(soft piano music)
- I remember being
just a young 14-year-old, my sister 16,
and my dad came into the living room one day.
And he set us down and he said,
"Girls, I want you to learn how to run a business."
And we looked at him and thought, "You're crazy."
We don't say that to him, because, well, things would happen.
We just thought in our heads, both of us,
"What, you want us to run a business?"
And he was like, "All right,
"you guys, think about a business idea.
"Tomorrow we'll regroup, and I want you
"to tell me what you're thinking."
And he left and we were like, "What?"
We grew up in a household that like,
if the parents said it the kids did it kind of thing,
so we were like, "Okay, what is he doing here?"
So Denise and I came up with a business idea.
Hold on to your seats. I know you're very curious,
but I'll be telling you in just a second.
But we went in. We had to present our idea to him,
and then he helped us make P&L sheets
and understand profit and loss
and margin and all the things.
And so we started our very own business
—my sister and I did that year—
a little bit unhappy about it, but we did.
So we came up with an idea
that's . . . in his office building
there were different kitchens on the levels.
They had two levels at the time of this office building,
and there were these kitchens
and vending machines outside the kitchens.
And the vending machines were way overpriced,
and we're like, "Well, what if we put snacks
"on the counter, drinks in the refrigerator?"
We'd charge less than our competitors' prices,
aka the vending machines. And we made some money,
and people bought snacks from us.
So we started a snack business, and we called it
Your Integrity Snacks—because you had to pay for it.
So Denise and I started it.
So we went and got into her Mustang.
Yes, Denise drove a hunter-green Mustang
with a lei around the rearview mirror.
And there we went off to Costco
loading up the flatbed with cases of Cokes
and Diet Cokes and Dr Peppers and Snickers bars
and Reese's and bags of chips.
People are very healthy at my dad's office,
obviously, at the time.
But all this stuff, all these things
did it, and we came back.
I remember the first week. And we opened up
those little plastic jars and we were like,
"My gosh, there's money in there.
"People actually bought from us."
It was actually pretty amazing.
And so we'd take the money. We'd sort it out.
We'd go buy more inventory, and the cycle kept going.
About six months in we did realize
that we were short some money.
More snacks and drinks were gone
than money in the little plastic jar.
So, true story, Dad actually had to send
a company-wide email to remind everyone
to pay for their snacks. Because some people
were not having integrity,
and so they were taking our snacks.
But they all paid and then we actually
had a major surplus the next month.
I think they felt bad and gave us some extra money.
But I remember this little business we had.
I remember the first big investment we made.
We were so proud of ourselves.
We bought one of those electric coin sorters.
So instead of manually putting the coins
in the little wrappers—which we had done
for about four months—we ordered
I think off of a 1-800 number off a TV commercial,
where you pour all the coins in and it sorts it all,
and you can just go to the bank and bring the rolls.
And it was so easy.
But, to this day, does it live on
about 15 years later?
Yes, it does, for real.
Now we have five different buildings here in Nashville.
Everyone's spread across all these campuses,
but yes, in all of the kitchens, other people
have taken on Your Integrity Snacks.
And what's so fun is not only does the legacy
of Your Integrity Snacks live on,
but these people legitimately are making money.
They're putting it towards their debt. They're using it to go on family trips.
It's awesome. I feel like
I totally should have franchised it.
I could have been getting a cut all these years,
but that's another story.
So yeah, we did this whole thing.
And I'm telling you, we were not happy
about it all the time,
but I really am thankful
Mom and Dad did that.
It's a little extreme. I'm not telling you
that you have to make your teenagers
open up their own business,
but there is something about empowering your kids
and showing them that they can do things
they may not think is possible.
There's this sense of pride when you do something.
And you carry those big cases of Cokes up the stairs,
and your little 14-year-old arms are shaking.
But then you take that money out of the jar.
There's something about it that you just feel good about.
So, seriously, press in. Your kids can do more
than what you possibly think they can do.
When they start to learn responsibility,
it's an amazing thing how that trickles in
to other areas of their life.
All right, hope you enjoyed little Your Integrity Snacks.
I should have copyrighted that title,
but you can take it for your kids if they want
to use it. It's totally fine.
(dramatic electronic music)