Live, Laugh, Smoke Cigars!

From Our Friend George Rodriguez

Ok, you may be thinking, “George… I love cigars, and I love ice cream too, and I REALLY love Ben & Jerry’s ice cream… but WTH does ice cream have to do with cigars????”

Here’s the deal…

I was at a cigar event and this nice bearded and bespectacled fella comes up to my table, says he’s “heard great things about this Rodrigo cigar” and wants to sample one. I shake his hand and say “Hi! Thanks for trying Rodrigo! Allow myself to introduce… myself… I’m George!”… to which he naturally smiled and replied

“Hi George, I’m Jerry!” and he happily walks off with a Rodrigo La Fortaleza.

Fast forward an hour later and Jerry’s back at the Rodrigo table… “Thanks for the cigar George! Here’s a coupon for a free pint of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream”.

“Oh……. hang on… wait a minute… you’re THAT Jerry!!!

(note to self, you NEVER know who’s going to show up at a cigar event)

Now I’m star struck, but I remain cool as the other side of the pillow and we commence to converse… “Jerry… you make some DAMN good ice cream! What’s your secret?”

Jerry graciously replied “well you know… I have a business partner, his name is Ben… now Ben is a great guy, but he has a problem… he can’t taste a damn thing… in fact he has a terrible, horrible palette! And you know we started out making everything by hand, small batches of ice cream using the best ingredients we could get our hands on. I thought we were making great ice cream, the old fashioned way, but it turned out that the only way Ben could taste and approve anything was if we made our ice cream with the most pronounced flavors possible – so we used super high quality all natural cream, huge chunks of chocolate and other yummy stuff, and we found out that this was the ONLY way to get Ben’s attention… we had to constantly come up with with the most interesting textures and flavors or he just couldn’t taste it!”

So here I am… having a tell all, deep conversation with one half of the best ice cream teams on the planet and he tells me that his business partner and chief ice cream taster can’t taste a damn thing. Kinda ironic and a bit counter-intuitive, don’t you think?

But it made perfect sense. Ben & Jerry used Ben’s terrible palette, which could have been forsaken as a weakness, as a strength tomake the best ice cream on earth.

When they finally had a flavor Ben liked they would sample it out to as many people as they could, in person, one at a time and then they went on to sell it in small batches at a premium. People are always happy to pay a few extra bucks for something extra, extra special..

It all started to make perfect sense… and then then I asked Jerry…

“But why make ice cream???”

And Jerry said: “Because it makes people happy!”

“George… if you want to be truly successful and enjoy your work, create and sell something that makes people happy and share it with people”

Wow… I sat there shaking my head thinking, after all of the books I’ve read and classes I (sort of) attended, all of the articles, all of the soul searching and all of the questions I’ve asked every business guru I ever came in contact with… THAT was simply the best damn business adviceI ever got from anyone, anywhere, and it came from an ice cream making
hippy who just wanted to make people happy.

So here’s what I learned from my friend Jerry:

1. Keep the quality high, even if it means you have to make less product.
2. Make your weakness your most competitive strength.
3. Make something that makes people happy and then get out there and share it.

While there’s always room for improvement, I think we’re progressing with item #1.

As far as item #2 is concerned, I’m still working on turning my weaknesses
into my strengths (just ask my wife and kids, I am horrible at admitting my
weaknesses, but the sooner we admit our weaknesses, the faster we can learn
from them and turn them into strengths).

And #3 is something that YOU may be able to help me with…

I tend to do cigar shop events from time to time. What I love most about these
events is that I get to meet people who smoke my cigars and I get to introduce
Rodrigo to those who have yet to enjoy our premium smokes.

But something interesting happened recently. A Rodrigo smoker asked me to
sponsor his annual “herf” (btw herf is a smoker’s gathering, kind of like a Harley
Davidson HOG meetup, but the leathers are optional).

I got to thinking that a personal visit would be a GREAT way to really get to know
my smokers.

Maybe I can swing by this guy’s house and really get to know him and his friends
on their own turf, in their own homes with their own families. Now THAT would be
a very memorable event!

So here’s my question to you…

How would you like me to come over and hang out with you and your friends at your next cigar party???

Now of course, a few guidelines will have to be in order…

-I call first dibs on the comfy lawn chair.

-I want to meet at least 25 of your friends but no more than 50 or so, this way I can
have time to talk to all of them.

-Time is a very limited commodity, so tell me why I should show up at your party and not your buddy’s!

-And last, the only ice cream that will be paired with Rodrigo Cigars is Ben & Jerry’s.

So… do y’all want to smoke well and live rich with Rodrigo and some Ben & Jerry’s
or what?

If so, here’s what I want you to do next:

If you’re on twitter – follow me and RT this
If you’re on facebook you have to like Rodrigo

And then all you have to do is reply to this email and tell me why I should go to your party.

Let me know… we can only make this work if there’s a critical mass. And believe me, I really want to meet every single one of you and your best friends so let’s do this, but hurry because I’m eating a lot of ice cream these days, so we have to make this happen before I get too fat to get on a plane.

Your smoking buddy… G-Rod