Russ: This is the BusinessMakers Show, heard right here and online at The BusinessMakers.com. And now it's time for the Aflac BusinessMakers Flashback, brought to you by Aflac, ask about it at work. And for this mornings' Flashback, we're going to stay compatible with this Mornings Featured Guest segment with Inaki Orozco, the founder and CEO of Riazul, the company bringing to market a new premium tequila, because our Flashback guest is Patrick Henry Creative Promotions Inc. We enter the discussion where I had welcomed Patrick to The BusinessMakers Show.

Patrick: Thanks, Russ. I appreciate being here.

Russ: Okay. Great. Why don't we start by you telling us about Patrick Henry Creative Promotions?

Patrick: Well, basically, Russ, we're a food and we're an advertising agency, but we specialize in food and beverage only. In other words, all the marketing programs we put together the creativity all specialize with food and beverage. Our clients include Outback, Olive Garden, Coors Brewing Company Hilton International. So basically, if you're serving food or you're serving beverages, we get involved on the marketing aspect of it. Where we're a little bit more unique is that everyone in our company there's 32 employees and everyone in the company has a food and beverage background. And just many years ago, in 1987, when I founded the company and that sounds a lot more professional than what it really is. When I founded the company, I was basically doing it out of the garage by myself the first three years.

Russ: Okay.

Patrick: So when I created the idea of having an advertising agency specializing in food and beverage I had noticed over the years, being in the restaurant business, that everybody was looking for the new creative idea the newest margarita out there or the newest martini or they were looking for the newest food concept. And everything that I went or worked, everybody was just saying, "Boy, we're looking for more ideas." And we kind of got a saying in our office: "The most expensive seat in a restaurant is an empty one, and our goal is to fill that seat for our customers."

Russ: You mentioned restaurants, hotels, and even a beer distributor. It's got to be predominantly restaurants, is that right?

Patrick: Yes, sir. We we're broken down into three divisions our advertising agency. We have a prestige division that where we work with steakhouses, upscale hotels, like Loews Hotels, Hilton, Fleming's Steakhouse Roy's Yamaguchi's Restaurants that are nationwide. Then we have another division that strictly works with all the liquor companies nationwide on research and development-creating the next cutting-edge beverage. And then our third division is casual that's working with the Olive Gardens of the world, the Outbacks of the world the Applebee's, and so forth.

Russ: I then told Patrick that my wife and I are very regular restaurant patrons, and so I asked him for an example of his work that I might see if I went in one of his customer's restaurants.

Patrick: If you walk into Olive Garden and there's four or five new drinks being featured at Olive Garden, there is a very good chance that, back of the house, we have created those drinks. We have come up with the incentive programs for the servers to serve those drinks-the educational program so they understand, because a lot of people don't understand that your typical server's 18, 19, 20 years old, and they're not used to serving vodka. They're not used to doing various liquors and everything, so it's our job and our goal to educate them on the various brands out there so that they can intelligently talk to the guests about it.

Russ: Next I wanted to know the reach of Patrick Henry Creative Promotions.

Patrick: So everything we're doing is nationally. I'll give you another example: Years ago, Future Brands, which is a liquor company out of Chicago, they gave us literally an empty bottle and a brown paper bag and said, "Develop some drinks for this"-and this was the new Starbucks Coffee Liqueur. And so we were doing research drink development for the new Starbucks Coffee Liqueur probably two or three years before it was ever introduced. So almost all the programs we do are nationally; very seldom do we work with just one particular store in a restaurant or just a local beer distributor. Everything is nationally. For example, again, with Coors, we're working with them out of Golden on national programs. Maybe it's a Super Bowl program, Monday Night Football program, summer program, but we're developing national programs for them.

Russ: And so you actually get involved in their TV commercials as well?

Patrick: Not necessarily their TV commercials-and again, this is where we're a very specialized agency. We get involved in the restaurant side of it.

Russ: Okay.

Patrick: If Coors is doing a beer commercial, we might take an element from that commercial they're doing it and try to incorporate it into a restaurant somehow, whether it's a table tent poster, something that is an add-on to their menu, we will incorporate that. But everything we do is inside the four walls of a restaurant. It's very unique. We are working with the restaurants, and we're also working with all the major beverage companies. And it's a great fit because we're trying to get beverages into these restaurants to increase their sales, and the restaurants want to know what the hot beverages are out there, what the hot food concepts are out there, and it's our goal to introduce them to any type of program that'll increase their sales and sales receipts.

Russ: So you could find yourself in a situation where a restaurant wants a new spicy martini, let's say, and simultaneously you're working with the vodka and gin guys that want the same thing, and you can sort of satisfy two customers with one product? Is that possible?

Patrick: You should come to work for us-you said it a lot better than I'll ever say it-

Russ: Well-

Patrick: -but that's exactly right.

Russ: Well, it's amazing how much business you're doing nationally-you must be doing something right.

Patrick: Well, I appreciate that. I think we're very fortunate because, in our business, when things are tough people seem to drink and go out, and when the economy's great, they seem to drink and go out, so what-

Russ: Hey, it sounds like a win-win-

Patrick: Yeah, we're-

Russ: -to me.

Patrick: -fortunate either way.

Russ: Next we got into the subject of how the diversity and broad selection of different adult beverages has evolved over the last decade...

Patrick: One thing you have to look at: 10 years ago, 12 years ago, people that were 16 years old, 14 years old, that are now your main core drinkers-cocktail drinkers, like martinis and everything, and that craze has come back-they were drinking very sweet drinks in high school. That was what they were used to; they were used to the sweet carbonated drinks, they were used to the sweet non-carbonated drinks and the sour drinks. That has had a long-term effect of change in-of the beverages because they had such a sweet tooth for their beverages. Now, all of a sudden, the cosmopolitans of the world, the chocolate decadence martinis of the world-they're very popular, and we saw some of that and we realized that the flavor profile was much sweeter, so the drinks needed to be sweeter. In addition to that-and I always told this when I first started the company-I would tell restaurant people and everything, they would have beer and they would have some old-fashioned drinks like you were saying-scotch and water, and bourbons and waters, and bourbons and coke, and Jake Daniels and coke but they wouldn't go beyond that. And we were always saying that the female audience-to capture the female audience, you had to have a much sweeter profile on your cocktails. You had to come in with something more than just a Jack Daniels and coke-and even in reality, more than a margarita. So we found out the sweet flavor profile has made a huge difference in the industry.

Russ: After hearing all of this, I couldn't help but wonder what the office work environment is like at Patrick Henry Creative Promotions was like, so I asked if his employees partook in their creations at work.

Patrick: Well, they're allowed to-

Russ: Okay.

Patrick: -and I'm proud to say that we've never had anybody abuse it, but they we definitely have a full bar set up, and at any given day, we'll have a mixologist back there making cocktails and everything. And they might invite the employees to come in and, through a straw, just taste the flavor profile to see what their thoughts are and everything, but it's more of an educational factor than anything. But, I'm probably very prejudiced when I say it, but I think it's the greatest group of people in the world, and I'm very humbled by their effort.

Russ: Let me go back to the beginning, Patrick. You said you started it in 1987 by yourself. I mean, how did you win those first contracts, and what were they-just sort of consulting agreement type contracts in the beginning?

Patrick: It was basically consulting. I started the company up, and I can't even beginning to tell you how many 39-cent hamburgers I ate the first two or three years. And I think I got two months behind on my car note, got three months behind on my house note, and I was really struggling. And it's a great story. I brought in, at that time, my best friend and he had just retired from professional football and was looking for a career, and I brought him in. I said, "Hey, why don't we partner up on this-you know? You help me with this company, and let's get it going." And he came over to the house and looked at the P&L and said, "No way." He wouldn't touch this-he wanted a career. And the funny part about it-he's now the general manager of the Green Bay Packers, so-

Russ: Oh, wow.

Patrick: -he did much better going with them than-

Russ: Yeah.

Patrick: -sticking with Creative Promotions.

Russ: Lastly, I asked Patrick to tell me at the end of the day, to what does he attribute the success of Patrick Henry Creative Promotionss.

Patrick: It's just taking care of the customers you have. We are most proud that we do not have a salesperson in our office. Our salespeople are our clients. They go out there and recommend us every day to other competitors, to other clients, and everything, and we literally look at our clients as our national sales staff out there. And I always tell everybody in the office, "Hey, if you take care of your customer-if you take care of our client-he's going to go out there and brag on you."

Russ: And that concludes our discuss with Patrick Henry of Patrick Henry Creative Promotions Inc. And that also wraps up our Aflac BusinessMakers Flashback, brought to you by Aflac, ask about it at work. And now its time for Tech Talk with The Planet, so lets welcome Kevin Hazard.

[Tech Talk with The Planet]

Russ: You're listening to The BusinessMakers Show heard here and online at thebusinessmakers.com. Stay tuned in for the discussion with Inaki Orzco, founder and CEO of Rizaul Premium Tequila.