Neil Dudley: The Cowboy Perspective, well, it might be hard to define, but I guarantee if you think about it, you’ve got one in mind. Whether you’re building a legacy, an empire, or a fanbase, I bet when your friends look at you, they see some cowboy in your face. Y’all come along, let’s talk about this or that. Maybe when we’re done, you’ll go away with another perspective to put under your hat.
Ladies and gentlemen, I want to thank you for giving the Cowboy Perspective a little bit of your attention, and I hope that this episode – well, I don’t even hope – I’m very confident this episode will give you insight into a guy that is a very high performer, and he does things from run a sausage company to be a world-class Ironman. And all of those things just take a high level of commitment, determination, consistency. So, without further ado, I got to introduce you to Mr. Eric Gutknecht with Charcutnuvo sausage. Here we go.
Okay. Hey, TCP Nation, welcome to the show. I got Mr. Eric Gutknecht – is that right, Eric? Did I get that right? Why don’t you say it for everybody? Just tell everybody who you are, where you’re from a little bit. Let’s get to know you, and then we’ll talk about all those cool things you do.
Eric Gutknecht: So it’s Eric- well, so if you pronounce it the real Swiss – I’m Swiss, the Swiss way is Gutknecht, like there’s a hgh at the, you got to like clear your throat. But we go Gutknecht is easier, like connect four. Yeah so, I’m a first generation Swiss man, born in Switzerland to a long line of sausage makers. I’m actually fourth generation sausage maker.
Neil Dudley: But you’re first generation in America?
Eric Gutknecht: That’s correct.
Neil Dudley: You were born in Switzerland?
Eric Gutknecht: I was.
Neil Dudley: Oh, wow. Cool.
Eric Gutknecht: Yeah. So, what happened was my father who was a master butcher over there did his internship over here in the states and met my mother who is American. And then they moved back to Switzerland, got married, had two kids, myself and my sister, and then they decided to come over here. Well, my mom did not like Switzerland. The people weren’t super friendly, and women had no rights and this and that. So anyway, they decided to come back to the States. And then, we were in a couple of different places, then we ended up in Colorado because my dad was a big skier.
Neil Dudley: I can imagine that coming from Switzerland.
Eric Gutknecht: Yeah, he’s a ski instructor in fact. So, yeah, and then we came here when I was about, we landed in Colorado when I was about six, and then my dad hooked up with a Swiss fellow who owned a sausage company named Ted [Yaggie]. And he became the plant manager and ran it from like the mid-70s to 1982, where he, at that time, he purchased it from the guy. And then, so for me, I always kind of grew up in the sausage business. It was in the summer, of course, it was cheaper for me to just go ahead and work and pack sausages then to pay for daycare. So, I started packing sausage at the age of eight.
Neil Dudley: There you go. That makes pretty good sense to all those parents out there.
Eric Gutknecht: Yeah. Yeah, it does. I mean, it’s cheap labor for them and I loved making some money so I could play on my video games at Kmart and buy whatever I wanted. So, I actually liked it as well. So, I kind of grew up in the business, working kind of my way up during the summers and spring break and winters and whenever. And so, my dad also had some health issues when I was growing up. So, a lot of times I would, I had a lot of responsibility within the company, like during the summer and in high school. And then in college, I went to Colorado College, which is a small liberal arts school here in Colorado, got an economics degree. And then same thing, my dad would kind of get sick and I would come back in and help kind of run the company in the summers and sometimes I would take time off school to come back. So fast forward a little bit, I actually ended up in Texas. My first, well, my second- I got a job at the school teaching economics for a year, and then I got a consulting gig in Dallas for Deloitte Consulting. And I did that for two years out of Dallas. And I was about to get my MBA. They had this program where you work for them, and then they send you away to get your MBA, and then you come back, and they pay for it. But right before I was going to do that, my dad got really sick. So, I decided, this is ’98, I decided to come back to the business and ended up, I was like, oh, I’ll just go back. I always loved the business. I love being in business. I knew I was going to be in business for myself at some point in time. I always did a lot of entrepreneurial things growing up. I liked kind of making money and solving problems and this and that. So, I always wanted to be in business. So, I decided to come back, give it a shot, ran it for a couple of years. And then, my wife and I were able to kind of craft a deal to buy it after running it for five years. We bought the company in 2003, and then that was a year after the birth of our first child. And my dad didn’t really understand the kind of natural lifestyle, didn’t really understand what subtherapeutic antibiotics were and hormones and nitrates and all the potential issues those things could cause. And I was, I learned quite a bit about that during the time we ran it. And then the first thing we did when we took over was we made everything clean, started sourcing only antibiotic hormone-free proteins and took out all the nitrates.
Neil Dudley: Man, you’re just getting right to all the juicy stuff, just bam. And I love that, and I want to explore all those things with you, but before we get too far away from being born in Switzerland and having a sister and watching your dad come to America, I mean, I think what I want to paint a picture of or need a little bit deeper on is what was that like? Is that where you think some of your entrepreneurial spirit comes from? Was it your mom? Like kind of makes you feel like you- So economics, that’s an interesting study topic. By the way, can you solve what’s going to happen in this economic climate we’re in over the next three years? Because I’m interested. Okay so, I asked a lot of questions there. Let me just narrow it down a little bit. Tell me a little bit about your relationship with your parents and your sister.
Eric Gutknecht: Yeah, so growing up, my dad wasn’t around because he was always working and everything when he was- well, they got divorced actually shortly after we got here to Colorado, or they were kind of separating already. But when I saw him and when we were together, it was all, he was always working or we were- if we would go on vacation, it would be around visiting a customer or work related.
Neil Dudley: That sounds so much like a business, a small business owner, grinding it out of the dirt. That’s what vacation is – seeing a customer somewhere besides your hometown.
Eric Gutknecht: And that’s what I do as well. I mean, it makes perfect sense, so you kind of learn it that way. And then, as far as entrepreneurial, I don’t know, I just always was kind of, I always had that bug. I don’t know exactly where it came from. Maybe, I mean, it may have come from the fact that when I was so young, I started working and I enjoyed the freedom of having some spending money so I could kind of do- My parents never gave me money. I didn’t have like allowance or whatever. I just had to earn it, and then I could do what I wanted with it. They didn’t make me save it or whatever.
Neil Dudley: Did they teach you how to respect it all? Or you just did because you had to earn it?
Eric Gutknecht: I think I just did. Growing up, so like in elementary school, my parents were separated and then divorced, and they weren’t ever around that much. Like I was- my sister and I were kind of on our own.
Neil Dudley: I think that’s a common story I hear within a lot of entrepreneurial type people. Like they at an early age were just kind of on their own, figure it out. And crazy thing, I just did a podcast with a gal that started her own beauty company, and she was similar kind of story. She was like my mom was a single parent and I just did whatever I wanted to, turns out, most of it was really dangerous, but I had no clue it was dangerous at the time. So, it sounds like kind of what you guys did.
Eric Gutknecht: Actually, that kind of makes sense because you kind of learned to fend for yourself. I think when you learn, when you struggle, you develop a lot of pretty great work ethic and you learn how to, kind of learn how to survive. So, that’s kind of it. My mom just, she just was never around. So, I don’t know, I did what I kind of wanted. And then during the summer I’d have to go work with my dad. But I kind of, yeah, we were kind of on our own. And my sister and I, I was fine with that. I was also super sporty. Like I played sports. Like from the second I woke up until the second I had to go to bed, I would just be- I’d go play tennis with some guy. He’d get tired, go home. I’d call my other friend, be like, hey, come out and play some basketball. He’d get tired. I’d call somebody else, hey, come play this, that, whatever. So, all day long, I would just kind of play sports. And then when it was time to go to bed, go to bed and do the whole thing the next day. But I don’t know. But I do think, yeah, that’s interesting. I never really thought about how my upbringing really helped me develop that work ethic.
Neil Dudley: Well, I spent a lot of time needling on it just to do the podcast because I’ve kind of gone back and talked to other men that were my mentors over time. So, it made me kind of explore like, oh, that’s why they were doing that. Like I always was so mad they wouldn’t just let me ride the young horses first thing. Well, because- So they would always kind of put obstacles in front of me. Which you had obstacles. Some of it was kind of absentee parents. I mean, that might be a little extreme, but they just kind of weren’t around so you and your sister were on your own. You’re getting to try, fail, make huge mistakes. Nobody’s melting down on you for that. You just had to kind of, I can imagine, fix them on your own. And that all turned out to be so valuable.
Eric Gutknecht: Well, it was good for me. Honestly, my sister didn’t thrive in that environment so much. She was more of a kind of stay-at-home kind of person. She suffered without the parental attention, let’s say, where I kind of thrived on that, and I’m not sure-
Neil Dudley: It’s interesting, it is kind of how people are different, siblings are different. My brother is a real kind of artistic, work with his hands guy and totally introvert, totally just fine by himself, no other human contact forever, it was just great with him. Where I’m kind of the opposite, where I’m not so crafty or good with my hands, but I love people. I love conversation. I love what can I learn from that? So, it’s funny how siblings can be really different. But he’s so valuable to me. Like I love him so much. Like our relationship is really a thing I cherish. We’re just really different people.
Eric Gutknecht: Yeah, no, it’s the same for me. My sister and I are pretty tight and we always kind of commiserate about our upbringing and how it was kind of hard and this and that and the other. But we kind of always have each other’s back, which is nice.
Neil Dudley: All right, cool. So, there we go. I appreciate you kind of exploring that a little bit with us. I like that chance for the audience to just hear, okay, cool, I can understand Eric. Matter of fact, I’m a lot like Eric. Because the things we’re fixing to start talking about are pretty extraordinary. And I want people to be able to connect that and say, oh cool, yeah, I could be a business owner. Oh, cool, I could launch brands. Oh, cool, I could be a world-class athlete. Those kinds of things. You mentioned being sporty. So, tell me, how’d you get into cycling and triathlon, these kinds of endurance sports?
Eric Gutknecht: Well, I mean, at a young age, I played a lot of sports and I just loved competing, like I loved to- anything really. And I was obviously, I mean, even like for field day, I would train for field day because I wanted to get every blue ribbon that they had offer. But I mean, I just kind of always competed and I always liked to be in really good shape. Like I realized even in seventh- So, in seventh grade I started running every morning before school. And I don’t know why I started, maybe it was to get in shape for soccer. I don’t really know, I’m not exactly sure why.
Neil Dudley: It’s so crazy. Yeah, what knocks you off of that– just to make you think at that age, seventh grade, well, I’m going to get up. I mean, because that’s kind of a sacrifice. You already were probably just good at sacrificing.
Eric Gutknecht: Yeah. And I just kind of realized at that time how it made me feel. I would just feel so much better during the day if I went out for a run in the morning. And I would run three to five miles every day, no matter what the weather was. Like I like running in snow, it doesn’t bother me whatsoever. But I started that at an early age. And then I was always the guy who was in the best shape when we were playing sports and soccer and basketball and whatever because I ran every day, honestly. And then, I realized- well, I met my best friend in the eighth grade, and he happened to be a bike racer. And his dad was really into cycling and did like tours and whatever. And I was like, oh, that seems really fun. So, I saved up all my money and bought a bike and then started bike racing really in the eighth grade with him, and his dad would drive me to the races. And then he did these tours. We’d like go to Canada, my friend, my best friend Matt and I would help guide the tours or do all this kind of stuff. So, we kind of got into the cycling thing pretty early on. And I was pretty good at it. I didn’t win every race, but I raced pretty competitively. And I raced some of the people, Colorado is a pretty big cycling community, some of the people in my category went on to do the Tour de France. So, there’s like two guys who I raced with who were at the tour who are pretty amazing to me. So, I did that. And then, in high school I played, I would bike race in the summer and then I’d run and then I’d play soccer and rugby and whatever I could do.
Neil Dudley: Yeah. How would you train? I mean, I’m kind of guessing if I was a guy that thought, hmm, I’d like to go on a bike ride with Eric, about five minutes in, I would be realizing that was a bad idea. You strike me as a guy that probably just like the second your feet touch the pedal, you’re going hard and you’re willing to just push that all the time. Is that what it takes? Am I even right?
Eric Gutknecht: Not really, not anymore. I mean, it’s more structured, like it’s really important to have a solid warmup where you’re just easy spinning. Like for 30 minutes, I do a 30-minute warm up for everything I do, the swim, the bike, or the run, where it’s super easy and relaxed. And then I get into my structured workout which helps me with my speed or endurance or this and that. So, in every work that I do has a long warm up because I’m just old and I get injured otherwise. So, but as far as like training for a triathlon, like it’s, I love the structure. I love the structure. Like I love having a plan to work out every week. Like I get a- I have a coach, I’m on a team, and they give me a plan and I know my whole week, my next week. And I plan everything kind of around making sure I get that exercise in and get my workout in. And this year I’m training for an Ironman in May. And so, I’m training a lot, I’m training like 20 hours a week. So, I figure out how to squeeze that in, which, and sometimes I can squeeze it in around work, like bike to work or run home from work or whatever, but I’m able to get it in. So, I don’t know, I just, I love the structure. I love the structure of training. It’s not great for my social life. I mean, I wake up at three in the morning to exercise.
Neil Dudley: I was curious, like I wanted- I was wondering like so that’s a part of the sacrifice in my mind. So, getting up at 3:00 AM so you can have your workout done so you can go to work is what I’m guessing.
Eric Gutknecht: Yeah. At least half of it, sometimes it’s only half of my workout, but at least I get in an hour, an hour and a half.
Neil Dudley: Where do usually put that second half of the work out at?
Eric Gutknecht: I’ll do that at like three or four in the afternoon once I’m done with my day.
Neil Dudley: Which the meat business starts early in the morning, too, doesn’t it typically?
Eric Gutknecht: Yeah, we start at five. The other key for me, because I sleep six hours a night maybe, the other key for me is I take a 30-minute power nap every day. It just, oh my gosh, it makes me feel so good. And sometimes, depending on how tired I am, like sometimes I’ll do it in my office. I’ll just close the door, turn off the lights for 30 minutes, and I can fall asleep in a second. Or when I get home, I’ll do it. Or if I’m driving the kids to soccer practice, I’ll do it in the car or whatever. Like I just always do 30 minutes. I set my alarm, and I just wake up so refreshed. It’s like one of my keys to success.
Neil Dudley: Somebody- seems like, I mean, I take on or listen to so many podcasts or this and that and have been studying different diets. And so ultimately kind of sleep comes into that conversation and that power nap is such a realistic real thing you can get. Seems like the specific number I heard once was 26 minutes of a nap can really rejuvenate a human. You’re kind of a walking example or testament to that.
Eric Gutknecht: Well, I think the key is for me, what I’ve learned, is it’s got to be less than 30 or more than an hour and a half. I never can do a long one, but that’s what I guess they say is make it less than 30 or more than an hour and a half, which I don’t know who can do an hour and a half. But my body naturally, like I’ll fall asleep, and I will wake up like at that minute 26 or 28. And I’m up and I feel so good.
Neil Dudley: I mean, it’s wild how your body has that little clock. Now falling asleep easy is an interesting thing too, because I think a lot of people, maybe your lifestyle and the way you stay fit helps stress not necessarily be- I mean, I’m just thinking owning a business, that’s stressful, especially in the COVID environment and all the weird changes that have been happening and you just acted like you could just fall asleep at a snap. I bet there are listeners thinking bull. That’s not-
Eric Gutknecht: Yeah, no, no. I mean, it’s funny though because when I was, this has been something for me forever. Like I always can fall asleep in seconds, like literally seconds. I remember once we did like a test at a party, like I laid on- and they said there’s no way, like that’s such BS, you can’t do that. And so, I was like, okay, so I laid on the hardwood floor and I fell asleep in like 20 seconds. In the middle of a party. Like I can sleep anywhere anytime, no matter what the stress is. Like it doesn’t matter. It’s just my brain, I can just stop it, and then I’m just out.
Neil Dudley: That’s such a blessing really. I think that’s a nice talent to have. I bet people would really like to figure out how you came up with that. Did you develop that or has it just been, you think it just is naturally you?
Eric Gutknecht: Yeah, it’s always been like that for me. I mean, maybe I’m just sleep deprived or maybe I work out so hard. But whatever it is, I sleep well. And I’ve got a Garmin that like measures your deep sleep and my numbers are fantastic.
Neil Dudley: Cool. And you mentioned kids. So how many kids?
Eric Gutknecht: Two of them. I’ve got a son, a freshman at CU Boulder. And then a daughter who’s a junior in high school, trying to figure out her plan.
Neil Dudley: Now do they follow you into the appreciation of structured kind of athletic activity?
Eric Gutknecht: I wish they would more. No, not as much. No, unfortunately. That’s a hard- kids nowadays, it’s hard to get that into their brain. My daughter is a little more into it, then my son, sadly not. I think they will be someday. They both have a lot of athletic talent.
Neil Dudley: It’s kind of sad as a parent to see, to feel like they’re kind of squandering that talent or not leveraging it. I’m worried about that. My kids are all young, so they’re really not, they’re all not even to junior high age yet, but I can see, I’m a little bit fearful that they’ll have some talent, and just my youngest is athletic, but she just doesn’t want to get involved in any sport. And I’m just going to have to make her. Which I think back to my childhood, I wouldn’t have played basketball if my mom and dad hadn’t made me because my dad didn’t play basketball, he’s my hero. I’m not going to do it if he didn’t do it. Well, they made me do it, turns out I love basketball. It was my favorite sport. It was probably the one I was the best at. And I wouldn’t have even done it if I hadn’t been pushed to it. So, there’s a place where my parents played a really good role in parenting me and not just letting me do what I wanted to do but instead saying, well, you don’t have an option, you have to. Which your dad probably did a little bit of that with just making you work. Some of those things are just good. So, what was your relationship with him like? Were you guys close? He wasn’t around much, but I feel like you were working with him a lot or was he just making you work, and he was doing something else?
Eric Gutknecht: We weren’t, sadly we weren’t that close. He was just kind of absent. Yeah, I mean, both my parents were just kind of absent for a lot of my upbringing.
Neil Dudley: Well, we already explored that enough I imagine.
Eric Gutknecht: No, sadly, I wish we were closer.
Neil Dudley: So, you said, you mentioned a minute ago that you guys get started at 5:00 AM. Let’s paint a picture a little bit of what your business is like. We talked about making sausage and you’re from a long line of sausage makers, but today you’re running a sausage making business. I don’t know if- See, I have a picture of it, I know- I kind of feel like I know anyways, there’s a building and it’s full of people grinding meat and stuffing it into casings. Is that what it is?
Eric Gutknecht: Yeah, and everything- So, everything, I mean, we’re a little bit different than most sausage companies in that we do everything European style, with a Buffalo chopper instead of a grinder. So, everything that we do is kind of emulsified first, and what that does is like we create this nice base and then you add your spices and flavorings, and then you add, like if it’s a course ground product, you add that, or if there’s like fruit, you add that at the end because what it does for us versus people who just grind sausage is it gives you a better bind and texture and it gives you more flavor distribution and allows you to stage more flavors. So, we do everything European. All of our equipment’s from Germany or Switzerland, and very expensive. And a lot of our stuff is very, we’re pretty handcrafted, pretty labor-intensive, very clean, obviously, USDA, and we’re kind of uptight.
Neil Dudley: Yeah, that’s great. I’m glad you mentioned that. Let’s parlay over to that thing. When you say clean, what do you mean by that? I mean, I hear people say natural and all over the industry. What does that mean to you?
Eric Gutknecht: Well, I mean, we do everything as clean as you can. Like we, with our organic line especially, like we only source proteins, like we believe that animals should kind of raise or grow up in as much of a natural state as possible, like be raised so they have access to the outdoors. They don’t eat, obviously, animal byproducts or a lot of like just bad feed or whatever. They have deeply bedded pens. They have just everything that they should have access to if they were growing up naturally essentially. And then, throughout our process, like we don’t add anything to the product. Our products are so clean and the raw materials are so fresh, we don’t have to add a lot of- like we have very minimal like salt content. We don’t have any preservatives. We don’t add any chemicals. Like what we tell people like our brand name is Charcutnuvo and it’s hard for people to pronounce.
Neil Dudley: Well, you just had to do that because, I mean, look at your last name.
Eric Gutknecht: But we just tell people you may not be able to pronounce our company name, but you can sure pronounce all of our ingredients, because it’s very simple, very clean. Some of our products have like five ingredients and it tastes amazing. And that’s just because of the raw materials we use and our craft. Like we do everything, it’s super clean.
Neil Dudley: High quality inputs, which is actual meat, spices, etc., as well as the labor. I mean, that’s an input into products and skilled labor, people that care. So, I think that’s really cool that you guys were able to- Tell me, tell us, I’m just curious, the listeners might be too, they might be business owners out there thinking where do you get the labor for this? Like I think the labor market, I know for Pederson’s, it’s tough keeping-
Eric Gutknecht: It’s crazy. Especially in this unemployment, federal unemployment subsidy world. Like it’s people, a lot of people make a lot more money sitting at home than they do working.
Neil Dudley: So, what do you, how do you answer that conundrum or how do you reconcile that, that you have employees that could maybe make more money sitting at home, but they still get up and come to work for you?
Eric Gutknecht: I know. A lot of people, like I feel like our- we have a really great team and I feel like all of them enjoy working and putting out a product that they can be proud of. And then I feel like those folks tell their friends and family and we get kind of, we kind of get into their like tribe, let’s say. And that helps recruit like more people. And the way we treat them, it just, it goes a long way, and it helps us retain and attract employees.
Neil Dudley: That tribe thing is something we’ve experienced to some- If you manage to find a good, a maybe couple that works for you, then they start telling, well, they’re friends, and next thing you know, you’ve kind of got that tribe of people that just kind of hold each other accountable for working hard and making their days go by fast and easy or as easy as possible. So that’s an interesting thing, folks, listen up to it. That’s a kind of a couple of guys here that have a little experience with hiring people or needing help. And that’s one little trick to it. Shortcuts are worth it. I’m not sure, some people don’t believe in shortcuts. I think there are, and take them when you can, because it’s definitely going to go the other way on you a time or two, so you need to find that shortcut every chance to get. So, as you’re building this, have you- I talk about failures, which that’s maybe not even a good word for it, but maybe it’s lessons, or I feel like I learn a lot more from the stuff I’ve done that just turned out to be kind of really stupid or unsuccessful. Have you got anything like that that we could tell the people to paint a picture of maybe just something that they could try to avoid or think about in whatever they’re doing?
Eric Gutknecht: Probably one of the biggest failures was in hiring. There’s this one guy who I got to know who grew this company and was such a, seemed like a very skilled sales guy, that he can grow a company from like a really small level to a really big number. And I got to know him. I think I made the mistake of bringing him in at a really high price, not a commission structure. And he ended up just draining our cash resources and didn’t really produce. I don’t know. I kind of feel like you got to figure out ways to have your people have some skin in the game.
Neil Dudley: Awesome. What you just said is so valuable. I’ve made that mistake. I had team members that were really good and kind of want to reward them and end up paying them so much money you can’t afford them anymore. Then having to take them down from that is painful for everybody in the process. Now, everybody wants to make money. I mean, as an employer, I want to be as fair as I possibly can because I want to kind of have this philosophy that people can have any and everything they want working for Pederson’s. Sometimes that may not be financially true; everybody would like to have $10 million and not sure that’s the exact way to paint it, but it might could be. Anyways, you mentioned your best friend. Well, I’ll work with my best friend since like kindergarten. He’s the president of the company. So, we can’t really BS each other in any way. And it turns out to be really good. But I always want to pay people too much, and he’s always telling me no, we got to slow down there a little bit. And it turns out that that’s a perfect ying and yang kind of relationship we have. So, listen up, everybody, that was some good stuff Eric was saying.
Hey, everybody, quick break in the action to tell you a little bit about one of the sponsors for the podcast, thesimplegrocer.com. Get on your internet, go check them out. They carry all kinds of great products. You may have heard us talking about them here on the Cowboy Perspective, some of the brands they support. So, follow up, go check it out. If you choose to place an order, use TCP in the discount code, and we’ll hook you up with a deal. Go check them out, thesimplegrocer.com.
I hope you know who Pederson Natural Farms is. If you don’t, go check them out, www.pedersonsfarms.com. If you have any questions, hit me up. I’ve been working with Pederson’s and my best friend since kindergarten and his wife and my wife and a whole bunch of other really great people for about 20 years now, building a brand and a bunch of products that we think really add value to people’s healthy lifestyles. And I like to say the Cowboy Perspective podcast is a labor of love that I kind of do in my spare time. And I hope to just bring value, tell stories about people that affect me and give me the perspective I have. And I don’t want to steal that labor of love line from Mr. Douglas Burdett, the host of the Marketing Book podcast, without giving him some credit. There’s another something I’d tell you – if you are into building a brand or an entrepreneur of any sort, salesperson of any sort, go listen to the Marketing Book podcast. He reviews great authors’ books about sales and marketing. So, Pederson Natural Farms, go check them out. Thank you for listening to the Cowboy Perspective. Here’s some more.
So, tell me a little bit about that culture that you got into in Colorado that made you even- I have a sneaking suspicion as a kid, you never heard much about natural or avoiding certain ingredients or anything. Was that your athletic career that got you interested in that when you started trying to make sure your body could perform at a high level? And as a side note to that, has anybody tried to get you to go vegan?
Eric Gutknecht: Oh yeah. The answer to both those questions is yes. I mean really, yeah. So, I got into triathlon when I was in Texas honestly. It was in 1998, maybe was 1997, one of those years. I’d never, I didn’t even know how to swim, but I was kind of bored. I just did my first marathon, and I was like, ah, what am I going to do next? So, I signed up for a triathlon not knowing how to swim. I’d watched, like on NBC, I saw the Ironman. I was like, yeah, I can do that. I should sign up for a triathlon. Okay, why not? So, I did in Texas. I almost drowned in the swim. My girlfriend at the time and now wife was like where is he? He was supposed to come out of the water 10 minutes ago. I came out of the water with a group, like two behind me, because I didn’t know how to swim.
Neil Dudley: Well now when you say you didn’t know how to swim, you seriously didn’t know how to swim, or you didn’t know how to swim efficiently?
Eric Gutknecht: I didn’t know- I had to teach myself how to swim. Like I couldn’t swim one length of the pool. Yeah so, I had to learn how to swim in 1997, 1998.
Neil Dudley: That’s awesome.
Eric Gutknecht: Yeah. So, and I got ear infections and like it was crazy. And then, but I was like, ah, I actually loved, even though I almost died in the water, I loved that triathlon. Like I did really well on the bike and the run, and I caught everybody. I didn’t win-
Neil Dudley: You made some ground up.
Eric Gutknecht: Pretty fun, yeah. So anyway, so at that point, I was hooked and then we moved to Colorado a year later, and I just started really getting into it, started reading about nutrition, started reading about food. And I really learned a lot about like proper fuel and what to put in your body and what not to put in your body. So, I was learning a lot while I was running the company and that’s- and then we had our first child and I knew tons. And I was like when we took the business over, I’m like there’s no way I’m going to feed that stuff to my kids or to myself. So that’s kind of how we got to know that.
Neil Dudley: Now, do you still sell any of those recipes, or are we going to find out that this is bad news for your business because you’re still selling some of the old recipes just to longtime customers?
Eric Gutknecht: Well, it’s so interesting. So, in 2003, we took all the nitrates out. And at that time, we were selling only food service to restaurants and delis. And we had a lot of German delis around the country that bought our stuff. And we took the nitrates out, and these Germans, whew, they did not like that. They’re like, no, no, we love nitrates. So, we had to actually put them back into a couple of products for them because the Germans, that’s the way they were brought up, and that’s what they know and that’s what they like. But for everything else, like we took everything out. We make very- like that part of our business is probably like 0.5%, like a tiny little amount, a couple of little German customers left.
Neil Dudley: Yeah. Well, I think it’s so, I just love your story because it shows the value, it proves that you can do it the way you want to do it. Right? I mean, you had to sacrifice a customer or two. You had to have probably some tough conversations with some of those guys and gals that didn’t want to lose the nitrates, but it didn’t put you out of business. You’re still there selling sausage, making sausage the way you want to do it. And that passion for it I think shows through in your product quality. Okay so, who tried to talk you into being a vegan and why didn’t you do it?
Eric Gutknecht: Well, I mean, there’s obviously lots of triathlete folks have gone completely plant based. I don’t know. I don’t even think about doing it. I eat so much sausage. Like you have no idea how much sausage I eat. It’s insane. Because it’s so good and it’s so clean. Like our stuff has so much protein and no sugar. We don’t have any sugars and it’s like, it’s the perfect fuel. I can’t even think about it.
Neil Dudley: I think a lot of people see some of the foods that we eat, and I kind of agree with them, we should get away from those, but high-quality meat feels fine to me. It doesn’t sit bad with my digestive system or my body. My energy’s high. So, I’m kind of like you, I’ve never really considered it. But then I think sometimes I should try it so I would have the experience of what it’s like, just because there are people that I want to have that conversation with and have an understanding. Like right now I’ve just got zero understanding of their side of the argument because I’ve kind of just been unwilling to even explore it. Anyways, I don’t know, that’s just more of a philosophical thing.
Eric Gutknecht: Well, and for me, I eat between like 3500 and 4000 calories a day in order to sustain what I would do. I don’t know how I would get that out of- if I could find enough plants to eat to get those kind of calories. I don’t know. I mean, maybe I would try it during an off season or something when I wasn’t consuming as many calories to see how it made me feel, but I feel pretty good right now. So, I’m like, I think I’m going to keep eating sausage and a lot of it.
Neil Dudley: Especially when you own a sausage company. That would be kind of a conundrum to go in and sell some sausage and not be able to tell the people. We’ll be showing bacon or sausage, whatever, something to a customer, I always- I can’t tell you how many times they’ve said to me, wow, it’s kind of cool, you come in here and when you put the food out, you’re eating it too. I think there are a lot of people out selling products they don’t eat at their house. They’re just trying to make a living and they know how to sell something, but the products that they’re putting in front of those potential customers aren’t something they actually feed their kids or eat at their house.
Eric Gutknecht: Well, I think both you and I are fortunate to be representing a brand that makes high quality stuff that you’re proud to eat and not scared of. It’s nice. Like I only eat Pederson’s bacon.
Neil Dudley: Awesome. Thank you, I appreciate that.
Eric Gutknecht: It’s been, honestly, for years. It’s been like that for years.
Neil Dudley: Well, when we get done here, I got to get your address because everybody gets a special TCP guest box of meat. So, you’ll be getting one of those. And then at least you won’t have to buy the bacon for a little while.
Eric Gutknecht: Okay. Well, I’ve got to send you some Charcutnuvo sausage, too.
Neil Dudley: By the way, so where does Charcut-? Well, I can’t even hardly say it. Yeah. Where’d that come from?
Eric Gutknecht: Yeah, so we had- so our original company name is Continental Sausage. And as we expanded nationally with Whole Foods and other retailers, we ran into some potential trademark issues on both coasts. So, the West Coast, there’s a Continental Sausage, there’s a Continental Sausage in Vancouver, and there’s a Continental Deli Meats or Continental Meats in New York. So, we potentially had some trademark issues. My parents never trademarked it. So, we decided at that point, we should probably think about coming up with a new name. So, we had a company that helped us. And they spoke to all of our long-term customers and decided that we’re all about charcuterie. So, they came up with Charcutnuvo, like charcut is short for charcuterie, and nuvo, a fancy French word for new. So, they came up with Charcutnuvo. And it’s so hard nowadays, it’s so hard to come up with a name that’s distinct, ownable, and we can get a website and a trademark. I mean, it’s impossible. It’s so hard, so impossible. So, love it or- I don’t know, I’ve had mixed feelings about it. It’s been a bit of a struggle at times. The rebranding wasn’t easy, but now I’m starting to really kind of like it. Well, no, I mean, I’ve liked it for a couple of years, but in the beginning it was hard.
Neil Dudley: Sure. Well, I like it for the simple fact it’s a conversation starter. I mean, like nobody is ever going to have a hard time coming up with a question to ask you. Now you might get tired of answering it, but it’s always easy conversation starter – what’s up with that name? Well, this is the story and this is actually what we do, we make the cleanest sausage in the country and here, take a bite. That’s the greatest thing about food too – get a bite in their mouth and people immediately know if that’s good or not. It’s not like you have to dream up or some way to convince somebody this microphone here is better than the other microphone over there. You can immediately just taste it and know it. You’ve already touched on this a little bit, but let’s dive a tick deeper and maybe we can fair out some things people can see value or find value in, but what’s the value of a dollar or a Bitcoin to you? Do you own Bitcoin? Do you pay any attention to that cryptocurrency wave that’s happening out there?
Eric Gutknecht: Well, the Bitcoin question, no, I don’t. I don’t really pay much attention. I don’t- I think it’s such an interesting market and I don’t- well, first of all, I don’t have any money to play in it because it’s expensive, and I don’t really play in things that I don’t understand, or I don’t have time to understand. So that’s not really my thing. I also don’t play, I mean, I also don’t play in the stock market because I don’t have money to do that. I mean the value of a dollar, that’s an interesting question.
Neil Dudley: What’s the use of a dollar?
Eric Gutknecht: I mean, it’s, to me, every penny counts. Like I think about like everything, every little movement in production is money. Sometimes it’s wasted money. Every little resource or input wasted is money. I feel like- we’re very Swiss, I’m very Swiss, which Swiss people are sorely cheap and also uptight, very efficient. And I look at, like you think about trying to optimize your processes and the steps it takes, or the amount of distance people walk to do their process or the amount of motions it takes because every extra wasted step or extra motion or extra piece of meat that falls on the ground or whatever, is our dollars. So, I’m like, hey, there’s all that stuff just on the ground you just threw away, that’s like throwing $25 bills on the ground. I’m like that’s money we don’t have to pay all of ourselves more money. You know what I mean? I was like- so I don’t know.
Neil Dudley: I thought when you were talking about early as a kid working and how you realized you liked that because you liked to have the money to be able to do the thing you wanted to do, whether it was video games or what. That’s a couple of really good perspectives on the value of a dollar, if you ask me. Every wasted motion is money, as well as it’s leverage. It’s an opportunity to do the next thing you want to do or the other thing you want to do. So, I just, I want to explore that so people listening have a chance to think about not the evils of money or maybe the evils of money. I want to be successful. I want to have money. I want to have a private jet and fly wherever I want to whenever I want to. It won’t define my happiness. It won’t define my character or who I am. So, it’s okay for me to strive to do business in a way that’s profitable and to eliminate those wasted motions, that kind of thing. So, I just kind of want to give people the freedom to want money.
Eric Gutknecht: It affords you the opportunity to do those things that you want to do or to buy the things you really cherish or want to do or want to buy. But, I also going down this path, like I think about my kids or other kids and how a lot of these kids, they just grow up in this world where dollars don’t mean anything. Like it’s so sad. And they’re like, oh, let’s just order Door Dash or let’s just do this. I was like, do you realize like how expensive that is? Like my daughter has a job, or she has two or three jobs, which is awesome, and she makes her money and I don’t give her any money. And she, all of her spending money she has to earn. But then, she is really good at spending money. So, she’s like I’m craving Chinese food, I’m going to order, like I’m just going to order Door Dash or Uber Eats. And I was like you just paid like $25 from the restaurant that is like 10 blocks away to have it delivered. I was like think about it, if you just drove there, you could order that two and a half times. It’s trying to get- I don’t know, I kind of worry about our society a little bit and how a lot of- my daughter’s maybe a little bit different, but a lot of kids that I know are just so entitled. So, like they don’t get the value of a dollar, and I’m like it goes a long way.
Neil Dudley: I promise you part of my motivation for asking that question is I picture this podcast as a little bit of a legacy for me to leave for my girls. I mean, I don’t know if I’m going to live for, I could get hit by a bus, who knows. I don’t know that I have another day; it’s not guaranteed to me. So maybe they could hear this conversation, and I think it would be so valuable to them like, oh, it’s not free. Now, there are people in poverty, the men, they know what money’s worth because they just have no access to it. So, it makes a very different perspective for that person to maybe my daughters who have access, who are spoiled, who have grandparents that are retired, and they don’t even want to do anything but spend money on them. I mean, that’s why they earned the money in their life so they could spend it late in life. There’s a lesson there. I so agree with you that I hope this entitlement thing, we can find a way to unravel it a little bit and get our younger generations to understand really the pain and angst.
Eric Gutknecht: Yeah. I also think that like the younger generation hasn’t had to suffer like our generation may have. Like I had to suffer a little bit when I was growing up and fend for myself, and a lot of people I know in our generation had the same thing, like the economy wasn’t always so great. There’s high, crazy interest rates.
Neil Dudley: You were being raised by people that went through really tough times. I think that’s kind of the difference. I mean, you lived through some tough times, but if I think about my dad and my granddad, my granddad lived in the Depression. Like there just was no money, period. Forget about it. You had to figure out how to live on nothing, trade. It was just such a dynamic interesting time. So, then money kind of started coming into our lives and my dad’s generation. But he was so raised by the people coming out of the Depression. He’s very frugal. He just expects a dollar should turn a dollar, and that’s how it is. Where I’m not so much, I waste money, and I don’t know if that’s a great thing to say on air or tell people. But I’m not as worried about it. I think it’s just because the life I’ve truly kind of- and also the economy has been good. So that perspective is good for me to think about too. It’s like, hey- I mean, my dad helped me a lot because even in business, we knew it was important, like you’re talking about, save motion, figuring out how to get all this product into something that’s sellable, and don’t waste it. Which turned out to be, it’s definitely imperative in business that you’ve got some people sitting around there thinking like that. What else do you want to say? What else, do you have anything else you’d like to tell somebody about Charcutnuvo?
Eric Gutknecht: Yeah. I mean, we’re one of the very few, I mean, there’s a few companies that are certified organic to make sausage. We’re pretty much one of the very few that actually do pork sausage as well.
Neil Dudley: Well, I was going to ask you what proteins are you guys mainly involved in?
Eric Gutknecht: Yeah, so ours is, we have a mix. So, I mean, we have kind of 11 core organic products, and it’s a mix of chicken, which we do skinless – a lot of chicken sausage is made in a pork casing for some reason. We don’t do that.
Neil Dudley: We do. See, there’s one of those failures. I got to tell this story. We’re always talking about failures. Early in our career, chicken sausage was huge. It was this company called Brat Hans. Whole Foods has been a big piece of our visual our whole, or at least my whole career. So, we’re always kind of who’s doing good in Whole Foods? Well, it was Brat Hans, which kind of then [Vina Del’s 49:45] came along, and they were chicken sausage and they had pork casings or lamb casings, I think it might’ve been pork. Anyways, we thought, oh, we’ll make chicken sausage too, and we’re going to put on the label “No pork, no kidding” as kind of a little funny thing to get some customers laughing and maybe buying a product. Well, turns out we were putting them in a pork casing. So, we ended up having to recall all that product, change the labels. It was a- so there you go. I mean, that was a pretty big fall on your face for us.
Eric Gutknecht: That’s a good lesson. That’s a big lesson.
Neil Dudley: Yeah. Well, and then those buyers, it actually turns out to be okay because the buyers just love to give us hell about that. And it was a good, we all got to laugh and oh yeah. But it gave them a good reason to kind of talk to us and then we’re able to build business, and we totally owned that stupid mistake. I think that’s a big thing, people try to blame it on somebody else. Well, there was nobody else to blame. We were the guys that did that, and you just had to stand up and say, yeah, that was me. I want to do everything we can to stand behind the product.
Eric Gutknecht: Yeah, so we also do quite a bit of all beef, grass fed all beef organic stuff. We have a couple of those. And then we have a really good organic beer brat, which is pork. And then we have beef and pork jalapeno cheddar, organic, which is also quite good. So, we do a lot of- And then the other main thing, like a major differentiator for us, is all of our proteins are US. We don’t do anything out of the US. So, we’re not importing. A lot of the beef-
Neil Dudley: How do you get the grass fed beef without it being an Australian?
Eric Gutknecht: Yeah. Australia and Uruguay, South America. I mean, you just don’t know. And you’d also don’t know if it’s legitimate or not legitimate, who knows. So, we just, we support US ranchers, and we have great partnerships and we only use US proteins in our products. So, that’s kind of one of our big things. And we support regenerative farming. And I think we just kind of do things the right way. And we’re not, we’re never going to be the cheapest guy in town, but I guarantee you when we get in somebody’s mouth, they’re going to be like, whoa, that’s freaking good. I got to get more of that.
Neil Dudley: That’s a valuable position to be in. It doesn’t make selling things easy because kind of the easiest way to sell anything is to be the cheapest. Now you’re out of that game. You’re only in the game of, well, we’re going to have to get it in their mouth somehow. We’re going to have to help them understand the value in the product, so they’ll spend a bigger portion of their earnings. I mean, you’re just asking people to vote with a higher number of dollars.
Eric Gutknecht: Yeah. And especially like in this COVID environment when there’s not in-person cuttings. It’s like getting it- Like how do I get it in this guy’s mouth?
Neil Dudley: Oh yeah, how many times have you sent samples and you know they never tried them?
Eric Gutknecht: Yeah. You’ve got to send another one. They can’t find it or, yeah, it’s just hard. So, you got to get it, got to get it to them, got to figure out how they can cook it, and then, after that, it’s easy for us.
Neil Dudley: Cool. Okay so for anybody that’s sitting out here thinking, well, I see a lot of myself in Eric, what would be that piece of advice you’d give to maybe your seven-year-old self back when you first started running or maybe yourself when you first thought, hmm, let’s buy this business? By the way, there’s another question, I’d love to know how’d you structure that? Like how did you actually end up owning the business? Because that’s cool. I think a lot of people are working in businesses today, maybe not family businesses, but are thinking, man, I’d like to own this business, but they can’t put it together in their mind of how that could become a reality. Anyways, one at a time. I’m sorry, I go to lots of questions.
Eric Gutknecht: Well, the first question is I feel like any person out there that wants to be entrepreneurial or be in business for themselves needs to find- they either need to solve a problem or you need to find something that you’re really passionate about, something that you’re really proud to either eat or push or talk about or sell, something that you really think solves a problem and really helps people. And it makes it so much easier to get behind the product or sell it. So, I think that’s one thing. And if you want to- I just think it’s really hard for people, I would think, to go and like work for like, well, I don’t want to say a name, but like one of these really low-end mass produced like sausage or hot dog companies. Like it would be- like I don’t know, I just feel like it’d be hard to go and sell that because there’s no benefit. What is it- I can’t remember the second part of the question.
Neil Dudley: Oh, it was just into- it was kind of curious if you’d share how you structured your buyout or maybe not specifics.
Eric Gutknecht: Yeah. So that part, yeah, that part was complicated for us because, kind of like me now, my parents then, everything was in the business. They had no financial resources and no savings, everything they put into the company. And that’s what we’ve been doing for 20 years, too. So, we had to structure it through a loan – essentially you either get a loan from the bank or a loan from them where you’re just paying them off every year a certain amount at a certain interest rate for a long time. And honestly, that process is kind of one of, I guess that’s one of the kind of big mistakes that I made was negotiating or coming up with the agreement on our own between us two parties without going to like an advisor or someone else, because what happened to us is we bought the company, the economy kind of turned, and then all of a sudden, we weren’t generating enough money to pay for it. We had some hard times, like really hard times. And my parents, they went through the same thing in the eighties because when they bought it, at that time, interest rates were like 11%. So, they financed the same thing at 11%. So then, and my parents are not financial people. So, when I, we financed it at like at a 9% or 7% or a 9%, and I went back to them and said listen, interest rates are like 0% right now. Couldn’t you work with us and maybe reduce the interest rates because that would really help us out. They didn’t really understand economics or financial markets and they’re like, well, we paid 11%, so you should pay 9%. I was like well, but the market says it should be 5%. And they’re like doesn’t matter.
Neil Dudley: What your only bargaining chip might have been at that time is well, you better get back in here and start making sausage because I’m not going to be able to make these payments. And then maybe they’re like I don’t want to make sausage, okay, tell you what, we’ll work with you.
Eric Gutknecht: Yeah. And then for us, it was hard because we had this huge note out there, like a big dollar amount, which we probably should have not paid that much, but because of that, we couldn’t get financed from a bank because we had no equity. So we were, until 2015, like we were kind of hurting. And then we finally found a bank that said, okay, we’ll take this uncollateralized loan out and refinance it into an SBA, this and that and the other. And that’s kind of what really, really helped us.
Neil Dudley: See, that banker is so valuable, I think. And I don’t have the greatest mental relationship with bankers, but they play such a good role and if you find a good partner, it is so valuable.
Eric Gutknecht: Well, that’s what I would say too, is for any entrepreneur, get a really good banker. You need to have a really good relationship with a banker.
Neil Dudley: You know, the part I don’t like about them is all the questions. Like I just want the money. Don’t worry about what I’m going to do with it. You’ve got to put yourself in their shoes for a second, that makes it pretty hard to give the money. Wow, cool. I appreciate that insight into your career, all those things you’ve been there, done, and your perspective on it. Eric, I don’t know, you got any questions for me? Like when are you going to co-pack some sausage for me, by gosh, that’s what I really need you to do.
Eric Gutknecht: Right. No, I actually, I’d love to come down because you guys are in Hamilton. Is that right?
Neil Dudley: Yes sir, yeah, Hamilton.
Eric Gutknecht: And where exactly is that?
Neil Dudley: Two hours north of Austin or two and a half hours southwest of Dallas Fort Worth. So, there’s no quick and easy way to get here is the long and short of it.
Eric Gutknecht: Yeah. Well, what about, where’s Waco?
Neil Dudley: It’s just west of us probably an hour, and hour drive, maybe not quite.
Eric Gutknecht: Yeah. I was going to go to Waco last year and then COVID struck and canceled my race. So, it didn’t happen.
Neil Dudley: Well, find you another race in Waco or somewhere close and then come see us or we’ll come to Colorado. I do appreciate your time. I like getting to know you, and I’m so glad the audience is going to get to hear a little bit of what you guys do at Charcutnuvo and as well as competing in triathlons.
Eric Gutknecht: Yeah, well, Neil, thanks for having me on your show. It’s been a real delight and it’s been nice to get to know you as well.
Neil Dudley: All right, man. Have a good one.
Eric Gutknecht: Yep. Sounds great.
Neil Dudley: Dig out of the snow over there in Colorado.
Eric Gutknecht: It’s pretty much already melted. Like it’s crazy. It melts so fast here.
Neil Dudley: Well, good. Then just go enjoy the pretty day.
Eric Gutknecht: Sounds good.
Neil Dudley: All right, everybody. I hope you learned something from Eric in this episode and I just have to say thank you again for listening. If you enjoyed it, if you have any, if you have taken away any value, tell a friend; I’d sure appreciate it, help me grow this podcast a little bit or get the word out, just help somebody really. I talk about growing the podcast, well, yeah, I want to do that just because I guess I’m competitive, but the truth is if I help one person, I’m very happy I did it. Well, actually the truth is I’ve already helped myself. So, there’s one person this is helping, and I’m very grateful for that. Eric, thank you for coming on the show, telling us how you think about things, what you do. There’s a lot of good information in there for me and I hope other people. Ladies and gentlemen, God bless you. Thanks for listening to the Cowboy Perspective. We’ll catch you next time.
The Cowboy Perspective is produced by Neil Dudley and Straight Up Podcasts. Graphics are done by Root & Roam Creative Studio and the music is by Byron Hill Music.