WEBVTT

1
00:00:01.760 --> 00:00:08.080
Hello. So the last time I
had to make one of these campaigns,

2
00:00:08.279 --> 00:00:15.960
it was back when we were locked
down and our store was closed for two

3
00:00:16.000 --> 00:00:21.640
and a half months, and we
didn't know what to expect because we put

4
00:00:21.679 --> 00:00:26.399
a lot of time and effort in
that store, so much time that we

5
00:00:26.440 --> 00:00:32.079
didn't really have a lot left to
do much with the internet and the website.

6
00:00:33.200 --> 00:00:42.560
And because of that campaign and the
response from the people we emailed and

7
00:00:43.119 --> 00:00:51.119
the campaign itself, you guys helped
us through a very uncertain time and it

8
00:00:51.200 --> 00:00:55.799
got us through not being able to
even have a store to provide for our

9
00:00:55.799 --> 00:00:59.719
family for two and a half months. A lot of people don't have that

10
00:00:59.799 --> 00:01:04.719
much savings, and trust me,
we didn't. We were okay because of

11
00:01:04.879 --> 00:01:14.879
what happened with the group effort of
everyone caring about our family. And I

12
00:01:14.920 --> 00:01:19.280
want to thank you for that.
So, if you don't already know,

13
00:01:21.200 --> 00:01:26.000
on June thirtieth, twenty twenty two, after all what I would call a

14
00:01:26.079 --> 00:01:34.439
long period of decline, it didn't
really come back ever the way it was

15
00:01:34.599 --> 00:01:40.040
prior to the lockdown tourism. I
mean, I'm sure there was restrictions in

16
00:01:40.079 --> 00:01:47.239
other countries still that were continuing on
and they didn't meet up with when we

17
00:01:47.239 --> 00:01:51.120
were open again, and plus we
had other restrictions, and it was kind

18
00:01:51.159 --> 00:01:57.200
of difficult for people to still do
stuff anyway. And I don't know if

19
00:01:57.239 --> 00:02:00.799
people just got in the habit of
that or if there's still travel things going

20
00:02:00.840 --> 00:02:05.599
on in other countries, but for
those two years, it was just not

21
00:02:05.680 --> 00:02:08.479
even fifty percent of what it used
to be. And when you have employees

22
00:02:08.479 --> 00:02:14.120
and you're far away, you can't
cover shift to save money all the time,

23
00:02:14.800 --> 00:02:17.680
and especially we have to make your
own product. So eventually, June

24
00:02:17.719 --> 00:02:22.759
thirtieth, I handed the keys over. After seven years, seven years of

25
00:02:22.759 --> 00:02:28.280
loving what we did and loving meeting
everybody who enjoyed our product, and you

26
00:02:28.319 --> 00:02:31.120
know, just getting to know everyone
who was a patron, I had a

27
00:02:31.159 --> 00:02:36.039
hand over the keys. It's a
tough decision to make. I was hoping

28
00:02:36.080 --> 00:02:38.599
that I was going to be able
to give it to my daughter if she

29
00:02:38.719 --> 00:02:40.520
wanted it at some point, you
know, when she got older, and

30
00:02:40.719 --> 00:02:44.240
she would continue it on if she
wanted to. If she didn't, that's

31
00:02:44.280 --> 00:02:51.719
fine too, And so it happened, and it just also so happened that

32
00:02:52.919 --> 00:02:57.039
the new tenant was going to keep
at a Hot Sauce store, and he

33
00:02:57.159 --> 00:03:01.439
wanted to continue to wholesale purchase from
me from us to fill his shelves.

34
00:03:01.759 --> 00:03:07.599
And that was great. It was
a miracle, a godsend, whatever you

35
00:03:07.599 --> 00:03:10.280
want to say, right, And
we also got to become very good friends

36
00:03:10.360 --> 00:03:15.159
to the point where we're like brothers. If he now owns the Crazy Pepper

37
00:03:15.599 --> 00:03:21.680
in the same location, you'll see
p L Pepper Loca was his first choice,

38
00:03:21.719 --> 00:03:24.360
but the state said no Spanglish,
so I don't know what that means.

39
00:03:24.400 --> 00:03:31.000
But now it's the Crazy Pepper.
And so he has been wholesale purchasing

40
00:03:31.000 --> 00:03:35.360
from us at least once a month, sometimes more during the summer times.

41
00:03:36.599 --> 00:03:39.439
But he has experienced the same thing
we had been experiencing, and that is

42
00:03:39.520 --> 00:03:46.599
when the when the dips dip,
they dip straight into the dirt and prior

43
00:03:46.680 --> 00:03:51.759
to lockdowns and you know stuff like
that. It was never that steep of

44
00:03:51.759 --> 00:03:59.360
a decline. It was just instead
of being you know, extra, it

45
00:03:59.479 --> 00:04:00.879
was just what you need or whatever, you know, and it was it

46
00:04:00.919 --> 00:04:05.719
was enough to still be comfortable.
But it hasn't been like that in quite

47
00:04:05.759 --> 00:04:12.599
a long time. So he showed
me his inventory of the sauces that we

48
00:04:13.560 --> 00:04:18.480
supply him and he has a ton
of backstock, and he when I first

49
00:04:18.519 --> 00:04:23.439
said hey, you know, hey, if he how's everything going, it

50
00:04:23.480 --> 00:04:28.079
took him like a day day and
a half to reply, and I kind

51
00:04:28.120 --> 00:04:30.519
of got the sense he didn't want
to have to tell me, you know,

52
00:04:30.199 --> 00:04:32.639
because we're friends. You know,
we're actually really good friends. So

53
00:04:33.000 --> 00:04:36.160
this doesn't reflect on him at all. He's he's a great human being.

54
00:04:36.319 --> 00:04:40.519
He has a family too. Just
he's in the same position that I was

55
00:04:40.800 --> 00:04:46.000
back then. So that order that
saves the day and pays all of our

56
00:04:46.040 --> 00:04:51.399
bills in one shot isn't going to
happen this month. It's just not And

57
00:04:51.480 --> 00:04:55.519
I can't fault him for it.
He's got to do what he has to

58
00:04:55.560 --> 00:04:58.759
do, you know. He can't
expect him to fill up his house,

59
00:04:58.839 --> 00:05:02.600
his parents' house, the back room
and just to satisfy you know what I

60
00:05:02.600 --> 00:05:06.800
mean. So it just it is
what it is. So I'm making this

61
00:05:06.879 --> 00:05:14.079
campaign in an effort to do two
things, like like last time, you

62
00:05:14.120 --> 00:05:18.240
know, more awareness to our website, which is Semper Fright llc dot com,

63
00:05:18.399 --> 00:05:23.360
the home of awesome hot Sauce.
Now thirty five varieties of hot sauce,

64
00:05:23.399 --> 00:05:28.240
all handcrafted, artisan custom made,
made to order, so that means

65
00:05:28.279 --> 00:05:30.439
I'm not picking from a shelf.
We don't have like a big warehouse like

66
00:05:30.639 --> 00:05:35.680
Amazon. It's two people, Rebecca
and myself doing the work of like ten

67
00:05:35.759 --> 00:05:41.279
or fifteen and also being full time
parents with a girl in gymnastics. So

68
00:05:41.360 --> 00:05:46.399
this steps on and baseball and he's
on student. We're busy, okay,

69
00:05:46.439 --> 00:05:49.600
we're busy, both straight A students. When's going to charter school. I

70
00:05:49.600 --> 00:05:53.680
mean, everything wonderful with their lives, and we would like to keep it

71
00:05:53.720 --> 00:05:57.040
that way. You know, we
don't ever want to show with them a

72
00:05:57.120 --> 00:06:00.279
decline in what they're comfortable with.
So we do everything that we can,

73
00:06:00.480 --> 00:06:05.000
including me becoming a personal trainer recently
to try to make up for, you

74
00:06:05.040 --> 00:06:12.480
know, any kind of fallback in
sales and whatnot. So the time is

75
00:06:12.519 --> 00:06:15.680
just really short. So Dad,
this dad here is panicking a little bit,

76
00:06:16.240 --> 00:06:19.360
and you know, we're doing our
best to try to do everything that

77
00:06:19.399 --> 00:06:25.040
we can. We jumped onto a
farmer's market this Friday. Whether or not

78
00:06:25.120 --> 00:06:28.680
that's good or bad, you know, as far as the turnout will determine

79
00:06:28.680 --> 00:06:33.160
how much that helps. And it's
sewing on Fridays, So there's only two

80
00:06:33.160 --> 00:06:36.480
fridays left this month. I'm not
sure if they do it every Friday either.

81
00:06:36.480 --> 00:06:41.920
I'll have to find that out.
I haven't heard back on somebody who

82
00:06:42.000 --> 00:06:46.600
apparently does a Saturday market in Yuma. But eventually we were thinking, you

83
00:06:46.639 --> 00:06:50.199
know, let's try to get a
store out here. But my resistance to

84
00:06:50.279 --> 00:06:55.079
that is a I have to go
through a whole bunch of other stuff.

85
00:06:55.079 --> 00:07:00.240
Again, I have it all for
California, but they want stuff specific vic

86
00:07:00.279 --> 00:07:04.040
for here. And also the reason
why that store worked when it did work

87
00:07:04.480 --> 00:07:09.199
was because it was in a tourist
area, which means there's a constant renewal

88
00:07:09.680 --> 00:07:14.360
new fresh faces. A store that's
just a hot sauce store needs that type

89
00:07:14.360 --> 00:07:17.360
of thing every time I've seen a
hot sauce store in a mall. First

90
00:07:17.360 --> 00:07:19.439
of all, I don't even know
anybody who goes to malls anymore. I

91
00:07:19.480 --> 00:07:21.839
used to be a mall rat when
I was young, in my teens.

92
00:07:23.040 --> 00:07:25.600
That was the place to hang out. Now I don't think anybody does that,

93
00:07:27.199 --> 00:07:33.040
so there's that issue. Plus,
you know, it's enclosed and location.

94
00:07:33.519 --> 00:07:38.360
Sometimes malls are very big, little
stores get lost. I've never seen

95
00:07:38.399 --> 00:07:43.920
a hot sauce store do well in
a mall, so that feeling going into

96
00:07:43.959 --> 00:07:47.079
a small town kind of the same
effect, right without the tourism there,

97
00:07:47.759 --> 00:07:50.480
Like we were right next to a
trolley station, the airport was right there,

98
00:07:50.839 --> 00:07:54.720
there was live music playing, There's
a lot of things to attract people

99
00:07:54.839 --> 00:08:00.279
in. It was the perfect location
for a hot sauce store when things made

100
00:08:00.319 --> 00:08:03.720
sense. Right after things stopped making
too much sense, then they didn't really

101
00:08:05.160 --> 00:08:09.560
didn't really pan out with all the
all of those elements helping it. So

102
00:08:09.639 --> 00:08:18.720
this campaign modest amount to, you
know, cover whatever we need to do

103
00:08:18.800 --> 00:08:22.000
to just to get through the bills, and then we worry about next month.

104
00:08:22.639 --> 00:08:24.439
And that's what I'm doing with this
campaign here. And I had to

105
00:08:24.480 --> 00:08:28.720
put one up. I don't like
doing this. I don't know if you

106
00:08:28.720 --> 00:08:31.120
can tell, I'm not really feeling
I'm not comfortable with that type of thing.

107
00:08:33.000 --> 00:08:35.960
But I'm a dad with a little
girl who I love very much.

108
00:08:35.279 --> 00:08:39.879
So I got to overcome that too
and swallow the pride a little bit,

109
00:08:41.600 --> 00:08:46.080
humble myself a lot, and just
say, hey, we need help.

110
00:08:48.159 --> 00:08:50.799
That's it. That's all I can
say it. Also, oh my god,

111
00:08:52.080 --> 00:08:54.080
before we knew about this, I
was telling Rebecca, yeah, you

112
00:08:54.080 --> 00:08:58.720
know, we're gonna get you a
chiropractor and all this other stuff. Once

113
00:08:58.799 --> 00:09:01.519
you the next order comes in.
Because she was in a back brace for

114
00:09:01.600 --> 00:09:07.440
like ten days her sciatica and went
crazy and she was just couldn't move,

115
00:09:07.799 --> 00:09:11.759
couldn't move. And she's like the
second half of the production for our internet

116
00:09:11.759 --> 00:09:15.559
sales. Like she does the packaging, she does labeling and all that stuff,

117
00:09:15.759 --> 00:09:18.840
the shrink banding. I'm the laws
guy. She does all the really

118
00:09:20.480 --> 00:09:24.639
tedious stuff that I can't even handle, like you know, it's just so

119
00:09:24.679 --> 00:09:31.440
she has a very important role.
And so that just happened and then we

120
00:09:31.480 --> 00:09:37.120
find that out. It was like
oh who oh boom, one two punch,

121
00:09:37.879 --> 00:09:43.200
Oh my god, dress stress,
dress dress. And yeah, as

122
00:09:43.240 --> 00:09:48.039
far as the personal trainer thing coming
through, it takes a long time to

123
00:09:48.159 --> 00:09:52.360
establish apparently. I just I'm learning
had I mean one client and now having

124
00:09:52.440 --> 00:09:56.039
one of the client, but not
really like something I'm going to to do

125
00:09:56.120 --> 00:09:58.960
three, four or five clients a
day. It's not it's not there yet,

126
00:10:01.240 --> 00:10:05.159
so and I'm not sure how long
that's gonna take, but it's probably

127
00:10:05.159 --> 00:10:09.879
gonna take a lot more than ten
days. So that's what that's what we're

128
00:10:09.879 --> 00:10:16.240
working with right now. I do
appreciate anybody who shares this. I appreciate

129
00:10:16.279 --> 00:10:18.600
anybody who's listening to this. I
thank you, I thank you for being

130
00:10:18.840 --> 00:10:26.039
our amazing patrons friends. Most of
you you know, we know personally friends

131
00:10:26.200 --> 00:10:33.000
friendship wise. Oh man, we
used to have so many European, Australian,

132
00:10:33.279 --> 00:10:39.639
Greek, I can't even count French, German, just all kinds of

133
00:10:41.000 --> 00:10:46.840
clients that would come back every year, and then at all stopped, not

134
00:10:46.000 --> 00:10:54.039
until March, so two years since
the lockdowns where we even allowed to ship

135
00:10:54.039 --> 00:10:58.919
to Australia. That just this past
you know, twenty twenty two March,

136
00:10:58.080 --> 00:11:05.240
where was it lifted again to where
we could ship there. I mean a

137
00:11:05.240 --> 00:11:09.120
lot of people don't want to spend
like sixty bucks for shipping. That's pretty

138
00:11:09.200 --> 00:11:15.080
much but a cost. And you
have the EU put a vat tax on

139
00:11:16.120 --> 00:11:20.159
of like twenty percent that they charge
the person who orders. So what that

140
00:11:20.159 --> 00:11:24.080
means is if you order one hundred
dollars with the hot sauce and it costs

141
00:11:24.120 --> 00:11:28.120
you fifty bucks to get it shipped
to you, they don't take a hundred

142
00:11:28.159 --> 00:11:31.600
they don't take the twenty percent off
just one hundred dollars of product. They

143
00:11:31.639 --> 00:11:35.440
also taxed the shipping so it's the
total amount. I don't even know how

144
00:11:35.480 --> 00:11:41.200
that even makes sense or what,
but you can see how that's a deterrent

145
00:11:41.000 --> 00:11:46.519
for a lot of people who used
to order from us from far away all

146
00:11:46.559 --> 00:11:50.240
the time. So that's kind of
affecting the internet sales as well, because

147
00:11:50.240 --> 00:11:54.399
a lot of our clients where people
who came to visit San Diego fell in

148
00:11:54.399 --> 00:11:56.080
love with it and didn't care what
they're paying as far as the shipping because

149
00:11:56.080 --> 00:12:00.159
they just love the product. But
now it's like, well, if you

150
00:12:00.200 --> 00:12:01.840
live here, you can't even get
it, and if you live over there,

151
00:12:03.519 --> 00:12:07.000
you have this extra twenty percent waiting
for you before you can pick up

152
00:12:07.000 --> 00:12:13.440
your package. So yeah, the
death of a thousand cuts right. Well

153
00:12:13.440 --> 00:12:16.200
hopefully not, hopefully not, because
I got a little girl who depends on

154
00:12:16.240 --> 00:12:20.559
that not being the case. So
I love you guys, appreciate it.

155
00:12:20.600 --> 00:12:24.159
Don't want to make this too long. I just want to express this and

156
00:12:24.519 --> 00:12:28.399
let you know. If I didn't
have to ask, I wouldn't. I

157
00:12:28.440 --> 00:12:31.919
would just say, Hey, you
love the Hossaus, you get something for

158
00:12:31.000 --> 00:12:35.200
it, you go for it.
But if you just want to help out

159
00:12:35.240 --> 00:12:39.080
through the gifts, I'm sorry.
Through the go fund me it's like fifteen

160
00:12:39.120 --> 00:12:45.080
air planes going above my head now
right next to the Marine Air Corpstation in

161
00:12:45.320 --> 00:12:48.399
you my Arizona. But anyway,
yeah, if you want to help out,

162
00:12:48.279 --> 00:12:52.519
we would are greatly greatly appreciate it. Rebecca, Farah, Elijah and

163
00:12:52.559 --> 00:13:00.360
myself, thank you, and hopefully
we'll be having happier conversations very soon. Three