Transcript

Michael Palumbos (00:46.7)

Welcome everybody to the Family Biz Show. I am your host, Michael Palumbos with Family Wealth and Legacy in Rochester, New York. And as always, we just get these more and more spectacular guests today. We are honored and so excited to bring Stephanie Stuckey from Stuckey's Corporation to you today. And we just want to say thank you and welcome Stephanie. 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (01:09.986)

Thank you, it's my pleasure. 

 

Michael Palumbos (01:12.12)

So we have a tradition on the show because we are the family biz show. Every current member of a family business usually takes a different journey on how they got involved in the family business. And I've kind of seen yours a little bit. This is not a lifelong journey for you to have been running Stuckey's. So do you mind telling us a little history on Stephanie and what was your journey to get to where you are today with the company? 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (01:40.398)

I'd be glad to you and at the end, I'd be really interested in whether there is any other family business member you've interviewed who has a similar trajectory, because mine is very different. I was not groomed to be in the family business. I'm five of seven grandchildren. The business was founded by my grandfather. And I'm number four of my father's children. 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (02:06.978)

So I was never the heir parent. mean, quite often you see it go down by age or ranking, whatever. was not in the equation, but even more importantly than that, my grandfather sold Stocky's, the business he founded that is known to some as a roadside oasis for generations, right? It was. 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (02:30.362)

really peaked in the 1970s. We had over 350 stores in 40 states and we had a candy plant, a distribution business, a trucking company and a sign painting company that covered America's highways with 4,000 billboards urging people to pull over now for a Pekin Law Girl. So he built all of that and he sold it. Before I was born. So I didn't grow up as the heir apparent. I never got a business degree. It was not 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (02:59.278)

in my strategic life professional plan at all. And so I had a full career mostly dedicated to public service. I started out as a public defender. I'm a lawyer. And then I translated that into being a legislator. And I focused mostly on environmental issues. I got very passionate about conservation and clean air, clean water, et cetera. And then I left the legislature after 14 years. 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (03:28.782)

and ran an environmental law firm. And then I was picked by the mayor of Atlanta to be head of the city of Atlanta's environmental programming and sustainability division. So I love that. I was very happy. And at age 53, I had the completely unexpected opportunity to buy Stuckey's. At that point, it had been out of our family hands and owned by several different outside corporations. 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (03:58.446)

It was six figures in debt. So it was kind of a mess and I'm happy to go into more detail there. My father did get the company back up. And so it was an investment group that he was one of the owners at the last group, but it was, it was a mess. All the principals had retired for almost a decade and no one else in the family wanted it. And so I invested my life savings and bought the company that was a little over three years ago. 

 

Michael Palumbos (04:27.958)

Yeah. Well, no one is going to have that story. No one's going to have that story. As you were talking, I had one that came close. So, Fee Brothers, when you, know, the, come on, had bidders to your, you know, your friends. Fee Brothers is a, they make bidders around. Yeah. And he was in the insurance business his whole life. And then, you know, 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (04:36.398)

Who said? 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (04:49.41)

Like an old fashioned. 

 

Michael Palumbos (04:56.686)

no intention of being part of the business. And like two years ago, his aunt tapped him and said, you and your brother want this? And he's like, okay. And they ended up taking it over with no background in it whatsoever. And they're doing that. 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (05:12.748)

Yeah, there are definitely some parallels and that they weren't groomed for this, which I actually think is a, in some ways can be a real advantage because you have all these other life experiences related to leadership or often you have different skill sets like creativity and big thinking. And so there are different things that I brought to the table, but of course I brought others on board and created a real team and we're making it happen. 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (05:40.556)

But I think what's super unique about our story, and I do know of one other company that shares something similar. And the unique part is that we lost the business and we got it. Yeah, that's what's unique. Most family businesses, it does not fall out of family hands and then they get it back. You see frequently that they. Someone in the family sells and is gone, you don't get back. The only other company I know that has gotten it back and I'm now on their board is Bell's. 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (06:09.452)

department store chain out of Florida. It's spelled B-E-A-L-L-S. Sometimes people mispronounce it as Beals and pronounce it phonetically, but it's called Bells. And that was founded during the Great Depression by the current CEO's great grandfather. And they went bankrupt, fell out of their hands. And then about a decade later, so they got theirs back sooner than we got ours. They got the... 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (06:35.496)

business back and he said that the great grandson says it's in our DNA that we lost this and that we got it back. You know it's like that much precious to us because we know how rare that is. 

 

Michael Palumbos (06:47.918)

Michael Palumbos (06:48.22)

That's awesome. Well, you'll have to introduce us and get we'll get them. Yeah 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (06:52.812)

it's amazing business. I'm so honored to be a part of that company in a small way as a member of their board. 

 

Michael Palumbos (06:59.886)

I love it. Tell me, mean, you just said magic words. It's in my DNA. It's in our DNA. You know, so think about that. You're 53 years old and you took your life savings to say, okay, we're going to do something different. had a totally, it wasn't, you know, a 10 degree turn or a 40 degree turn, 180 degrees. Oh heck. 

 

Michael Palumbos (07:27.126)

It was 600, 720 degree turn to get you around and be like, to make this decision. 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (07:33.292)

Yeah, I was a hippie. I still am. I wore Birkenstocks and hung out at my local coffee shop drinking oat milk lattes and talking about saving the world and my little green bubble. I'm still a vegetarian. I'm still dedicated to the environment. I still like to relax and Birkenstocks. yeah, but yeah, I'm not corporate CEO type at all. 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (08:02.88)

Okay. Now having said that, you got to dress part sometimes, right? And you got to, yeah, step up to the plate. So I'm totally fine doing that because I will do what it takes to build this company back. 

 

Michael Palumbos (08:16.43)

What was it for you? I wanna, the first time that the opportunity came up, what were you thinking? What was the feeling that you had when you heard about this? 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (08:28.274)

So this is embarrassing. was flattered that they thought I had what it took to buy the company and take it over. And then I realized that no one else was interested in it. I was the only one who either was interested or had the resources or, you know, I had both. So there was some interest, but the members who were interested didn't have the resources. 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (08:58.806)

I was it. so I was flattered and until I realized that, no, I was, I was somewhat of a, desperation choice, but that's great. Cause it gives you a bit of a chip on your shoulder and you want to prove that you can do it. Maybe not that you want to prove the others wrong. You just want to prove that you can do it. And there's, there's nothing more motivating than wanting to be able to show that as possible, confront the naysayers. 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (09:27.96)

Say, you know what, this is, I can do this, this can happen. And then you want to show up for others. I just hope that there's someone listening who may have a family business that fell out of their hands or might fall out of their hands. If the next generation doesn't take it on and let this be a cautionary tale, don't let it fall out of hands because what happened to Stuckey's could happen to you. Most of my grandfather's stores are shuttered. There's only 13 original stores still standing. 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (09:55.71)

Many of them are now strip clubs and trucker bars and it's heartbreaking. 

 

Michael Palumbos (10:00.942)

there. 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (10:01.918)

Turning 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (10:02.319)

it around. It's not too late. Not dead yet. We're off the life support. We're walking. 

 

Michael Palumbos (10:04.61)

No, 100%. 

 

Michael Palumbos (10:10.83)

I it. Walk me through your, you know, what you know, the stories of your grandfather and what he had done with the company and what's, what stuck out most for you? What are the things that, you know, when you, when you look at what your grandfather did that make you reach back and say, I'm tapping into that. 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (10:34.402)

Yeah, there's three main lessons I learned from him. And just to back up, I was 12 when he died. It was he died a week after my 12th birthday. So I wish I'd known him better. I knew him as my grandfather because he was not running the company. He told it. So I knew him as my grandfather. So once I bought the company that he had built, I rediscovered him in a whole different light by reading his papers. 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (11:02.23)

That was really the best gift I got. The company was a hot mess, but my mom gave me my grandfather's papers that no one had looked at in 50 years. So I spent a lot of time reading them and resurrecting him. And it was almost like he was speaking to me from the grave. Right. And I was retelling a story, by the way, shameless plug. I am working on my book right now and it is his story alternating with my story. And it's the lessons I learned from him. So the three main lessons first. 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (11:31.846)

is the ability to pivot. I learned that during World War II, he had several stores and he was doing really well, but he had to shut his stores because gas was rationed and he no longer had access to sugar, which was his main ingredient for all the candy he was making. so he had to re-envision his business to survive from being roadside stores to he bought a manufacturing plant and 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (12:00.288)

supplied candy to the troops. So he got government contracts. Okay. So he reinvented himself. So that's number one, like, don't be afraid to pivot and reinvent yourself out of necessity. The second lesson I learned came at another crisis. So the best lessons come out of crisis. And that was when the interstate highway system came along. And at that point, he had a lot of stores and they were on the Jefferson highway, the Lincoln highway, route 66, the Dixie highway, and the interstate bypassed all that. 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (12:31.114)

he had to shutter those doors and he could have steadfastly and stubbornly stayed where he was, but he would have gone under. And what did he do? He embraced the reality of what was happening. And he said, I'm going to go to the interstate. I'm going to go all in. He uses opportunity to brand the stores. He created an iconic design that had a turquoise slope roof that many people recognize. 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (12:57.374)

And he did a really smart business move. He entered into an exclusive agreement with Texaco to provide their gas on the interstate highway system. And he got a percentage of every gallon pumped. And that made him a millionaire. So amazing lesson there. And the third and the most important is to have a sense of purpose. His saying was every traveler is a friend. I found that throughout his papers. And I learned that that was what he had framed above his desk. 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (13:26.086)

And it's really not only what he looked at every day, but it's how he lived his life and how he ran his business. The best example of that is that during the era of segregation, Stuckey's was never whites only. were always a welcoming, hospitable brand and whites, blacks, everyone knew that they could pull over and we were a safe stop. So having that sense of purpose that every person who comes in contact with your brand. 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (13:55.424)

is going to be treated with respect and warmth and hospitality. They're going to be your friend. So I carry all those lessons today, right? When I bought his company, it was a mess. I had to figure out what to do. We had these franchises, franchises that were out of date and the stores weren't making very much money and the manufacturing had been outsourced for 50 years. So I had to turn things around and we bought a manufacturing facility with SBA loan. 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (14:23.128)

So we leverage some government financing and we're making candy again. So that's what he did in a crisis, right? He pivoted, he made candy, we're making our snacks and candies. We went from selling to less than hundred locations to almost 5,000. We went from 2 million in sales to over 13 million in three years. And it's because we were able to pivot. And then just a sense of purpose throughout you treat everyone. 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (14:53.216)

as a friend and that's our brand. We're road tripping friendly brand. 

 

Michael Palumbos (14:57.868)

Yeah, and it's, so for anybody that's listening that is not on LinkedIn, I implore you to get on LinkedIn. And what Stephanie, what you just said is everything that's happening on LinkedIn for you and what you're doing. It's not, there's nothing happening for you. You created an image on LinkedIn that shares the purpose. There are more people posting Stucky's stuff and tagging you and tagging 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (15:25.644)

I love that. 

 

Michael Palumbos (15:26.636)

And 

 

Michael Palumbos (15:26.886)

those are, you've made friends not just on the roadside places, but on the internet and utilizing that in such a fabulous manner. The pivot, you know, for a lot of families, was COVID was the first time we heard the word pivot before. And so I think that's really wonderful that, you you went back and looked at the history. I tell people all the times, stories bind us. 

 

Michael Palumbos (15:51.426)

story, learn and pay attention to what they said, because the lessons are there and you don't know when you're going to need that story to be resurrected and come back and do it again. So good on you. 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (16:02.798)

Story stick, right? That's what you remember. You may not, like I think about sermons on Sunday, I will often, sorry if my preacher's listening, I'll often forget a lot about what was said from the pulpit, but I'll remember the stories. Like that's what connects us with each other. And you mentioned image, which I think it is important you have a consistent image that you put out there, but it's authentic, right? Like I love to road trip. 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (16:31.904)

And I'm Stucky's, so you can't get any more authentic than having the name that's on the brand. So you have to be authentic. You have to be real. You have to say something that's relevant and it's interesting. 

 

Michael Palumbos (16:44.408)

when we follow you, you do not look like a corporate attorney or somebody that's working in government. You look like Stephanie Stuckey that wears the Birkenstocks and is just out having fun, meeting people and I love it. Very, very nice. And a lesson for anybody that is working on their brand on social media. But to your point, it needs to be authentic to them. 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (16:58.496)

Thank you. 

 

Michael Palumbos (17:10.151)

Not, not, not, don't recreate Stephanie story, recreate yours and figure out, know, what are those things? What is your purpose? And, know, what is your vision for where you're going? So good on you. 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (17:22.445)

Yeah, you know, I'll throw out an acronym and I need to credit the person who told me and that's Ted Wright, who's on the Stuckey's board. And he's also a co-owner. have two partners. I have my main business partner who's president. He and I jointly run the company. And then we have a third investor, Ted Wright, who's a marketing professional. He wrote a book called Fizz, which is about word of mouth marketing. And Ted taught me, if you want to share a story, 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (17:50.626)

that is going to be shared by others. It has to have three things. It has to have air, authentic, interesting, and relevant. So every time you're telling a story, ask yourself, is it authentic? it doesn't, authentic does not mean every little detail has to be accurate because by gosh, I'd be pretty boring sometimes if you go through these minute details. it's storytelling, tell a story, then interesting. 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (18:20.814)

You got to post stuff that people are going to want to read, give a hook, give an engaging title to your post. And then it's got to be relevant. So not everything's going to be relevant to everyone. So think who's your audience, right? My audience is going to be two people really. I mean, it was anyone who loves a road trip because that's our brand. So we talk about the road trip, but what we're really trying to do is sell product, but that's boring. So 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (18:49.944)

talk about road trip, but my audience are retailers who can sell our product or customers direct to customers who are going to buy our product online or even better, because we can get more money out of them. People who have a decision making authority and corporations and want to use us for their corporate gift program, because we will sell you lots of Stucky's gift tins. 

 

Michael Palumbos (19:19.95)

love it. So you've done a few things for our listeners today. One, your grandfather's three lessons are fabulous and everybody should make sure that they have that inside of their their company. You know, if you're not doing strategic planning, strategic planning isn't an event to process, right? You have to we don't know what the future is going to do or if a competitor comes in or the government changes the rules. No, 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (19:48.31)

Yeah, 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (19:49.694)

it happens. Raises interest rates, right? 

 

Michael Palumbos (19:50.743)

Yeah. 

 

Michael Palumbos (19:55.618)

Just 

 

Michael Palumbos (19:56.138)

a little quickly, just maybe a little quickly, right? So you've got to be ready for all of these things. The other thing, you your air and your partner that shared that was fabulous when you're talking about creating social media posts, that's huge. But the other thing you just hit on, you know, your core customer inside and out already. 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (20:10.926)

Ted, right? Yeah. 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (20:20.662)

Yes, yeah. 

 

Michael Palumbos (20:22.254)

And I think it's rare that people know their core customer at that level. In our company, our core customer's name is Curious George. So we named them. George is the owner of a construction company, or the owner, mostly construction company, but usually it's a family-owned business. But they know what to do when they get it done and they get their hands dirty and they're okay doing that. 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (20:35.662)

I love it. 

 

Michael Palumbos (20:51.736)

but they're still curious to learn more. And that's our guy or woman, but that's how it goes. I love that you know yours so well. 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (21:01.114)

I do, but I will also say you have to constantly evolve if you want to remain relevant as a brand. And that is something that I am strategically working on and Ted and his team have helped me. He's got some millennials on his team. One of my business partners, RG is 17 years younger than me. So he's a millennial, which is great. And they put together a series of themes that I should start 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (21:30.606)

talking about. I'm not just making Brady Bunch references, right? Which us Gen Xers, the sandwich generation, we're like the tiniest demographic. like, I'm working really hard to only put, to start posting about stuff that was in the 1990s. So last week, I did a post on Dazed and Confused and lessons learned from that movie when I was on a road trip to Austin, Texas, which is where the movie was filmed. So 

 

Michael Palumbos (21:49.614)

Okay. 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (21:58.734)

You'll see more and more that I'm trying to reach out. And I get really excited when I see people comment who are in the demographic that I am trying to reach. 

 

Michael Palumbos (22:07.928)

Love it. That's super cool. Very cool. Do you have children that any chance that somebody might join you in the future or who knows? 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (22:14.381)

I do. 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (22:19.884)

Well, I love that you talked about the business that, you know, the nephew who didn't think that they would ever be running the company was tapped. So I think it's important to cast a wide net. Family business can be defined, in my opinion, broadly. My grandfather had seven grandchildren. There are now great grandchildren, great, great grandchildren. 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (22:49.964)

So some of them could be options. niece is pregnant. I'm thinking, okay, that could be the next CEO. Not even born yet. So I'm open to nephews and cousins. I think that's important because that direct line isn't always going to be the one. And I'm not saying my kids wouldn't be, but right now my daughter wants to be a journalist or a filmmaker. My son's interested in writing and 

 

Michael Palumbos (22:53.901)

I it. 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (23:19.886)

Neither one of them has an interest, but they're still 20 and 17. So they got a while, but I just say, keep an open mind about family. And then the last thing is I'd say, just because they're, they may own part of the company. My kids will definitely inherit what I make when I die. So they'll own it, but that doesn't mean they run it. Very different ownership versus management and 

 

Michael Palumbos (23:23.746)

thousand percent agree. 

 

Michael Palumbos (23:44.908)

Right. 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (23:49.302)

Running. Not everyone should be running a company just because they have the last name or they have a, as my dad says, they won the Fallopian tube lottery. Doesn't mean they're the best qualified. Yep. 

 

Michael Palumbos (24:04.19)

and and maybe 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (24:05.41)

Yes, are. 

 

Michael Palumbos (24:07.566)

I had, I wanted nothing to do with becoming a wealth advisor and coaching family businesses. I worked for Xerox and I loved it. And it was given opportunity and challenges and it was out of the blue. My dad and I had a conversation when I was frustrated. Let's talk about this just a little bit. Why don't you go and talk to, you know, his manager at the time. And man, I just was like, 

 

Michael Palumbos (24:36.94)

You mean you get paid well for doing really good things and helping people instead of just selling a product. He's like, yeah, all right. Hook line and sinker. I'm in. And today my business doesn't look, it looks very little like my father's and that's okay. I've learned to embrace that. It was really hard for him to see me change and not be as much the wealth manager, but being the family coach and the business coach. 

 

Michael Palumbos (25:06.222)

you know, as we do things. but today he looks back and says, you have to be you got to be you. So I think, you know, that I think is really important. And that just reminded me to think about how wide my neck could be. I can change that. That's I needed that reminder. So thank you. 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (25:14.326)

Yes, why not. 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (25:26.286)

You're welcome. But it's great that your father also said you can run the company the way you want to. And that is a dynamic that I see where it's really hard to let go of those reins. So I'm already thinking when it comes time for me to let go, I need to let go. Let the next person run it, the next generation. They need to have that latitude. 

 

Michael Palumbos (25:44.876)

Yeah. 

 

Michael Palumbos (25:52.492)

And because they can't be you. Yeah, right. I mean, you have this way of doing things that you embraced and, you know, take a company. mean, again, I just congratulations to where you were to where you are today. 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (26:07.17)

The thing is, like I said earlier, the lessons from my grandfather that you do have to respect some of the constants. I like to say I respect the past, but I don't live in it. But there are certain things that should be unchangeable about your brand, right? Like we have a commitment to making the best quality pecan snacks and candies anywhere. the next generation needs to be very mindful of that. And we have a commitment to our purpose of treating people as friends with hospi- 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (26:36.844)

hospitality and respect. So some of these things like really need to be unchanging, but a lot of the stylistic, gotta, you gotta be willing to let go, but you want someone who really wants to do the job. You don't want anyone who does it out of obligation because I really wanted Stuccy's. I loved my grandfather and I saw what had happened to his brand and I was excited and passionate about the opportunity to bring that back. And there were days when I just think what the heck am I doing? Right. 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (27:06.702)

So even being super passionate and just so excited, like this is what I would put on the zerg to do. You have days when you just want to scream in a pillow. So I can only imagine if you take it on as an obligation. What do those hard times look like? 

 

Michael Palumbos (27:21.346)

Yeah. 

 

Michael Palumbos (27:26.03)

or take it on if it's gifted to you. 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (27:30.518)

Yeah, you don't appreciate it. 

 

Michael Palumbos (27:33.164)

you did a wonderful thing where you invested in it and to bring, to revive your grandfather's legacy and bring that brand back up to out of the minds of what people think some of the Stuckeys are today. Like you mentioned the unthinkable businesses that your grandfather be having a heart attack over. you're, Randy, I never would ever think of Stuckeys as that. 

 

Michael Palumbos (27:59.374)

because I know who you are, I know what you've done with it, and I know what you stand for. 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (28:03.608)

Yeah. There's no sense of entitlement for sure. We have to buy it. 

 

Michael Palumbos (28:09.581)

And I bought my father's, know, half of the, I bought half of them. I just wanted the family owned businesses, the executives and retirees, somebody else bought, but worked out really well. I've always, I love the family side of things because it's way messier. And I was messy. I didn't, I did think, yeah. to me that's more fun. 

 

Michael Palumbos (28:36.93)

to deal with than the eight to five executive retiree kind of stuff. What's tough about running the business for you today? 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (28:51.362)

people side. 

 

Michael Palumbos (28:53.336)

How so? 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (28:54.51)

I say I easily spend, and I think this is typical of CEOs, I spend probably 40 % of my time on managing people, relationships. We have a unique challenge in that we bought, not only did I buy Stuckeys, but then I merged my company with a business partner and he had a company. And fortunately, the most important thing that's really making this work is 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (29:24.206)

I have such respect for my main business partner who runs a company with me. just joined, we're equal. I'm CEO, he's president and some structure CEO's over president, but with us it's equal. The titles could almost be interchangeable. So he and I are very much aligned, our skillsets are compatible, but then the two of us bought a candy plant that was already in operation. They'd been around since 1935 and had only had two owners during that 80. 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (29:53.134)

plus your history. coming in with that culture and merging it with our culture, what they don't tell you when you learn about mergers and acquisitions, even though I didn't get a business school, I read up on it a lot and I watched a lot of webinars. So I taught myself about mergers and acquisitions and I took business law and law school. So in any event, the financials are just the beginning. It's merging the 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (30:22.464)

people and the cultures and how you conduct meetings and how you put in place processes and structure and org charts. we had an organization that just ran things differently. It's not right or wrong, but it was different. And we have a different way of growing the Stuckey's business. so it's the whole good to great, right? Jim Collins book, which I've read five times. 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (30:51.751)

live by it. You want the right people on the bus and the right seats. 

 

Michael Palumbos (30:57.198)

doing the right things. 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (30:59.51)

Yeah, doing the right things. All right, see, need to read it enough. It's like, there's three right people, right seats doing the right task. So we're working on that piece right now and change is not easy. 

 

Michael Palumbos (31:02.586)

It's all good. It's all good. 

 

Michael Palumbos (31:16.215)

And in that way 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (31:17.038)

Stephanie Stuckey (31:17.418)

That's the hardest part. It's just putting as you scale, right? Because we started when I bought the company, had nine employees and three years later we have 90. So we can't do these kind of loosey goosey check-ins like I did before. Now we've got to have agenda and minutes and follow up and action items and ops team and a 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (31:41.55)

finance team and HR team and you know, you got it. You got your strategic plan and you got your retreat. It's. And when you're used to not doing that and then all of a sudden it's like we're doing this. 

 

Michael Palumbos (31:55.566)

Yeah, it's a very cultural change and some people can't make that shift. And one of the things that we teach is that that's okay. It's hard, but it's okay. It's not getting a divorce. You know, one of the places, I love this idea, somebody created a alumni for the company. So what they said is we will honor everybody that's here. 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (32:10.925)

Yeah. 

 

Michael Palumbos (32:25.154)

just because you're leaving, want to, you know, we want, have a ABC corporation alumni and we want you to know that we love you and we're so proud of you going on and doing what you're doing. And that way it does two things. it always leaves the door open if, you know, as long as those things can be there. But two, we understand that there's a season for everything, right? And what got you here might not get you there. 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (32:52.554)

Exactly. Well, the hard part, it's okay if people leave voluntarily. think that's hard on the company, but then terminating people is hard too. Sometimes it's for the best, but it's not easy. 

 

Michael Palumbos (33:05.39)

We just did 72 interviews with different CEOs and the number one and number two priority was growing revenue and profit. Number two was attracting and retaining employees was their key priority. When we talk to them about their fears, with their frustrations, what was going on for them, they're like, everything was always about people. So when I, you 

 

Michael Palumbos (33:34.254)

I think as I'm writing a white paper based on the research that we did, and my, the tone of it is that, now more than ever before, every single CEO and president has to understand they are not in the business of the widgets that you do or the services that you do, you're in the people business. 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (33:53.398)

Yeah, absolutely. 

 

Michael Palumbos (33:55.927)

And so that's, that's great. 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (33:57.666)

It's wrapping your head around that side of it and then being able to delegate. 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (34:05.56)

put good people in and then delegate. 

 

Michael Palumbos (34:12.418)

What are you doing when you're merging organizations with people? How are you sharing and hoping that they catch your vision? What are some of the things that you do to share your vision with to build the culture that you have at Stuckey's today? 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (34:30.08)

So it's an evolving process. 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (34:33.998)

For us, since we bought a company that had been around since 1935 and had a strong sense of history already, I did not want to come in there saying, well, Stuckey's is in town and we own the place and ram our vision and our company history down their throat. So it's been two years since we bought the company and it's still a process. So initially it was just listening and we're still listening. 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (35:04.078)

And we just hired a new person whose job in part will be related to culture and employee engagement. And so I've got him conducting interviews with the team members and getting their honest feedback on how the company can make them feel like they belong and happier. What's going, what are their issues? So he's got questions that he's going to ask each of them that's going to be kept anonymous. 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (35:32.15)

And then we're going to take that and that will help inform how we grow the culture. And so I think it's not just my vision. What's our shared vision? It's to get that buy-in. And certainly I have a sense of what we're where we need to take the company, but you can't take it unless you've got people who are part of that journey with you. So it's a process. I think it's listening first and foremost. 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (36:00.672)

And then knowing that their input is what's going to drive what we're putting forth. So we're still in the process. mean, of course we have a strategic plan and we have a vision statement, a mission statement, all the stuff that's required for your financing. And, you know, we have a strategic plan, but as we grow and we've got a bigger team, we've got to get buy-in on that. And buy-in starts with listening. 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (36:29.87)

So we're gonna listen and then we're gonna start evolving from there. And we've got lots of big plans. Ask me in a year, because I think our culture is gonna really start taking off after we start, finish doing our listening session rounds. 

 

Michael Palumbos (36:45.076)

that you understand that culture is the foundation of your growth is fabulous. I like to look at it as the culture is the foundation of the house that you build or the business that you build. The two walls are, you know, looking at it from the cohesiveness. Is the team honest with each other? Do they trust each other? And then it's like, how do we hire 

 

Michael Palumbos (37:11.85)

and how do we score, you what are the scorecards for people and whatnot. And when you have those walls done, strategy and execution kind of just starts coming together for you faster and more furious. So good for you. I really love that you, I mean, you've, you've dug into all of the things you, you are a textbook lesson and you know, good to great. And you know, Patrick Lencioni's five dysfunctions of a team, you're talking about all of the things. 

 

Michael Palumbos (37:40.578)

that need to be there. I'll share with you a quick story. New construction companies decided that, you know, their drawings and the cab cam people and all the people that did all of the stuff, they were duplicating the work. They were friendly competitors in different businesses, but the engineering staff would do all the design work. There was a lot of overlap. 

 

Michael Palumbos (38:08.91)

And so they took those two departments and made their own company out of it. And now you've got the, you've got the, you know, the, culture of one company flashing with the culture of the other company. And it was going on and the CEOs were both frustrated because it was not going anywhere as close to the way that they thought. And their business coach said, throw away both of your cultures and go in. 

 

Michael Palumbos (38:37.858)

pull your leadership team together from the group that's there and have them create the culture of what the future is going to be. And I thought that was pretty interesting to think about that. 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (38:48.62)

Yeah, thanks for sharing that. That's relevant to what we're trying to create and make sure it's something that everyone is. 

 

Michael Palumbos (38:55.8)

Co-create. Yeah. I share that with people all the time. You can create all the vision you want on the planet, but if it's, I'm telling you what we're going to do, it's not the same as, let's link arms and do this together. You know, a book, I don't know if you've read the book, Extreme Ownership. 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (39:16.632)

I have not. 

 

Michael Palumbos (39:17.774)

I put it on your list as you build this team. What's neat about it is, you know, so we like five dysfunctions of the team. Now we're gonna phrase that. We love five dysfunctions of the team for working on a leadership team, building all the things that are necessary. When I talk about dysfunction though, let me just tell you construction, you know, people, men or women, if you're in the construction industry, we don't wanna talk about dysfunction. But if we talk about extreme ownership and how Navy SEALs would do it, they're all up for that. 

 

Michael Palumbos (39:47.422)

And I think there's complimentary lessons between those two books, whether it's Patrick Lentz, the only five years functions or Leif Babbitt or yeah, Leif Babbitt and I forget the other Jack O'Willings book, Extreme Ownership, really great stuff in there. Yeah. Yeah. When you're going through what you're going through right now, it'll help you to build, you know, those lessons will help you to build your team and make it stronger. All right. 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (40:03.669)

Check them out. 

 

Michael Palumbos (40:17.71)

Michael Palumbos (40:20.093)

Take business off the table for a second. Your favorite family traditions. 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (40:26.798)

Well, I'm not just like I said earlier, I sincerely am a road tripper, road tripping. My family's always road tripped. My father is 87 and whenever I'm on the road, he'll say, what, what road do you honestly, I-95 he's like, what exit? And it's kind of like seeing if I can stump him and I'll say, okay, exit 289. He's like, oh, there's a BP at the next mile marker. Like he knows mile markers. He knows exits. 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (40:55.574)

We joke that in our family, they're Stucky miles, which means taking a 600 mile road trip is nothing because it's Stucky miles. We're used to driving insane distances because that's how we roll literally. So we've always road tripped. 

 

Michael Palumbos (41:13.294)

And I did as a kid with my mom and dad. And there was four of us. of fact, my father couldn't go on one trip, so we were going out to Minnesota. And I did the navigating at like 14 years old, reading the maps, making sure. And we had some nasty weather, and that was some of the best memories. Growing up were those road trips. As short or long as they were, you're absolutely right. 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (41:33.869)

Yeah! 

 

Michael Palumbos (41:42.006)

I remember one road trip with just my father. And so we're up North. So we didn't have the benefit of suckies, you know, in the, and the road trips, but the, but you, to his credit, when we were going on one road trip, he went into the store and just came out with boatloads candy and nuts and just, you know, road trip food. if, if, if there there was suckies there, we would have eaten it out, you know. 

 

Michael Palumbos (42:11.918)

100%. So we, my wife and have seven kids. So road tripping with seven kids was, we tried that once to Florida and we swear that was probably not going to happen. 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (42:27.752)

Yeah, there are five in my family, so I can relate. 

 

Michael Palumbos (42:32.686)

Yeah. 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (42:34.67)

Someone always had to to the bathroom. 

 

Michael Palumbos (42:38.094)

100%. So when you look at your goals for the future and what you're building and what you're creating, what would you say are your top three priorities? 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (42:49.87)

Well, we've got a very practical goal is we want to grow this company to be a hundred million in profit. I mean, I'm sorry, in sales, a hundred million gross sales. And I think it's doable. I want to do that by the time I retire. I want to retire when we hit a hundred years old, which will be in 2037. Maybe we'll even reach it before then. So this is along with that goal is we want to be the go-to pecan snack brand. Anywhere. If you go on a snack nut aisle. 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (43:20.098)

You'll see brands for peanuts, cashews, almonds, pistachios, macadamia nut. Where's the pecan brand? There isn't one, right? And yet it is the only snack nut that is native to North America. And Georgia, where we are based, is the number one state for pecan production. 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (43:45.1)

So we just, it's just a natural, our brand is associated with pecan. We're in the main area in the world where you can find pecans. And so we just think it's a natural for us. And so that's our goal. We want to grow the pecan as a snack brand and we want us to be the brand that people associate just like you might associate planners with peanuts, right? And then third, think just continue to grow with a sense of purpose. 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (44:15.448)

treating everyone with respect along the way. 

 

Michael Palumbos (44:18.358)

Nice love it I will share we've had we have not had planters on our show, but we have had hubs on our show and they would they're they're working I don't know if you're familiar with hubs peanuts. family brand they they they have the. Every day the quality of a hubs peanut is different than everybody else so you'll have to check them out. 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (44:46.168)

Okay. 

 

Michael Palumbos (44:47.01)

But they are the, I don't, the best peanut is what they're going after. Maybe not the most well known, but they want to have the best peanut snacks out there. And I'll share this with you only because you just were saying those things. somebody sent a tin of Hubs peanuts to Danny Wegman, Wegman's food. Yep. And it was that. 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (45:11.938)

Sure. 

 

Michael Palumbos (45:15.436)

that happened and when that happened Danny's like those are our peanuts. don't want anything. So I would implore you to send a tin of your favorite pecan snacks to Danny Wegman and let me know if that works out for you. 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (45:21.748)

that's a great story. 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (45:33.23)

Well, I will tell you right now, our biggest challenge is keeping up with product demand. We are just we are dealing with a good problem, but but we don't have the production capacity. So right now I've had to the brakes on sales. Our production team is saying, please, we can't we can't manage it. And so we've got a pipe, we've got a sales pipeline. when. 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (45:59.618)

businesses reach out to us that they want to carry our product. Now, a small business we can supply if you've got like a mom and pop store by all means, but the large distributors like Publix is on our list, Kroger, we can't even make that pitch because if they say yes, we're not ready. So we are in some chains. We're in Food Lion, Ingalls, Wawa in Florida. 

 

Michael Palumbos (46:22.651)

Wawa, I love Wawa. Justin Sourga. 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (46:25.922)

All right, so if you go to the wah-wahs in Florida, the maple pecan snacks are in there. We've just got one skew, but we're in wah-wah. So we're growing consistent with our capacity right now. But when we are in a position where, you know, Wegman said yes, Danny Wegman said, we want to bring you in, I could fulfill. I'd be ready. 

 

Michael Palumbos (46:52.952)

love it. 

 

Michael Palumbos (46:54.503)

I think we I don't normally do this on the show. But sometimes I think it's worth it. think you and hubs peanuts should talk about you know how they ramped up. Who knows you might get something out of that. 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (47:07.618)

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, right now, like I said, it's just trying and we're already in a bunch of distributor channels and the distributors are asking us for more product. So Cora Marcus, Star, HT, Hackney, claims a lot of the distributors folks in the food business would know is just getting the production ramped up. 

 

Michael Palumbos (47:27.808)

what you're describing really well, and I just want to paint this picture for people is what we call the key key function flow map. So what you go through, and it's like, I've got marketing, I've got sales, I got my operations, and I got finance, right? Those are the key functions of every company for both part. And the person that's in charge of each of those areas needs to say, am I red, yellow or green? Right now, what you so operations, we're yellow right now. 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (47:49.847)

Yeah. Yeah. 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (47:52.974)

love that. 

 

Michael Palumbos (47:55.636)

And or red, if you if you throw more sales at us, we're going to go red, yellow, you're going to break us. We got to get back to green so we can handle more. Because if you turn on those other operations and we keep that picture in front of our clients that we coach, we need to know what's going on. And then inside of each of those operations, there are sub operations so that you can dig in to say, OK, what's going on operations that will get us there or what's going inside of marketing that's happening. So. 

 

Michael Palumbos (48:24.238)

I love that you described, we took the brakes off, you know, we put the brakes on rather, so that we don't break that key function within the business. 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (48:33.772)

Yeah, and being focused on execution. You know, what's what is it going to take to get us to where we need to be? And that's right now. Our energies are focused on brand building, so we'll continue to get the brand and keep the brand out there. But it's also on the capacity building. we're we're putting the financing together. We got a new market tax credit deal that should close in a week to two weeks. We're finalizing that we've got all the paperwork approved. We've just got a couple of agreements we've still got to complete. 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (49:01.422)

And then we're looking at a USDA loan through AmerisBank that should close in July. And so once all the financing comes in, then we'll have the financial capacity to complete our expansion. So that's what we're working on. 

 

Michael Palumbos (49:16.514)

love it. You mentioned good to great earlier today, I mentioned extreme ownership. If you're talking to somebody else that's either new to the CEO seat or president seat, or they're just looking to get re energized around where they're going, what are some of your, you know, what are some of the books that you've read that you're like, you don't miss these books? 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (49:41.742)

Yeah, there's two I've read recently. Well, a couple. I'll do three. I loved Masters of Scale by the, gosh, his name just escaped me, the Netflix founder. And it's all about how you scale your brand, right? And then Phil Knight, Shoe Dog, the Nike story, immensely. 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (50:11.15)

helpful. He gets very philosophical in it. And I like that aspect of it. Then I just finished reading Tony Shay's book, Buying Happiness. So he was one of the founders of Zappos and really sad how his life was cut short. So life kind of ended, sadly, but the story of how he was laser focused on culture is really amazing. So if you're interested at all, 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (50:40.594)

in culture. Tony Shay's book is amazing how they hire for culture. Okay, Reid Hoffman, came to me, Masters of Scale, Reid Hoffman, anyone looking to grow from the startup to the scale up, Reid Hoffman. And it's not just Netflix, like the guy's phenomenally successful in investing in companies, just an incredible leader, follow him on LinkedIn, follow his story, but that book's incredible. 

 

Michael Palumbos (51:09.506)

Those are three fabulous books. Yeah, one of the things that I loved about Tony Shay's story is, correct me if I'm wrong on this, I'm mixing my stories, but he would offer new hires after they'd been... Would you mind sharing that? 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (51:26.392)

there. I know what you're say. Story. 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (51:30.087)

Yeah, so they did they do a training. think it's like it was like a six week training and sort of fully immerse them into what is it like to be part of the Zappos culture and then they offer them $2,000 to leave. 

 

Michael Palumbos (51:46.018)

That's awesome. 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (51:46.83)

Stephanie Stuckey (51:47.171)

He said 99 % of the hires turn it down, right? But it's just saying like, are you really in or not? Are you in or not? So make that decision. 

 

Michael Palumbos (51:58.574)

And that's one way to cement culture in your organization is getting people that buy the vision, want to be part of the vision, and want to be there. 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (52:09.55)

Exactly. They do a lot of listening. talks about how they come up with, with their, their core values and same thing. Like he started out with this long list, but then he got input from the team and it wasn't just his core values. was the company's core values. And he also says, don't just look at what other companies have as their values and think that that's going to be yours. Cause everyone's going to have their own core values. 

 

Michael Palumbos (52:34.99)

agreed. And 

 

Michael Palumbos (52:38.302)

as you're building them, I will throw to you the ones that other people have maybe aspirational values. And those not to be disregarded because the mic but sometimes those values are just, you know, table stakes. But what you're talking about is my favorite thing is, are they alive? And well, in your organization today, so if I couldn't speak or hear 

 

Michael Palumbos (53:03.05)

All I had was my site and I was walking around your organization. Am I going to be able to see your values lived by the people that work with 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (53:12.184)

Yeah, 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (53:12.918)

that's great. I love that. 

 

Michael Palumbos (53:15.47)

my gosh, I love our time today. If you're talking and sitting down at a family business event tomorrow, and they just said, Stephanie, if you had one piece of advice for the leadership team here, what are you leaving them with? 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (53:35.858)

have a sense of purpose. I think that's the most important thing. I met with Dan Cathy, who recently handed over the reins of Chick-fil-A to his son Andrews. That's a third generation founded by Truett Cathy, Dan's father. And I asked Dan all sorts of questions. just barraged, you know, barrage of questions. I threw at him on financing and scaling. And he just stopped me and said, what is your sense of purpose? What's your calling? Why are you doing this? And 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (54:03.456)

It's that whole Simon Sinek, what's your why, right? Understand why are you doing this? And so just hone in on that. And that's what makes a family business last. You're not thinking just in terms of quarterly profit reports. You're thinking in terms of generation and its generational value. And that generational value is built with a sense of purpose. 

 

Michael Palumbos (54:30.222)

I really appreciate that. And you're preaching to the choir, my core purpose for three years was wrong. 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (54:38.796)

Yeah, don't be afraid to walk away and say, got to change it. 

 

Michael Palumbos (54:42.678)

And as soon as we changed it, everybody in the company said, that is right. What we were saying our core purpose was is how we do it. That's what we were. 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (54:54.412)

It's gotta be the Y. 

 

Michael Palumbos (54:56.142)

So thank you. That was really, really important. I don't think enough CEOs, enough family businesses understand how important purpose is. It really, between purpose and values, they become that filter for what do I say yes to and what do I say no to as well? Who's on the team? And magnetically attracts some and it magnetically detracts the people that aren't gonna fix your culture. So powerful. I can't thank you enough for your time. I had a great time. 

 

Michael Palumbos (55:25.326)

You are textbook, you know, the right story, doing the right things, building it around the right people. You've got a great team surrounding you. And I'm positive that when we have you back on the show before you retire, that you will have hit your goals and made this all happen. 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (55:46.562)

Thank you, Michael. It's been my pleasure. 

 

Michael Palumbos (55:48.622)

We have a lot to be proud of, you and your team. So keep it up. We look forward to watching you on social media and seeing what you're doing out there. Stephanie Stuckey from Stuckey's. Thank you, thank you, thank you. My name's Michael Palumbis. This is the Family Biz Show in Rochester, New York. And make sure you listen in to other great family business stories. There is no one single right way to do this. Family business is messy. We love it. Have a great day, everybody. 

 

Stephanie Stuckey (56:18.626)

Thank you.