:37:08
and I was a big fish in a small pond, musically.
Speaker:
00:37:14
I was the drummer.
Speaker:
00:37:15
I got all the gigs, we performed a lot.
Speaker:
00:37:18
It was great.
Speaker:
00:37:20
I remember getting to college,
Speaker:
00:37:21
and I was also in a small town where my father grew up,
Speaker:
00:37:24
and my grandfather grew up,
Speaker:
00:37:26
so if I said, "Herklots," people would say,
Speaker:
00:37:28
"Oh, your dad's Doctor Herklots.
Speaker:
00:37:30
Your grandfather was at the college,
Speaker:
00:37:33
he owned the newspaper, right?"
Speaker:
00:37:34
All this.
Speaker:
00:37:35
When I got to college,
Speaker:
00:37:36
I remember, I was in line for registration
Speaker:
00:37:39
and they were like, "Name?"
Speaker:
00:37:40
And I said, "Herklots."
Speaker:
00:37:41
And they said, "Could you spell that?"
Speaker:
00:37:43
And I realized, it was probably one of the first times
Speaker:
00:37:44
someone asked me to spell my name.
Speaker:
00:37:46
And it was a light bulb.
Speaker:
00:37:47
- [Rob] Oh, wow.
Speaker:
00:37:48
Because I was like, "No one knows me,
Speaker:
00:37:50
this is totally new.
Speaker:
00:37:51
If I started speaking in a British accent right now,
Speaker:
00:37:54
no one would have any reason to think
Speaker:
00:37:55
that I'm not from England."
Speaker:
00:37:57
Do you know what I mean?
Speaker:
00:37:58
- [Rob] Right.
Speaker:
00:38:00
- That was a moment for me, where I was like,
Speaker:
00:38:01
"Okay,
Speaker:
00:38:04
shy is over.
Speaker:
00:38:08
I get to start fresh, no bias, no preconceived ideas.
Speaker:
00:38:12
So, Michael Herklots, at Berklee,
Speaker:
00:38:15
is going to be a very different person
Speaker:
00:38:17
than Mike Herklots, from Killingly.
Speaker:
00:38:20
I know I can do it. I'm gonna do it."
Speaker:
00:38:22
And I became way more outgoing, way more engaging,
Speaker:
00:38:26
way more social.
Speaker:
00:38:28
- Perfect timing.
Speaker:
00:38:29
- Perfect timing, you get that reset.
Speaker:
00:38:31
Just like you.
Speaker:
00:38:32
- [Rob] Yes.
Speaker:
00:38:33
- One quick change in pronunciation of your last name
Speaker:
00:38:36
allowed you to take on something different, right?
Speaker:
00:38:41
Evolve a little.
Speaker:
00:38:42
Polish a little.
Speaker:
00:38:43
- Right.
Speaker:
00:38:44
- And continue on.
Speaker:
00:38:45
You're not different,
Speaker:
00:38:46
but you're just kind of fine tuning and tweaking
Speaker:
00:38:49
as you go.
Speaker:
00:38:51
I think that it's such a unique opportunity for folks
Speaker:
00:38:54
that a lot of people don't take the opportunity
Speaker:
00:38:57
to see when there is the opportunity for a reset.
Speaker:
00:39:00
- You gotta see it.
Speaker:
00:39:01
- And a restart. You have to see it.
Speaker:
00:39:03
And for me,
Speaker:
00:39:05
I was
Speaker:
00:39:07
Boston Michael, Berklee Michael,
Speaker:
00:39:09
was very different than New York Michael.
Speaker:
00:39:12
When I moved to New York and started working Davidoff,
Speaker:
00:39:14
that was another one of those resets.
Speaker:
00:39:16
That was nine years of my life at Davidoff.
Speaker:
00:39:19
When I joined Nat Sherman, that was another moment.
Speaker:
00:39:22
It was that, "Okay, Nat Sherman Michael Herklots,
Speaker:
00:39:24
will be different than Davidoff Michael Herklots."
Speaker:
00:39:27
So, you tweak and you polish and you figure out, right?
Speaker:
00:39:30
What's the next chapter? - [Rob] I love it.
Speaker:
00:39:32
- And now here we are, Ferio Tego Michael Herklots.
Speaker:
00:39:35
I'm completely out of ideas.
Speaker:
00:39:36
So what you see is what you get.
Speaker:
00:39:37
But I think those
Speaker:
00:39:38
are really important moments. - It's still too new,
Speaker:
00:39:39
we don't know what we're gonna get.
Speaker:
00:39:40
- [Michael] That's right. And we're still evolving.
Speaker:
00:39:41
Let's face it.
Speaker:
00:39:43
- Yeah, you're selling a ton here at the show.
Speaker:
00:39:45
- (laughs) Bro, let me tell you,
Speaker:
00:39:49
we are the only booth at this show with
Speaker:
00:39:53
nothing to sell, no prices, no product, no samples.
Speaker:
00:39:57
I have nothing but hugs, stories, and you know...
Speaker:
00:40:02
- So you go to a trade show with
Speaker:
00:40:05
no inventory.
Speaker:
00:40:06
- [Michael] Yup.
Speaker:
00:40:07
- No price sheet.
Speaker:
00:40:09
- [Michael] None.
Speaker:
00:40:10
- Just to set the record straight for everyone out there,
Speaker:
00:40:12
that's probably the number one thing
Speaker:
00:40:13
people walk around and ask for, "Can I get your price list?"
Speaker:
00:40:16
I don't have one.
Speaker:
00:40:17
- And a sample. - Do they just look at you
Speaker:
00:40:18
like, "Did you show up to the show?"
Speaker:
00:40:21
- Well, let's be clear.
Speaker:
00:40:23
This was not plan A.
Speaker:
00:40:24
- [Rob] No. - Right?
Speaker:
00:40:25
I was not thinking four months ago,
Speaker:
00:40:29
"I got this great idea, trade show,
Speaker:
00:40:31
we're gonna show up with nothing."
Speaker:
00:40:33
That was not plan A.
Speaker:
00:40:34
But,
Speaker:
00:40:36
while I'm sure while everyone can appreciate the fact
Speaker:
00:40:39
that production requires a certain amount
Speaker:
00:40:42
of agility and flexibility.
Speaker:
00:40:44
Particularly, at the tail-end of a pandemic.
Speaker:
00:40:48
It is what it is. - Yeah.
Speaker:
00:40:50
- However, this organization was not as flexible.
Speaker:
00:40:54
So when I said, "You know what? We're about 45 days late.
Speaker:
00:40:57
Do you think we could push this trade show
Speaker:
00:40:58
to September 15th?"
Speaker:
00:41:00
- Just for you?
Speaker:
00:41:01
- Yeah, they said, "No."
Speaker:
00:41:02
They were unwilling to do it.
Speaker:
00:41:03
So, what do we do?
Speaker:
00:41:05
- He's a legend, but he's not that big of a legend.
Speaker:
00:41:07
- So what are we gonna do?
Speaker:
00:41:09
What was important to Ferio Tego, to us,
Speaker:
00:41:11
was that we have to be here.
Speaker:
00:41:14
This is the first opportunity to be with our peers,
Speaker:
00:41:17
in almost two years, we have to be here.
Speaker:
00:41:20
And so if that means that we have to be here differently,
Speaker:
00:41:24
that's what we have to do. - I commend you for taking it.
Speaker:
00:41:26
Beause you gotta do it. - We had spent the money,
Speaker:
00:41:28
we had invested in our membership,
Speaker:
00:41:29
it was one of the first things we did
Speaker:
00:41:31
once we formed the company, was we joined PCA.
Speaker:
00:41:34
Immediately.
Speaker:
00:41:35
And then we made sure that we had our deposit for our booth.
Speaker:
00:41:38
Immediately.
Speaker:
00:41:40
We had no plan.
Speaker:
00:41:42
But we still made sure
Speaker:
00:41:43
that we were set up with this association.
Speaker:
00:41:44
- Whether you got product or not.
Speaker:
00:41:46
You're going to the show.
Speaker:
00:41:47
- We're going to the show.
Speaker:
00:41:48
- Because this show, really is the bread and butter
Speaker:
00:41:51
and the lifeline of this industry, in my opinion.
Speaker:
00:41:55
And maybe you don't agree.
Speaker:
00:41:57
But when I came here, my first time,
Speaker:
00:41:59
I was like a kid in a candy store.
Speaker:
00:42:01
Walking around, looking at the amazement of the booths.
Speaker:
00:42:04
My jaw was practically open the whole time.
Speaker:
00:42:06
And somebody came around the corner
Speaker:
00:42:08
and saw the expression on my face and said,
Speaker:
00:42:10
"Are you new here?"
Speaker:
00:42:11
- First day?
Speaker:
00:42:12
- Yeah.
Speaker:
00:42:13
And I think it was Liana Fuente.
Speaker:
00:42:14
And I'm like, "Yes, I am."
Speaker:
00:42:16
- I can remember that feeling.
Speaker:
00:42:18
My first show, which was Nashville,
Speaker:
00:42:22
I think 2003, was my first show.
Speaker:
00:42:25
And it was absolutely the same.
Speaker:
00:42:27
My experience has changed.
Speaker:
00:42:28
I don't come in jaw-dropping.
Speaker:
00:42:31
But, my perspective has changed.
Speaker:
00:42:33
And so now I look at the show floor
Speaker:
00:42:36
as a representation of our industry.
Speaker:
00:42:40
And think to myself, "Wow, this is still
Speaker:
00:42:45
a very special, intimate, unique industry,
Speaker:
00:42:50
when you look at this floor."
Speaker:
00:42:53
But going back to your point,
Speaker:
00:42:54
so yes, this show, is the show.
Speaker:
00:42:57
There are lots of shows.
Speaker:
00:42:59
And they're all important and they're all meaningful
Speaker:
00:43:00
and they're all different.
Speaker:
00:43:01
But this is it.
Speaker:
00:43:02
- This is.
Speaker:
00:43:03
- But the reason this show is the show,
Speaker:
00:43:05
is because this association, is THE association.
Speaker:
00:43:10
I think this is the work that PCA is doing right now.
Speaker:
00:43:13
Because it's no secret
Speaker:
00:43:14
that over the last two or three years,
Speaker:
00:43:17
PCA has had some ebbs and flows
Speaker:
00:43:21
of identity
Speaker:
00:43:23
of support.
Speaker:
00:43:24
But, let's not forget.
Speaker:
00:43:27
The Premium Cigar Association,
Speaker:
00:43:29
is the association, trade association
Speaker:
00:43:33
for the premium cigar industry, full stop.
Speaker:
00:43:36
And so what that means is,
Speaker:
00:43:38
the PCA is not a seven-day event.
Speaker:
00:43:42
The PCA, - Feels like it.
Speaker:
00:43:44
- is a 365
Speaker:
00:43:46
day a year
Speaker:
00:43:48
association.
Speaker:
00:43:51
And because they are the leading association
Speaker:
00:43:53
of our industry, that's why this show, is the show.
Speaker:
00:43:56
So, there's obviously work to do as an association.
Speaker:
00:43:59
There's work to do as an industry.
Speaker:
00:44:03
There are a lot of differing opinions
Speaker:
00:44:06
on how to make this all better and more meaningful.
Speaker:
00:44:10
But, when you look at this show,
Speaker:
00:44:13
this shows you that we are way closer aligned
Speaker:
00:44:16
than we are apart.
Speaker:
00:44:19
That's a fact, as an industry.
Speaker:
00:44:22
There's obviously still work to do,
Speaker:
00:44:23
but that's why we're here.
Speaker:
00:44:24
With no samples and with nothing to sell
Speaker:
00:44:27
and with no prices, because this is the association
Speaker:
00:44:31
of this industry and we have to be here,
Speaker:
00:44:33
and we have to participate.
Speaker:
00:44:35
- So for you, it's just, hugging, shaking, kissing babies.
Speaker:
00:44:39
- And asking for patience, understanding and support.
Speaker:
00:44:42
And we're getting it.
Speaker:
00:44:44
It's been outrageous, man.
Speaker:
00:44:45
- You've earned it.
Speaker:
00:44:47
- Well, we're trying to earn it.
Speaker:
00:44:49
We haven't earned it as Ferio Tego.
Speaker:
00:44:55
There's no credit due.
Speaker:
00:44:57
We just started over, right?
Speaker:
00:44:59
It is what it is.
Speaker:
00:45:00
- No extra credit given, until you do the work.
Speaker:
00:45:02
- So I'm proud of my time with Nat Sherman.
Speaker:
00:45:05
I'm proud of my time with Davidoff.
Speaker:
00:45:07
I'm proud of my contribution, I hope,
Speaker:
00:45:09
that was meaningful for the last 20 years in this industry.
Speaker:
00:45:12
But standing in that booth for the last three days,
Speaker:
00:45:15
as Ferio Tego,
Speaker:
00:45:17
I don't get extra credit, for 20 years in the business.
Speaker:
00:45:21
I'm sorry I don't have prices.
Speaker:
00:45:22
I'm sorry I don't have product yet.
Speaker:
00:45:25
But all I can do is shake hands
Speaker:
00:45:28
and ask for support.
Speaker:
00:45:32
And we're getting it.
Speaker:
00:45:33
And I'm grateful for it.
Speaker:
00:45:37
- I would be, as well,
Speaker:
00:45:39
grateful for the support of retailers.
Speaker:
00:45:41
Because that retail line,
Speaker:
00:45:44
is the most important part of your business.
Speaker:
00:45:47
And you've had so much experience with that,
Speaker:
00:45:50
with Davidoff and Nat Sherman,
Speaker:
00:45:52
and building a sales team from scratch.
Speaker:
00:45:55
And then having to have a portfolio
Speaker:
00:45:57
that can support a shop with the proper amount of SKUs
Speaker:
00:46:01
that bring people in for new stuff,
Speaker:
00:46:04
but also bring people in for the regular stuff.
Speaker:
00:46:05
The stuff that I think you said it so well,
Speaker:
00:46:08
that they rely on.
Speaker:
00:46:09
That they wanna smoke every day,
Speaker:
00:46:11
or wanna smoke on a regular basis.
Speaker:
00:46:13
And you also said, after the pandemic of COVID
Speaker:
00:46:17
that that's what's gonna be the primary driver
Speaker:
00:46:20
to get the consumer back into the retail shop.
Speaker:
00:46:24
Here's what we have.
Speaker:
00:46:25
Let's not focus on releasing a bunch of new stuff.
Speaker:
00:46:28
And I know that was all with Nat Sherman,
Speaker:
00:46:30
but do you still believe
Speaker:
00:46:31
that's what's bringing people back into the shop?
Speaker:
00:46:33
What does the shop have, that I normally always smoke?
Speaker:
00:46:37
And let me get back to socializing with my friends.
Speaker:
00:46:40
- There is a
Speaker:
00:46:45
cultural, common theme.
Speaker:
00:46:50
We have meme stocks now, right?
Speaker:
00:46:54
- Meme stocks?
Speaker:
00:46:55
- Meme stocks. These stocks that get shot up,
Speaker:
00:46:58
people make a ton of money on them.
Speaker:
00:46:59
- [Rob] Oh, sure.
Speaker:
00:47:00
- But they're not based on fundamental cores.
Speaker:
00:47:04
The people analyze the stocks and we have no idea
Speaker:
00:47:06
why they're rocketing, but they are.
Speaker:
00:47:10
And we also know they're gonna crash.
Speaker:
00:47:12
But great, you can make money. - At some point.
Speaker:
00:47:14
But you're hoping
Speaker:
00:47:14
you're gonna catch it. - There are meme coins,
Speaker:
00:47:17
within the crypto world.
Speaker:
00:47:18
They show up out of nowhere.
Speaker:
00:47:19
There's no use case.
Speaker:
00:47:23
It's a meme coin and people can jump on, ride it,
Speaker:
00:47:26
and then they go away and you have to find the next one.
Speaker:
00:47:29
I think there's a culture of meme cigars.
Speaker:
00:47:31
And that's not a criticism,
Speaker:
00:47:33
because I think meme cigars,
Speaker:
00:47:35
I call them meme cigars.
Speaker:
00:47:36
I think they're great.
Speaker:
00:47:38
These little one-off, in and out,
Speaker:
00:47:41
this constant rhythm and cadence of new release.
Speaker:
00:47:45
Crazy cool.
Speaker:
00:47:47
- Small, limited. - I think it's an unbelievable
Speaker:
00:47:48
unbelievable model.
Speaker:
00:47:49
I think it's great.
Speaker:
00:47:50
But that's not our model.
Speaker:
00:47:53
Our model is,
Speaker:
00:47:54
once that cigar of the month sells out,
Speaker:
00:47:59
you know you can come back to us.
Speaker:
00:48:01
We're core.
Speaker:
00:48:02
So, if you look at Metropolitan, for example,
Speaker:
00:48:05
our Metropolitan Connecticut
Speaker:
00:48:07
has been made consistently, since 1995.
Speaker:
00:48:11
The same with our Host, Metropolitan Host,
Speaker:
00:48:13
1994. - Isn't that
Speaker:
00:48:14
having an anniversary, the Metropolitan brand is?
Speaker:
00:48:19
- It is,
Speaker:
00:48:20
I'm not sure we're gonna be organized enough
Speaker:
00:48:21
to celebrate it, but it is.
Speaker:
00:48:23
- Well, how many years has it been in-
Speaker:
00:48:25
- It was 1994, 1995.
Speaker:
00:48:27
We're actually now approaching
Speaker:
00:48:30
40?
Speaker:
00:48:31
1994.
Speaker:
00:48:32
2024.
Speaker:
00:48:34
We are going to approach a pretty big anniversary.
Speaker:
00:48:37
- [Rob] Wow.
Speaker:
00:48:38
- Timeless is celebrating 10 years next year.
Speaker:
00:48:42
But
Speaker:
00:48:44
we need things that we can depend on and rely on
Speaker:
00:48:48
in our lives.
Speaker:
00:48:51
You go to your doctor, because that's your doctor.
Speaker:
00:48:54
You go to your dentist, because that's your dentist.
Speaker:
00:48:57
You don't change dentists every time you need a cleaning.
Speaker:
00:49:00
You don't change doctors every time you don't feel well,
Speaker:
00:49:03
because you have a relationship that you trust.
Speaker:
00:49:08
That's a philosophy
Speaker:
00:49:09
that we've believed in,
Speaker:
00:49:12
that probably predated me at Nat Sherman,
Speaker:
00:49:14
but I shared.
Speaker:
00:49:16
It's one that I embraced throughout 10 years of Nat Sherman.
Speaker:
00:49:19
And it's one that we were absolutely going to embrace
Speaker:
00:49:22
at Ferio Tego.
Speaker:
00:49:23
This is not
Speaker:
00:49:25
cigar the month.
Speaker:
00:49:27
We have brands, and this is what's so interesting
Speaker:
00:49:30
about Ferio Tego,
Speaker:
00:49:31
is because we were able to acquire these brands,
Speaker:
00:49:35
we were able to carry on the legacy.
Speaker:
00:49:37
It's a legacy of consistency.
Speaker:
00:49:40
And it's a legacy of dependability.
Speaker:
00:49:42
That's an awesome responsibility to carry on.
Speaker:
00:49:45
So, moving forward,
Speaker:
00:49:48
we are going to continue to do the work we've done.
Speaker:
00:49:52
Creating a blend, is not an easy thing to do.
Speaker:
00:49:55
Maintaining that experience
Speaker:
00:49:57
for 25 years is infinitely more difficult
Speaker:
00:50:01
because the materials are changing,
Speaker:
00:50:04
and yet the experience, every time you light it,
Speaker:
00:50:06
has to be the same.
Speaker:
00:50:08
But that's something that we have been able to do, now,
Speaker:
00:50:11
since let's say 1994,
Speaker:
00:50:13
it's something I've participated in since 2011
Speaker:
00:50:16
with Nat Sherman.
Speaker:
00:50:17
And that's because we have great partners:
Speaker:
00:50:19
Quesada, Plasencia, and Davidoff.
Speaker:
00:50:22
They do the hard work.
Speaker:
00:50:24
We get to work closely with them
Speaker:
00:50:27
to make sure that we're all on the same page.
Speaker:
00:50:29
And together, we're fully aligned on what's most important.
Speaker:
00:50:33
Which is quality and consistency
Speaker:
00:50:35
and behavior of blend and experience.
Speaker:
00:50:38
And we're gonna do that.
Speaker:
00:50:40
Again, for another 10 years and more.
Speaker:
00:50:42
We're fully committed to that.
Speaker:
00:50:45
- You talk about that legacy, and Tim,
Speaker:
00:50:47
one of the owners of Boveda,
Speaker:
00:50:48
had told me,
Speaker:
00:50:50
the Nat Sherman brands,
Speaker:
00:50:54
when a baseball player would hit a home run.
Speaker:
00:50:57
- When a football player would score a touchdown.
Speaker:
00:50:59
- When a football player,
Speaker:
00:51:01
would score a touchdown. - [Michael] When the Giants
Speaker:
00:51:02
scored a touchdown.
Speaker:
00:51:03
- When the Giants?
Speaker:
00:51:03
- [Michael] Yup.
Speaker:
00:51:04
- Would score touchdown,
Speaker:
00:51:06
they would say, "Buy that guy a Nat Sherman cigar."
Speaker:
00:51:10
- Guy's name was Bob Papa, predated me.
Speaker:
00:51:15
Bob Papa on, I wanna say it was CBS Radio.
Speaker:
00:51:19
I think it was CBS Radio.
Speaker:
00:51:21
He's still on the air.
Speaker:
00:51:22
Anytime someone scored a touchdown
Speaker:
00:51:26
when Bob Papa was the commentator for a game,
Speaker:
00:51:30
every touchdown, "Give that man a Nat Sherman cigar."
Speaker:
00:51:34
I had no idea because I'm a musician,
Speaker:
00:51:35
I don't watch sports, I don't know what a touchdown is.
Speaker:
00:51:37
- I don't know what a touchdown is. (laughs)
Speaker:
00:51:39
- I can't tell you how many times
Speaker:
00:51:40
when I would introduce myself and say
Speaker:
00:51:42
I worked for Nat Sherman,
Speaker:
00:51:42
people would just say, "Give that man a Nat Sherman cigar!"
Speaker:
00:51:45
It was ingrained in culture,
Speaker:
00:51:46
- [Rob] Really? - particularly in the
Speaker:
00:51:47
Northeast, yeah.
Speaker:
00:51:49
- That is so cool. It's part of pop culture.
Speaker:
00:51:51
- Yeah.
Speaker:
00:51:52
It was incredible.
Speaker:
00:51:54
- What a weird feeling.
Speaker:
00:51:56
- Crazy.
Speaker:
00:51:57
And also really amazing point of pride.
Speaker:
00:52:00
- Exactly.
Speaker:
00:52:02
Wow. You can't pay for that.
Speaker:
00:52:04
It's unbelievable. It's amazing.
Speaker:
00:52:07
- I think
Speaker:
00:52:08
the stuff that is the most valuable
Speaker:
00:52:09
is the stuff you don't pay for.
Speaker:
00:52:11
- Exactly.
Speaker:
00:52:12
- You can spend all kinds of money
Speaker:
00:52:14
on all kinds of great things.
Speaker:
00:52:16
None of them are worth more
Speaker:
00:52:19
than the things that you just earn.
Speaker:
00:52:22
- Well said.
Speaker:
00:52:24
- It's a special part,
Speaker:
00:52:25
I think of our culture,
Speaker:
00:52:26
Nat Sherman's culture.
Speaker:
00:52:28
And it's gonna be a part of Ferio Tego's culture.
Speaker:
00:52:30
We're not gonna take anything for granted.
Speaker:
00:52:32
We're gonna earn all of it.
Speaker:
00:52:33
We're gonna work harder than anybody
Speaker:
00:52:35
because we have to.
Speaker:
00:52:37
- Right.
Speaker:
00:52:39
Like you said, you can't rest.
Speaker:
00:52:41
- You can't.
Speaker:
00:52:41
- Take it to the next level.
Speaker:
00:52:44
What is the next level for you?
Speaker:
00:52:46
Do you feel like you know it?
Speaker:
00:52:47
Or is it just gonna be something that organically happens
Speaker:
00:52:50
and you know, you're gonna push for always the best.
Speaker:
00:52:54
- Man, if we have learned anything, in the last 24 months,
Speaker:
00:53:00
it's that whatever you think is gonna happen
Speaker:
00:53:03
is not gonna happen.
Speaker:
00:53:04
(Rob laughing)
Speaker:
00:53:05
So, all you can do is be
Speaker:
00:53:09
as prepared as possible
Speaker:
00:53:12
for the fact that anything can happen.
Speaker:
00:53:16
And let's face it.
Speaker:
00:53:18
You can be as prepared as you wanted to be in 2019,
Speaker:
00:53:22
gearing up for 2020,
Speaker:
00:53:25
and as prepared as you are, or were,
Speaker:
00:53:28
you could not have seen
Speaker:
00:53:30
a global pandemic that would shut down the world
Speaker:
00:53:34
and kill hundreds of millions of people.
Speaker:
00:53:38
And what I've taken away from that is
Speaker:
00:53:43
you need to work really hard.
Speaker:
00:53:45
You need to be really prepared.
Speaker:
00:53:48
You need to think outside of the box.
Speaker:
00:53:50
But you also need to understand
Speaker:
00:53:53
that there are things in this world
Speaker:
00:53:55
that are just beyond your control.
Speaker:
00:54:00
You have to
Speaker:
00:54:02
concede
Speaker:
00:54:04
that things are gonna happen.
Speaker:
00:54:07
And it's how you respond and react to those things
Speaker:
00:54:11
that allow you to win.
Speaker:
00:54:14
We had a great business with Nat Sherman International
Speaker:
00:54:17
two years ago.
Speaker:
00:54:19
We went out of business.
Speaker:
00:54:22
Not because our product was bad or because sales were down.
Speaker:
00:54:26
It was things that were beyond our control
Speaker:
00:54:29
that forced us to close.
Speaker:
00:54:32
Our response, today, is we have a company called Ferio Tego,
Speaker:
00:54:37
but if you asked me in 2019, what my plans were,
Speaker:
00:54:39
I can tell you for sure, it was not, between you and me,
Speaker:
00:54:43
I'm thinking I'm gonna start my own cigar company.
Speaker:
00:54:45
I'm gonna call it Ferio Tego.
Speaker:
00:54:46
I'm gonna buy these brands.
Speaker:
00:54:48
It wasn't in the cards.
Speaker:
00:54:49
It wasn't in my mind.
Speaker:
00:54:50
It wasn't a goal.
Speaker:
00:54:53
But, you have to deal with the facts of the day.
Speaker:
00:54:57
You have to get above the chaos and look at your options.
Speaker:
00:55:01
And then you have to make the best decision
Speaker:
00:55:03
with the information you have
Speaker:
00:55:06
and go forward.
Speaker:
00:55:08
So, all I can tell you is
Speaker:
00:55:10
two years from now,
Speaker:
00:55:13
we're gonna be at a better place than we are today.
Speaker:
00:55:15
I can definitely tell you, two years from now,
Speaker:
00:55:18
I am gonna have sell sheets and price lists and products
Speaker:
00:55:22
at a trade show. That's for sure.
Speaker:
00:55:23
- There you go.
Speaker:
00:55:24
- But beyond that, I don't know.
Speaker:
00:55:27
- I have to say, though,
Speaker:
00:55:28
when I first heard that Nat Sherman wasn't gonna get sold,
Speaker:
00:55:32
and all the hard work you put into that,
Speaker:
00:55:34
wasn't gonna come to fruition,
Speaker:
00:55:37
I immediately thought, and Tim even said it too,
Speaker:
00:55:43
why doesn't Michael,
Speaker:
00:55:44
buy the names and start his own company
Speaker:
00:55:47
or continue on the legacy.
Speaker:
00:55:50
That thought popped into my head right away.
Speaker:
00:55:54
For you, when did it pop into your head?
Speaker:
00:55:57
- So I think it's important,
Speaker:
00:56:00
we had very specific criteria for the transaction.
Speaker:
00:56:04
Altria was very clear.
Speaker:
00:56:07
This was not a money-making proposition.
Speaker:
00:56:10
They weren't looking to sell this company and profit.
Speaker:
00:56:14
There were a lot of things that forced the decision to exit
Speaker:
00:56:19
the premium cigar business or retail business.
Speaker:
00:56:21
But they did it, I think, regretfully,
Speaker:
00:56:26
because they didn't want it to go that way
Speaker:
00:56:28
and with reverence for the legacy.
Speaker:
00:56:29
And so, the criteria of the transaction
Speaker:
00:56:32
to sell Nat Sherman International
Speaker:
00:56:34
was a mutually beneficial transaction, number one.
Speaker:
00:56:38
But the best outcome for the people in the company, two.
Speaker:
00:56:42
And number three,
Speaker:
00:56:43
to find a buyer that would carry on the work
Speaker:
00:56:47
and embrace the legacy of the brand.
Speaker:
00:56:51
COVID made that transaction impossible.
Speaker:
00:56:55
But what was never contemplated was just selling the brands.
Speaker:
00:56:59
That wasn't the deal.
Speaker:
00:57:00
The deal was to find the right fit for the right buyer
Speaker:
00:57:04
to carry on the legacy.
Speaker:
00:57:05
So, when we announced that we didn't sell,
Speaker:
00:57:08
we also announced that we did not sell the brands.
Speaker:
00:57:11
That was it, everything's over,
Speaker:
00:57:13
and this goes in the history books.
Speaker:
00:57:17
But it was following that,
Speaker:
00:57:19
because now we had to do the work of winding down
Speaker:
00:57:22
and shutting down,
Speaker:
00:57:23
which was incredibly emotional
Speaker:
00:57:25
because we were winding down a healthy business.
Speaker:
00:57:29
We were discontinuing healthy brands.
Speaker:
00:57:35
That was a real emotional drain.
Speaker:
00:57:38
And my partner Brendon,
Speaker:
00:57:40
who was the former CFO of Nat Sherman,
Speaker:
00:57:43
we were working together almost every day.
Speaker:
00:57:45
Masked up, in an office, in a pandemic,
Speaker:
00:57:48
winding down every night saying, "This sucks,
Speaker:
00:57:52
this just sucks."
Speaker:
00:57:55
And there came a point where we were just spit balling ideas
Speaker:
00:57:58
and figuring out what we're gonna do.
Speaker:
00:58:00
We know we're losing our jobs.
Speaker:
00:58:05
What if we just ask?
Speaker:
00:58:08
Maybe we just ask?
Speaker:
00:58:11
- Can't hurt to ask?
Speaker:
00:58:12
- Would you consider selling the brands?
Speaker:
00:58:13
I know you're not selling the brands,
Speaker:
00:58:14
but would you consider selling the brands
Speaker:
00:58:16
for us to continue the work?
Speaker:
00:58:19
And we approached Altria, with basically a plea.
Speaker:
00:58:23
Would you consider selling the brands to us
Speaker:
00:58:27
and allow us to continue this work ourselves?
Speaker:
00:58:30
And it was met with a resounding, yes.
Speaker:
00:58:34
Make an offer. Let's work through this.
Speaker:
00:58:35
Let's figure out how to do it.
Speaker:
00:58:36
- And you even got the Shermans involved.
Speaker:
00:58:39
- We didn't get the Shermans involved,
Speaker:
00:58:43
in any way, other than letting them know
Speaker:
00:58:45
that we were doing it.
Speaker:
00:58:47
But they were not involved.
Speaker:
00:58:50
- I thought you had said, you had even asked the Shermans,
Speaker:
00:58:53
"This is what we wanna do. We want to acquire the brands.
Speaker:
00:58:55
Are you comfortable with that?"
Speaker:
00:58:56
And they gave you a resounding, yes.
Speaker:
00:58:59
- It was fast forward.
Speaker:
00:59:00
It was once we understood that we could,
Speaker:
00:59:03
once we knew from Altria that we could,
Speaker:
00:59:05
then we shared the news.
Speaker:
00:59:07
- [Rob] With them.
Speaker:
00:59:08
- With the Shermans and
Speaker:
00:59:08
we didn't want it to be a surprise, of course.
Speaker:
00:59:11
- Sorry, that's what I meant.
Speaker:
00:59:12
And then they were ecstatic that you were going to do that.
Speaker:
00:59:16
- From the moment we started curating the idea,
Speaker:
00:59:20
to the moment we announced it,
Speaker:
00:59:22
to the moment that we announced
Speaker:
00:59:25
our distribution deal,
Speaker:
00:59:28
there has been nothing but
Speaker:
00:59:31
a steady drumbeat of support.
Speaker:
00:59:36
It's been unbelievable.
Speaker:
00:59:38
There's this real, genuine sense
Speaker:
00:59:41
that people are rooting for us.
Speaker:
00:59:46
It feels like a very unique thing.
Speaker:
00:59:49
People say that we're a family industry
Speaker:
00:59:51
and we all help each other out, and that's true,
Speaker:
00:59:54
but there's something about this
Speaker:
00:59:56
that feels very different.
Speaker:
00:59:59
About
Speaker:
01:00:02
the advocacy and the enthusiasm
Speaker:
01:00:05
and the way people are rooting for us to win.
Speaker:
01:00:11
I don't know where it comes from, but it's definitely real.
Speaker:
01:00:15
And it's definitely awesome. And it's definitely authentic.
Speaker:
01:00:19
And if this enthusiasm, in any way,
Speaker:
01:00:23
correlates to sales,
Speaker:
01:00:27
we're gonna have an inventory problem.
Speaker:
01:00:29
And we're gonna have to ask for continued understanding
Speaker:
01:00:33
and patience, no different than we're doing right now
Speaker:
01:00:35
with no samples and no price lists.
Speaker:
01:00:38
Because
Speaker:
01:00:40
we may have underestimated demand.
Speaker:
01:00:43
And I say that humbly.
Speaker:
01:00:45
If I'm wrong,
Speaker:
01:00:46
and we've forecasted correctly,
Speaker:
01:00:49
and we're gonna try and get back to stores
Speaker:
01:00:50
and we're gonna bang on doors
Speaker:
01:00:52
and we're gonna ask for the sale.
Speaker:
01:00:54
We're gonna work hard for this.
Speaker:
01:00:57
But if this enthusiasm
Speaker:
01:01:00
correlates to what is already in the market for demand,
Speaker:
01:01:08
there is an awfully bright light at the end of this tunnel.
Speaker:
01:01:11
- Phew.
Speaker:
01:01:12
- It's really exciting.
Speaker:
01:01:13
- I love how you pose that
Speaker:
01:01:17
there's a drumbeat that's happening from the outside in
Speaker:
01:01:20
to keep you going, because you play the drums.
Speaker:
01:01:22
- Because I'm a drummer.
Speaker:
01:01:23
- I love the fact that now people are playing the drums
Speaker:
01:01:26
for you, to keep you going.
Speaker:
01:01:29
- Man,
Speaker:
01:01:31
there was nothing more important in any
Speaker:
01:01:35
great performance, than the rhythm section.
Speaker:
01:01:39
You need a great bass player and a great drummer.
Speaker:
01:01:42
But nothing kills their performance,
Speaker:
01:01:44
than a drummer and a bass player that overplay.
Speaker:
01:01:48
It's all about making sure that the rhythm feels good.
Speaker:
01:01:52
And if it feels good, you've got a very happy audience.
Speaker:
01:01:56
But the minute a drummer starts throwing his sticks around
Speaker:
01:01:59
and the bass player starts going crazy.
Speaker:
01:02:00
It becomes a distraction.
Speaker:
01:02:02
And then it becomes a gimmick.
Speaker:
01:02:04
And then this band sucks.
Speaker:
01:02:06
Right?
Speaker:
01:02:06
- True.
Speaker:
01:02:09
- I think that's a learned discipline.
Speaker:
01:02:13
As a drummer, I spent a lot of time overplaying.
Speaker:
01:02:17
I spent a lot of time trying to get attention.
Speaker:
01:02:22
That's not my job as a drummer.
Speaker:
01:02:25
My job as a drummer, is to produce a foundation of rhythm
Speaker:
01:02:32
that makes everyone feel good.
Speaker:
01:02:34
And that makes the show right.
Speaker:
01:02:37
When I look at my career,
Speaker:
01:02:39
I spent a lot of time being young
Speaker:
01:02:43
and looking for attention and doing it all wrong.
Speaker:
01:02:46
It was authentic for me in the moment,
Speaker:
01:02:49
but I wore crazy suits.
Speaker:
01:02:50
I did everything I could do, to get attention.
Speaker:
01:02:53
And that becomes a distraction.
Speaker:
01:02:55
And when you are distracting, it becomes a negative.
Speaker:
01:03:01
At this point, I just wanna be a disciplined drummer.
Speaker:
01:03:07
I wanna keep a very steady rhythm, that people feel.
Speaker:
01:03:12
I want folks to be around our brand,
Speaker:
01:03:15
to be around our products,
Speaker:
01:03:17
and I just want it to feel good.
Speaker:
01:03:19
When you hear Sweet Caroline,
Speaker:
01:03:23
that is a great song.
Speaker:
01:03:25
No one talks about the drum part on that song, right?
Speaker:
01:03:28
Because it just has to feel good and everyone sings it.
Speaker:
01:03:32
The reason it's great,
Speaker:
01:03:33
is because the drummer and the bass player
Speaker:
01:03:36
do exactly what they're supposed to do on that song,
Speaker:
01:03:39
and they make it feel good,
Speaker:
01:03:41
when you get to that chorus and everyone sings it.
Speaker:
01:03:45
Our job today as Ferio Tego, is to not be distracting,
Speaker:
01:03:50
it's to be your favorite song.
Speaker:
01:03:52
That's it.
Speaker:
01:03:53
To have steady rhythm, that makes you feel good.
Speaker:
01:03:56
Every time you select it, every time you cut it,
Speaker:
01:03:59
every time you light it.
Speaker:
01:04:00
And it's as good as the last one you had
Speaker:
01:04:02
and it's as good as the first one you had.
Speaker:
01:04:05
That's our job.
Speaker:
01:04:06
- [Rob] I love it.
Speaker:
01:04:08
- And it's gonna work.
Speaker:
01:04:11
Or at least I hope it will. (laughs)
Speaker:
01:04:13
- Yeah.
Speaker:
01:04:15
Michael, I don't think we could end it any better than that.
Speaker:
01:04:18
What's coming from Ferio Tego, is going to be amazing.
Speaker:
01:04:22
You're working hard for it.
Speaker:
01:04:24
We appreciate you picking up the legacy that is Nat Sherman
Speaker:
01:04:27
and carrying it on.
Speaker:
01:04:29
Just a resounding, thank you.
Speaker:
01:04:31
- Thank you. Thanks for this platform.
Speaker:
01:04:34
Thank you for doing what you do
Speaker:
01:04:35
and allowing little guys like me
Speaker:
01:04:37
to have a platform and talk to people
Speaker:
01:04:41
and just ask for consideration.
Speaker:
01:04:43
That's all I would ask for.
Speaker:
01:04:45
One shot, maybe two.
Speaker:
01:04:47
- I think it's worth it.
Speaker:
01:04:48
- I hope it is.
Speaker:
01:04:49
- It's definitely worth it. Thank you.
Speaker:
01:04:52
- I appreciate you, man.
