Entrepreneur Michael Coles with Ryan Millsap: "It's Time to Get Tough"

Ryan Millsap, Chairman & CEO of Atlanta-based Blackhall Studios, is one of today’s top entertainment executives! With a vision for Blackhall that’s ambitious, energizing, and boundless, Millsap is blazing a trail through the heart of the South – and setting his sights on the future of entertainment. Listen and learn as Ryan Millsap journeys through the myriad industries, people, and landscapes that traverse the complex and dynamic world of film production.

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Ryan: Welcome to the Blackhall Studios Podcast. I'm Ryan Millsap. I got into the moviemaking business by being a real estate entrepreneur, but also because I'm a big movie fan. I get a huge kick out of watching blockbuster movies that I watch being made at Blackhall. COVID-19 has put a temporary crimp in production — hasn't it for everybody? But some amazing movies will be shooting at our studio soon, and I'll have some amazing folks on the podcast.

I'm also into ethics and philosophy, and I think you'll see those themes throughout the podcast. So, you're wondering: where exactly does the movie business and philosophy come together? That's the journey I want to take you on on the Blackhall Studios Podcast. I’ll bring you guests from both worlds, and I think you'll be surprised at how much philosophy goes into the world of making movies. Plus, you'll get an inside look at the new Hollywood of the South right here in Atlanta, Georgia. Give a listen. I think you'll enjoy what you hear. I'm happy to have you along for the ride on the Blackhall Studios Podcast.

Today on the podcast, I welcome Mr. Michael Coles: a longtime Atlanta resident, civic leader, entrepreneur, and all-around successful guy. Michael Coles embodies the word ‘entrepreneur,’ as well as the word ‘resilient.’ In his recent memoir, Time to Get Tough: How Cookies, Coffee, and a Crash Led to Success in Business and Life, Coles tells some dramatic stories — well, actually, some incredible stories — about facing adversity and overcoming them to the extreme.

I'm not going to say any more. I want you to listen to our conversation. I know you'll get a lot out of it, as I did. So listen up. The Blackhall Studios Podcast is pleased to welcome Mr. Michael Coles.

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Ryan: Hi, this is Ryan Millsap. Welcome to the Blackhall Studios Podcast. We're here in Atlanta, Georgia. It's another beautiful day here. And today we are fortunate to have a seasoned entrepreneur on the program: Michael Coles, co-founder of The Great American Cookie Company and the former CEO of Caribou Coffee. He recently wrote a book called Time to Get Tough: How Cookies, Coffee, and a Crash Led to Success in Business and Life. Michael, welcome to the Blackhall Studios Podcast. Glad you're here.

Michael: Well, I'm glad to be here, Ryan. And I'm glad you're having a beautiful day in Atlanta. I wish I were back in Atlanta. We've been in Wyoming since March. And, frankly, it's great to be here — but I have a long history of being in Atlanta, and I really miss the things that I'm involved in, as well as a lot of friends. And I know this is a difficult time for a lot of people.

Ryan: It certainly is. Did you grow up in Atlanta?

Michael: I wasn't born in Atlanta, but I've been in Atlanta since I was in my early 20s. And it's the longest I've ever obviously lived anywhere. So, it's my home; I consider it to be my home.

Ryan: Now, you grew up in New York. Is that right?

Michael: Well, I was born in New York. I lived there till I was four, and then moved to Buffalo, New York and lived there until I was 12. Then I moved to Miami.

Ryan: Haha. I take it you didn't like the cold.

Michael: I had no choice. I was 12 years old. My parents kind of told me where I was going to live. So we moved to Miami. And when we first moved there, I thought this was going to be fantastic — after leaving Buffalo. I thought this was going to be all about teenage girls in bikinis. But my life changed pretty dramatically once we got there. I never really got to see much of the beach, except when I worked on it.

Ryan: So, most people who move from New York to Miami have ties to the mob.

Michael: Heh. I'll just say... we're not going to go there. I moved there with my folks, and my dad pretty much struggled from the time I was 12. So, it's a whole lot. It's a long story for another day.

Ryan: Yeah. How old were you when you started to think entrepreneurial thoughts?

Michael: My dad went bankrupt when I was ten. We lost our house, and I had to give away my dog. And at ten, I thought bankruptcy was... you lose your house, and you have to give away your dog. I didn't know much more about it at ten. Things kind of felt the same, because we had our furniture when we moved back to an apartment. But there was no spending money. So I had to figure out ways to make money to buy even just toys — things like that.

So, when we first moved, I started raking leaves in Buffalo. We moved sometime that summer. And then, when fall came, I got some jobs raking leaves. Then I figured, in my entrepreneurial skill, that now I could turn all those jobs into snow removal. I didn't think it through, because I was very little for my age. And when you rake leaves, there's no urgency, because you can take a week to go over ten homes and rake everybody's leaves, and everybody's happy. But when it snows in Buffalo, everybody expects their driveway and sidewalk shoveled that day. I couldn't do it on my own. And I had taken most of the jobs away from most of my friends.

One of my friends came to me who was very upset over the fact that he had lost the shoveling job to me. And so I hired him — and I think we got $0.50 to do a driveway and $0.25 to do a sidewalk. I took a cut. So, it was my first franchise business. And, more than likely, if we had stayed in Buffalo, I probably would have had this big snow removal business by now. But we moved to Florida just in the nick of time.

Ryan: Well, clearly, there's some snow removal king of Buffalo.

Michael: I'm sure there is. But I'm sure I would have gone head-to-head with him.

Ryan: I'm sure he would have been in trouble.

Michael: Yeah. We moved to Florida, and I was very fortunate. I went to work, at 13, for a guy named Irving Sattler who had a retail store called Darwin's. And, basically, I worked for him from the time I was 13 until I was 19.

Ryan: Well, you touched on it a little bit with your father's bankruptcy — but most entrepreneurs have some trauma, or a series of traumas, in their lives that lead them to have a drive to do the crazy life of being an entrepreneur. What are some of the traumas, besides your father's bankruptcy, that you think shaped your psychology into that of an entrepreneurial spirit?

Michael: Well, I can relate back to a story. I once asked the same question to my first real boss, Irving. I asked him why he was willing to take the risk. I didn’t even know the word ‘entrepreneur’ at the time. But I said, “Why were you willing to take the risk to go into your own business, as opposed to working for somebody else?” Because he was a very talented guy. And he said, “Every time I would apply for a job, people always wanted to ‘pay me what I was worth,’ and I wouldn't work for that little.”

Ryan: Haha. That's great. I completely relate to that sentiment.

Michael: And I think, in many ways, that's what kind of drove me to be an entrepreneur. It’s that I wanted to have control over my own destiny — whether it was making mistakes, and having to pick myself up and start over again — which you hope you don't do, but you know you're going to do. Because, as you know — I've read a little bit about you. The road to being successful is not a straight line, and it has lots of curves and lots of ups and downs. The question for being successful is how many times you’re willing to get back up. It's not a question of getting knocked down.

So, my entrepreneurial journey, I think, began even while I was working for Irving as a kid. I started out as a stock boy, but by the time I was 16, I was doing all the buying for the store and managing the store. I got that in my blood: the idea of being able to do something like that, and build your own business, and set your own destiny — whether the curves would be there or not — it just got me very, very excited. I promise you, though: I thought my life would be in the clothing business, because I loved it. And I was in it for a very, very long time — until I went into the cookie business, which I thought would be a temporary business. But again, I was very entrepreneurial. And Faith stepped in, and cookies became my destiny... until it became coffee.

Ryan: Well, I'm very interested in that, for a personal reason — which is that my mother makes probably the best cookies on the planet, and she always has. It’s not just that I would say that. Everybody who's ever had her cookies is like, “These are the greatest cookies I've ever had in my life.” She's made them for people's weddings, and all sorts of celebrations that people will say, “Hey, would you make 500 cookies?” And she'll do it just out of passion. It's amazing.

Michael: Maybe we're talking about a partnership here. Who knows?

Ryan: I mean, really. This woman really needs somebody to help her get into business in cookies — or at least take her recipes and run with it. I don't know if she's wired for entrepreneurship, but she's certainly wired to bless people with things that are baked with love and goodness, you know? She's an amazing mother, and a fabulous baker. But I'm not sure if she's naturally inclined to have the tenacity that it takes to succeed as an entrepreneur.

Michael: Well, also, let's remember this: if every great product made you a success, there'd be a lot more successful people. It's a lot more than just product that you have to deliver to consumers to become a success. Product is just a small part of it. In my book, I talk about the formula, which is a simple formula that I used at Caribou — which is: the letter P, plus the letter E, plus the letter S, like Sam, equals capital E, capital F — which stands for: product plus environment plus service equals the experience factor.

A lot of people forget the fact that you’ve got to deliver all three of those things, no matter what business you're in. It doesn't matter whether it's a product or a process; whatever it may be, you've got to try to deliver on all three of those principles to every single person, or they're going to find somewhere else to go, where they can get a better experience. Because, the truth is, whether you're in the retail business, the doctor business, the banking business, whatever it may be — people have lots of choices today, especially with the Internet, where everybody knows what every business is doing. You've got to deliver in a way that I would call ‘old school retailing,’ where people knew who you were, and your family; knew your birthdays, you’re your anniversaries, knew everything. And in a lot of ways, the Internet has given us the ability to do that in a much less expensive way than when I was a kid growing up.

Ryan: So, you were in the clothing business. How do you get inspired to go into the cookie business?

Michael: So, this was 1977. I had three young kids, and I was doing a lot of traveling. I was traveling about three days a week. The industry had dramatically changed. It was moving to Asia. And I knew that if I was going to stay in the clothing business, and the way I was, that I was going to have to start traveling overseas. And instead of being gone three days a week, I was going to have to be gone three weeks a month. I just didn't want to do that.

I had a clothing company at the time with a partner — coincidentally called the Great American Clothing Company. And I came back, after I was in California, and saw a cookie store in a mall. I basically decided I was going to get out of the clothing business, at least in the way I was in it — and that while I was figuring out what I was going to do, I was going to open a single cookie store, just so that I would have some income. But I never expected to be in the cookie business full time. I thought it would just be something I would do while I figured out what my real business was going to be.

We opened our first store at Perimeter Mall. And about six weeks after we opened the store, I was involved in a near-fatal motorcycle accident. I was told I would never walk normally again. Back then, there was no American Disability Act. I was on a walker for almost six months, and it took away any other opportunity I might have had. I didn't have enough money to start my own real business. So I had applied... not applied; I had a number of people asking me to come work for them. But back then, you couldn't go into somebody's office looking for a job on a walker, or crutches, or anything like that.

I had opened my first store, and I had started focusing on the business. By the time I was walking again, we had about 15 or 20 stores. I was still printing my business cards — literally, 50 at a time — because I was thinking I was going to go do something else. And I woke up one morning and realized, “Well, maybe this is what I'm supposed to do.”

So, from that point on, I continued just focusing on the business. And eventually, we took what was an $8,000 investment — my partner and I put up $4,000 to open our first cookie store; we borrowed $25,000. It's a whole story. To borrow $25,000, we had to put up every asset we owned, because nobody thought we could succeed in this crazy business. And we turned that $8,000 investment into the largest franchisor of cookie stores in the United States; into a $100 million business.

Ryan: That's incredible. When you say 100 million, is that a valuation, or is that revenues?

Michael: Revenue; it’s revenue for the company. We had about 400 stores when we sold the company, and they were averaging about $250,000 a year. Now they're probably averaging between $4 and $500,000 a year.

Ryan: Right. Because this company still exists.

Michael: Oh yeah. The company's 42 years old. We just celebrated... I'm sorry, the company is 43 years old. They just celebrated their 43rd anniversary on June 30th.

Ryan: Do you still own the company, or did you exit?

Michael: I sold the company in 98. I ran for the U.S. Senate in 1998. And all the polling indicated that I was going to win my U.S. Senate race. I thought the stars had all aligned, because we had a suitor come along to buy the company. And I learned a very valuable lesson. One is that the stars never really align — and two: that you can't trust polling — because I lost my U.S., Senate race.

That's how I wound up, three years later, taking over the reins of Caribou Coffee. I bought into the company to turn it around, and eventually we took it public. And then, eventually, we sold Caribou as well.

Ryan: Do you know how many times the Great American Cookie Company has sold since 1988?

Michael: Since 1998? Yeah. Three times.

Ryan: Was it private equity? Who was it the first time?

Michael: Yeah. Private equity bought it in ‘98 and almost ruined the company. They tried everything they could, I think, to try to ruin the company. But the franchise business we had built was so strong that, even with their tomfool theory about running the business, they couldn't stop its momentum. They wound up selling the company to a very good company, who really got in and believed in the brand, and worked really, really hard to reestablish it. And just this past year, it was sold one more time. The new owners are also doing a very, very good job of building on what my partner and I created.

Ryan: Who's the latest owner? Is that private equity as well?

Michael: Yeah. It's private equity. It's a company out of London. I think it's called Lion Capital. That was one of the investors. There's two partners; Lion and another company. They bought, actually, five different brands that were owned by the company that bought Great American. There's Marble Slab, and they have a pretzel company, and a number of other companies. So there's five brands.

But, like I said, they're doing a very good job of allowing the company to really build on what my partner and I created — which, again, I've told this to a number of people. It was never to build. We never thought we'd have 400 stores. The experience we wanted for customers was to just be in the very best cookie store they've ever been in — and if that was 10 stores, 20 stores, 50 stores or 400, when they walked away from the counter, they would know they had a great product and a great experience.

Ryan: What kind of franchise model was it? When I think of Chick-fil-A, I think the owners, or the local operators, of Chick-fil-A owned, like, 25% of the profits. Was this a model like that, or was this more of a McDonald's type of model?

Michael: So, the Chick-fil-A model is a very unique model. It's really not even a franchised model. I would say it's more of a partnership-type model. Ours is, I guess, similar to McDonald's. But we set the business up so that people would want to have multi-units. When we had 400 stores, we only had 60 franchisees. And most, you can see — almost all of them had more than one unit. Some had as many as 30. So, it was set up not to be what they call in the franchise industry ‘more like Subway,’ which is kind of a ‘buy a job’ franchise, where people generally own one. They may own two, but seldom do they own more than that. Ours was set up, from the very beginning, to be a multi-unit ownership.

Ryan: So, how did that work? Was there a buy-in? What was the financial structure?

Michael: Back when we started, the franchise fee was $15,000 plus 7% royalty. And by the time we sold the company in ‘98, that had gone to $25,000 for the franchise fee — and still a 7%, royalty. A lot of companies break it up. They'll do 6%, and then a 2% national advertising fee. We didn't do that. We just made it all 7%. And we never actually gave anybody a specific territory. We would give them a first right of refusal.

So, for instance, our franchisee that was out of Houston — he never really owned Houston, although he wound up opening every store around the Houston area and around Texas; all the various major cities around the state. Our franchisee in Dallas, as an example — they didn't have metro Dallas, but in fact wound up opening all the stores there. If they did a good job, we would give them the opportunity to buy more stores.

And the important thing about this was, we were so conscientious about protecting our brand. That's why we wouldn't just blatantly give somebody a territory. We didn't want a franchisee that maybe did a great job in the very beginning — and then they get to a second store, and you find out what their weaknesses might be. And then we were stuck with them having the territory. So we just never did that. We wound up giving them — again, if they had done a good job — we would offer them up the next location.

Ryan: So, this company that you started with eight grand and a loan — do you have any idea what it sold for the latest time, on a valuation basis?

Michael: No — because, like I said, there were five brands.

Ryan: Got it. So it's all lumped together.

Michael: Yeah. I would assume probably close to $1 billion; I would guess.

Ryan: Amazing.

Michael: Yeah. But really, honestly, Ryan — one of the things I just want to say is that one of the things I'm the most proud of — whether the company had 400 stores or a hundred stores — the fact that the company and the brand is 43 years old today is a pretty remarkable accomplishment — in any business you're in — to be able to say that you're 43 years old and continuing to grow. So, I'm really proud of what my partner and I did — especially considering the fact that neither one of us had any experience in the food business at all.

Ryan: Do you think that was an advantage — not having any experience?

Michael: Absolute, total advantage. Because there were already three major cookie companies when we started. By the time we hit 100 stores, all three of them were gone. They were already out of business. And that's because the three of them basically came out of the bakery industry. We didn't know anything about the bakery industry. I knew about retail. So we had lots of product, and lots of promotions, and friendly people with big smiles on their faces. We emulated our business very much on McDonald's: people smiling, very friendly.

If we were starting today, it would be the Chick-Fil-A model — which is, you have incredible customer service. I mean, if anyone has ever been to a Chick-Fil-A — the experience is identical in every single store that they operate. That's the kind of thing that we tried to do there, and also the same exact thing I tried to do at Caribou when I got there.

Ryan: So, when you sold the cookie company, did you feel like you could retire if you wanted? I mean, obviously, you were in the middle of a run for Senate. But was part of that run for Senate feeling independently wealthy?

Michael: Actually, that’s a very good question. Honestly, I've been interviewed a lot. No one's ever even asked me that. But I'll tell you this. What I always thought — starting out as a poor kid and having to work at a very early age — I always thought, if I could ever get myself into a financial position where I didn't have to work, I would want to just retire. And what I realized in ’98, when we sold the business — I actually found myself in a position, where I didn't have to work, that I loved working. I loved the idea of leading a team. I loved the idea of building a great customer service base and teaching that to people, the way Irving taught it to me. And I didn't want to retire.

I did some consulting after the cookie company. I've done a lot of nonprofit work, and I've been pretty successful with a lot of the nonprofit work that I've done. But it's not the same thing as building a business, and inspiring another generation of young people to work in business — and also to inspire them to be entrepreneurs on their own, and talk to them about the great value of being an entrepreneur.

Ryan: Did you approach politics like an entrepreneur?

Michael: I did. It was great. There's nothing better than campaigning on what you believe in, and not having to go look at polls to see what the people are thinking. You go out and campaign on the things that are important. Look: I never expected to run for office. But I got so disgusted with the system — with the fact that people seemed to be more interested in holding these political positions than they were about taking care of the real needs of the district or the state, or even the country. And the polarization, as you know, that exists now, since 98. You couldn’t cut it with a knife, it’s so thick.

And so, that was my reason for running. And when I lost in ‘98, one of the things I began to realize is that you still can make a big difference in your communities as a private citizen, and that I would reengage myself in the nonprofit world on the things that I really cared about. And, at the same time, I was going to look for business opportunities, and do them both.

One of the great things that happened with Caribou is — because we were a company that was located, as we continued to build the company, all over the country — we were able to engage ourselves and be good corporate citizens in all the all the cities that we were involved in. It was easier to do it at Caribou than it was at the cookie company, because basically, most of our stores were franchised, and it was up to the franchisees to decide the things they wanted to be involved in. But at Caribou, all of our stores, with the exception of nontraditional locations, were company-owned — and we could, in fact, get ourselves involved in those communities and be good corporate citizens.

Ryan: Well, what's the entrepreneurial genesis of Caribou, and how did you get involved in that?

Michael: Caribou was started by two entrepreneurs, the Pucketts, who are from Minneapolis. They were inspired. They loved the coffee business. They loved coffee. So, theirs is a great story.

They were in Alaska on a vacation, and they decided on that vacation that they were going to come back to Minneapolis, and they were going to open up a coffee shop. They were trying to think about what... and again, this is the story. I've talked to them. They've continued to maintain it's a true story. They were sitting on this mountainside drinking coffee, and a herd of caribou ran by. And they looked at each other at the same time and said ‘Caribou Coffee.’ So they decided they would create this lodge atmosphere — very different than what Starbucks was — and they would begin opening their first store in Minneapolis.

They had a partner in the first store; maybe a partner in many of the locations, as they took in partners to put up some of the money again — because they were all company-owned — to begin to develop the business. There were about 180 stores when I got there; when they sold the company two years earlier to private equity. But the company, after it was sold — there was no growth to the company.

I got hired by the owners of Caribou at the time, who were majority owners, to do a project to find out if they had made a bad deal, or whether or not the company really had some real value to it. So I started this project to give them an answer. And I made the crucial mistake of any consult — which is, I fell in love with the project. One of the reasons I fell in love with Caribou was, even though the company was not growing and wasn't going anywhere, it had a loyalty base that was like nothing I had ever experienced. Kind of like the Apple customer base. Apple would never have survived if it wasn't for the fact that their customers loved Apple; loved the fact that it was not, you know, Microsoft — and they were evangelists. This was a ‘brand religion.’

Harley-Davidson: another example. A company that didn't have the greatest mechanical engines compared to what was going on out of the Japanese companies — but their customer base was so loyal. They didn't want anybody riding anything but a Harley. Caribou was kind of the same way. Even though the company was not consistent in its customer service, it had this tremendous loyalty base.

The way I finally came to realize it: in this survey, I realized, after going to about 25 or 30 stores, almost every store I went into, someone would walk in with a Caribou baseball cap or a Caribou t-shirt. Yeah; I saw plenty of caribou mugs, just like you'd see Starbucks mugs. But then and now, I have never seen anyone wearing a Starbucks baseball cap, or a Starbucks t-shirt. I realized that these customers were so loyal to the brand. And I got so excited about the idea of working with a ‘brand religion,’ something I had never gotten the opportunity to do. So I came back to Atlanta, and basically worked a deal with the current owners to buy in, and then step in in January of 2003 and become the CEO of the company.

Ryan: How long did you stay there?

Michael: I ran the company as CEO for five years; to 2008. I took the company public in September of 2005. We turned it around to the point where we actually had real growth, and were showing continuation of growth, that we were able to actually go on Nasdaq with a public offering. And then I stepped down as CEO in 2008, because that was the deal: I would stay for five years. I stayed on the board until we sold the company in 2012.

Ryan: So, 2008 — that was the year that the Atlanta Film Tax Credit was passed.

Michael: No; they passed the first one when I was head of the film commission in 2001. It was HB-610. That was the first tax incentive bill for the film industry that ever was passed. There's been two since. We wrote the second one, which... I don't remember exactly. I think it was passed in, maybe, 2004, 2005. And then there was a third one that has now been passed.

You can see what's happened to the industry. I mean, when I took it over, we had less than $200 million in economic impact. That included commercials and, in those days, music videos and the whole music business. We had about 200 million in economic impact. We passed that bill. And when I left, four years later, we were over a billion in economic impact. Today, it's 12 to 13 billion in economic impact.

I just hope that the legislatures today realize the real benefits of that incredible industry, and don't do anything to mess it up — because they did it once before, back in the early 70s, after Carter, when he was governor, created the industry. Other states began to realize what a great business it was, and started doing things to attract the business. Georgia went from... I think, at the time, it was number three in the United States — and dropped all the way down to, like, 12 or 15 when I took it over.

Ryan: Well, for many years right now, Georgia's been number one in the English speaking world — which is pretty incredible.

Michael: Right. That’s great.

Ryan: So, tell me about the original inspiration, and the conversations around that tax credit that was in 2001. And how is that one structured? Because I don't know a lot about that one.

Michael: Okay. So, in 1999, after I lost my U.S. Senate race, Governor Barnes and I had been very good friends for a really long time. He called me up, and he said, “I know you want to be a U.S. senator, but I could use your help in our administration. Is there something you'd like to do?” And I remember the conversation. I said to him, “Is there still a film commission?” Because it had gone from being a viable mission to just virtually no board any longer; no more meetings. The business was just dying. Basically, the only thing that Georgia was making at the time in the way of full-featured films were things that were specific about Georgia, like the civil rights movement and things like that. There were a couple oddities to that, but basically that's what it was.

So he said, “We have a film commission, but it's not been very active.” I said, “Well, that's what I'd like to do.” And I had no experience, again, in the film business. But I loved movies. And I loved the movies that had been made early in Georgia. And so I met with Greg Torry, who was the executive director there — you know, the paid guy for the state. We sat down at a restaurant and started talking about what needs to happen to turn the industry around. And I remember — I'll never forget this. He said to me, “We’ve just got to figure out how to bring more business here.”

I said to him, “Greg, you're asking the wrong question. If all these other states are doing all these great things for the film industry, the question you should be asking is not ‘how do we get more business here?’ We’ve got to figure out: why does anybody come here, if that's the case?” I said, “Once we figure out what our strength is, then we can figure out how to build upon it.”

So I embarked, literally on a cross-country education project for myself — going to the states that had taken the business away and figuring out what they had done to do it. And then I went around the state after I began to really understand the kind of economic impact the industry could have. I started educating not just legislators, but the business communities; all these various cities around the state — talking about what it meant when you had a movie like Forrest Gump. After the movie was done, Savannah had Forrest Gump bus rides. And where The Dukes of Hazzard was filmed. What the ‘long legs’ of those movies could be — not just the economic impact at the moment.

I did that because, when we created the first bill, I wanted to make sure that the legislatures were going to get so much pressure from their communities that they would have the vote to do it — because the communities were starving to bring that kind of economic impact to their communities. So, we got the first one passed, like I said, in, 2001. And we began to write the second one, which was a much broader and bigger tax credit. I wasn't around to see that passed, but I feel like we had some involvement in getting it done. And then another one has passed since then.

Ryan: Well, the industry has exploded.

Michael: Oh, yeah. It’s amazing.

Ryan: And the foundation — that tax credit foundation — was essential. Right? That's the only reason we can compete against the UK and Canada, and really go toe to toe with those two major countries and win, as a state.

Michael: Yeah. And again: I just hope that there's enough people out there that continue to talk to the legislature in making them understand how important this is to this state. This is not giving away tax money. It is, by far, gaining tax revenue — from all the ancillary things that the film industry impacts when people are making these films. Rental car companies. Hotels.

I don't have to tell you; you know. I mean, you're involved in this. You see what it does. You see the kind of impact that it can have, all over the state. And that's the beauty of this. This is a clean industry. It's nonpolluting. It’s high paying jobs. It's skilled labor. I mean, it's all the things that you would want to create for your state. Hopefully, they will continue to see the benefit.

Ryan: Well, at this point, we have arguably the best infrastructure outside of Los Angeles in the English-speaking world. Since 2014, when Pinewood was delivered by Dan Cathy, there's been 100 soundstages built in total. Los Angeles has about 350 soundstages. It took them 100 years to build those 350 soundstages. And Georgia has built 100 in 6 years.

The amount of infrastructure, paired with this great tax credit and all of the crew base, puts us in a place where we have an incredible opportunity to compete and continue to win — frankly, because we have such a lower cost of living, and inexpensive land that would allow us to even grow — which is not true for our competitors in London, Toronto, Vancouver, New York, or LA.

Our positioning is fantastic, but all of it is tied to that tax credit. So it does have a certain feeling — an ominous feeling — that requires the legislature to always stay in tune, and the governor to always stay in tune with the impact that has been built, really, over 20 years; just accelerating over 20 years. And it could be easy for people to take that for granted. So it's interesting to hear the early genesis of this from your perspective.

Michael: Yeah. And I will tell you: it can disappear overnight. I mean, it really can. I think all the things you just said are very important. It would make it harder for it to go away. But, like I tell people when I give talks: if you think about it this way, your competition is going to be looking at what you're doing. And for them to know that they can do better than you, your success and all the things you've done is their starting point.

So, if we have soundstages, they'll know they have to build them. In other words, you can go down the list of all the things that have made Georgia what it is. Anybody that wants to compete with Georgia is going to know they have to do all of that. That's what I had to figure out. We had to figure out: what are the things we actually need to become competitive in this industry? So we got to look at what other states were doing, and that became our starting point. We knew, just to get in the game, we had to at least equalize that playing field.

And so, the legislature has got to understand — and there needs to be people talking to them all the time — about the real tax revenue benefits to the state by continuing to have this industry; for it to be alive, and be stronger than it even is today. This is not about holding it where it is. It's about continuing to grow it, and make it bigger, and bring more people here. More of the types of things that are so beneficial for the state. Not to just say, “Oh, well, we'll live on our laurels here.”

Ryan: It’s funny; listening to you, you have so much experience of business. I encourage the politicians in the state of Georgia to understand that we have all the momentum. And when you have momentum in sports or business or whatever it is, then you just press on the gas — because when you have the momentum, you can't let up. Maintaining the momentum is how you win definitely, right? You win by five touchdowns instead of winning by a field goal at the end of the game. But you can’t rest on your laurels. Otherwise, momentum can shift very quickly.

Michael: Right. There’s a great expression: the hardest thing on your laurels is resting on them. And the one thing that Georgia has to do — which they always encourage people in a race not to do, but in this case, it's an important thing to do — you’ve got to look in your rearview mirror and see what's coming, because you’ve got to stay ahead of that. You just have to be able to do that, and know that there are people.

I remember, when I was working for Irving as a kid, we had this incredibly busy Saturday. It was the biggest Saturday in the history of the store. I was probably 15. And I remember, after — the store was the biggest mess you've ever seen. We had stuff laying everywhere, because we had been mobbed. I remember we finally closed up at 7:00, and we were cleaning up this mess. I looked across at Irving, and I said, “You know what? These people love us. We own them.” And Irving looked at me and said, “Kid, we don't own anything. There's 50 people standing on the sidelines trying to take this business away from us. We have to do this good job better every single day to hold those people — because they’ve got plenty of choices.” And I think that's Georgia.

Ryan: Oh, absolutely. I think about this all the time. I mean, I know that there are 49 other states that wish they had our infrastructure, crew base, tax credit, and momentum in the entertainment industry — because, as you said, it's one of the industries that can grow and grow and grow and have nothing but positive impact on an economy and an environment, etc.

So, when I'm looking at your book, Time to Get Tough, it really sounds like it's a book of virtues — or stories about virtue. Even when you're talking about your former boss, who said “We’ve got to just keep pushing; we’ve got to be looking. We’ve got to know that people are going to try to take our business.” These are perspectives that are really like the virtues of business. Is that a good sense of what that book is about?

Michael: So, here's what I would say. One: I did not write this book at all to brag about my career, which I've been very blessed with. I wrote this book to inspire other people to do more than they possibly may have thought they could — to get them out of their safe spot, and reach out for more. That's the purpose of the book. And the book is full of things that went wrong. That's what it's full of.

You know, as the great amateur golfer Bobby Jones once said, “I never learned anything from a tournament I won.” And I think that, in life itself — whether it's about business, relationships, whatever it may be — it's always the things that don't go the way you expect that that define the difference between success and failure. It's how you deal with the unexpected.

There’s a great story in the book about our opening day of the Cookie Company, where we virtually almost burned Perimeter Mall down. On opening day, we literally had caught the oven on fire, based on our lack of knowledge. And that could have been the end of the business right there. It’s how you deal with those unexpected moments that allows you to be successful. So that's what my book is all about.

Ryan: Do you think you can teach that kind of resilience to uncertainty?

Michael: I think you can try to do it. I'm saying that it's hard for a lot of people to believe that they can get back up again — which is why... Look, let's face it. Not everybody in the world wants to be an entrepreneur. Not everybody in the world wants to know that, every morning they wake up, there's all this risk. But on the other hand, there's risk in just about everything. We've seen that today. There are people right now that probably thought they had pretty secure careers whose careers are very, very, undetermined at this point, based on what's going on.

I taught a class up at Kennesaw State University. I taught a class on entrepreneurship, called, “Concept to Counter.” It was basically, how do you take an idea from an idea all the way to the marketplace? And the class was full of young people who were trying to learn about entrepreneurship. I think that not everyone needs to be an entrepreneur. Not everybody wants to be an entrepreneur. But I think that those who have that spark — that can be inspired and understand. And I guess, again, I'm going to repeat what I just said: that there's no straight road to success. It just doesn't exist, unless maybe you got lucky with some “dot-com” thing that you did back in the early 2000s.

But for most people, there's a lot of struggle. I frankly don't know any really successful entrepreneur that has not had some setbacks that they had to overcome. And if you can't overcome it it becomes very difficult. I think that, for me, I've had more than my share of setbacks. But I think, in a lot of ways, those setbacks have kept my juices flowing. Knowing that I was going to make mistakes, but I was going to try to never make the same mistake.

Ryan: But do you think that kind of adventuring; that kind of exploring; that kind of personality that's driven to have imagination and experiment... Do you think that that can be infused in someone, or does someone just have an entrepreneurial spirit or not?

Michael: Well, look; I didn't go to medical school. But I would say that I think you either... whether it's to become an entrepreneur, or to be an artist, or to do a lot of different things that is virtually where you're doing it on your own — whether it's entrepreneurship, or as I said, an artistic ability. People that go out to do that have to have that, I think, inside them.

I don't know that that can be taught. I don't know that you can teach that to people. I think there has to be that kind of furnace that's already there — and maybe you have to put some logs in that furnace to get the heat going. And I think that comes from affirmation of things that happened along the way that make you feel like you're getting somewhere.

One of the things I talk about in my book is that the biggest killer of people going after a big goal is not setting intermediate goals along the way — because you get very discouraged. If I had started out the cookie company and said I wanted to have 400 stores, and that was my goal, and on the first day, I almost burnt Perimeter Mall down, I don't know that I would have had a second day. Because I would have said, “Well, that's it; it's over.” But I've had enough experience in my life to know that things just don't always go the way you want. I think you do have to have that inner fire to get started. And then I think you have to have the ability to keep stoking that fire to keep going. I don't know if you can teach people that.

Ryan: Yeah. You seem to have the kind of spirit that loves the struggle. Is that fair?

Michael: I don't know. I would say this: I used to think that I wanted my life less complicated. My wife would always say to me, “I think you like your life complicated. You like to be under this kind of stress.” And I was in denial about it for a long time, until I realized she was right. I do. I like it. I like the stress. I like to see things that are a problem and try to figure out how to solve them.

I do that now in the nonprofit world. I do a little bit of business consulting. But the truth is, I work a lot in the nonprofit area. And I think what I'm fairly good at is trying to get to the crux of an issue and figure out a straight line to fixing it — as opposed to a lot of people who don't have that straight line to figuring out what the problem is. So yeah; I think I do like that. I think I like the turmoil. And I thought, at this point in my life, I would just be spending all my time doing things that didn't create it. But if you play golf — I mean, it's a struggle every time you go out

Ryan: You’d better love the struggle if you like to golf.

Michael: Yeah. It's right.

Ryan: Or, you’d better love the struggle if you like to cycle in the mountains of Wyoming.

Michael: Yeah. All of those things are things that are really good for you. One of the things I try to tell people in athletics is that an incredible way to feel is that you've done something good for yourself; that you've rewarded yourself. People do need to reward themselves to be able to keep going. So, one of the things I say: if you're a runner, and you go out and run five miles in a day, just think about how many people in the world didn't do that. You can feel really good about something you accomplished.

There's not always days in business — and you know this, Ryan. There's not days in business every single day where you can say, “Gosh, this was a great day.” But if you can go out and do something every day that a lot of people won't have the fortitude to do, you can feel pretty good about yourself and be ready to face the next day.

Ryan: I would say that most days in the entrepreneurial business life are not good days, right? It's the rare good day.

Michael: Right. And the higher up you go in, I would say, the ‘food chain’ of being an executive in an entrepreneurial world, you're hit with more of the problems. When you're kind of in the throes of doing something, you might satisfy a customer. But I know, being a CEO... well, I remember what my job has always been like. My job was everybody bringing their fire to me, and my job was being the fireman and trying to figure out how to put the fire out — but more importantly, how to prevent that fire from occurring. That's really what entrepreneurship is, the higher up you go.

Ryan: I agree with that. The analogy that I will often share with young men and women who come to me and talk to me about all their entrepreneurial dreams: I say, “Now, remember, in my opinion, being an entrepreneur is like someone who lived in in Northern Europe years ago on a beautiful farm, and stared out at the ocean and said, ‘I wonder what's out there? What if I just got in a boat, gathered some of my buddies, and we sailed or rode to another island, and we just mixed it up and saw what kind of life we could make.’”

I mean, these were the Vikings, right? These were guys who just stared at open ocean and saw adventure and opportunity and struggle. And they wanted that. They didn't want to stay behind and farm the land. So, I'll tell people all the time. I’ll say, “Listen. If you don't have the kind of wanderlust, and the kind of desire to struggle that is required of someone paddling into the open ocean without a map, then you probably are not wired to have happiness as an entrepreneur.”

Michael: Boy, that's a great analogy. Yeah. I agree with that 100%.

Ryan: Well, Michael, we're out of time. You’re fantastic. What a fun conversation. I really loved it. Thanks for being on the Blackhall Podcast today.

Michael: I appreciate being here. And if anybody is interested, my website is michaelcoles.com. I would love to share more conversation with you all. Thanks again for having me. And I look forward to talking with you again, perhaps sometime, Ryan.

Ryan: I was going to ask you about social media. Do you have any social media?

Michael: Facebook and LinkedIn and Instagram. And again, my website — which we literally just redesigned — has a lot of information; a number of podcasts, webinars. It has a link to getting my book. And, by the way, the book — all of the proceeds from the book — go to Kennesaw State University's foundation. So I don't make any money on the book.

Ryan: Is the book on Amazon?

Michael: It is on Amazon and on Kindle as well.

Ryan: I love it. I'm going to pick it up right now. That was so enjoyable. God, I love talking to long-time entrepreneurs who have lived this life. Michael, thanks for the time. Have a wonderful afternoon.

Michael: Thank you.

Ryan: I'm Ryan Millsap, and this is the Blackhall Studios Podcast.

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Ryan: Putting an exclamation point on the end of each podcast, I share inspirational sayings that I write and share on Instagram. “I cannot show you the way there, but you have all the tools within you to absolutely find it.”

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Thanks for listening to the Blackhall Studios Podcast with Ryan Millsap. We want to hear from you! Find us on SoundCloud, iTunes or Spotify, and follow us on Instagram at @Ryan.Millsap.