The Third Growth Option with Benno Duenkelsbuehler and Guests
Welcome to The Third Growth Option, where we're not just talking about growth—we're making it our mission.
At TGO, we understand that success isn't a fixed destination; it's an ongoing journey with twists, turns, and unexpected detours that take us to new places. Those moments are our Third Growth Options, where we throw away binary choices to create our own path.
Hosted by Benno Duenkelsbuehler, O.G #GrowthNerd, we're on a mission to redefine success inside and outside of business, one episode at a time. From humble beginnings to Fortune 500 companies, our stories are not just about business—it's about the relentless pursuit of greatness in every aspect of life.
With each episode, we don’t just want to share insights—we want to empower business owners across all frontiers to carve their own path to success, their way.
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The Third Growth Option with Benno Duenkelsbuehler and Guests
Nostalgia, Storytelling, and the Power of Pecans with Stephanie Stuckey
Are you looking for a Third Growth Option ℠ ?
Stephanie Stuckey shares the inspiring story of reviving her grandfather's iconic roadside chain, Stuckey's Corporation, in 2019. In this episode, we explore the challenges she faced and how she balanced honoring the past with innovative strategies to breathe new life into the beloved brand. You'll learn about the concept of "now-stalgia" and why the universal allure of road trips, freedom, and adventure makes Stuckey's revival such a compelling story.
But it's not just about pecan log rolls and road trips. Stephanie also reveals how Stuckey's leverages storytelling and the patriotic pecan to create genuine connections with customers. From the historical significance of pecans to using LinkedIn posts to drive B2B sales, this episode covers the intricate effort behind getting products on store shelves. You'll also hear about Stephanie's personal journey, culminating in her book "Unstuck," and discover the secrets behind substantial growth, authentic branding, and the soul of a business rooted in American history. Tune in for valuable lessons on building a brand with authenticity and heart.
Always growing.
Benno Duenkelsbuehler
CEO & Chief Sherpa of (re)ALIGN
Hey, welcome to the third Growth Officer Podcast, where we talk about all things growth yes, even and especially those hard parts where you shed some skin and pick yourself up by the bootstraps. Hey, I'm Benno Dunkelspüler, growth Sherpa and OG Hashtag Growth Nerd. We're on a mission to redefine success inside and outside the business, one TGO episode at a time.
Speaker 2:Hey, this is Stephanie Stuckey. I am the chair of Stuckey's Corporation. I am in beautiful Rims, Georgia.
Speaker 1:All right, stephanie. I'm so glad we finally made this happen. We've tried a bunch of different times. I am benno host of third growth option podcast um, and this is a wonderful. It's sort of a corporate comeback story, a very american story of second chances, I think, for the brand stuckies um. You know you from what I know about you, stephanie, or what I'm reading about you other podcasts I've watched. You did not need to do this. I mean, you've had a successful career as a Georgia Bar certified attorney for a couple of decades. You were in the Georgia State Assembly House of Representatives for 14 years. You've been executive director, sustainability director, of a number of cool organizations, but then in 2019, something happened where you said, hey, I'm going to buy my grandmother's business, right?
Speaker 2:Something happened, something happened.
Speaker 1:Something happened, and it's Stucky's is this roadside chain you know, home of the original pecan log roll. So I want to I want to ask you questions around the you know the brand, this retro brand family business a little bit about your sales distribution strategy and successes that you've had since 2019. So let's just start this. What happened in 2019? What the heck made? You buy your grandfather's business.
Speaker 2:I love the way you said that, Like something happened. My life changed overnight. Literally Made you buy your grandfather's business. I love the way you said that, Like something happened. My life changed overnight. Literally the company was for sale. That's what happened and I got a phone call from one of the owners who owned Stuckey's at that point and asked if I was interested in buying the company. So very high level, if I was interested in buying the company, so very high level. My grandfather started Stucky's during the Great Depression, built it into a nationwide roadside retail chain that sold candy and pecan snacks that we've always had branded as the Stucky's name, and fun kitschy roadside souvenirs and gas and clean restrooms. So we were a roadside retail chain. Before there was TA or Love's or Bucky's, there was Stucky's. We were the first national chain of that magnitude.
Speaker 1:Oh G of of that roadside stores yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, At our peak we were in 40 States, almost 400 stores and he sold the company and he sold it in the in the mid seventies. He completely was out of control of the brand and there were decades of outside ownership and sadly, sometimes mergers and acquisitions works great and helps a brand scale and grow and sometimes it doesn't.
Speaker 1:Sometimes it just looks great on an Excel sheet but not in reality.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you know what I think usually is reality is it doesn't. Comebacks don't happen overnight, as I am learning, but companies declining. That doesn't happen overnight, very rarely. I mean, sometimes you might have some major crises, but in general this is a process. And so our company had declined over decades of outside ownership to the point that it was for sale and really in distress at that point. Six figures in the red and I had no background in business.
Speaker 1:But that's what happened.
Speaker 2:I got a phone call and it was for sale and it was the company my grandfather founded, so I had an emotional connection to the brand.
Speaker 1:The company had your last name has my last name yeah. So you know I talk about, I think of Sturkey's as a retro brand, right, because you guys are embracing that. You know, 1940s, 50s, 70s road trip, the American road trip. Why is that America? You know, why is that nostalgia so important and how did you figure out that it appears to be a major component of the comeback story?
Speaker 2:Well, we're very respectful of the past at Stucky's, but we're also looking towards the future. So we know where we came from. We know that nostalgia is part of our brand, but we're also embracing what we call now-stalgia. And how do we create new memories for a whole generation of consumers that didn't grow up with Stucky's on the roadside when they would travel across America? So we love our legacy customers who remember the brand, but we're also very excited about getting to know new customers and how we're embracing that is. We certainly talk a lot about what our history is, but we talk even more about what makes us relevant to today's consumers and today's road trippers. And the road trip really is something that we found that people connect with of all ages. You can be eight or you can be 80 and you enjoy getting in a car and seeing America, and so that's part of what our brand is, and not just the physical act of taking a road trip. But what does a road trip represent? It represents freedom and independence and fun.
Speaker 1:Adventure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, adventure, exploring new and different places. So all of that is part of our brand. And then the other thing that's really an important part of our brand is the comeback story, which I think is the greatest story ever told. There are so many derivations of stories that we all love and movies we love that are based on the idea of the underdog winning and coming out on top and making a comeback, and so that is very much who we are. We want to show that comebacks are indeed possible and we want that to be a big part of our story, that we're gonna we're reviving this brand and people are cheering for us to do that.
Speaker 1:And people are cheering for you right. I mean, I see your posts on social media and on LinkedIn. It's crazy the amount of likes and views and reactions you get. You know, I looked at your website, Stucky I think it's Stucky'scom, Stucky'scom, Stucky'scom there you go?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, and I looked at the website.
Speaker 1:I think it's stuckiescom, Stuckiescom, Stuckiescom. There you go, and I looked at the guest you have a guest book that has 500 entries of people reminiscing about road trips, right? Yes, again, I'm fascinated by an attorney, a representative, politician representative. Is that a part-time thing, by the way?
Speaker 2:It's really full-time. Officially most state legislatures are part-time, but they're a full-time job.
Speaker 1:Got it, got it. So attorney representative in the State Assembly becomes fascinated by branding and connecting this American road trip story to selling candy. Yeah, how did that happen? How did you figure out that? How did you figure out to connect your story, your passion, to what I'm guessing is thousands of people out there that are just consumers. And then you know, yeah, just, I'll stop there.
Speaker 2:It's all about storytelling, right, and we didn't have a budget. We still don't have a budget. It's been four years into this journey and we're still very scrappy and lean with our operations. So we don't have big advertising dollars to throw at commercials or influencers on social media. So I just get out there every single day and tell my story. People ask me why am I the social media ambassador for Stucky's? And the answer is quite simple I can afford myself, you can afford yourself, I can afford myself.
Speaker 1:By the way, I'm sorry to interrupt, but that noise in the background, it was a big 18-wheeler truck coming by A big 18-wheeler truck. I think it's only on brand Stephanie.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean we love 18-wheeler trucks and I am at our candy plant and I'll walk by the road trip mural while I'm talking.
Speaker 2:And so people can see. We had this great mural. That was a partnership with our Chamber of Commerce and the University of Georgia Lamar Dodd School of Art. Students from the school, along with a professor, put this together for us, and so it was very much a community-led project. And it's all about taking a road trip in Georgia and there's wonderful scenes from Georgia, places that you can go visit on the side of the road, including a lot of film locations, because our state is one of the number one states for filming in the country because of our tax credits that I worked on when I was a legislator.
Speaker 2:See, it's all coming full circle it all comes full circle, but all of the careers I've had are about connecting people.
Speaker 2:You know, whether it's in politics where obviously you need to connect with people to get elected or to get legislation passed, being a lawyer I was a trial lawyer, so you had to connect with juries, you had to connect with the judge, you had to connect with your clients.
Speaker 2:So it's all about how do you connect with people on an emotional level, because that's really the only way to have sticking power, and that's what marketing and branding is at its heart. And the number one way to connect with people is telling a story. Yeah Right, and a story needs to have authenticity, it needs to be interesting and it needs to be relevant. And so that gets down to understanding who is your audience, because unless you know your audience, you're not going to say something that is interesting and relevant to them. And so for us, our audience, anyone who would like road tripping, right. Anyone who likes to explore this wonderful country and, by the way, while you're doing it, get some pecans in the car with you and snack on them and pull over at a Stucky's or pull over at any one of the thousands of stores across the country that now carry our product.
Speaker 1:Stephanie, you really got to work on that authenticity thing, I think.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, well, to be authentic, it's got to be real, right, it's got to be real, so it's got to be your story. You can't you can't tell anyone else's story, it's got to be yours.
Speaker 1:There's only one of you, so go tell your story decades ago, before mergers and acquisitions and private equity, or God knows what happened, and now you're down to like 60 or so licensed 12 original stores 12 original 12 original stores, 40 licensed stores and then the rest of our sales, which is the majority of our sales like 80 plus percent of our sales is other retailers.
Speaker 2:So grocery channels, channels, convenience stores, specialty stores, hotels, hospitality, and I am getting inside where it'll be quiet and no trucks. So this is my hidey hole of an office and you can see there you go, some stuckies memorabilia around and, in 1970s, wood paneling oh yeah, this is a this right.
Speaker 2:This candy plant that we now own we bought two years ago, two and a half years ago and the really fun thing is, my grandfather did business with the man who founded the candy plant that we bought, and there's an old Stuckey store across the street. It's a vacant building now. But one of those 400 stores across the street. I's a vacant building now, but one of those 400 stores across the street. I look at it every day. One of these days I'm going to buy it and renovate it and it'll be a Stuckey's again.
Speaker 1:Awesome, awesome, yeah, so tell me. So you're in the last information I have. It's probably outdated. You were in like 5,000 retail doors. You were in like 5,000 retail doors, retail locations, as of last year. Tell me, how are you making the brand come alive and resonate on retail shelves that you have limited control over? It's not your shelf, it's the retailer's shelf.
Speaker 2:It's hard.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:How do you do it? We think our value proposition is we are a pecan snack brand and if you go to the nut aisles of America, what do you see? You see peanuts, which actually, technically, peanuts are not a nut, they're a legume. But I'll give them a pass. They are just saying so you get peanuts. You find almonds, cashews, more recently pistachio has been the it nut.
Speaker 2:But you will be very hard pressed to find a snack bag of pecans on the snack shelves of america, unless it's like fighting for space and a mixed nut bag. So how we differentiate ourselves and set ourselves apart is we are selling a nut that you normally don't see on the shelves in a standalone pack, and we have delicious flavors. We have five, what we call our core flavors, so sea salt, honey, roast honey, roasted maple, kettle glaze. But what I think is also important to stress is we are made locally. I think people more and more care about where their food comes from our state where we produce, the state of georgia, and where stuckies has been headquartered since 1937, we're the number one place in the entire world for pecan production. The state of Georgia grows almost a third of the world's pecan crop.
Speaker 2:I did not know that? Yeah, it's the only snack nut native to our country, yet you cannot find pecans on the snack aisles of America. I mean, I think we're almost at 4th of July when we're taping this, that's next week. It's unpatriotic, right? It should be illegal. It's unpatriotic, and George Washington snacked on pecans during the Revolutionary War. It's a fact, look it up. And so why are we not all just snacking on the patriotic nut and so, all right. That's my post right now for the 4th of July. We are the patriotic nut, darn it.
Speaker 2:There you go so that's our value proposition is we're something different that you'll see on the snack aisles, even though people have been familiar with pecans for decades. But we usually think of pecans as Thanksgiving and pies, so pecans are not just for pies. We don't want to only be in the produce aisle during the holiday season. We want to be on the snack aisle every single day and we want, when you look at pecans, we want the go-to snack brand to be Stucky's. So that's our value proposition. That's how we want to grow. That's how we want to differentiate ourselves on the aisles.
Speaker 1:Tell me about your distribution strategy in terms of people versus digital efforts. Your sales efforts versus do you have sales people? Do you have sales reps? Do you have multi-line reps? All of that how did you get into 5,000 retail doors?
Speaker 2:Well, we have a small but mighty sales team led by our sales director, arlene Paquette, and then she's got two sales reps who physically visit stores and then she's got a third person on her team who helps with customer service and marketing along with me. So we do a lot of the marketing and the branding and the promotion. But that's how we do it. We just get our reps physically go and visit and check on the licensed stores that bear the Stucky's name and then our sales director manages the large distribution. So a lot of our growth is through getting through distributors and the distributors get us in individual stores right, so we're in grocery channels and convenience, so you get in those chains, channels and convenience, so you get in those chains. So if you get in a large chain like we're in at home, which is in I think I'm right that it's in like 35 States and at home has, you know, a thousand plus locations, so that gets you a lot of stores right there.
Speaker 1:Right, right, right. How important, how important a role has social media played in getting buyers to find you?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Being found instead of you finding them.
Speaker 2:Critical. It's very important. Linkedin is my jam. That's where you'll see the most of my engagement because that's where we find our potential customers. We're B2B is most of our growth. We do have some consumer facing, which is mostly just our online portal, but we're really about driving sales to other retailers third party retailers and I'll give you an example. I recently did a post about how we love a great niche for us is hardware. Hardware chains like an Ace Hardware.
Speaker 2:Ace is a great one, true Value is a great one, and I can't say the chain just yet, because we haven't officially landed on their shelves yet. But a CEO of a large chain saw my post and reached out to me and said why aren't you in our stores? And I said why aren't we in your stores? But here's why you have to have a team. If it was just me, it never would have gone anywhere. I handed it over to my sales director, who then talked to their buyer, who then handed it to our sales rep, who physically went to the store and talked to the regional director. And then we had to get our candy plant operator to make sure he could churn out all the log rolls to fill the order. And then our shipping department had to actually pack.
Speaker 1:Was that the big order last?
Speaker 2:week. That was a huge order last week.
Speaker 1:Because we were going to record last Friday and we moved it to this Friday, slammed we were slammed.
Speaker 2:We're talking pallets and pallets. We filled up an entire truck that baby's launched, but it'll take another two weeks before it's physically on the shelves and stocked. And all that.
Speaker 1:So that to me is fascinating, right? That a CEO of a large potential customer saw your posts on LinkedIn and reached out and said what the heck, why am I not buying your stuff?
Speaker 2:Yeah, but here's the key thing Landing the order is just the beginning. Now we have to get the product sold.
Speaker 1:Right Now the real problem starts, yeah.
Speaker 2:So that's a lot of what I see as my role. I'm tip of the spear and getting these accounts and then, thank God, we have an amazing team, they make it happen and then, once it's on the shelves, a large part of my job is to say go to at home. In fact, my, my post on LinkedIn today was all about at home, go to at home for for the 4th of July weekend and load up on some great home and garden gear and get our snacks while you're at it.
Speaker 1:So you're helping. A tip of the spear is to sell into the store and and you're the post today, uh, is what sells through, right and sell through.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm on both ends, but I'm. I'm at the tip on both ends, Right and then in the middle. That's where all the magic happens that you gotta have a team to make to make that all work. And it's hard, I will tell you it is hard. We are not perfect. I've been dealing all morning with making sure all the different pieces talk to one another and coordinate, and we're far from 100% where we need to be, but we're getting there.
Speaker 1:How would you describe you know I don't want to ask for proprietary financial information here, but how would you describe sort of the scaling up from when you bought the business? Yeah, 2019, 2020, you know, over the last four or five years it's grown substantially, hasn't it?
Speaker 2:Yes, so sales have grown over 10 million.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:That's gross.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, that's what I can share publicly, but, you know, privately I would say it's hard making everything work because you've got to scale. There are so many things that go into play as far as we're expanding our manufacturing capacity, but you've got to make sure you're controlling your cost and you're controlling your sales in a way that everything is working. Yeah, and I've learned that this is what the growth chart looks like. It's an up and down. I would love to say it's just-.
Speaker 1:The history you know. When you talk about it in 10 years you'll say you know we went from here to. You know we grew over 10 million in the first five years and probably I bet you you'll grow 20 or 50 million in the next five or 10 years.
Speaker 2:Our goal is 50 in the next five years.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's our goal. This is the storyline and this is reality.
Speaker 2:It's more like this right Like the trend is. You know you want to go, you want to. We're trending in the right direction, perfect, but it is not without those peaks and valleys.
Speaker 1:Stephanie, final question to you about your book. I love the book title Unstuck Unstuck. I have not yet read it, so I do need to read it. I will read it now that I'm getting to know you a little bit better today, but just tell me about what was your favorite part about writing that book?
Speaker 2:Getting to know my grandfather.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:It really was a love letter to my grandfather. I discovered his archives when I bought the company. That was the greatest gift I got. It was the one thing of value was the trademark and his story, which are really all sort of wrapped up into one, and I got cases and cases of his papers that no one had looked at in 50 years, and so I'd spend my evenings reliving what he went through to grow this company and it gave me so much comfort and hope and strength, and so I just started writing it all down, hope and strength. And so I just started writing it all down, almost as being a catharsis. But the more I wrote I thought, well, this is a great story, so I would share little snippets of it on social media. I do less of that now because our team and I agree with the strategy is like we need to move forward. But initially, as I was growing the company, I would just share his story. And a publisher reached out to me and company I would just share his story, and a publisher reached out to me and said that would make a great book. So I got a publisher and it went from there. By the way, I want to add, you said you hadn't read it yet I read this interview with Larry King, who I just thought was one of the best interviewers ever.
Speaker 2:I still watch him, even though he's been gone for a while. And he said the secret to interviewing authors was to not read the book. And I think it's because maybe you ask questions, you tend to be less bogged down into what the book actually says and more high level and asking questions that might really provoke a conversation and invite people to read the book. And I do invite people to read the book. You can order it on Amazon or Books. A Million sells it, so we're in one nationwide chain. It's distributed through Penguin Books. My publisher has been Bella, but they distribute to Penguin, so it's in quite a few bookstores and then you can get it on the Stuckey's website and if you order it on the Stuckey's website you'll get a signed copy.
Speaker 1:All right, yeah there you go.
Speaker 1:I love the way you answered the question that you know it gave you an opportunity to learn things about your grandfather you didn't know. Yeah, I'll just share with you that over the last couple months I've been, for some strange reason, I've been thinking a lot about my grandfather on my mother's side, who had a fascinating story that I think it's so important. You know parents, grandparents, great grandparents stories that you know we might have had. You know two or three little dots of information, but we couldn't connect the dots.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Because we didn't have enough right of information. So good for you that now I want to read the book.
Speaker 2:So important connecting the dots because they are connected Right exactly or connectable.
Speaker 1:And connected to you. Know, throughout our ancestry things are connected from ancestors to us, from us to our kids, in ways that we don't always grasp. That's right.
Speaker 2:I'll just leave it at that. Look for those patterns. The patterns are there. The past is there to guide us and teach us, and so I really enjoy understanding where we came from, because it helps guide the future of this company, and we are going to have a future. It hasn't been an easy journey ever. Even when my grandfather was at the top, it was a lot of work.
Speaker 2:But, just like so many entrepreneurs out there who, hopefully, are listening to your podcast. As long as you're trending in the right direction, just keep on climbing, you're going to get there. Keep on trucking. Yeah, keep on trucking. Keep on rolling. Keep on log rolling.
Speaker 1:Stephanie, this was awesome. Thank you so much for taking a little bit of time on a Friday morning here. We'll make sure to get this out to all of your peeps and my peeps. Congratulations on what you're doing. Keep enjoying the journey, the ups and the downs. And I know you guys will hit $50 million before you know it.
Speaker 2:We're going to get there, we're going to make it. Yes, pk on All right. Thank you so much. It's been a pleasure.
Speaker 1:Bye, take care, stephanie. Thank you for listening to this episode of TGO Podcast. You can find all episodes on our podcast page at wwwrealign4resultscom. You can find me, benno, host of TGO Podcast, there as well. Just email benno B-E-N-N-O at realign4resultscom. Let's keep growing. Email Benno B-E-N-N-O at realignforresultscom. Let's keep growing.
