Val?

- [Seth] Val?

- [Val] Hello?

- [Kevin] Hey, Val.

- [Val] Hey. - Hey, Val.

What's up, Val.

- We, as you know, we got the big meeting coming up,

and we just wanted to circle the wagons.

Make sure we're all on the same page.

- Yeah, we wanted to talk turkey,

and that turkey is Torrence.

Mainly the Torrence group, and they, as you know

more than anybody, they are a real bear.

A real den of bears.

So we just wanna circle the wagons and kinda get

on the, get everyone looped in.

- You know this is where we really make our hay

is this Torrence group.

Everything else has been minor leagues.

We are in the major leagues now folks.

- Have we had a dialog about getting

our ducks in a row here or...

- We haven't had a chance to get that dialog

sort of underway, so we kind of wanted to draw,

today use this meeting as a chance to sort of draw

a roadmap toward that dialog and just sort of

figure out what that dialog might look like

or even sound like.

- And Dale's sort of our representative from Calvin's team.

He's kind of working in tandem with us on this.

So Dale, I don't know if Calvin gave any sort of

heads up on, you know, how to get ducks in a row

for Torrence, but if you, you know,

anything on that.

- Well, basically, he told me that he

considers this his swan song.

- [Kevin] Okay.

- So we can get our ducks lined up.

He's gonna leave.

- So Calvin might be (overlapping talk).

Okay.

And I think with Torrence, we're gonna be kind of

breadcrumbing this situation.

It's gonna be a Hansel and Gretel type thing.

We don't want them to know that they're eating

the sweet candy, but we wanna get them a taste for it.

Just so that the next thing you know,

they're in the cabin and, you know,

we're feeding them sweet treats.

But we gotta kinda coax them.

- [Val] You know, you gotta punch the puppy here.

You can't be precious about this,

and that's why we're gonna show 'em

we can think outside the box, and you know,

get them, you know, move the goal post a little.

- That's a good point.

When we're talking resources, let's make sure

we're saying lean and mean.

We don't need any extra resources.

Let's not put any expenses on the books

that aren't absolutely necessary.

- You know, speaking of keeping it lean

and keeping it linear, I think keeping it linear

is key, and I did wanna throw the ball,

I'm sorry.

I know you're new.

I forgot your name down there.

- Bradley.

- [Seth] Bradley.

So Bradley.

- You can't be doing that with Tor.

Seth, we can't be doing that.

(stutters)

We gotta know names.

- If they smell blood in the water,

these guys are gonna pounce.

These sharks are.

- [Val] And Bradley is, you know, Bradley's crucial.

He is a stakeholder here.

So, you know, that's just eating your own dog food.

- Sure.

Of course, of course.

- Know names.

We can't stress it enough.

- Maybe a high sign that we could use

to indicate, "Okay, you got my name wrong.

"Try a different name."

- What if we come in with name tags,

and thereby sort of throw out the signal to them,

"Hey, we're making our names easy for you.

"What are you gonna do for us?"

- [Val] What are you gonna do for us?

I love that.

Put the record on.

(overlapping talk)

- We could do dry erase name tags.

- It might be good for...

It might be, for Torrence, it might be,

I know it's a holiday weekend, guys,

but if you could learn just some

basic American Sign Language,

just so we can kind of sign to each other.

If there's an important name of a senior team leader

on their end, it might be good

to just kinda have the basics.

(overlapping talk)

- Now do you have any experience with Graham

over in Torrence because he-

- [Val] With Graham?

- Graham. - Yes.

Yeah.

And I'll tell you the secret with Graham.

You gotta drill down.

'Cause Graham, he's about the brick and mortar.

He's about best practices.

And he's about B-to-B.

- He is sort of queen of the pigs over there.

He is down in the slop, and the other pigs

sort of fall in line.

When he goes to the trough, then and only then

do the other pigs get their meal.

- He will get first dibs on the slop.

The others will take his seconds.

- Yeah, he is a nasty queen and you gotta watch out for him.

Oh, I didn't say it.

Yeah, if you've ever taken a meeting with him

at the Golden Corral, you know exactly

what we're talking about.

- [Val] Sorry, guys, Janice has come.

She's at my door.

- Oh.

- [Val] What's that?

Oh great.

She wants to know, Jason,

you coming to sales conference this year?

(overlapping talk)

- I just saw Jason's eyes light up when you mentioned

the name Janice.

- You ever see the old wolf in the old cartoons

where his eyes pop out?

(overlapping talk)

- Remember those cartoons where the car is like a person,

the headlights are the eyes, and they make a A-ooh-ga

with the horn?

That's basically Jason right now.

- [Val] That's the same thing.

I'll tell ya, I haven't seen a smile on Janice's face

that big since she came back from one of those,

she did a bodybuilding conference at the conference center

right by the mall where the 305 and the seven meet.

(overlapping talk)

Yeah, she did one out there right next to,

there's an O'Charley's there.

And she did it right next to that.

- Yeah, we've had many of after work libations.

- Yeah.

- Shall we say, my liege.

- [Val] Many after work drink.

- Or three.

- Yeah, I had one or two or three too many there

a couple nights ago.

They had to peel me off the curb.

- Tea too many mar-too-nies por favor.

- When I get to the bar, I generally go way hard.

- I got HAM when I get to that bar

as you guys know about.

- That's the only way I do business

is you know go hard or go home.

I take that to the bar.

I take that to the board room,

and I think we've built a team that reflects that principle.

- [Gino] Yes, absolutely.

- We want to bring up Bradley.

We brought you on because you are a

a whiz with the new computers,

and I've been having all sorts of issues with mine.