Gary Parker's "Why"

Why does Gary Parker get up every morning and make sure the brisket is smokin', the store is clean and crisp and the TV tuned to the guests favorite channel? What drives Gary's motivation to serve the community he loves? Learn just that on this podcast where Gary discusses one of his favorite books - by author @SimonSinek. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. This is Jennifer Oregon and Gary Parker. We are back from our technical difficulties and happy to be here to talk about Gary Parker's why. I know you're all weighted with anticipation.

SPEAKER_01 0:12

Does anybody know what that means?

SPEAKER_00 0:15

I didn't know what it meant when you asked me what my why was, but I think you're gonna tell me. I read most of the book when you told me I had to five years ago.

SPEAKER_01 0:26

When I told you you had to. Do you live your why?

SPEAKER_00 0:30

I think you bought it for me. Um I live my why, but I agree with I think that it shifts sometimes. I think everybody's why shifts around.

SPEAKER_01 0:37

So it does. You have to listen to yourself. Okay, so what is the why? The what do you know? The the um how do you how do you paraphrase a book, an entire book in a couple sentences?

SPEAKER_00 0:49

Well, what is the book and who's the author?

SPEAKER_01 0:52

Simon Sinek, know your why. And even before the book, um, know your why, Simon did a very famous uh TED talk back when TED Talks were first becoming um um a thing, actually. And um, you know, every now and again we would we would um me and a bunch of guys we would listen to uh we would listen to these things, and um and Simon spoke to me, right? Not literally, of course, but his message spoke to me because uh when you when you you know when you're a business guy, an entrepreneur, or a tech guy, you know, you're you're rolling, right? There's there's so much chaos and there's so much confusion, and you just kind of get used to it, right? And you you look kind of lose track of why you do what you do, right? Everybody knows what they do, and everybody knows how they do what they do, but do you really know why you do what you do? All right, and this is one of the things, particularly um for me, right, as uh as I came into my third act of life, right? Um, it was like, who am I now? Because uh because I'm no longer uh tech genius, right? And I'm no longer you know blue-collar guy that I was before tech genius, right? So who am I now? Right? And um, and so the the answer that came back was entrepreneur and philanthropist. And that's what I've been working on for the last seven years, but it all came about because um, you know, I was looking for clarity, and I and I came across the Simon Cynic material, and it really made a lot of sense about how he was talking about it, and what my good friend uh Steve Jobs was his uh example that he used, right? It was about how to re and basically the why is about how to reposition things, right? That reposition perspectives. And um, for those that don't know, Steve Jobs was a really great marketing guy, and uh he knew how to um he knew how to change perspective on his products, and because of that, he became a disruptor in the industry and the old boring um PCs and things like that. They found their place and they had their niche, but everybody wanted a cool new whiz-banggy thing. Um and that's uh you know, that's how he kind of approached all the products that he did from the iPod to the to the iPhone to the uh to the MacBook. And um his secret to success was how do I make it fun? No, that's kind of a that's kind of a diatribe. And then so what Simon does is Simon connects that, right? Connects that to the average person in his book, know your why. So I just let you let you take that. That's a lot of a lot of processing.

SPEAKER_00 3:38

So yeah, so is a company selling their product or service, or are they selling their purpose? Not a pro a product, but he was selling an experience. So if you're a company, are you selling your why or are you selling your product or service? Is barbecue to you an experience of why, or is it amazing brisket?

SPEAKER_01 4:01

It's yes, it's yes to all things, right? What is our philosophy of barbecue to you, right? We want you, we don't want you, we don't want to just feed you, right? Everybody, anybody can feed you, okay? But if you go by the by the by what Simon says in the book, that's kind of funny, Simon says in the book. Um, you know, I want you to come in and have a good experience. I want you when you walk into my store, right? I want you to see things you haven't seen before. Like authors' corners and and and um 35 little uh little beautiful old ladies playing bingo. You never know what you're gonna see when you walk in barbecue you. It's an experience, and I want you to know that I care about your day, right? Um, what's going on? Whatever was going on that bugged you and had you all worn out and tired and everything outside, leave it outside. Come inside and enjoy yourself, right? My guys will ask you, how's your day going? We care. Can I is there something I can do to make it better for you? Right? Why just you know, here, do you need a you need a coke? Have a coke, right? We don't get wrapped around the axle of about gives and gets, right? And um we we generally want to know how your day is going, what you're doing, what you know, and what can we do to help? And so so we now bringing that back to your topic was that's remarketing something that uh you know that is generally very straightforward and bland and and um and average, right? And to something that people want to go do. People might come into might come into my store, right? Because they just don't want the same old, same old anymore. Right?

SPEAKER_00 5:48

Yeah, there's lots of places.

SPEAKER_01 5:50

I feel like I'm preaching and I'm talking and I'm not doing a very good webcast stuff, so I better be chipper and and uh no, you're fine.

SPEAKER_00 5:56

I mean, no, you're fine. I think that I mean I call it vibe. I think you guys sell your vibe, and I think you have a particular vibe compared to other restaurants and establishments around you. Um, I mean, you certainly don't have the Ace Hardware vibe, you don't have the greenhouse vibe. Those are beautiful places, but there's a barbecue to you vibe, and I think it's uh hospitality, it's caring about the person in front of you, it's uh putting someone's happiness over, you know, 59 cents you might lose on a transaction. Um I think those are things you're understanding in a different way some of these things you're mentioning. Um and I think that when you focus yourself as an owner around a why and you lead your people around their why, you have, and if you can get that to be the same thing, if you can find a common why, then you have a motivated team.

SPEAKER_01 6:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:43

That's a powerful thing.

SPEAKER_01 6:45

So you come in and you see the thank yous on the wall, you see the authors in the corner, right? You see, um, you see the smell, you you receive the smells and the and the visions of Southern Barbecue, you know, and and there's all this experience associated with it. And oh, by the way, I just happen to really make great barbecue. Do you want some?

SPEAKER_00 7:07

Well, they pay for it.

SPEAKER_01 7:09

So uh that's the why in a nutshell is to know your why and know what you're doing. And then, you know, we expand, you know, we, I expand on that, right? We over the years, right? Um, we've got the nonprofit, and you know, we do the we do the school takeovers and we do all this stuff, but but what's important to understand when you see all that stuff on the wall and you see all that stuff you know happening and you hear people talk about us and this kind of stuff, it's it's really the same basic message, right? Why are we there? We're there to provide relief, right? Relief from from a crazy world that everybody right now is having to deal with. And for a few short minutes, or a little bit a little bit more than that, they can come into this hole-in-the-wall place in this off-beat town in the in the far extreme edge of the lower 48, right, and find relief. That's the why.

SPEAKER_00 8:08

Okay, so why that's why you run your store the way you do, that's why you create the vibe you do. But why why philanthropy at this time of your life? Why gig harbor? Why schools, why kids?

SPEAKER_01 8:23

Because they're they're the ones who need, you know. Right? You try to make you always try to make your community better. You know, the if you study the um, you know, chamber data and stuff like that around the around this country, you know, small business sets the tone for what a town is. Small business sets the tone for what a town is, right? So you got to think about um our little town here is a tourist, um, the tourist and retirement community, right? It's a bedroom community, right? And um, and we want it to be special. Well, one of the ways you get a community to be special is your small businesses build that, build that into the into the very fabric of the town, right? That's what makes us different from a city, right? We're a town, right? And we have a beautiful harbor and we have wonderful food and we have good good charitable and benevolent people, right? And so it's a very fun place to be. It's a place you want to go, it's a destination. Now, we could, if we didn't do that, if all of us small business guys didn't do that and didn't do these kind of things, we'd be a pretty boring place, right? Yeah, people like coming to Harbor because we do these things and we talk about how to do these things.

SPEAKER_00 9:35

Yep, you're forming the personality of the of the city or town that that you're in. Yeah, and you have a footprint, your business has a footprint that's you know projected from your values. And and I've been in these really high pollutant corporate discussions with a company lately about uh local marketing and why you need to be relevant to your local community. And to me, that's very relevant. It's like you're not relevant to everyone who likes barbecue, you're relevant to the people in Kig Harbor that love barbecue and that mid-texas, you know. I think the stories that you tell about, you know, people walking in there and they smell the smells and see the things on the walls and they get emotional because it reminds them of the state they lived in that they loved.

unknown 10:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:15

So I mean, to me that you can call that you can call that local marketing, but really that's just you being relevant and showing off the personality of your values to the community. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:25

Those things are powerful, right? When you see another human being walking to a store, walk into your store and and having a complete emotional breakdown because they miss home so bad, right? That you just you just gave it to them. You just gave them an oasis uh, you know, while they're in the desert, right? And that was because of you and what you did and your staff does, right? Yeah, that's a special feeling, right? Right. And that's that's what makes um a business successful inside of a community. That's what makes a business a landmark in a community.

SPEAKER_00 10:57

So, what would you tell a business owner who doesn't have this integrated into their soul of their business and um they want to start figuring out their why and they want to project that out to their team? So, are there some practical things that you can do? Like are do you talk about it at a meeting? Do you how do you how do you project these values to your team so that when you bring out a new employee, they they understand the vibe you're projecting and the values that you have?

SPEAKER_01 11:24

Well, with with the boys or with the kids, it's it's easy, you know. Um, I just look at them and I say, um, you know, how do you like to be treated? And you know, if you're not treating treating our customers the same way that you like to to to treat be treated and feel, right, then you haven't mastered it yet. Let's and I always use yet, right? There's another book that I've told you about, which is the power of yet. Okay. And so when you're coaching and you're instructing, right, and and these kinds of things, um, you you need to always speak with yet. All right. I have these little three little words that just control everything, right? Must be crazy. Um, anyway, so you know, you just have a master.

SPEAKER_00 12:08

Well, wait a minute. So why yet? And what's the other one?

SPEAKER_01 12:10

Uh we'll get to it one day. You know, and um, but just go with uh yeah, go with that. One of these days maybe we'll talk about the power of yet. It's um it's it but it's a way that it originally started uh to give you background on that real quick. Um it really originally started with a uh psychologist that I knew, and um she um uh she was working with uh young people in school that were not doing so well. And she developed the she developed a technique of instead of instead of talking to the um talking to the the the young ones um in that very binary of past fail type of a language, she created the language of yet, right? And so she would walk up to somebody that was obviously doing very bad and couldn't couldn't do it, and you could you could see their you know their brain start to shut down and all these kinds of things, but they wouldn't do that with her because she would look at them and says, That's a nice try, but you're not quite there yet, right? Which keeps the mind open, right, to go to go try again and to learn something new and and and so forth. And so when you when you speak with the young ones, right, it's always all about yet, right? Because you you know so what you're doing is you're projecting. I know you're going to do it, I know you can't. It's it's just you know, it's just a matter of time till you get there. So, you know, don't treat people like you don't want to be treated. And if you're struggling to to project yourself, then that's fine. You're just not there yet. Practice. And by the way, here's a hundred customers that won't barbecue in about the next 10 minutes, and you've got plenty of practice, right? I'll see you in a little bit, right? Yeah, um, you know, that's for that's for the young ones, um, friends, other business people, you know, chambers, you know, stuff like that. Of course, we talk about it um at different levels when um when people's minds are open to it. Um, it's been harder lately, um, you know, with the economies and things like you know, the turmoil that goes on out in the real world, it's really getting harder to get people to think in a in a very clear and and open mind. So things like yet and things like why um are really the answers, right? But you got to get people to to relax a little bit and um and start to accept, you know, accept some of these conversations. And you know, then they then they see their opponent once they start to see their opportunity, it just built on itself. It's like a flower that blossoms, right? So have you still driven by by economy, right? Um, you're gonna you're trying to run a business and um it's very hard um to let go of the fact that oh prices just went up 30%. Oh well, you know, I can't raise the menu price, and I can't do this, so I better figure out something. And I've got these hard decisions that are just you know popping you every day. Um it's it's it's there's another technique that I was taught a long time ago is reserve time for strategic thought, right? And and I don't think I don't I don't see people following that rule very much either, but but I do, right? Um I I get away. I'm you know, I'll get away. It'll be a Saturday or it'll be a Sunday or Wednesday afternoon for all that matter. Um, and I go off and I don't worry about all the problems of the world. I you know, I'll smoke my cigar or do whatever I'll do, right? But I'm thinking strategically, right? And that helps you get back into the knowing your why and knowing your yet.

SPEAKER_00 15:32

Yep. Go back to the to ground ground zero and start over if you have to. Do things that are relevant and get rid of things that aren't get rid of things that aren't working, right? Yeah, yeah. So have you seen this affect other cultures? Like I know that you have a background in technology and it sounds like you did some other things even before that, but um I assume you ran into this philosophy when you were in tech and you were running a team. So can you talk a little bit about how it's impacted other corporate cultures you've been in? Because I'm sure we have some of those people watching this.

SPEAKER_01 16:05

Yeah, a lot of this solidified. Um, there was a point in the tech career where I was managing teams that were that were across five different countries at once, right? So I want to I'll put it in into perspective for you is is you know, you've got um you've got people from China, you've got people in India, you've got people, you know, in Bangalore, Mexico, and then you've got people on the East Coast, you got people in the West Coast, and you got Israel. All right. And they're all trying, you're all trying to make them work as one team. And and there's many different personalities, and there's many different cultures all embedded in that. And um, but yet you're trying to do this extremely really complex thing, right? Like build microprocessors and things like this. Um, and so you you have to get things, you have to communicate in a way where things are simple and motivating, right? And successful, um successful, you know, um directors and things, um we we were all taught how to how to think in these terms, so to speak, right? So that we could take very, very complex topics and break them down, and then when things didn't exactly work right, you reinforce your your trust in people, right? Um by um, you know, you know, these outrageous acts of trust. You know, I know you just screwed up and da-da-da-da. And then there's all this negativity that I could go down as as the fearless leader of the gang here, but um, I'm not gonna do that. I'm gonna I'm gonna just sit with you and I'm gonna help you work through it. And you know, and but you take these really complex things and you and you break them down so you learn to speak in why and you learn to speak in yet, and you know, and you keep you keep um people moving forward. And it what it what you what you would find out if if you could witness it um is all the cultural stuff will disappear and it just becomes the human that you're working with, right? And then um all the all the all the uh dysfunction and frustration of the moment and stuff will go away, and suddenly you're all over and you're happy. I'm chipper.

SPEAKER_00 18:06

Yeah, yeah. I just worked over the holiday with an offshore team, and um everybody wanted to be with their families at the holiday, everybody wanted to have their evenings off, nobody wanted to work on the weekend, and you find ways to you know motivate people around your common why, you know, why are we all here working late? Why are we working you know through a holiday or whatever? Um, but I agree with you when you work um multiculturally, you have to find the the shared why. You know, everybody wants to be have time with their family, nobody wants to do an insane amount of overtime, you know, all the things. So yeah, I love that. And I agree. And it's a complete waste of time to stay in the the mediocrity of what went wrong and all that, you know. It's like what's the solution, right?

SPEAKER_01 18:46

So by the time you figured out it went wrong, it's already history, baby. You're not gonna do anything about it. Right in the books, right? You can only go forward, right?

SPEAKER_00 18:56

So would you still recommend his book, or is there another book, Simon Sinek's book, or would is there another book that you would recommend?

SPEAKER_01 19:02

You know, and and he's got lots of works and he's tried to expand this work, but in my opinion, um nothing's as good as that TED Talk, which is probably the most uh most viewed TED Talk ever, um, and then followed up by this book. It makes complete sense, right, about what it is and what he's saying. And I and I see it in spades with the thousands of people, right, that I work with on all kinds of projects still to this day, right? And I have to I have to help people come out of out of these highly binary tactical modes and and understand that you know perspective is everything on on complex problems.

SPEAKER_00 19:45

Yeah, and creating consensus and moving together as a team around purpose. Yep. Well, I love it. This has been great stuff. This is great to hear. Um, we encourage you to go to go buy Simon Sinek's book, even though it's been around for a while.

SPEAKER_01 20:00

We need to talk about barbecue today.

SPEAKER_00 20:02

Well, what is I mean, this happens with barbecue.

SPEAKER_01 20:05

Barbecue's still number one.

SPEAKER_00 20:07

So, what's going on at the store there in Gig Harbor, Gary?

SPEAKER_01 20:11

Oh, we're having fun. Um, we were coming, you know, we're we've come through the winter, or we're pretty much through the winter now. Um we're trying to get our catering in place, right? So uh if you have your graduation parties and um, you know, uh end of quarter parties for the businesses, etc. Um, now it's a good time to get get on the calendar because um um summer weekends, you know, July, August, uh all those weekends are already full, okay, for some of that stuff. August is a good time. Um, you know, during the week, um, we still have lots of Sunday dates that are open. Um, but if you got a wedding or if you got some kind of big party or something coming up, um, it's best to get with me now, right? Because we get pretty full pretty quick, right, throughout the year. Um, midweek stuff for businesses. Oh, that stuff is so easy right now because everybody's booking the weddings and the weekends are filling up because of the weddings, because you know, Saturday's the day, right? Um, graduation party is on a Saturday because that's the day. Um, but man, the you know, the you know, the work parties, um, the get-togethers, the strategic events, the um, you know, that happen on Thursdays and Tuesdays, and and this kind of stuff. Um, we love to do those. And um, you know, um, we have lots of those dates open, so we want to try to encourage um you know the companies and stuff to reach out to us. Oh, I gotta tell you guys a story. The funnest one we did that was that's along that line to reinforce it was the bus rodeo at uh at uh Pierce County at Pierce Transit. That was that was an event right there. Yeah, we had about uh 200, 300 uh drivers or or the employees of the of that and in these in these um drivers. Drivers are taking these buses through these obstacle courses, and it was an absolute hoot to watch that and and party with these people and um and you know bring joy into that into that space, right? And uh uh well oh man, we spent the afternoon just having a good time. They wouldn't let me drive one of the buses though. I wanted to drive one of the buses and I they couldn't let me do that, so I was a little disappointed.

SPEAKER_00 22:20

But so it was a bus rodeo and it was a party?

SPEAKER_01 22:23

Yeah, well, it's a it's you know it's kind of like a summer picnic, but they do a competition who can drive the bus the best, right? And so you got this gigantic parking lot with these gigantic buses, and you got all these cones and this course all set up, and they're they're zooming down this way and they're tuning in, they're doing three-point turns like you would do in your car without bumping uh without bumping the uh the cones, and you know, they've got you know for as big as these machines are, they got this mastery of uh of uh manipulation on them, right? And you know, and so it's a lot of fun. But that's what I'm talking about. I mean, we have all kinds of fun stuff like that. We've got you know, we get the the um, you know, we have another big um um vitamin factory, you know, here close by, and they always call us um, and they you know they set up a big carnival kind of thing out in their parking lot, and that's a that's a hoot to do. Um, we have um um a boat manufacturer um, you know, that uh that has two locations, and we do both of those with them, you know, in the in the summer. And so these things are are so much fun to do. And so I just encourage more people to do it. You know, I'm people like barbecue in the summer, you know, they like to have these outings, get out of the get out of the conference rooms and these kinds of things. So call me, you know, I'll come out there, I'll set up a tent, and I'll put up the I'll get all the barbecue ready for you, and you can you and your employees just have fun.

SPEAKER_00 23:39

Yeah, sounds good. And you're saying that the weekends are booked with that during the week corporate events, or those are dates and times that are more available and easier to schedule. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 23:48

Yeah, and they're and they are they are some fun.

SPEAKER_00 23:51

Yep. So are you still doing the um just to to change away from catering, are you still doing the senior bingo and the senior movies and absolutely?

SPEAKER_01 24:01

Yeah, um, senior bingo every Tuesday, yeah, three to four. We've expanded it. Um we now do a twice a month um on Fridays um over at the local uh um over at the local parks administration building. And we do it over there because we can we can hold more people. So um we'll do about 50, 60 people in the bigger room, and we also play for two hours on those. Um so we're still doing all that. We still do the senior movie, the free movie at the at the Galaxy, um, which is the last Friday of every month. Um, those are lots of fun. We're getting ready to watch um for for February on the 28th, we're getting ready to watch uh the proposal. We brought uh Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds out and Betty White out of the uh out of the archive, and we're gonna show that one on the big screen again.

SPEAKER_00 24:50

Really funny movie.

SPEAKER_01 24:52

Um we've got Larry Fowler in the store this week from the authors. You know, he wrote the Lincoln books, and rumor has it that he's got a now a fourth one getting ready to come out. So the the set is continuing to grow. It's very popular, you know, because Larry was the was the author that I worked with to um actually start doing that there in the store back during the COVID year.

SPEAKER_00 25:14

Um so yeah, so he was one of the original authors, huh?

SPEAKER_01 25:18

He is the original author, right? And then uh then we have baseball Bob and other but baseball Bob will be in closer to the end of March as uh as the major league um major league play kicks off, right? And um yeah, and then we still have we have um for the counter takeovers, all 52 weeks now throughout the year are filled. Um from everything from you know, we we don't have another weekend to spare, and so now people are waiting in line for somebody that can't make it or a drop out and and that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_00 25:49

So every week you're in the store, there'll be another organization that you can donate your receipt to, and 10% of that receipt value goes to that organization, and it's fully booked for this year.

SPEAKER_01 26:00

So your opportunities are next year next year or if somebody can't make it, and which does happen, by the way. So that's the reason we keep that standby list going because we don't want to waste a week, you know. Right. Sometimes, sometimes I choose not to do one. I I'll rearrange somebody. Things like um here coming up and um at the end of March will be closed for half a week. Um when we do our spring cleaning, you know, and that's when I have to take the pits apart and and you know, have the have the uh fire teams and all that kind of stuff come in and check the equipment. And and so you know, if somebody loses a couple days, a couple three days on that, then it's not worth it to them. So I'll uh I'll hold off on those days. But um, other than that, we uh we have that that thing going year-round now.

SPEAKER_00 26:45

Wow, and are you also going to celebrate a store anniversary coming up here as well, right?

SPEAKER_01 26:49

On the well, you know what I mean? I don't do anniversary parties per se, right? I just like working hard and I'm and I'm proud to uh to uh that March 2nd will be um uh seven years. Actually, the 27th of uh this month. Uh that's when we did the soft open. But uh we we officially recognize our anniversary, our seventh anniversary on March 2nd, which is when what is special about March 2nd?

SPEAKER_00 27:16

That's when Barbecue Two served its first brisket.

SPEAKER_01 27:19

No, it's Texas Independence Day.

SPEAKER_00 27:22

Oh of course it is. I knew that. Well, that's quite a milestone. That's exciting. Well, thank you. Thanks for your uh chair about uh knowing your why and spreading that why to your team and your community. And thanks for your comments about yeah, I love that. I think we should cover that in a future uh video. Um if you have questions or want to chat with Gary about what his why is or other things he shared today, you can certainly leave a comment or email him at gparker at texasbq.com. You can always call this door for catering. Um I don't know what else to mention here. I think that's it, but good to see you and and we'll see you next month.

SPEAKER_01 28:01

See you later.

SPEAKER_00 28:01

Thanks, Gary.