We were lucky to catch up with Brett Davis recently and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Brett , appreciate you sitting with us today to share your wisdom with our readers. So, let’s start with resilience – where do you get your resilience from?
When I was in high school, my father took me and a friend fishing in a canoe on a remote part of the Boise River. During that trip, we went through some rapids and our canoe tipped over and we lost some of our gear. 10 minutes later, I stepped in a hornet’s nest and got all of us stung many times. We encountered waterfalls, getting wacked by tree branches and experienced several other adversities. I didn’t catch one fish, but still, It was the best fishing trip ever for me. Looking back on that experience, I realized that the adversity we experienced made the trip an adventure. It would not have been nearly as interesting or fun of an experience had everything been calm and peaceful.
There have been many problems arise running a business and a large family. There is never enough time in a day to deal with all of them thoroughly. I have had to come to the realization that the difficulies that arise throughout life are a process for me to grow. I have been in a hi-demand situation for about 20 years and, although stressful at times, I have always worked through things, and am still alive and thriving. For the most part I enjoy being busy and solving problems. It definitely beats the alternative of being bored and counting time till the end of your workday. My days are just the opposite. The day goes by so fast and I have not completed all of the tasks that need to be done. I try to keep the mindset that this is a good thing for me. That frame of mind contributes to my resilience.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
I own a small business called The Nut Garden. We bring nuts, dried fruits, seeds and candy into our warehouse from all over the world. We package those items and distribute them to other companies for their reselling and consumption purposes. About 3 years ago we bought a warehouse and designed a storefront for the public to come and try our products along with the products of other Utah small businesses. It is a fun little store and we have gotten a great response about the variety we have and the good prices that we offer. The Nut Garden is a mixture of Healthy food and not so healthy treats. We love our store and are continually trying to improve it by adding new offerings and decorating well. We also employ highschool kids along with my 10 year old daughter to help at the cash register. We really try to keep the atmosphere clean and fun. Every second Saturday of every month, we have a Utah Truffles seconds sale, where we deeply discount a section of our store that holds the imperfect seconds that we receive from our partner, Candy Co. (They are the manufacturers of Utah Truffles and Mrs. Calls Caramels.) That event is usually well attended and goes from 10 to 2.
We also have a website www.thenutgarden.com that allows us to sell nationally to businesses and individuals. My wife designed the site and she does most of the work to keep it running and looking good.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
Many situations I found myself in changed suddenly and drastically, so the ability to be mentally agile and deal with those changes helped in my journey. I had to learn to be somewhat capable in all areas of my business, and willing to learn new things and even overcome fear and uneasiness doing tasks that I was not comfortable doing. One of the areas of knowledge that I have had to become better at is accounting. For those that are starting out in building a business I would recommend spending the time participating in all facets of the business, even those things that scare you or are not in your wheelhouse.
What is the number one obstacle or challenge you are currently facing and what are you doing to try to resolve or overcome this challenge?
The number one challenge I have faced as my company has grown is delegating responsibility to others and getting tasks off of my plate. There are several factors to this challenge. I have to find the right people with the right skills. I have to be able to trust those people to get their job done efficiently and properly and I have to have the cash flow to pay them. The two ways we are trying to deal with that are first, spending resources to automate those things that we can and second, slowly giving our workforce new tasks that I and my business partner are currently performing.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.thenutgarden.com
- Instagram: @the_nut_garden
