SHOW TRANSCRIPT

 

 

[00:00:03] Speaker 1 Hey, this is John Jorgenson, and welcome to another episode of the Go with John Show. We launched the Go to John show in November of Twenty Twenty. The truth of the matter is we actually started planning this show back in 2013 and just the world has been so crazy and business has been so hectic, we never had time to really get it off the ground. And when covid came along, it was the perfect opportunity for us to seize on the moment. It’s now mid twenty, twenty one and we have about 30 episodes under our belt. We thought it would be fun to go back and highlight some of the funny moments from these first 30 episodes. I’m also going to provide a little bit of insight into each clip, so let’s get started. So the first clip is Jeff Detweiler and he tells us a story about when he thought he was getting punched. In this clip, the CEO of Long and Foster Companies, Jeff Detweiler, talks about the first week he was in the office and how he felt like somebody was playing an elaborate prank on him.

 

[00:01:19] Speaker 2 Can I tell you one story and any story, so, yeah, so when I first took the job, yeah, West was having a bout with headaches. He he suffered from migraines and particularly at the beginning when I got there. And I think I don’t I don’t think I saw him for the first 60 days when I got to work because he was just really under the weather and not feeling right. So he wasn’t coming in. There was another guy that was here that was in late left early. You know, that was just his traffic pattern. He’d been with West forever from the beginning. George Eastman and and then the guy that was the president of long and phosphor companies before I was there, Dave Stevens had been nominated to

 

[00:02:05] Speaker 1 president of Mortgage Bank Wells, FHA, FHA.

 

[00:02:08] Speaker 2 I don’t think that’s right. And so he was being he was going through the confirmation style. So I think it had been like kind of six months since Dave was really here. So the what comes to mind as the saying is when when the cat’s away. Yes. The mice

 

[00:02:22] Speaker 1 will play. Right.

 

[00:02:23] Speaker 2 So we had recently, you know, about probably two years earlier, moved into the long and phosphor headquarters in Chantilly. George Cardinal George Calaway, enormous building, has an enormous parking garage connected to it. Thirteen hundred parking spaces, because from what I understand, as long and Foster had to move to times prior into new buildings because ran out of parking spaces and said, I’m never going to run out a parking space. Right. And so he got thirteen hundred parking spaces and we had this. We were the only tenants in this five story building. Right. Something like three hundred fifty thousand square feet, you know, enormous. You’ve seen it, but not everybody has seen it. But just any notion of massive

 

[00:03:08] Speaker 1 structure, the folks that drive up and down. Twenty eight, it’s the huge building that looks like a giant house. It’s a commercial colonial look. Exactly.

 

[00:03:15] Speaker 2 Williamsburg Colonial. I think it has the record for the most bricks in the state of Virginia, something

 

[00:03:21] Speaker 1 like that as to its.

 

[00:03:22] Speaker 2 And so so I start work there and I and on the interior of it, there is this area of how the building was designed in an executive area. And so it was really only West myself and this other gentleman, George Eastman, that had offices in that executive area. And it was kind of cordoned off to everything else. Well, you know, West wasn’t coming in. George was coming in kind of late. Yeah. And every morning I would drive in early. New job. Right. I get there at like 7:00. Yeah, I drive in. There wasn’t a single car in that thirteen hundred slot parking structure. Yeah. I would walk into the building and up from the second floor to the fourth floor wouldn’t see a soul and the same thing. I’d leave, I’d stay there till maybe seven thirty at night just pouring through kind of reports and books and things like that. Same thing. Wouldn’t see a soul, wouldn’t see a single car in it. So I’m getting towards the end of the week, started on Monday. It’s now Thursday. And I haven’t seen but two people in the building. There were two people that would come down and just bring information to you and fill it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I don’t think there was any food. I don’t think I was eating anything. And and they would just pile stuff on on my desk. And I called my wife on Thursday afternoon and I said, You’re going to think I’m crazy. Mary do you remember John? Do you remember the show punkt? Asheton Yeah. Sure, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know where they play these, like, elaborate tricks. Yeah. I said to my wife, I said, I think I’m on punkt. I think they rented out this big empty office building and there’s nobody here. And they, and they, they, they hired me. And here’s this guy Detweiler that’s sitting in this office all alone, and he thinks he’s running this big, huge company with ten thousand agents and a thousand or 2000 employees. And there’s there’s nobody here. Yeah, nobody here. So it wasn’t until, like the tenth business day that I actually saw somebody other than these two people. And I realized it’s it’s a little bit different now.

 

[00:05:28] Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Oh, no. And now it’s back to empty again because it is exactly right.

 

[00:05:32] Speaker 2 Yes, it is back to empty. Yeah.

 

[00:05:34] Speaker 1 So everything old is new again.

 

[00:05:36] Speaker 2 That’s right. It’s just like bell bottoms. I’m still waiting for elephant

 

[00:05:40] Speaker 1 bottoms to come back. Right. Oh Jesus. Ed shoe dell BMW. This clip is both funny and a good Lassard edge. Tudela Vargus title shares his experience at the BMW headquarters in Germany.

 

[00:05:58] Speaker 3 BMW is launching the new M3 at the time. This is ten years ago and I really want to go drive it. And it was an event pushed aside called Got Invited. And then one day we’re at the track. Well, actually, the night before that we had a dinner. So there’s 40 of us. A Nürburgring and jury Norge Slipher and everyone’s going around the table and they’re asking them their favorite car. Yeah, what’s your favorite car? You guys talking this M5 next guy’s 911 turbo Ferrari. So a lot of wealthy guys get to me and I said my my B and the table. Forty people just got quiet. They all work. And I go, Haxby. I said, yeah, my psionics be as title had little box mobiles. Yeah. I said, why, why would you pick that car. I said, I can fit in it, I can park it anywhere in D.C.. Yeah, it’s great gas mileage. And you know what, my skills are better than the car, but on the high end cars, I seriously doubt anyone here can exceed the performance of the car. Next day, we’re at the north, we’re walking by the BMW testing building and they come around the corner and there’s all these TV or movie cameras and productions and booms and lights. I thought, wow, that film in the commercial. And Martin Burkeman with BMW and products, he goes, Edwarda, ya come here. And he’s like, everyone else, go in now. My name is German Swiss. We see a studio, but it should be Shuto so we should all come here. And he said, This is Miss So-and-so, this is her production team, OK, because we want you in a commercial. I said, why me? Because you’re honest. Yes. Said Yeah. How so? He goes, because no one admits to liking A Psionics B And then I did videos and they used my voice for the launch of the car. That’s great.

 

[00:07:42] Speaker 4 And it was a lot of fun. You know,

 

[00:07:43] Speaker 1 I think and there’s a really important lesson in there. You know, if if you’re if you just be yourself and and be honest with folks, sometimes good things will happen.

 

[00:07:55] Speaker 3 Yeah, I agree. Everyone has a story and you got to let them know your story so they know who you are and you got to learn their story.

 

[00:08:01] Speaker 1 Right. So if you had just said something like everybody else, I would have just been part of the crowd.

 

[00:08:06] Speaker 3 I would have been. But another guy there, they really are cool. Yeah. Yeah. So it was very, very good. Yeah.

 

[00:08:18] Speaker 1 Boomer Foster talking about football in this hilarious clip, Boomer Foster, president of Long and Foster Real Estate, shares one of his college football experiences and how the opposing team did everything they could to intimidate them before the game. So let’s let’s talk a little more about football, so let’s go. Tell me tell me the nineteen ninety one story where you were in the locker room. Florida.

 

[00:08:49] Speaker 5 Florida State.

 

[00:08:50] Speaker 1 Florida State. Yep.

 

[00:08:51] Speaker 5 Yeah. So in 1991, South Carolina was not yet in the SCC. My freshman year, it was their last year of us being independent. So we played Georgia Tech and Duke and Virginia Tech and West Virginia and and Clemson. And a lot of these teams were not SCC teams, but so but in ninety one, Florida state was a different team than they are today. They were in the middle of about an 18 year run of finishing in the top five in the country. So these guys were absolutely no joke. They were full grown men. Right. Who and I’m 18 years old. Right. They are full grown men who the vast majority of whom in the two days before their state were about to go play and get paid for playing on Sundays. Right. So so we went down to Florida State, you know, and we didn’t have a lot of expectations. I think it was probably the second or third game of our year. And Doug Campbell Stadium was not what it is today. Today it holds eighty five thousand. Back then, it was it was a bunch of bleachers, fifty something thousand people. But they were smart because they put the student section on top of the visitor’s locker room. And if anybody knows for, say, Florida State or the Seminoles. So done. No, no, no. They do the chop and all of that stuff. And on top of the and they’ve got Chief Osceola, who comes out with a spear and he’s riding a horse before the game in the spears’ blaming. And he looks at you in the horse, rears up and he pounds the spear into the middle of the Seminole. And then you’re looking around going, this is not good. You know, so even worse, though, I’m just telling you, we’re sitting in there before the game. I’m eighteen years old. A year before I was playing in front of a few hundred people, maybe a thousand on a good night. Right. And we’re about to go play the number two team in the country. And the studio section, like I said, was on top of the visitor’s locker room. And there’s these. It’s essentially a bletch, a bunch of bleachers. And with their feet before the game, they start doing the Indian the drum ward drum chant thing. There’s a bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump up with their feet on top of the visitor’s locker room. And I’m looking around going, oh, they’re going to kill us. And, you know, and everybody else is kind of looking around and I’m thinking, you know, this is on national television. We’re about to go get embarrassed. I’m sure that my ex-girlfriend from high school is going to watch with great glee as we’re taking apart the number two team in the country. And my mind was that right? I normally tell that story. And that’s from the context of getting your mind right, because the coach walks into the locker room as Sparky Woods at the time and he looks around and he goes, get your mind right, boys, get your mind right. And I’m going, this is really difficult to get your mind right in this situation. So we went out there and I remembered it wrong. I actually looked it up this morning how bad we got beat because I thought we were relatively close because it felt close. But they beat us like thirty eight to 14 for us. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

 

[00:11:39] Speaker 1 So so so how, how did you manage to get your mind right. Did you get your mind right or did you just go out there quaking in

 

[00:11:47] Speaker 5 your will tell you that. I’m not sure that I had to necessarily get my mind as right. I did play on on as a tight end and that and not just on special teams. I got a pass and the moment I caught it and there weren’t a whole lot of running because I wasn’t very fast. And if I caught it in the touchdown or in the end zone, that’s how I scored a touchdown. There wasn’t a lot of running into the end zone for me. Right. But I caught a pass and ran about two yards and some linebacker running a forfour planted his helmet into my ribs and I had to scrape up the side of my my I had so I left limping. But.

 

[00:12:20] Speaker 1 And your dad was there. Oh, I should tell

 

[00:12:22] Speaker 5 you, you’re not hurt. Well, it’s funny because my mom’s from Florida and her family was there and, you know, she’s a gator, but her brother and sister are Florida State fans. So, you know, they’re looking at as we’re coming out after the game and, you know, they’re looking at us with such sympathy, I’m like, I’m just glad I’m still alive. Right. OK, don’t feel bad for me. I’m glad we’re not dead. Yeah. Yeah.

 

[00:12:50] Speaker 1 Tom Mitchell talking about apples, yes, apples in this clip, a long time friend of mine and business owner Tom Mitchell talks about his time selling apples and how his stock was depleted in a matter of hours

 

[00:13:07] Speaker 6 at a warehouse with probably 15000 pounds of apples that were going bad. It was in June, I think, and this is my third load or something like that. But it was time to exit stage right at that point. It’s pretty obvious to me that I wasn’t enjoying myself and I wasn’t making money. So yeah. And luckily I had total flexibility on lease and it was all flexible. So the Grateful Dead was in town and I leave for like an hour and a half because you know what’s amazing? I had all these apples and I started calling all these nonprofit groups, come and get it, come and get it. And none of these nonprofits even had ways to get the apples. And and so I didn’t have a reefer truck, which was definitely was came in handy. But we had no way at that point because I liquidated I sold the reefer truck and I was exiting. I had no way to get them the apples. But the Grateful Dead was in town and the manager I had working with me. Put the word out, and when I came to my office that afternoon, there were boxes on the street everywhere, these people from the dead concerned,

 

[00:14:23] Speaker 2 they cleaned out my entire warehouse in

 

[00:14:26] Speaker 4 two hours.

 

[00:14:27] Speaker 6 So I don’t know. I’m like,

 

[00:14:29] Speaker 1 what do you think? They had the munchies.

 

[00:14:31] Speaker 6 I was I was a little pissed because the guy didn’t the manager didn’t ask my permission right where we wanted to go. Right. But I was I was a little pissed about it. Yeah. You know, I mean, I did that’s probably a grand and apples and maybe I could have given it to someone myself or but yeah, they were cleared out in a matter of an hour or two. The Grateful Dead

 

[00:14:53] Speaker 1 at the cab center must have been the cab center then.

 

[00:14:56] Speaker 6 And but everybody in all the motels, they just write all natural apples, just eaten, even know they’re gone.

 

[00:15:07] Speaker 1 Mike Thornburg, Space Patches, this is one of my favorites, I got to tell you in this next clip, another long time friend of mine, Michael Thornburg, shares a story about how he went above and beyond at a mailing facility to make sure his client got their patches on time. This clip also provides some behind the scenes insight to the kinds of things business owners have to sometimes do in order to keep their clients happy. So now we’re three a.m. Monday morning.

 

[00:15:39] Speaker 4 We’re three a.m. Monday morning. I go to the Valero gas station. I’m just I’m done walking around like a father, wait for a baby to be born yet to go over the UPS facility to find this box with these patches. Goguryeo had been tracked their last scan and knew was there. And I was fearful that the trucks, whatever, that leave the USPS facility would go out and I’d lose it. So.

 

[00:15:59] Speaker 1 So you’re at the Valero gas station? Yeah.

 

[00:16:01] Speaker 4 And who do you run? So there’s a few officers there, just kind of a police officer, police officer shooting.

 

[00:16:06] Speaker 1 And you knew you were getting ready to commit a crime?

 

[00:16:09] Speaker 4 Yeah, I mentioned the gentleman’s name. Who was flying into space. Yeah, I told him his life story. I was like, he’s got five hundred patches over there, one mile away at that distribution facility. And you taught him how I’m going to get him. And you may be getting a call. You told the cops. I told the police officers there. I was like, look, I’m going over there. I mean, I have that. You understand? I was I’m desperate. I have to have these patches. Yeah. They were actually kind of helpful. And they said, well, one of them knew somebody that worked in the in the sorting. Yeah. And they said they do get there like three, three thirty in the morning to do their sorting. Right. For the rest of staff come in. Right. So even told me the time the employees go in. So that was like great news. So I like sweet. I’m using this to go in the employee entrance like three o’clock in the morning. So I said, well, if you get a call or something, you know, it’s about I have to have these patches. Once I had the patches, I don’t care what happens to me. I just got to have these patches, like, please, just and so it was kind of tongue in cheek. So I had a rental car I headed over to. The U.P.S. facility is like three thirty four in the morning. Right. I went of the employee entrance. I told they kind of see me in there. I don’t have a badge or anything like that.

 

[00:17:16] Speaker 1 And the man would you do with your car? You had a rental car.

 

[00:17:18] Speaker 4 So I took the rental car. Actually, I was fearful that these trucks were going to leave and they might have my patches. And this because the customer is sending like a a person with a Moscow passport. They were on there flying down to meet me, assuming I’m going to track down these patches. Right. And so I had to have these patches right. So I took the rental car and I blocked the exit where the tractor trailers leave. Right. I was just fearful. I don’t know what happened. Maybe they were scanned there. Maybe they’re in this truck. Maybe they leave. And so I blocked the exit where the tractor trailers leave. The sought to head out to the local distribution places. Right. Maybe head back to other places so nobody can leave. They’re not in the patches. Can’t possibly there. I’ll just so like this, I was going to check these patches and so I, I head over to the facility. I start freaking them out. Finally the manager was like, you got to get out of here. And I was like, well, can I come back and help look for the patches? Like, you understand, I got to I told the story. I was like, I got to have these patches. I got to have these patches. So she calls the police because I because I wouldn’t leave. Right. They come over

 

[00:18:26] Speaker 1 now. Was it the same cops that were at the border?

 

[00:18:28] Speaker 4 I didn’t recognize the police officers, but I think they had known about the story. So they must have talked. Yeah. Yeah, I didn’t I didn’t read radios. Yeah. Yeah. I didn’t recognize in the police officers came over. Right. But they they actually took me and said, sir, you’re going to have to like they must have known the manager because. Yeah. So you’re going to have to leave the facility. They escorted me out, move your rental car and and they didn’t arrest me but they escorted me like with me. Got me out of facility. Right. Maybe move my car and exit the premises. The manager said, I have your cell phone. No, I’m going to call you as soon as we find these patches. Right. I was like, please, please, please. Just yeah. I’d be sitting over there and the police officer says, why don’t you head over to that, you know, over the gas station and wait for her call back to the Valero. And then finally, I got yeah. Finally eventually, like 6:00 in the morning, they found him and I opened up in front of the whole staff at UPS. It’s like a it’s like a huge celebration to wait. And I got to tell you, open that box, making sure they weren’t missing the business, right?

 

[00:19:29] Speaker 1 Yeah, they were misprinted.

 

[00:19:31] Speaker 4 Oh, my God. Oh, that’s a whole nother thing, right? Oh, the wrong color. Please have the spelling and everything on. OK, so I grabbed the patches and I head over to the airport. Yeah. Houston and I meet the the envoy that’s I hand them to him. Yeah. Escort him to the tarmac. Yeah. Watch this.

 

[00:19:49] Speaker 1 But away. What did they buy you. A ticket.

 

[00:19:53] Speaker 4 They bought me back then. It was, it was you’re allowed to go through the ticketing. You came and get on to the, to the. I actually I think I bought the ticket

 

[00:20:01] Speaker 1 to the flight to Moscow.

 

[00:20:02] Speaker 4 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no. I just bought a ticket to get. I bought a cheap ticket somewhere to get on that concourse so I could go with them and physically watch the plane take off, which I did to the wind. That’s dedication. I just like you don’t go through all that. Like you just

 

[00:20:18] Speaker 1 have them gets you have the envoy missed the flight

 

[00:20:22] Speaker 4 or something. And as he left, I called them and said, hey, he’s taken off his flight. Yeah. And so that was and really you don’t really get. Too much out of that, but I made a client tremendously happy, I mean, they don’t know the back story of all the things they don’t know, they probably all remember that they ordered them from somewhere else. They didn’t come through, but they do remember how they feel when you do something like that. And so that person that the company still a client today.

 

[00:20:48] Speaker 1 And you know what? And and how much did you charge them for all this extra?

 

[00:20:52] Speaker 4 So the patches where I didn’t charge them anything, the patches were I can’t remember the time bills like a three to four hour past. Nothing.

 

[00:20:59] Speaker 1 So nothing at all or nothing. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So you bought the plane ticket to get down there, the plane ticket to get back and you went through, almost got arrested and bought another ticket to get to watch the patches get on the plane. But see that’s that’s what it takes. Yeah. That’s what it takes. People people. Don’t forget that. Yeah. Your client will never forget it. But I think most folks out there that you run into every day don’t realize what you’re doing right. And then you go back to work on I guess you don’t get back to work till Tuesday. And this was this big, monumental deal to you. But now you just got to go back and deal with people calling in sick and somebody wants Friday off. And, you know, but but that’s what it is to be a business owner. It’s a pretty amazing story. You should be really.

 

[00:21:38] Speaker 4 I mean, there’s there’s tons of the stories like that. I mean, I’ve

 

[00:21:41] Speaker 1 had so that was a few of the many, many funny stories from the show. We hope you enjoyed listening. Head over to GoWithJohn.com and listen to more episodes or listen on your favorite podcast platform. Go out there and build something extraordinary.