[Perspective Series] Scaling a Franchise With Simplicity With Bennett Maxwell
- Quik! News Team
- Mar 31
- 28 min read
Bennett Maxwell is the Founder of Dirty Dough. Beginning his entrepreneurial journey in elementary school by selling candy bars, Bennett now leads a pioneering cookie-selling franchise. Dirty Dough's innovative centralized production introduces the first-ever three-layer cookie, streamlining franchise operations by addressing challenges like waste, quality control, and supply chain at the corporate level. This unique model allows franchises to operate with reduced costs and labor. With Dirty Dough, Bennett is looking to raise mental health awareness by encouraging authenticity and self-acceptance.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
[2:15] Bennett Maxwell explains the simplicity behind Dirty Dough’s franchise model and operations
[4:28] Bennett’s mindset shift from running a solar business to franchising cookies
[8:40] The deeper meaning behind Dirty Dough’s branding and messaging
[10:15] Why aligning personal mission with business goals is crucial
[14:21] The mindset needed to scale a franchise while maintaining work-life balance
[20:23] Bennett’s impetus for selling Dirty Dough and joining Craveworthy Brands
[24:06] How Bennett integrates AI tools into sales, marketing, and daily operations
In this episode…
Scaling a business is no easy feat, especially when you aim to expand from a single location to a nationwide brand within a few years. Entrepreneurs often struggle with simplifying operations, maintaining brand identity, and keeping a work-life balance while growing exponentially. How can business owners build a franchise model that is both scalable and fulfilling?
Bennett Maxwell, an experienced entrepreneur with a background in franchising and solar energy, shares his approach to overcoming these challenges. He emphasizes the importance of simplifying processes for franchisees by standardizing operations, centralizing production, and minimizing training time. He also highlights the role of branding in creating an emotional connection with customers, crafting a mission that extends beyond the product itself. By assembling an expert advisory board, leveraging AI for sales and marketing, and maintaining a strict work-life balance, Bennett found a way to rapidly scale his business while staying aligned with his personal values.
In this episode of The Customer Wins, Richard Walker interviews Bennett Maxwell, Founder of Dirty Dough Cookies, about scaling a franchise with simplicity and purpose. Bennett shares how he streamlined operations, built a strong brand, and maintained a work-life balance while growing rapidly. He also discusses using AI for efficiency, the power of mentorship, and his decision to sell the company for long-term success.
Resources Mentioned in this episode
Quotable Moments:
"Life gets messy and that’s okay. These cookies represent life in the fact that they’re messy."
"I developed a mission statement: finding joy and fulfillment despite life’s dirtiness."
"Your business is you. It’s an extension of you. So make it something you truly believe in."
"Branding is creating an emotional predisposition to what you offer, not just selling a product."
"If you don’t have a deeper purpose, making a little more money won’t keep you going."
Action Steps:
Simplify business operations for scalability: Streamlining processes reduces complexity for franchisees and ensures consistency, making it easier for entrepreneurs to succeed.
Build a brand with emotional connection: Creating a mission beyond the product resonates deeply with customers and franchises alike, strengthening brand loyalty and differentiating the company from competitors.
Leverage an advisory board for expertise: Surrounding yourself with industry veterans accelerates business growth, providing crucial mentorship that helps founders navigate new challenges efficiently.
Adopt AI to improve efficiency: Using AI tools for sales, marketing, and customer engagement reduces manual work and increases productivity, allowing entrepreneurs to focus on high-value activities that drive business success.
Prioritize work-life balance from the start: Setting clear boundaries prevents burnout while still scaling a business, ensuring sustainable growth through long-term consistency rather than overworking in the short term.
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Episode Transcript:
Intro: 00:02
Welcome to The Customer Wins podcast, where business leaders discuss their secrets and techniques for helping their customers succeed and in turn, grow their business.
Richard Walker: 00:16
Hi, I'm Rich Walker, the host of The Customer Wins, where I talk to business leaders about how they help their customers win and how their focus on customer experience leads to growth. Some of our past guests have included Richard Weylman, author, Hall of Fame inductee for Keynotes and customer Experience, Rocky Lalvani, The Profit Answer Man, and Jason P. Carroll of Aptive Index. Today is a special episode in my perspective series, where I talk with innovators, thought leaders and entrepreneurs to gain new perspectives. Today, I'm speaking with Bennett Maxwell, founder of Dirty Dough Cookies. And today's episode is brought to you by Quik, the leader in enterprise forms processing.
When your business relies upon processing forms, don't waste your team's valuable time manually reviewing the forms. Instead, get Quik using our Form Xtract API. Simply submit your completed forms and get back clean, context-rich data that reduces manual reviews to only one out of a thousand submissions. Visit Quikforms.com to get started. All right, I'm excited to introduce today's guest.
Bennett Maxwell is an entrepreneur known for his innovative business strategies and dedicating dedication to reshaping the entrepreneurial landscape. As the visionary behind Dirty Dough Cookies, he has propelled the brand to national success, with 65 plus stores opened and many more on the way. Beyond the cookie industry, Bennett's ventures span real estate and renewable energy, including co-founding and selling Switch to Solar. A sought-after speaker and media contributor, he launched the Deeper Than Dough podcast in 2023. Cool podcast, by the way, sharing insights on finding joy and purpose through entrepreneurship and beyond.
Bennett. Welcome to The Customer Wins.
Bennett Maxwell: 01:55
Rich. Thanks for having me. Super excited to be here.
Richard Walker: 01:58
Me too man. So for those who haven't heard this podcast before, I'd love to talk to business leaders about what they're doing to help their customers win, how they built and deliver a great customer experience, and the challenges to growing their own company. Bennett, let's understand your business a little bit better. How does your company help people?
Bennett Maxwell: 02:15
Good question. I have two customers. I have my primary customer is the franchisee because we're selling franchises. And then the secondary customer is the customer actually buying the cookies. Who's keeping those franchisees in business.
So just really briefly on both the franchisee, what we've built is a very simplified model that I make. I mass produce all of the cookies here in Utah. We'll ship them out to you. They're pre-portioned. They're stuff, they're multi-layered.
They all cook for the same time. Temperature and fan speed. Your ovens are programmed. You just grab an oven, put it in the, you know, grab a cookie, put it in the oven, press start, operate out of 500ft². One employee an oven.
Right. Like simplicity is really what we're going after. And I think it's the most simple food franchise, which as a result, then, you know, lowers the barrier of entry to entrepreneurship on the second end, like, who's buying the customers or, sorry, the customers actually buying. I think it's the experience of having a very unique product. We're the only ones that do like three layer cookies.
So it's like a peanut butter cookie wrapped in a, you know, a brownie dough with an injection of caramel, something like that. Wow. And then with that, there's the messaging of, you know, life gets messy and that's okay. These cookies represent life. And the fact that they're messy, they're dirty, they're not perfect.
But that's okay. They're still meant to be enjoyed. So that is that messaging is kind of sprinkled throughout all of our stores. We care about your feelings. The inside matters most.
Life gets messy and that's okay. Things like that, like on the packaging all over. So those are kind of my two customers and two ways that I try to serve each of them.
Richard Walker: 03:52
Man, that is awesome. So the cookies are imperfect like us. Yes, but amazing and delicious when you when you take them in. And if I understood, you've kept things really, really simple, like your shipping cookie dough, but not the actual baked part. So it gets cooked in real time in front of the customer, right?
But you're not making the store owner assemble all of it and do it the right way, because that's a magic by itself. Well, so when you started this, did you just start one store? Did you just start like, I'm going to start making cookies, or were you thinking, I'm going to build franchises? What was your mindset going into this?
Bennett Maxwell: 04:28
Yeah, so it was a buddy of mine that actually started in Arizona out of his apartment, and he posted on Facebook saying, hey, I'm selling out of cookies most nights. You know, I need some money to invest in a storefront. So I gave him some money. I have no idea. Anything with food franchise has never been in the space, so other than investing, it was kind of like Adios, right?
Hope hopefully. Hopefully it goes well. I was running my solar company and I wanted him to franchise it to me because I lived in San Diego and rather than franchising it, he's like, you know what? I'm done with this. I want to sell it.
So it was one location. It had only been open for, you know, less than a year. So at that time when I bought it and redid everything, the intent was to franchise it. That's, that's how I saw the growth. I saw a lot of other companies doing something similar.
And I'm like, like particularly crumble in this space. I'm like, man, they it seems like they became a national brand overnight. What are they doing and what are they doing that I can't, you know, improve upon just a little bit.
Richard Walker: 05:26
Yeah. So part of the reason I asked that question is because as entrepreneurs, I think we gravitate to what we look for. And the filter you wear and the questions you ask yourself take you down a path. And if you have an intention, you're most likely going to hit that intention because that's what you keep focused on. And a lot of business owners just like, oh, well, I can make cookies, I can start this up, I can open up a shop and do this business.
And they don't think about the scaling of it. And when, when did you define the customer experience from the cookie standpoint? Was that already defined or did you craft that more once you took it over?
Bennett Maxwell: 06:00
Yeah. No, we had to completely recraft it because I wanted. I'd recently exited, I bought Dirty Dough, and within a few months I sold my solar company. And kind of when I went through something of like, you know, man, I achieved this big goal. I wanted to be a millionaire and this and that before X age.
And I achieved all that. And it felt amazing for a little bit. And then you just feel normal again. So I'm like, okay. It was very apparent, like within a week or two of that exit, that money.
Money wasn't the right goal for me. That wasn't where it's at. So, well, now I already have Dirty Dough. It's a cookie company. How do I kind of inject something more than money into it?
Right. So it was kind of picking what it is. And I think at the end of the day, we're all after a certain emotional state, right, that we want to feel a certain way. And what's preventing a lot of people from feeling that a certain way. I think it's typically your expectations versus reality is equals.
You know, your emotional state. If your expectations are really high and your reality is low, that distance is really what causes that, you know, emotional distress, sadness, depression. So how do you bridge that gap? And that's what I try to do with the cookies. And it was really me just being in the store and a customer saying, hey, why is the name, you know, why did you guys name it Dirty Dough?
And the employee made this up, I think, I mean, somebody made it up. She goes, it's called Dirty Dough because the dough is dirty. Because we focus, we put more mixins inside the cookie. I'm like, oh, I'm going all in on that. So I was like, how much chocolate chips are we using?
You know, like, let's increase that by 50%. And then it got to the point that all of our cookies were stuffed or multi-layered, so I could bring in that messaging. I'm like, Dirty Dough means the dough is dirty because we know the inside matters most, so it doesn't matter about the outward appearances. So yeah, it was a lot of back and forth in a few months and a lot of fun and brainstorming and to kind of develop that because, yeah, it was not developed when I, when I purchased the businessman.
Richard Walker: 07:59
So I again, I love all this, this insight because a good friend of mine said selling is the transaction. Marketing is creating awareness. But branding. Branding is creating an emotional predisposition to what you offer. And that's what you're talking about, right?
You're talking about the emotion. And I think so many companies go out and build a brand without realizing it. They don't know what emotion they're infusing into what they're doing. And I think, again, going back to that intention, when you're saying to yourself, how do I how do I really connect with my customer? And it's about that emotion and what they feel.
So how did you get the feedback from customers? How did you know you had the right message and the right brand.
Bennett Maxwell: 08:40
On the messaging? I didn't it was a lot of like, oh, do you want to kind of go this route? And it was, yeah, I want to go this route because I think it's important. I don't think there's anything more important in the world than your emotional well-being. And I think the number one thing to increase that is realizing life doesn't need to be perfect for you to enjoy it, right?
Like, it's the whole happiness is just right around the corner type of deal, right? Like getting rid of that. So it didn't matter if customers are going to receive it or not. This was more of a like, this is just what I want to do with my life. So when business kicks me in the teeth again, I have a reason to keep going.
Not like, oh, I can make it a little bit more money. Branding in general though, we did. You know we went through the full process and you get you know, I think we did elementary schools because that's our target demographic and going there because we redid the logos and all the colors. And, you know, how does this color make you feel versus this color? So there was a lot of that.
And we had a marketing company to really dive into it before our color was like a bright orange because it was a college town, and now it's like a soft teal blue, knowing that our target demographic is women, not college students. It just happened to be that first location. So it was it was definitely good that we dove in a little bit more on the emotional side of the branding colors, the logos with our target demographic.
Richard Walker: 10:07
So I want to articulate back to you what you said, but I want to I want you to validate this. Does that mean that the core purpose, the core message was for you?
Bennett Maxwell: 10:15
Yeah. So I developed a mission statement after I sold the solar business. I hired a business coach, got a therapist. I'm like, okay, I'm going to figure out what the hell I'm trying to do with my life, you know?
Richard Walker: 10:25
Yeah.
Bennett Maxwell: 10:26
And then I go back to my business. And the mission statement was finding joy and fulfillment, right? That's really what I wanted. The million dollars was. Yeah.
So I got more joy fulfillment. Okay, cool. Now I got it. How now? How do I do a business?
You know, a mission statement for my business. And the coach is like, you idiot! Idiot. Your business is you. It's an extension of you.
So. And then I threw in the word dirtiness. So it's to tie in with the with the business. But it's finding joy and fulfillment despite life's dirtiness, right? Don't wait to sell your solar company in order for you to be able to enjoy life.
So yes, I developed it for me as a person. What fulfills me? And then I the business had adapted it to help me achieve that.
Richard Walker: 11:08
So I feel the same way and my purpose is a little bit different. And it took me years, by the way. I mean, it took me about eight years into my business to figure this out, and I think I'm very typical of other entrepreneurs. I thought I was starting a business for one reason, and what I realized was at the core of who I am, I'm trying to empower others to be their best version of themselves. I love that, I love I did that as a financial advisor, but in my business, it morphed into I want to empower people to do their best work.
Forms is nobody's best work, so I want to enable you to have more time to do what you do best, and therefore love what you do and get the fulfillment from it that you want. And I think having that kind of purpose is a foundation. It's a lightning rod, as I call it, to compare everything else to. So I think that's great that you figured that out. And then your business evolves and obviously your customers are attracted to that, whether they realize it or not, right?
Bennett Maxwell: 12:00
Yeah, no, it was kind of scary, like pushing out some other messaging. It has nothing to do with cookies, you know? Right. Anything to do with cookies. Like what is the reaction?
But then who cares what the reaction is? It's about my reaction, right? Like, I'm not doing this for the I mean, I'm doing it for the customers in a sense that because if I do that in exchange is going to make me feel better about myself, like I, you know, that's a very egotistic, egotistic lens of like, you know, every action and eventually comes back to something that we want for ourselves. Right? It's not really selfless, but that that is what I was like.
I'm going to do it anyway because business, anybody who's been in business, especially like a rapidly growing business, knows it's just hard when you need $200,000 every month for a few years in a row, and if you don't raise it that month, you go bankrupt. Like that's stressful. Yeah, that's what I've been going through. Of and it's anyways, if you don't have that deeper purpose and you're just like, man, I can make a little bit more money if I just work a little bit harder. It's just it doesn't. It's not worth it anymore.
Richard Walker: 13:05
Yeah. And truthfully, my company purpose is my own. I work for employer after employer and didn't like it. Nobody would actually empower me to do my best work. And so that's why I wanted to have my own company.
But. But you clued in on something really, really important for entrepreneurs and just brand in general. It's not about the product or service. Exactly. Really isn't cookies. It's just a metaphor for what you're trying to achieve.
Bennett Maxwell: 13:27
Yeah, yeah, it could have been done in any business. Yeah, because it was a business that was existing. That was that I purchased. Right. And then it was now let's attach the branding and the messaging and then scale it.
Richard Walker: 13:40
Yeah. Okay. So you're a seasoned entrepreneur and I want to ask you a different question about taking on this business and running it, because I was actually having this conversation yesterday with another entrepreneur. And so how do I phrase this? You chose to take on something for yourself, not knowing if it's going to work.
I mean, people like the cookies, obviously, but taking this message to market about, you know, your mental well-being and your fulfillment and your joy, etc., and doing it through cookies. Did you have a mindset of, I will make this successful no matter what? Or did you was a different mindset of like, I'm just going to push this out and see where it goes. How are you thinking about building this business at that point?
Bennett Maxwell: 14:21
Yeah, no, I think it's, you know, you kind of do your best, you know, I don't know how it's going to go. It seems like because I just keep going. Everything seems to work out with kind of whatever industry. It's more if you just keep your head down and keep going. It works out.
I think the healthier way to live is, is having less and less expectation. I mean, if you look at any, any time you've ever suffered in your entire life, it was because your expectations weren't met, right? Like, I expected to not feel shitty right now, but if you expected to feel shitty, you felt shitty. You're just like, okay, I could deal with this until it goes away. So I do think it is more like let let's just let's, let's have the goal, let's have a direction.
Let's push as hard as we can. But like, it's not I'm going to do anything until to make this work because there's so many things that are outside of the control out of your control. And I think recognizing that, I don't know, this is your life philosophy, not business strategy.
Richard Walker: 15:16
But it all Permeates, I mean, because how you think is how you think, and just because you're running a business is just a different kind of operation in your world and really, truly how you how you think about yourself is how you're going to drive your own business, in my view. So but I love what you're saying. The fewer expectations you have, the better. But at the same time, I mean, would you say you open 65 stores in less than two years?
Bennett Maxwell: 15:39
Yeah, we opened our first store summer of 2022, and in this summer we opened up between. We did some mobile franchises like Food truck food Trailers. We had 102 years, sold 450 franchises, and opened up 100 units into here. So yeah, it was it was a lot. And then you're like, okay if you're getting out like okay, but you can't really achieve that unless you just go out and it's like, I went all out, but I didn't.
When I sold my solar company, I made a commitment. I was like, I'm not working more than 40 hours a week. And I definitely kept that commitment. There's a week or two that you have to sprint, right? And you're working a little bit more and then you take a little bit time off.
But it really was like, what's the point of working more, you know, to go from whether I had ten stores or 100 stores? How's that really going to change my life other than if I have 100 stores? I'm going to make up a story that that gives me more money, and if I have more money, I can be with my family more and that makes me happier. Or I could just have the ten stores, don't spend all the time and sacrifice the time with my family today to then have time with them later. It's like I could I could just have both.
If I just work 40 hours a week, it's kind of crazy. You know, I could add the time with them now and later, and you don't need millions of stores to do it. So it is looking back and like, man, that was a big quick ride. Was it worth it? I don't know.
You know, it was fun.
Bennett Maxwell: 16:57
No. You know that.
Richard Walker: 17:00
I share. That philosophy. I only work 35 to 40 hours a week. But for the first 12 years of this company, I worked 80-hour weeks. And it was that lesson of those 80 hour weeks not pushing us forward, not getting where I wanted to be. And thankfully, the catalyst was having a son, my first child. He was born in 2015, and I had promised myself 35 hours a week max so I could spend time with him and have, you know, live life. And I did that. It was hard, but I did that.
And now I'm accustomed to it and it works. You're totally right. You can have the balance and still run a business. Okay, there was a question I had for you as you moved to franchise. How did you build the experience for the franchisees?
And you talked about efficiency. And I think that's a huge key to this. But how did you say to yourself, how do I do this?
Bennett Maxwell: 17:49
Whenever you need to go achieve something. Yeah, it's what do I need to figure out? What do I need to learn in order to achieve this end, either I need to learn it or I need to go find somebody that already knows it. So I did the latter. You know, I found somebody that already knew franchising because I also knew not only was food a new industry, franchising was a new industry.
And that has its own language. When you talk to people in franchising, you're like, what's an FD? And they sign the f a when and what? What are you talking about? You know, but we also became a food manufacturing company, right?
We were producing the food and then we became a logistics company. We were going East coast to West Coast. So there's all these verticals that have attacking. It's. Can I learn them all?
Yes. How long does it take? Too long. I have ADHD, let's go. Let's find somebody else.
So I started building an advisory board and that was really, really key. Getting the owner of the largest property management franchisor in the world on the board. You know, he's got the experience. He's been doing it forever. And I also started with the CEO right when we franchised, I was lucky enough to find someone.
I was trying to get her as my advisor, and she was like, you need me to run this thing. I'm like, that's an option. I'll take it. She's been in franchising for 40 years. Started a company called Maui Wowie.
Smoothies and Coffee. You know, like a snack food space. Pretty similar to Dirty Dough. Grew it to 650 plus locations before exiting. So, like franchise experience.
Okay, now I got the team. Hey, Jill, what have you done for the last 40 years to provide a good franchise experience? Hey, Steve, what have you been doing? So it was recruiting the team and then really going off of their model. And within, I mean, a month or so before we had any franchises really open because we were building it to, like, so I could open it.
Someone with no experience. There was like 107 lit checklists, you know, and it's you click on this and here's the permit and you download it here. And then you get it signed and you upload it here. And then like everything, every single thing that you can ever do. So it was treating each franchisee as if they knew nothing.
And that's how the simplicity was built. As far as like opening the store goes.
Richard Walker: 19:53
Wow, wow. So you're very process-oriented, or your team was at least. I don't know who you give the credit to. And this is the parable of all of our companies, right. In financial services you grow by building more offices.
And I've got a friend who's doing that. He's opening an office about every month or two now. He's trying to get to two a month. And it comes down to these procedures and knowing how to do it and make it easy for the next person to run it. That is fantastic.
What do you think is the future or what are you going to do with this company?
Bennett Maxwell: 20:23
Yeah, I've sold it. Actually. I sold about two months ago to a company out of Chicago called Crave Worthy Brands. They have 16 brands. I think seven of them are franchised. So I am now their director of sales for the seven franchise brands that they're offering. That's my background.
Before I got into all of this, you know, it was a solar company, which was sales, right? And it was because I worked for somebody else doing door-to-door solar cells. So it's like, I like the cells. I know I'm good at it. That's where I like spending my time.
So it's. I could run a company and hire the, you know, the operations out or find a really good operator and then just do sales for them, which is what I'm trying to do right now or what I am doing. The operator, the owner of the company that bought mine, is the former CEO of Jimmy John's, and there hasn't been another food restaurant in the last 30 years with more success. You know, no food franchise in the world. So it's like, yeah, let me just sell for what you got going on. But for all of you brands.
Richard Walker: 21:25
Nice. Okay. So here's let's go back to the basics. You started this for your own joy and fulfillment from the dirtiness of life. Are you still getting that with this, with this shift? I mean, you have your owners and all that.
Bennett Maxwell: 21:37
Yeah I mean, it's it absolutely. I mean, it's only been two months, but like, absolutely I'm like, man, I'm loving. Like when I swipe my credit card, I'm like, this isn't. This Isn't directly coming from me every single second, you know? And like when you get like a business renewal, do you want to renew one of your 20 entities that you filed when you didn't know what you're doing? It's like, I don't know. Here's the legal counsel. You know, here's their in-house attorney.
They'll respond. It's like all of that is like on a personal level of the stress, joy and fulfillment is going up a lot. And I made the decision based off of I mean, we sold 450 franchises. That's my number one priority is like taking care of them. And it's been a rough food market the last few years.
Like anybody in any food category, nobody's making money, right? How do I increase their likelihood for success and decrease their likelihood for failure? Well, that's what I was doing. And that's what's bringing the joy and fulfillment. If I could get the former CEO of Jimmy John's with a big backing to come in and make Dirty Dough, the poster child of his portfolio, which is now what it is because we're the fastest growing like that's going to give franchisee the most success. And at the end of the day, that is going to correlate to me because I think that's kind of my biggest Responsibility.
Second, I guess, would be taking care of investors.
Richard Walker: 22:56
Okay, I'm gonna ask an ignorant question because I just. I've never done a franchise. I don't know if you've sold 450. You've only opened 100 or something like that. What's the time frame to open a store?
Is there a queue? They have to wait for something? Or is it just up to them to find something?
Bennett Maxwell: 23:12
Yeah, I mean, it's up to them to find something. So if you pick, you know, Park City, Utah, right. Great area. No real estate. You can be looking at that for a year and there's just nothing opens or you have something opens and you look into it.
But Starbucks is out, you know, at the end of the quarter and they have a non-compete because they also sold cookies or something stupid like that, right? Yeah. But the bigger reason is you buy five territories and I give you five years to develop them. So you develop one a year. So that's most people on development schedule.
So again, even if you bought three, it's one per year. But by the time you sign to open, yeah six 6 to 12 months is all it is.
Richard Walker: 23:48
Okay okay I'm going to shift gears a little bit and forgive me if this is coming out of left field because we didn't. I didn't tell you. I might ask this type of question, but I love to talk to people about artificial intelligence. Is AI working its way into your day, your business? The franchise system?
How is it playing out for you guys?
Bennett Maxwell: 24:06
So man, in every freakin shape, I mean, every day I'm just like, Holy crap, there's another tool. I mean, what we were talking right before, like, I'm recording videos for a CRM called Franchise Systems AI that takes the people. It takes prospects through the sales process, through a series of videos and quizzes and things like that. So it's not a salesperson, and you can now cast a much wider net because I'm, I personally am not filtering. So that's all AI-powered.
All the scripts are AI powered, you know. So now I have all these scripts and I have to now record these videos, but I can't figure it out because I'm reading it and my eyes are going back and forth and on a teleprompter. So I did download. I briefly mentioned to you I downloaded a software for free AI. Within a minute it had my eyes looking straight forward the whole time and I'm like, that's sweet.
I'm still going to get the teleprompter, the Elgato. But like that is one little example how I use it every day on my to do list. There's chat section and there's all the things I'm going to play with it. But you know, I have to redo the one page over here. I have to redo the scripts over here, I have to make sure they reorganize this or, you know, create these sales materials.
So any and all texting that goes out, which is really what I've been good at in acquiring franchises, like what is the messaging and what order and how long. It's all chat GTP, all my social media. I post twice a day, every day pretty much. And then all of the comments are responded to and liked, and I'm commenting on 30 other people's posts every day. All of that is somebody out of the Philippines and good old chat GTP using the same thread that I train.
Like this. These are the things I like and don't like. And then that's been our number one lead source. Those are all the surface level. You know I does way more. But like first a sales guy that I'm just like oh how do I get it to help me in these things. Yeah I'm on different eyes every single day. Kind of going back and forth on scripts and strategies.
Richard Walker: 26:09
So I built a custom GPT to manage my to-do list.
Bennett Maxwell: 26:13
Oh, awesome.
Richard Walker: 26:14
To do's have been like so difficult. I have notepad files. I have things in my outlook, I have Trello, I have all these different sources for to do lists, and I'd lose track of them all, or I would put them in some folder. And I finally got smart with chat and I'm like, hey, manage my to do list. So I gave it a prompt of what to do.
It categorizes it for me. It gives me due dates. If I don't put one in automatically, it reminds me and I can just log in and say show me my list. Mark these as done, whatever. I can add detailed notes.
It's awesome. And it's so stupid. Trivial.
Bennett Maxwell: 26:46
Yes, that that is awesome. Yeah, just combining everything emails is another thing that I now. I write everything through emails, usually because I don't work from my computer like I'm on my computer working less than 10% of the time it's my phone, so it's voice to text on chat GBP this is the email, this is the background. This is the tone I want and who I'm speaking to. And it actually takes less time for me to tell it than if I were to write it.
And then now obviously it writing it with the tonality rather than like, I like this, I don't like this. I'm trying to give off this tone and this emotion, and I'm trying to make sure, you know, like I want to pridefully or humbly brag about this. And it does it right. It captures that. Give me five different anyways.
But my writing has increased so much. With chat. And then with the skill of like giving it the emotion that you want to portray rather than like, I like this wording, but rather than.
Richard Walker: 27:43
Yeah, I have recorded with the podcast, I've got recordings, but I've also done audio recordings of hours and hours of content for my for my eyes. And so then learns my voice. And the other day I gave it a task and I said, you're gonna have to help me respond to this email about this concept and information. And it wrote it in my voice. I mean, I just read it and I'm like, what do I have to edit?
This is me. This is how I talk. It's perfect.
Bennett Maxwell: 28:09
It is crazy. And then you're like, sweet. Now I can duplicate myself for $5 an hour as many Filipinos as I can hire. I'd be like, this is sweet.
Richard Walker: 28:17
No doubt. Okay, look, we're getting towards the end. I do have another big question for you, but before we get there, what's the best way for people to find you?
Bennett Maxwell: 28:26
Bennettmaxwell.com is my first and last name.com. There's links to my podcast, any of the CraveWorthy Brands and then any social media which I'm always on talking sales and entrepreneur, mental health, work life balance, things like that.
Richard Walker: 28:40
Yeah, yeah. Like I said, good podcast. Go listen to okay, so here's my last question. Who has had the biggest impact on your leadership style and how you approach your role today.
Bennett Maxwell: 28:52
It's a really good question. So I skipped over his name. John Richards. When I said I started to develop an advisory board, he was the first one. Anyways, took me out of the mindset of like, I just had a solar business.
I only ran it for 18 months, but it was a seven figure exit. You know Phil and hi to like know my. I took Yellow Pages online and we went public for $30 billion. Very different mindset on how to view things like as I was raising money. He was I'd never raised money.
We raised 9,000,000in the last two years, and it was him kind of coaching me and guiding me. Everybody else was very much like, you know, a person could be worth $1 billion in a five years, and this and that, where you talk to somebody who's kind of been there, done that, and it's, hey, if this succeeds, whether you know, whether it's worth 100 million or 200 million or 50 million and you own 40% or 80%, your lifestyle doesn't change, you know? And he always brought me back to the lifestyle choices rather than the financial choices, which I think kept me sane. Anyways, lots of other advice, but yeah, John Richards definitely given me so much on my leadership.
Richard Walker: 30:05
Oh, I love that. Okay, I have to ask a slight follow-up question. Did you know him already? How did you get him on your advisory board?
Bennett Maxwell: 30:13
I took his startup course from him. He does a three-day startup course and he taught me what an advisory board was. I didn't know what it was. I thought it was just a, like a governing board. Right?
Like on a C Corp. And it's like, no, you can get these people hiring people for half a percent to maybe a percent and a half of a company that's worth nothing. And you subject them to a two-year vesting period. So these are all teaching me this. I'm like, how do I get him?
So and then I just went and had to sell him. And you know, at the time I didn't have I had one, one store. No really direction on like traction yet. Just a vision. But I was able to kind of sell it off, sell it to him.
He put some stipulations that I had to follow, and then he was the one who brought on Steve Hart, who was the owner of the largest property management franchise in the nation. Right. And then it kind of snowballed from there.
Richard Walker: 31:00
Oh, man. That's amazing. Okay. I can keep talking to you all day. This is awesome.
So but I do have to wrap it up. I want to give a big thank you to Bennett Maxwell, founder of Dirty Dough Cookies, for being on this episode of The Customer Wins. Go check out Bennett's website at DirtyDoughCookies.Com and don't forget to check out Quik at Quikforms.com, where we make processing forms easier. I hope you enjoyed this discussion.
We'll click the like button, share this with someone and subscribe to our channel for future episodes of The Customer Wins. Bennett, thank you so much for joining me today.
Bennett Maxwell: 31:29
Thanks for having me, Rich.
Outro: 31:31
Thanks for listening to The Customer Wins podcast. We'll see you again next time and be sure to click subscribe to get future episodes.
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