Transcript

Michael (00:49.455)

Don't miss an episode. Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Let's dive right into the next episode of the Family Biz Show. Welcome everybody to the Family Biz Show. I'm your host, Michael Palumbis with Family Wealth and Legacy in Rochester, New York. Today we have Derrik Kassebaum from Cosmos Corp and very, very cool company. I think there's very few of you out there. 

 

Michael (01:17.878)

that look at the world the way that you do where it's both pets and people. That's pretty unique. So welcome to the show, Derrik. 

 

Derrik (01:23.288)

Yeah. 

 

Derrik (01:28.11)

Thank you very much. I'm so glad to be here. 

 

Michael (01:30.926)

So have a tradition of, tell us your unique story of how you entered the family business. And then after that, we'll dive into more of the history and of the business itself. 

 

Derrik (01:45.92)

sure. Well, that's funny. You asked that question. I wasn't going to say I wrote a book, but I wrote a book. And I think it's in my second chapter of the book was telling that story. graduated high school in 1989 and I went to a Cassette High School. It's all guys high school. And I went there. My parents sent me there because I didn't do too well in the public school. So. 

 

Derrik (02:11.246)

My dad was just starting the company. Um, and I'll tell a little bit about the company and the future from here. Uh, but it was just my dad and my older brother in the company, starting a company at the time. And, uh, there were 237 guys that was, was in my graduating class. And at our graduation, the priest said, you know, I'm so glad that there's 237 gentlemen that are graduating today and 236 have either applied or been accepted into the university. 

 

Derrik (02:39.182)

And I leaned over to my buddy and I said, I know who did it. And, know, I was that one, but my, my dad actually took me out to McDonald's. It was funny. He me to McDonald's and he said, Hey, you could either go off and spend four years at college and you're going to up with this much debt at the end. And you're going to end up with this much money, making this much money, or you can come work for me, which he had nothing to offer me. And I'll give you 600 bucks a month. 

 

Derrik (03:04.814)

You can still live at home, but you're going to pay 200 bucks a month in rent, 200 bucks a month in insurance. And I said, I'll take it. So that's kind of how I started. I just didn't want to go to college. I wanted anything but college. And I had no other opportunity except for a small company that my dad was starting at that time out of his basement. 

 

Michael (03:22.584)

How cool is that? pretty funny. tell me, you know, tell me about your journey in the company then, because obviously that was many, many years ago. Let's talk about that. Let's talk about, you know, how your father started it. Where did this all come from? 

 

Derrik (03:39.03)

Yes, let's just jump from the beginning. I'll just take two seconds here to and to like they used to say on a TV show. You know, my dad was a barber. He became a barber right out of the military in the 60s and 70s. Did very well at it. We weren't very wealthy, but he did well as a barber in 1980. He was offered the opportunity to buy a distribution center that sold supplies to him. So he jumped on that bandwagon. 

 

Derrik (04:07.464)

I spent a quarter of a million dollars and bought the company. And a few weeks later found out that the guy kind of fledged the numbers and there were $200,000 worth of inventory that had not been paid for. So now it's a company that was worth $250,000. He now owed 450,000 for. He spent the next years just struggling. My mom and dad actually wanted to go to the mission field to just help the poor needy around the world. 

 

Derrik (04:34.702)

And they thought this was their ticket to do that because he could never do it as a barber. Well, now he's stuck. And so this is where he learned his faith. He would wake up every morning. I'll never forget it. Three o'clock in the morning and pray. And he's a screamer when he prays, just yelling and he's just like, God, please help us. Don't let us go bankrupt. And that went on for years until 1985. He gets a call from a dog groomer and the dog groomer said, Hey, I was in a beauty shop getting my hair done the other day. The product that they used on it was pretty good. 

 

Derrik (05:04.398)

Can I get that for dogs? My dad said, I don't know, let me check. So he called the guy who was making the product. He said, can you make this for dogs? And the guy goes, yeah, we'll just put a different label on it. So he stuck up, at the beginning they stuck a different label on it. Then through a couple of years later, we started manufacturing actually a product for dogs, a shampoo specifically for the pH and the balance for dogs. And got started that way. Like I said, in 1989, he closed down 

 

Derrik (05:33.034)

all the beauty supply stuff, moved it to his basement of his house. We rented a 1500 square foot little warehouse, got a hundred gallon vat and started making shampoo for dogs. I didn't want to do anything except for, you know, make a buck here and there. So when I graduated high school, my dad offered me to go into sales and I took him up on it. And what that meant was he gave me, he gave me 350 bucks a week and I would get 

 

Derrik (06:02.456)

put a bunch of shampoo in my car and I drive 3000 miles a week, knocking on dog roomy shop doors, sleeping in my car. I slept in my car for five years straight. I've come home on the weekends, pick up some more product, go back out. Yeah, of course I had different weeks that I'd be in town, but yeah, I I learned the hard way of selling. But what that developed in me is the sales integrity and 

 

Derrik (06:30.35)

what it took to actually grow a company. And there's three other brothers and my dad, we all built a company at the same time. And it allowed me to move into what my final role was before I turned it over in 2018 to a new executive team, which was the vice president of sales and marketing for our company. And we built it up to where, you know, we're selling now in 72 different countries. We sell to every major retail in the United States. We have the number one dental product for dogs around the world. 

 

Derrik (07:00.044)

You know, it's just God that kind of did that. So it's kind of. 

 

Michael (07:04.526)

That's very, very cool. You and three brothers. Let's talk about that. mean, was it you and three brothers from day one? 

 

Derrik (07:13.55)

pretty much? We grew up in small town with a, like I said, my dad was a barber. So I also have two sisters. My dad offered all of us to come into the company, basically tried to twist our arm and get us all in. My two sisters said, no, they both wanted to be teachers. My oldest brother came in with my dad when it was beauty supply warehouse back in 1981. Another brother came in in 1988. He was an aerospace engineer. 

 

Derrik (07:41.368)

but there was no money to be made in that at the time. So he came in, he started manufacturing the shampoo. I came in and sales and then my younger brother came in as kind of like in St. Louis, Missouri, we have the St. Louis Cardinals. There's a guy named Jose Okendo who played all positions. My youngest brother played all positions. Then he moved into our IT department and kind of built our IT department for us. But yeah, it was just three brothers and we learned how to play well and argue well when we were younger. 

 

Derrik (08:10.282)

And I would say we did business well and we argued a lot more. And that's what you do in family. 

 

Michael (08:16.974)

you 

 

Michael (08:21.358)

Great. 

 

Michael (08:22.358)

You mentioned a book. Come on, you got to tell us the title of the book. 

 

Derrik (08:26.54)

Yeah. So I developed a book. I wrote a book in 2020, spent two years writing it's called live and let go. And it's called releasing your whole to pursue God's purpose. It's things in my life that I had to let go of and able to actually find the purpose that I was supposed to step to in my life, including in 2018, turned over my role in the company to a new executive team. 

 

Michael (08:50.336)

Interesting. It's funny that you're doing this interview right now or doing this show, because that is pretty much what I'm working on for me right this second. I think I'm trying to control too much and trying to make it all happen. And I'm not letting go. that's a very... We may have to talk afterwards about that. But you know what? This could be helpful for a lot of other people. 

 

Michael (09:19.478)

Yeah, so I had no idea that this was going to go because I had no idea about the book, but talk about some of the premises that led you to the concept. 

 

Derrik (09:30.286)

Yeah, so in 2011 and 12 I had a stroke in 2011 I'm you know, I think I was 40 39 years old something like that and I my first stroke in 2012 I had a second stroke in September and then in 2003 They just fixed a little hole in my heart a lot of people have it that basically the blood clot was going through the hole short my brain That's kind of what happens 

 

Derrik (09:59.79)

You know, with a stroke. And so I had to sit around for a couple of months and do nothing while this thing that they put in my heart was healing. And, know, I've read a couple of different books and things like that, but from that time forward until 2019. So from 2012, 2019, I walked through a process in my life that I, I'm a, I'm a believer in God. know that he's directing my life and that he's been good to me. 

 

Derrik (10:27.534)

and challenged me all at the same time to be that person that he's called me to be, that he's created me to be. And during that time, there were many things in my life that I had, that I was growing up through that I had to let go of. Things of attitudes, things that were hidden in my life, things that, you know, I had kids, you know, how do I take a child through teenage years to adult years, and then sit back and cross my arms and kind of, you know, hope to say nothing and they... 

 

Derrik (10:56.878)

because they know a lot. And so there things of letting go of your, you know, in family, there's things of letting go of, you know, in attitudes, there's things of letting go in business that you just know there's the right time. We knew in 2015, we needed to let go of some of leadership issues that we had, but we couldn't do it. We just literally were holding on tight, myself and my brothers until 2017, where I believe in September. 

 

Derrik (11:25.902)

2017, God literally reached in, grabbed our hands and pulled the company off our hands through something we had to walk through. yeah, so letting go is very difficult in many aspects of life. But there's a story in the Bible that says that unless a seed falls to the ground, no fruit will be produced. That seed usually comes from a dying fruit. 

 

Derrik (11:56.03)

And so unless a fruit, unless what was once healthy fruit can die and go to the ground, it can never produce again. So how do we produce more unless we die to ourselves? 

 

Michael (12:06.828)

I love it. Love it, love it, love it. And you know, it's, I have not, it's kind of, I just recorded another episode earlier today where we were talking with a family that, their family lived through the Holocaust, Jewish family. And with everything that's going on in Israel right now, you know, was, we had a nice conversation probably 20 minutes long before we started recording to dive into things. 

 

Michael (12:35.47)

So now we flip over to the Catholic side, Christian side of things today. For those of you listeners who don't believe in God in that manner, whether you wanna call it life, the universe, there are, you know, just nature. There's a power that is bigger than all of us. And I am a firm believer that it's letting go and paying attention to 

 

Michael (13:03.096)

the voice, paying attention to the calling, paying attention to, you know, God's directions. However you want to look at it, I want to make sure that, you know, that you understand that you can take this from a Buddhist perspective or a Christian or a Jewish perspective, and you know, and it all works, Muslim perspective, it all works in that. I love the fact that you're, Derrik, that Derrik, you, you know, are pronouncing 

 

Michael (13:32.578)

and saying, is how I view it and this is how I look at it. And I think that's powerful. I appreciate you. Not everybody has, I've been, I've done a hundred shows almost now and not everybody, you know, has that conversation with me. So appreciate that you have the faith to do that. 

 

Derrik (13:48.196)

no worries. I, yeah, that's why I wrote the book is and you know, I sales aren't that great. I'm horrible at selling books, great at dog shampoo. but I gave it because I would ride on planes and I tell people my story just, you know, two bits of this and that. they go in, I just felt I want something to give to somebody just to say, Hey, maybe this will help you out. And that's why I'm on here today is I just, you know, I think there's things that we walk through in business that may help someone may be that nugget to go. 

 

Derrik (14:17.314)

That's what I needed. Yeah. 

 

Michael (14:19.672)

So talk about, and know, it's really interesting though, dad was the founder. At some levels, the five of you were the founders and working through this together and you know, floundering and flourishing at different times as you're doing things. Do you mind sharing a, you know, a couple of the stories of, you know, the relationships as a family of where you might've gotten stuck and how you worked through those periods of stuckness and maybe, you know, another story where... 

 

Derrik (14:27.182)

You can also 

 

Michael (14:48.204)

you know, because we were family, because of the things that were going on, allowed us to flourish. 

 

Derrik (14:52.716)

Yeah. you know, when we started, like I said, the way we started was this dog groomer called my dad and said, Hey, can the product that they were actually looking for also at that time was this sprayer that you could, that they were using it for spraying hairspray and shampoo on ladies hairs at a beauty shop. And she said, I think I could save a lot of money if I use this, my dog room and shop. So my dad started renting them to dog groomers. 

 

Derrik (15:17.452)

And that really kind of like set him into the dog grooming industry. And then they were asking for shampoo and we created shampoo. Well, my dad and my brother built the shampoo system and the company that was our future. If we could get so many out rented out there and it had this much money, we'd be doing well. And then we came along and started making the shampoo even better on top of it, you know, a better shampoo. Now we have a brand of shampoo. We have the shampoo system. 

 

Derrik (15:44.878)

And it came down to my older brother and my dad in the early 90s saying, well, the shampoo system is the way of our future. And another brother and myself saying, well, hang on shampoo. We only have to make one gallon sell it to somebody. If they like it, they're going to keep buying it. We don't ever have to do that again, but we have to keep fixing these shampoo systems. If they break down, what I, you know, we'll rent them out there. And that became a challenge over two to three year period is which way do we grow? Who's right? And. 

 

Derrik (16:13.784)

We let it play out. know, one thing we always did as a family is, a couple things is, we all have equal shares in the company. My dad was kind enough to actually give us shares years ago, but we also decided that we would all make the same amount of money. There would never be one person that made more than the other. And we did that just because we valued each other. And you have to learn to value as a culture, each other's giftings that they bring in. 

 

Derrik (16:42.338)

I find too many times that people get to be 70, 75, 80 years old and they're not willing to let go of that company to the next generation because they have yet to value that the next generation has something to say or something to give. And I think my dad and my brother kind of saw that value in us is we were able to bring something that they may not have seen. And now they're like, okay, we'll give it a try. So that, that was one. 

 

Derrik (17:12.589)

You know, when we were in 2014, we actually lost two of our family members and employees. work for our company. were killed on motorcycles coming to work. One was a brother's brother. One of them was my brother's brother-in-law, who was my best friend since he was six years old. And another one was a young man that was to marry my niece a month later. And they were both a bus pulled out in front of them. One hit the front, one hit the back. And in 2015, 

 

Derrik (17:41.454)

That was, happened in March 11, 2014. It was a tragedy. was hard for the entire family because we were a family company, but we had to start making a transition from family to corporate because we were growing at such a pace, such a fast pace at that time. And like I said, between two thought earlier, like I said, when we were between 2015 and 17, we just knew that we couldn't do it anymore as the entrepreneur, as a family business. 

 

Derrik (18:08.642)

You had to bring in someone else who knew a little bit more than you. And we were great at taking risks. We were great at launching products with a lot of risk. We were horrible at managing staff. We're horrible at corporate culture. We're horrible at these things. And we had to bring in the next generation to be able to do that. And that's part of letting go. That's valuing. 

 

Derrik (18:34.862)

the next generation that they have something to say that you may not know. I don't know if that answers what you look for. 

 

Michael (18:42.346)

So today then, when you say bring in the next generation, are they family, non-family? What does that look like inside of your organization today? 

 

Derrik (18:54.594)

Yeah. So the answer is yes. My dad had six children. Those six children had 27 children. So there's 20, I have 27 nieces and nephews. I have one who's, the director of our business development. And then we have a nephew in law who's actually our CEO. He married my niece and his name's Landon Hobson. Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant man. he's got three masters, you know, and just he's, he's. 

 

Derrik (19:23.756)

Got talent beyond measure. And then we have four other family members that are anywhere from high level to mid level leaders in our company. So. 

 

Michael (19:38.412)

No, so you saw my face and I just like, a couple of things just happened here for me. One, you did something in the beginning of the business that worked for you guys. It doesn't work for every family where everybody got paid the same. It was like, we all value each other. And so we're gonna just keep the pay the same so that there's not one person that's valued over another. And one of the things that, you I tell family owned businesses all the time is, 

 

Derrik (19:53.155)

Mm-hmm. 

 

Michael (20:06.732)

you've got to figure out are you paying for the job or are paying because of the family? And so you started off with the family rules, you know, and so I'm very, very curious today, family members, are they treated, are they paid the same across the board or did you have to do that corporate thing and be like, I have to pay people based on the job that they're applying for? 

 

Derrik (20:31.638)

Yeah, so it is a little different because we as owners more are getting a we sit on the board now all five of us and we get distributions. Yep. Plus the salary. So it's a small salary for being on the board. And then it's a distribution because we're ownership. The people who the family members who work for us work as the value of that job. So landing gets paid a CEO value. 

 

Derrik (21:01.166)

Bradley gets a director's role. You another one would get a manager's role for managing because just because you have a last name or your blood happens to have have a DNA does not mean that you should be differently paid than a person walking in who has a skill set that probably is equal or better to you. So yeah, so we are very careful about what that looks like to those that. 

 

Derrik (21:29.59)

are valued just as much as they are. They just don't have the same DNA. 

 

Michael (21:33.486)

And that goes back to your process of letting go and evolving over time, because that wasn't the thought process in the beginning. And I have met many families where we're into the second or third generation and they're really still stuck in thinking about in that direction, the fact that we can't bring in non-family members and pay them more than a family member. And it's really at some levels, really holding them back. 

 

Derrik (22:01.262)

Yeah, and we do have a unwritten rule here that if you're a family member, you do get an opportunity, but the opportunity is equal to the next person applying for that same job. So I'll give you an example. In 2017, my oldest daughter was graduating high school and... 

 

Derrik (22:24.902)

the lady who actually runs our HR department, our director of HR had just come on as HR. know, we didn't even have an HR at that time. We're now developing the executive team for it. And we had HR and she also used to be my daughter's high school dance coach. She knew her very well. And so she said, would your daughter like a internship this summer? And I said, well, here's the thing I said, you can ask her, but you can't ask me. I said, because you need to value her and she needs to. 

 

Derrik (22:53.206)

get that on her merits, not because of who she is. Because you also, want you to know you have to be able to fire her on her merit as well. If she doesn't perform to what you want me to perform. So for me, and I had walked that through with another guy as well that land and our CEO came and said, what do you think about this family member? And just happened to be close to me as well. And I said, you need to hire them on their merit, but you need to fire them also if they need to be fired. So I think if anybody gets hired, they also need to understand 

 

Derrik (23:22.838)

I have the ability just like anybody else to be let go. 

 

Michael (23:26.518)

That's great. did something else that not every family does is where you have a an outlaw, you know, an in-law that married into the family that is now, you know, leading as the CEO. I want to just congratulate you. think that the families, you know, what is it? come on. I just had a moment and now it's gone. But, know, it's. 

 

Derrik (23:52.396)

sleep a bit. 

 

Michael (23:55.138)

When we look at evolution has to happen and it's the families that are open to change from where they were, willing to let go, as you say, and be thought filled about what is best for the growth of this business. And you look to somebody that wasn't blood related to say he or she is going to be best. And I know it's a guy in your company, but I think other people need to look at that to say, 

 

Michael (24:25.314)

What's best for the company, not just what's best for the family. 

 

Derrik (24:31.47)

Yeah. And you know, I think you just have to focus on your why over your get when you're doing these things as you're growing, because you need to understand why did I start this company? What was the purpose? Why am I doing what I do? And you need to stay focused on that as opposed to what are we going to get out it? You know, if you're true for us, we have a lot of. 

 

Derrik (24:56.718)

employees that are 20 year employees that are 25 year employees that are 10 year employees to me, their family. I mean, you spend a lot more time with them sometimes than you do your own family. And I need to value them as much as I do the DNA family. so with bringing in Landon, it's, I'm actually, I'm actually shocked it worked because he could walk also. 

 

Derrik (25:23.682)

He can, you know, at any one time, because there's a lot of dynamic to family. And there's a lot of things that will be said within a family structure that would not typically probably be said in a ownership to CEO structure. You know, we stick it out longer and unfortunately we stick it out longer. So yeah, it's, I think if you understand your why, our why is still, and it's in our mission statement, our why is, 

 

Derrik (25:52.758)

still to enrich the lives of people and their pets, support and invest in employees, provide for the poor, and do it all to the glory of God. I those four things are still to our core of what we do. And if we can remain understanding of that, it doesn't matter if you're family or not family, are you fulfilling the why of why you're here? 

 

Michael (26:12.674)

And we call that, you call it the why, we call it a core purpose. And it's so important to have that because what's really cool is if the pet shampoo business evaporated, you could take that why and you could put it into education. You could take that why and find, know, how does that why drive us inside of rocket science or, you know, whatever the case may be, you know, it's not necessarily about 

 

Derrik (26:16.974)

Yeah. 

 

Michael (26:42.508)

the products or your company, it's about the people that are there and what is our joint why that gets us out of bed and motivates us. 

 

Derrik (26:50.702)

Yeah, exactly. 

 

Michael (26:53.166)

Let's talk about when you look at the next 12 months for your business, what would you say are the three drivers, the top priorities that the board is pushing, the advisory board, however you guys look at yourselves, and the CEO, the leadership team in the business, what would you say are the top three priorities moving forward? 

 

Derrik (27:20.78)

That's good question. You know, the economy just went through one of the hardest times it's seen in a long time. Everybody's saying that there's a recession. Some saying that depression coming, you know, in a few years from now that we haven't seen in the United States. When last we've always had a growth of 3 % to 20 plus over the last 20 years. mean, God's just really blessed that we've had that. 

 

Derrik (27:50.414)

In 2022, we did not see that. We saw actually a decrease for the first time in our company. However, all retail sales, you look at Amazon, you look at Walmart, you look at any of leading retailers, they all had an incredibly hard Q1, Q2 of 2022. Well, when they're down, we're down because we sell retail product. When they're up, we're up. So what did... 

 

Derrik (28:16.652)

what it allowed us to do is refocus because we're on a fast track growth at that time. We actually did well during COVID because we had a great hand sanitizer. And so that allowed us to, you know, make extra money and just shorts and loose ends. But coming into 2002, totally different story. So what we did is we looked and we said, what is the core of our company? And we said, what do we sell? What, you know, where do we win? 

 

Derrik (28:45.49)

And we started looking at it again, and we realized that we were off track on some of the places we were investing money, some of the areas that we were in growth. For example, we were focusing a lot of energy into China and to the European and the Brazilian market because those were big white spaces for us. were countries, their countries are continents that were on the growth. 

 

Derrik (29:09.07)

And of course you have the Ukraine war, you have China shutting down because of COVID, you had China, US diplomatic relations that are not the best right now. So we had to relook at it and go, within the 48 states, how do we win? Where do we focus? What's our core? So we reestablished that in 2022. Our executive team kind of put the plan together, Q1, Q2 of 2023, and began rolling it out to the rest of the team. And now our focus is, it's kind of like, 

 

Derrik (29:38.83)

when a batter gets a slump, you go back to the fundamentals, we're back to the fundamentals and who we were and how we got there. And that's our next 12 to 18 months is we know what got us through for the last 35, 40 years. If we remain at that, both our core values plus our driver in the company, our brain in the company, then we should be a successful. 

 

Derrik (30:07.458)

You never know what tomorrow brings, but you can at least do your best to do today well. And that's what we're trying to do. 

 

Michael (30:15.426)

So who got nominated to be sleeping in the cars for the next five years? 

 

Derrik (30:18.862)

Derrik (30:19.843)

I'll take that one again. loved it. That was, that was so fun. I, you know, it was the best, it was, it was the best, best growth time of my life. I called it my, my education on wheels because I had a lot of time to read. had a time to listen to different things. Like you put out a podcast. didn't have podcasts in the early nineties, but it would have been great to have them. 

 

Michael (30:40.078)

Absolutely. We had cassette tapes and I remember I had the Brian Tracy psychology of sales and I listened to that over and over and over again, you know, about the same time you were on the road probably. Yeah, that's right. That's right. That's good stuff. And it's still classic and still good stuff today. Looking at, let's talk about family and business again. 

 

Derrik (30:54.178)

That's Ziggy 

 

Derrik (31:02.051)

Yeah. 

 

Michael (31:10.016)

You what's it like? You said you're small town, right? There are family members that are not part of the business and there's a lot of them. And they share the same, you know, lot of them probably share the same last name, a lot of the heritage. How do you guys do at helping people that are not involved in the business understand and do you have a process for helping them to understand what's going on in the business so that, know, they're 

 

Michael (31:38.734)

They can be just as proud when they're out talking to ABC, know, some John Smith on the corner when they're saying, hey, what's going on at the company? They have no idea. 

 

Derrik (31:48.302)

Yeah. So that goes back to the core of the company back in 1992. Again, my mom and dad wanted to go into the mission field. And so in 92, they actually went down to Hurricane Miami. I'm just sorry. Went down to Miami, Florida during Hurricane Andrew and then served down there. just, they picked up everything my mom and dad did and got a truck, a vehicle and went down there just started serving for six months. They did really well. Along that same time, they met 30 Guatemalans. 

 

Derrik (32:16.974)

that drove a school bus all the way up to Central America through Texas down back to pay an handle all the way down to Miami, Florida, and they got a connection. So what happened in 93 is my mom and dad went and bought an old 89 or sorry, 79 Ford Scout, put nice big tires on it, went to a junkyard, got some good seats on it and began driving from St. Louis, Missouri, where we're from, all the way down to Guatemala and serving people up in the hills of Guatemala that 

 

Derrik (32:44.694)

Honestly, some had never seen a white person before. And then they drive back and then they go and they drive back and they tell the gospel of Jesus Christ as they would go. so they built this over the years. They've had the opportunity to travel the world and go into the Congo to help during the Albanian crisis in 97, go over there and serve with our military, serving food and bread and stuff like that to the Albanian refugees. And 

 

Derrik (33:11.79)

In 2003, my mom and dad bought a piece of property in Guatemala where they wanted to put a children's home. And in 2011, we opened this children's home for severely abused children. Children that honestly parents put out for prostitution, six-year-old girls, things like that. And then we served the needs of the people of that community and it's just grown over the years. So why am I saying this? 

 

Derrik (33:38.092)

because the family members not only see the value of the company as far as, this is a resource to income, but it's a resource to helping do what is at the core of us is help the poor needy around the world and doing it to the glory of God. And can I get involved in that? Yeah, you're a part of that. Our team of employees are part of that every day when they're putting a cap on, you you're helping someone somewhere. And we even even today, it's Monday. 

 

Derrik (34:07.918)

November 6th, and we had Mission Monday. And I brought in a lady that does a feeding program here in the St. Louis area. And I was telling our employees, said, you may never be able to go to Guatemala or Haiti, but you have the opportunity to go serve locally and change people locally, live locally. And that's what we offer also at our company is we offer five mission days a year that our employees can take a mission day to what some... 

 

Derrik (34:36.545)

do it with Missouri Conservation, some do it with other things, and they go serve and they get paid five days a year to go serve in the community. Because we believe in just taking what's been given to you and giving it back to the community. So our family members that are not involved know the good that's coming from the company. 

 

Michael (34:56.525)

Love it. Love it. Love it. Love it. What's next? I just. 

 

Derrik (35:02.978)

Yeah. You know, I just had a, know, sometimes there's pains, obstacles, know, things that companies go through and families go through, you know, how do you make it through those? As you were asking that question, you asked the question earlier and I started thinking about that. And one thing that we've always tried to do, we weren't great at it, but we tried to do is when you walk out the door of the company, it remains the company. You keep family and business separate. 

 

Derrik (35:33.401)

because family's always going to be around. The business could go bankrupt tomorrow. And I learned this from when my daughters used to have friends over and I have two daughters and they were probably the four years apart. They were probably 12 and eight, let's say. And they're arguing one day with, you know, and they had three friends over there arguing. Well, this friend, that friend. And I took them both aside. said, listen, your friends will be gone, but you will remain sisters forever. said, 

 

Derrik (36:01.516)

You need to not argue with each other like you do with your friends. You need to care for each other. And that's the same in business. You need to leave business as business and keep family separate. you know, on your best day, you can control yourself. You can't control anybody else. And they're going to do stuff you don't like. They're going to do stupid things. They're, you know, they're going to say something to you, something to you in a way you you're taking offensive. The best thing you can do is just remain humble. 

 

Derrik (36:30.156)

and go talk it through with them and just say, what did you mean by that? You've to help me understand because I don't understand. And we're family, we've got to get through this. 

 

Michael (36:39.214)

There's many, many books out there, how to have critical conversations, bunches of them. think that's one of the tools that especially if you're going to be working in a family business, we need to get better at our communication with each other. A lot of times, you know, they'll say that in a corporate world, we would have never treated somebody or talked to them the way that we might inside of a family business. 

 

Derrik (37:08.076)

Yeah. 

 

Michael (37:09.07)

And 

 

Michael (37:10.03)

like you just said with your daughters, at the end of the day, it's family is the ones that deserve the best from us on a regular basis. so, you have to do that work and figure out that balance to say, how can I better understand what Uncle Jim or Aunt Teresa was talking about? And how do I understand their perspective? 

 

Michael (37:35.958)

rather than jumping to conclusions about where they were going and what they were doing. 

 

Derrik (37:40.398)

That's right. That's right. And one thing that we've done in the company, I guess it was three years ago, was probably, yeah, it was about three years ago, we had a gentleman come to us who does videos. we actually asked him, we said, we know why we built the company. And we now have passed it on, what we would say passing on to the third generation. Landon runs it. We have a few other members of the family in it, but we are also 100 % family owned. 

 

Derrik (38:09.504)

Ownership owned and we figured out how to do that. It took about a three year process and I talked about that but we had him in and we said what we want to make sure is that the next generation, whoever they are, understands why we originally started this and some of the things we went through. So we spent a two year period literally, I think he did maybe 60 hours of video of myself, my brothers, my mom and dad, just asking questions. Why? 

 

Derrik (38:36.182)

why we did things, what we went through, what did we learn all along the way, what mistakes did we make. And it comprised that to an hour and 20 minute video that now is able to be passed on to the next generation. 

 

Michael (38:50.446)

That's powerful. There's power. I tell people this all the time, power and stories, you know? And having those conversations and understanding where we came from and why is you can write up a, you know, here's what you should do, you know, going forward. But if you tell me how to do something, it's nowhere near as powerful as telling me why. 

 

Derrik (39:14.262)

Yeah, that's right. That's right. 

 

Michael (39:17.166)

Talk about family ownership. You hit on that for a second. Talk about that for a little bit. 

 

Derrik (39:22.68)

Sure. We were all, like I said, equal partners. So if you take a hundred shares and you divide them out, we're all 20 % owners. About three years ago, we're trying to figure out how we could legacy the family into these shares. My mom and dad gave us shares. It's a little bit different as the company grew from a little bit to now a bigger bit. And we're trying to figure it out. we hired... 

 

Derrik (39:52.6)

We brought in our CPA firm, who's just brilliant. It's a large CPA firm in St. Missouri. Brought in some trust attorneys and we started walking this through of asking questions. What does each family member want? What do you see? How does that look? And across the board, our heart was to pass on what we built. I own 20 % of the company. would really like, and for 28 years, I traveled a lot. 

 

Derrik (40:20.3)

I really like my kids somehow some way to get some value of what their dad gave up for them, you know, in future years without, without ruining them in the third generation of giving them a lot of stock. And so how do you do that? And I had another brother that wanted to give it to him immediately. He's in a different area of life, an older brother, different area of life. And his kids were kind of ready for that next step. So walking it through, we. 

 

Derrik (40:49.132)

We actually built a thing called a night digit and we. 

 

Michael (40:52.526)

effective grantor truck. 

 

Derrik (40:55.95)

There you go. it allowed us to, because we still need to get our distribution, allowed us to sell it into there through the distributions and then still it pay us through the money that was going in through the distribution, allowed us to build a family legacy that we could pass this on into our own entity families. And then outside of that, if we wanted to give shares to another family member, let's just say one of them came on after Lannan was our CEO. We just want. 

 

Derrik (41:24.544)

I have two kids, another has five, and so my kids are going to get more. I can share it out to them. you know, within both, but we had to talk this through. It was not easy. It was a two year walkthrough. What I praised God about is there was no yelling, no one ever walked from the table. We were able to just, each of us tell what was on our heart to make it happen. Give it to the professionals, let them feed us back some stuff. Again, shake it up. 

 

Derrik (41:52.782)

Give it back to the professionals again, shake it up without saying, well, you always want this or you that, you know, I think that, I think you leave the use out of it and you let the professionals work it out to the there's no, I was listening to one of your other podcasts. There's no set way for doing any one company. It just is impossible. Every person is different and every company is different. That's what that will work for us. Yeah. 

 

Michael (42:20.626)

I to you my, how do I say this? My family business coach radar is going off. And I mean this with all the respect and I'm hoping to add value in our conversation to you. The preparing the business for the heirs is one side of it that's the edgy and the technical and the attorneys and whatnot. 

 

Derrik (42:29.655)

Bye. 

 

Derrik (42:38.382)

Yes. 

 

Michael (42:50.602)

I would throw to you that there's also the other side of preparing the heirs for the assets. And so there's a yin and yang inside of there. Jay and Lisa Daniels from Lodge Cast Iron, they did an episode with me way back. I would highly recommend grabbing that episode because they've got. 

 

Michael (43:17.388)

Yeah. And we talk about it in the episode about 50 family members, 50 plus more than 50 family members that own the company. And I believe there's only two family members that work in the company. So, and that was what I was relating to you and you don't have, it's a little different right now, but it's like the family members that aren't in the business. And eventually you're going to have family members that aren't in the business that are owners of the business, or you're starting to do that now. And. 

 

Derrik (43:29.516)

rocks. 

 

Michael (43:46.786)

And there's this balance between that, that there's what I would say issues that come from that, that you have no idea, because you guys are here to communicate, but in 50 years from now, you won't be here to communicate it, likely. 

 

Derrik (44:01.836)

Yeah. So our, our response to that was y'all deal with that. No, and well, you know, and I appreciate that and I will listen to it and legacy is not just the financial end of it. Legacy is just so much more what you just spoke about. And for us, what we developed was a plan of you have to be, you know, this level to actually be a voting share. Otherwise you got no, you get, you get a value of the financial, a financial, but you get no value. 

 

Michael (44:05.641)

Not on comment. 

 

Derrik (44:31.648)

Of this say, and I have two daughters, one she's on a fast track to be a NICU doc. And you know, she's never going to want to be selling. I do, you know, she, she's brilliant in it and she's a developer in it and project project manager in that. And she didn't know she worked for us for a point. And then she's just like, yeah, I don't know if I want family business. And because she wanted to create her value for herself and. 

 

Derrik (44:59.702)

I appreciate that. will listen to that one. And that's, that's the part that I would say you haven't just arrived when you figured it out to this degree. yeah. It's a, you own a company until the day you lay your head in the grave, there's going to be those challenges that you've got to keep asking. You've got to keep learning. You've got to keep seeking advice. Yeah. 

 

Michael (45:25.902)

And you guys have done a great job of learning and letting go and changing and evolving over time. There's probably not too many episodes, just Jay and Lisa's is the one that came to mind. Anything with, you know, Jay Hughes, the ones with, you know, some of the consultants, I think you'd get a lot out of them as well. Obviously it's fun to listen to other families and how they handled those things. 

 

Michael (45:53.506)

but I've been studying family businesses for years. And part of an organization called the Purposeful Planning Institute and people that have listened to this before, they've heard me talk about it. what planning, the Purposeful Planning Institute, the whole idea behind it is exactly what I was talking about. And Roy Williams from the Williams Group talks about this. It's, know, the issues are never with the technical. 

 

Michael (46:22.306)

That's the issues, the attorneys and accountants will do a great job of helping you avoid taxes and do all the right things from a standpoint of estate planning, tax planning, investment planning, and you'll be fine. But then you start throwing in communication between people and trust and just the differences in personalities. And it's the people side of it that ends up 

 

Michael (46:50.958)

making the quagmire. And there's an old saying, it's in every heritage that's out there. Shirtsleeves are shirtsleeves in three generations. It's a nor but a clog, nor but a clog, could be that, nor but a clog and a clog between three generations. Rice patty to rice patty, from stalls to stars to stalls. So it continues out there. 

 

Michael (47:20.382)

A lot of times advisors will push on it as a negative, not for nothing, but S &P 500 companies typically don't last more than 15 years nowadays. And so you guys have already beat that. You're into the second generation. You're moving to the third in a successful manner. And it's this next step of figuring out how does the family, both the ones that are owners, both the ones that are 

 

Michael (47:47.63)

making the decisions and those that are working. You might have family members that work in the business, don't own anything. And so how do we put that stuff together and open up the communication at a different level and continue to do those things? And like I said, it's never the technical side. It's always the people side. you will love, dig into some of the other episodes and yeah, I think there's a lot for you there. 

 

Derrik (47:54.125)

Right. 

 

Derrik (48:17.216)

Love it, love it. 

 

Michael (48:19.142)

All right, so you're sitting in front of an audience of multi-generation family businesses and you're on a panel and they ask you a couple of questions. So I'm just gonna, let's go through the questions together. What are your top two or three pieces of advice for family, for people in a family business today? What would you be telling them or don't miss these things? 

 

Derrik (48:47.468)

Don't do it. you know, the first thing is so we have five cores at our five core values in our company. And the first is be honest and humble. And, know, I think that would be one of the first things is just be honest and humble that you ain't all that, you know, you have a lot of. To bring to the table. 

 

Derrik (49:14.968)

But another family member does as well, because as you were saying earlier, we're all different. And I do not think a lot like one of my older brothers. We just think differently. Yet he brings so much value to the table in his thought process, and I do as well. But I have to understand sometimes I need to yield and just know I am not right in this, and it's OK to let someone else be right. 

 

Derrik (49:43.054)

You just have to be honest and humble within that. And you said it earlier, it's actually funny. It's our second, one of our second core values of our company is being clear in your communication of what you're trying to say and how you're trying to say it because we're two different people. We don't hear the same thing when something comes out of our mouth. know, would, Duck Dynasty, Duck Commander came out with the Duck Dynasty show years ago. 

 

Derrik (50:11.81)

I probably watched one of the first shows I actually got. I, we had the privilege of making them product during their six months run before they kind of tank real quick. And we, but I got to meet them and spend time with them. But in that show at the very first, one of his first, very first airings, he says the greatest thing about being in family business is you get to be in family business with you, with your family. The worst thing is you're in business with your family and you, you must understand that. 

 

Derrik (50:41.354)

You grew up with this person. If you're in family, they knew you before business. You didn't probably just end up in business and their family. They know your ins and outs. know, they know what makes you tick and they know what makes what ticks you off. And sometimes they're okay with taking you off. So just understand, I guess the other one that the second part of that would be what I said earlier, leave it at the door. You've got to learn that, you know, business is business and family is family. 

 

Michael (51:11.95)

Love it. What is your favorite family tradition? 

 

Derrik (51:16.878)

So we grew up my dad was a barber. He loved to trout fish. For some reason we went camping one time and a guy taught him how to trout fish and we love trout fishing. So honestly to get away and trout fish as a family is just brilliant. The second part of that, my sisters probably wouldn't say that. So as a family, we love get togethers. And unfortunately my mom and dad are older and it's harder to 

 

Derrik (51:46.094)

bring a get together together with 70 different people, but we love our family get togethers. 

 

Michael (51:53.582)

Last question for you is for a new family business member or just new to the business, know, that new to business, what are some of the top learning things that you've learned through the years and in terms of like organizations or books or trainings that you've been a part of, what were some of the things that were critical to your growth through the years? 

 

Derrik (51:56.354)

is 

 

Derrik (52:20.558)

Yeah. Uh, it's really funny. asked that in 2013, I was reading a book. I think it was 2013, 2012 or 13. Yeah. 13. I got stuck in a Hong Kong and a company that I was supposed to meet with said they couldn't meet with me. So I'm on a 34 tower overlooking a construction area, reading a book called good to great by Jim Collins. Yeah. It was awesome. I'm reading about it. And then they came out with the next book, how the great fell and 

 

Derrik (52:49.974)

It's really interesting in me because I think that's family business to a core, those two books, because the good degree tells how they went from just being a good company to a great company. We went from being a good group company to a great company. You mentioned it a couple of times and I only say it because it's by the grace of God that we're able to do this. But how the hard fell, how the great fell is they were not willing to change. They were stuck in the way that they always did it. 

 

Derrik (53:20.222)

And I think those two business, those two books are great reads for someone starting a family company because you understand how you go from good to great. You understand if you get the great, how to be careful that you don't become the one that fell. you have to be, just be happy, willing to listen. You know, well, if you want to be good at family, at a family company, become good at listening and shut your mouth. 

 

Derrik (53:48.59)

and just trying to hear what someone else has to say. So I don't know if that's what you're looking for, but. 

 

Michael (53:52.526)

That's awesome. It's one of my favorite books. I, you know what? The companion book to that is not one that I've talked about on the show before, but I think it's really important to understand this is good to great. And this is how the great fell. love that. Jim Collins just did a live event in Chicago, not far from you last month. And a bunch of my buddies took their clients to the event. And they just said, 

 

Michael (54:19.66)

He's still amazing. He took one item and spent the whole day talking about that one item and it was mind blowing. 

 

Derrik (54:27.566)

Derrik (54:27.846)

So. Yeah, and I'll say the last one and I'm going to put a plug in for my father who's 81 years old. So a few years back it was about 1012 years back. We always meet on Monday mornings and pray as a as a family before we start as a company. So it's myself, my brother's my dad, and then my dad would tell us about his mission work. You know, and he tells stories that after he came back. And one day I said, Dad, you need to write these down in a book. You need to tell your story so. 

 

Derrik (54:56.93)

He actually wrote a book called, Will Make a Way. And it's those stories, it's called Miracles Are the Normal Way God Lives in His People. Yes, it talks about the Christianity, if you want to call it the religious background that my dad got to. But there's so much value that I've heard from people over the years that had just read the book. 

 

Derrik (55:19.596)

because he tells the story of the company, tells the story of how he went into the mission field, how he grew both of these at the same time and the struggles they went through. it may be someone, it's an easy read. could probably dial in the book in four to six hours. It's just, it's a great book on, and it's not for selling it. It's just, if you want to know why we do and how we do it and how we made it, that's probably in the book. 

 

Derrik (56:28.342)

Right. Awesome. Thank you for having me. I so appreciate it and I so love just being able to the story and if anybody would ever like does listen to it and want to contact me, please feel free. I would love to help anybody out in any way I could.