Matt McAlpine went from washing kegs at a cider farm to running Michigan's largest cannabis beverage operation.

The early days at Blake’s Hard Cider were tough… Their first big bet (getting non-smokers into dispensaries with a 2mg drink) didn't land the way they planned.

They adjusted and deployed 150 refrigerators into dispensaries which doubled average sales per store.

And they went from near zero to manufacturing 60%-80% of all cannabis beverages in Michigan.

In our episode we covered:

→ How Matt scaled Blake's Hard Cider from 10,000 to 1.3 million cases

→ Why the "get canna-curious consumers into dispensaries" strategy failed

→ The play that unlocked 51 dispensaries and doubled their average order size

→ How Michigan stacks up as a cannabis beverage market

→ How 37,000 Michigan liquor stores present the real opportunity

Matt thanks for coming by the studio to record and share your story of struggles and successes!

Chapters

00:00 Intro

01:00 Who is Matt McAlpine

03:14 Chrysler and the manufacturing leadership program

05:50 Leaving corporate for Blake's Hard Cider

07:53 Scaling Blake's from 10,000 to 1.3 million cases

10:05 Blake's Beverage Company and acquiring regional cider brands

13:40 How Emerald Canning Partners was formed

15:37 Building the facility and the early product launch struggles

20:35 Who the real cannabis beverage consumer is

24:24 Brand partners, the full portfolio, and owning the fridge

30:38 Michigan's market share and the 37,000 liquor store opportunity

36:43 Why cannabis beverages beat alcohol for recovery

44:00 Operations, team building, and the hire slow fire quick mentality

50:00 What fires Matt up and where ECP is headed

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https://pod.link/1896663240

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Learn more about being a guest on Beyond The Hustle by visiting https://www.beyondthehustle.show

Kelly grew up in Eight Mile in Michigan, the same streets Eminem rapped about.

His house was absolute chaos: a drunk stepfather, a drunk mother who once stabbed her husband and set the house on fire, and a kid who learned to survive by reading the room before anything else. By the time he got to college, he was selling drugs, racking up arrests, and lying on every job application about his two felonies. Then he went to jail.

That four months in a cell changed him forever: Kelly realized he was good at sales and started a telecom brokerage from nothing. He built it into a multimillion-dollar company even without a website.

Kelly wrote Harder Than Life. Then Happier Than Life. He built a podcast and an AI-driven cybersecurity company.

And he keeps going back into the hard stuff because he's learned feeling it is the only way through it.

In this episode, we tackled:

→ Why alcohol and drugs are always a symptom of the disease

→ The childhood trauma that drove his addiction for decades

→ His TLC framework for rebuilding your mind, body, and life

→ What faith, surrender, and a specific prayer to God have done for his business

→ Why the thing you keep avoiding is your actual portal to growth

Kelly told me you can't heal what you're unwilling to reveal… Everything opened up once he stopped sugarcoating how bad things really were.

Thank you Kelly for bringing this level of honesty into the room!

Chapters

0:00 - Introduction

1:00 - Kelly's Background: Eight Mile, Eminem, and Growing Up Poor

3:30 - Selling Drugs, Getting Arrested, and Two Felonies

6:45 - Jail, the Wake-Up Call, and the First Honest Job

10:30 - Dillon Shares His Own Story: Heroin at 18

14:00 - Faith, God Moments, and the Power of a Specific Ask

17:00 - Why Kelly Stopped Drinking and What Happened Next

21:30 - The 15 Days of Anxiety: Healing Childhood Trauma

25:00 - What Being Happier Than Life Actually Looks Like

27:30 - The TLC Framework: Train, Learn, Coach

32:00 - Finding Common Ground in a Divided World

35:30 - Final Message: TLC, Truth, and How to Get Both Books Free

~~~

This episode is powered by Drive Creative:

🌐 https://drivecreativeagency.com/

Subscribe for more conversations with entrepreneurs and innovators who push Beyond The Hustle

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Learn more about being a guest on Beyond The Hustle by visiting https://www.beyondthehustle.show

Early on in his sales career, Dan received a $0 commission check. With a wife and kids at home to take care of, it was a moment that changed him forever…

Dan Russell is VP of National Sales at Trion Solutions, overseeing payroll, HR, and benefits for over a million employees across the globe. But before any of that, he was a mortgage banker trying to do right by his clients in an industry that stopped letting him.

In this episode we tackled:

→ Why Dan walked away from mortgage banking at its peak

→ What a $0 commission check teaches you that success never will

→ How Trion handled an employee dying on a client's floor in real time

→ Why asking for help is the most underrated skill in business

→ What community investment actually looks like when no one's watching

A huge takeaway from my time with Dan was that asking for help isn't a sign you don't have it together… it's how people who actually have it together got there.

Dan, thanks a ton for coming in and being so open about the hard moments. Appreciate you dude!

Chapters

0:00 - Introduction & Welcome

1:00 - What Dan Does at Trion Solutions

1:55 - How Dan's Company Got Acquired

2:49 - The Mortgage Banking Days

4:35 - The $0 Commission Check

5:43 - Why Dan Left Banking and Found PEO

8:20 - Sink or Swim: Learning a Brand New Industry

10:55 - Why You Have to Know Your Product

21:55 - What the Best Business Owners Have in Common

27:48 - When a Client Called About a Dead Employee

34:36 - Community Work: Covenant House and Beyond

38:45 - Homeless Youth and the "Lost Generation"

41:53 - Advice to His Younger Self

46:39 - Stop Trying to Do It Alone

47:07 - Why Starting Matters More Than Being Ready

49:39 - Gratitude as a Practice, Not a Feeling

~~~

This episode is powered by Drive Creative

🌐 https://drivecreativeagency.com/

Subscribe for more conversations with entrepreneurs and innovators who push Beyond The Hustle

Prefer to watch?

YouTube → https://youtu.be/nPJQmvcdogY

Have a story to tell? We’d love to hear from you!

Learn more about being a guest on Beyond The Hustle by visiting https://www.beyondthehustle.show