From 3D Cameras to the Digital Future, with Bryan Wetzel

A four-lens 3D camera lab. A crash course in corporate chaos. A front-row seat to the switch from film and chemicals to digital video and modern production. Gary Pageau interviews Bryan Wetzel about his path from photography school into Nishika Corp.’s R&D lab, experimenting with lenticular 3D imaging, large-format printing, and early efforts toward computer-based 3D, plus shooting Nishika projects including an instructional video with Alan Thicke and a commercial with Little Richard. 

Wetzel takes us inside his time at Nishika, where lenticular 3D photography meant optical processes, experimental rigs, and constant problem-solving. From there, we dig into the realities of shooting and editing, why “fix it in post” can become an excuse for sloppy work, and how being early to digital created real opportunity when clients suddenly wanted faster workflows and better quality.

Then the conversation widens to the business of media and entrepreneurship: why Georgia’s transferable film tax incentives helped studios and crews actually take root, how Wetzel helped build a teacher-led educational video platform before online learning was polished, and what happened when he accidentally became a gym owner and later took over a restaurant right before lockdown. Along the way, Wetzel shares the most useful small business advice he learned from a no-nonsense mentor: say no without explaining yourself, don’t fall in love with your business, and write the business plan before your heart lies to your head.

Wetzel explains transitioning from still photography to video because corporate clients wouldn’t fund film, adopting early digital editing and cameras in Georgia ahead of the 1996 Olympics, and building a corporate client base. He discusses Georgia’s transferable film tax credits, then describes launching an educational-video company around 2008 that produced about 1,500–1,900 teacher-led videos and assessments for schools before being sold. He later acquired a gym (2017), briefly ran a restaurant through COVID-era challenges, sold it, and now writes books, sharing key business lessons on saying no, not overcommitting emotionally to a business, and writing realistic business plans.

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Transcript

Welcome And Brian’s Origin Story

Erin Manning 0:00

The Dead Pixel Society Podcast is brought to you by Mediaclip , Advertek Printing, and Independent Photo Imagers. Welcome to The Dead Pixels Society Podcast, the photoimaging industry's leading news source. Here's your host, Gary Pageau.

Gary Pageau 0:19

Hello again and welcome to The Dead Pixels Society Podcast. I'm your host, Gary Pageau, and today we're joined by Brian Wetzel. Hi, Brian. How are you today?

Bryan Wetzel 0:28

Hello.

Gary Pageau 0:30 Gary Pageau 0:30

So, Brian, when I discovered you on the service I used to book guests, I came across that you actually cut your teeth when you started out in business with the Nishika Corporation, which for a lot of our listeners will bring back some memories. Can you talk a little bit about your background and how you got involved in photography to start?

Bryan Wetzel 0:51

I wanted to be a photographer, so that's what I went to school for. But over decade or so I ended up moving into film and video and TV. But in the beginning, I did mostly photography. My first business was a photography studio, a very large one. We did a lot of corporate stuff. But the getting to be at Nishika is an odd story because I had just come out of college and this is in the days before cell phones. So I went home to, I was staying at my mom's house trying to figure out where what I was going to get a job and move, hopefully. And she said, You got a call from this company that you applied for. And so I called the gentleman back and ended up being a Dick Yost. He had managed seven city blocks at Kodak before retiring and coming to Nishika. And he I said, I just finished playing football with my friends in a field. I'm wearing a tank top and a short. I need to shower and get, and he said, Yeah, we don't have time, we're closing it today. He I said, Well then I don't want to show up like this. He said, No, it's fine, just come. And against my better wishes, I went and they had interviewed a lot of people older than me with more experience. But we went through the lab and they kept quizzing me on things, and I had knowledge that the others didn't know. I apparently wowed them, and it was an RD lab. I worked at their RD lab. I didn't work at where they were actually produced, but the it was an RD lab where we were doing experiments. So it was the best job in the world because engineers would come in and they'd say, Here's a thing, we want you to test it. We would try and get different types of 3D or how big we could get the pictures. And it was also the craziest corporate story because we so people don't realize that Nishika was the second generation of four lens cameras. Right. The first was Nimslow. Right. Alan Lowe and Jerry Nims, and I believe it was Alan Lowe who gave most of the money from the corporation to the PTL, Jim and Tammy Faye Baker, sunk the company, but his partner, who had to sell the patents to Nishika in order to pay off their debts, started another company down the road with three lenses because the patent had four. And I'm like, see, people have been listening in on my conversations with my girlfriend at work and stuff. But the it was a crazy time. I was only 20 years old, and here I'm in a place where people are at performing espionage. It was, trust me, it was so many I could go on for an hour about that place, but it was an interesting way to get out into the corporate world and realize that I that maybe that's why I became an entrepreneur because after that experience, I said I'm you said no more of that. No more of that. No.

Inside The Nishika 3D Lab

Gary Pageau 3:49

So for those who don't remember, lenticular prints are still around, people are still doing that in a smaller scale, obviously, but they're still around. Is yeah, that was a four-lens camera that shot a sliver of an image on half of a frame on 35 millimeter film, and then you would explain that across through an optical process. It was pre-digital, obviously. And then you'd have this lenticular print, you'd have the appearance of a 3D picture, correct?

Bryan Wetzel 4:15

So we had 220 lines of lenticular lenses that were essentially cut into the plastic. And when you would print it, you would move through the negatives, you would print the first negative, the machine would start this way, then it would switch to the next negative, and they would print, it would switch to the next negative and it would print, and then it would do the fourth. And so we they came up with for the foot for the cameras, they had created their own little one-hour lab, but it wasn't one hour back then. You had to send the film off, you get it a week later.

Gary Pageau 4:46

Right.

Bryan Wetzel 4:46

And that was in Las Vegas where the headquarters was. And we experimented more with large formats. So we had a professional studio where we would move. So the bigger the so if you're taking a picture of a house, that camera probably won't give you a lot of 3D because there's not enough parallax between. So we would experiment on rail systems where you would move a 35 millimeter camera, and we experimented with all kinds of stuff. We had a large format printer that was in the back room that was as big as a tractor trailer that we built from scratch. It was pretty primitive, but they were trying to figure out how to do billboards and stuff, and that company went out of business eventually as well. I determined that people who go into 3D are all crazy. We would get people I never even knew this would be a thing. I had we would have people come to our office and say that they I have, for instance, we had a guy out of Florida, he was retired, he came because he wanted to tell us that 3D wasn't based wasn't created because of parallax, it was created because the earth rotates. Oh they stuck my partner and I, who we were 20 and 21, they were like, give it to the young kids, this is not worth our time. So we were in a board meet room trying to convince him that's not true, that it's been well founded. That's why, by the way, if anybody's listening in quick education, all predator animals have their eyes separated so they can see 3D, but animals that are eaten that are the pre predicated on, have their eyes to the side so they can see more uh danger coming from all around. Right. But so I just we went in. I remember telling him, I said if we turned all the lights off in here and I hit a flash with a flashbulb, we would see in that split second three dimensions in here because our parallax, not because the earth is rotating is rotating 3D. I didn't understand that. And we kind of left it with we'll take a look, we'll write this down and consider it. Thank you. We'd have people stop in all the time or write us letters about their theory on three dimensions.

Gary Pageau 7:09

Wow, that must have been and so what was the time frame on this? This would be what were the years on this, like the 80s or something?

Bryan Wetzel 7:17

This was 88 to 90. Okay, and then they sent me to Las Vegas. I worked there for about it six months, and it was even crazier out there. And my partner who went out to Vegas with me got a job at NASA. I just started, I would have to go back and forth from Los Angeles to Las Vegas occasionally because we also worked, we were trying to work with industrial line and magic at the time. We knew that three dimensions in a computer would be the future. Right. We wanted it so that you could do uh polarized glasses in a theater, but real animated. Instead of having to shoot it with a camera, they had two lenses for a film. And we just could never get it to work at the time. Right. Some of it looked really cool, and I love going there. But when I was out there one day, I just said to somebody, hey, you got any jobs, hanging it, might be willing to move to build this company. And I lo and behold, I ended up working on a film. And I got called back to Nishika because they we did the instructional video with Alan Thick. People may not know that. We also did a commercial with uh Little Richard. I shot those. Oh, okay. And uh both of the instructional video was fairly uneventful, but the one with Little Richard was not at all. And a lot of interesting stories out there about that shoot. Uh but a very large entourage, longer, more than we realized, we didn't have the space for. Right. I cut my tea. I went from there to Estee Lauder. I actually was there, but none of my paychecks said Estee. And I don't even I never even went to the company that was paying me. I got hired, they apparently contracted it out, and then that was I traveled around the country doing whatever they needed me to photograph. I wasn't doing the actual ad photos, it was all kinds of other stuff.

Gary Pageau 9:11

So you translated from this RD Skunkworks kind of thing to commercial photography, right? Yeah. So was that where your education was when you went to college? You said it was in photography. Was that in the shooting side, or what was the what was your interest in that? Yeah.

Bryan Wetzel 9:30

I went to school to be a photographer, and my minor would have been film. Okay. But I also got back then you also had to get chemistry.

Gary Pageau 9:39

Right.

Bryan Wetzel 9:39

You had to get a lot of chemistry because everything was chemicals. We had to process the film, and you had if you were doing the if you were printing, you had to process print paper. Oh, sure. I loved it because all they did was be they would say go out. Some of the assignments were just go out and it needs to be a beauty picture. Just give me something that's award-winning and it needs to have people in it, or this can be a nature photo, or this needs to have leading lines, or once we had to go find a barn so we could demonstrate the zone system. It needed to be a red barn with the white stripes and the tin roof so it'd be bright. And we were shooting with a four by five camera. We used to bracket a lot of the exposures, sure, if they were questionable, because she didn't want to get back and process the film. And as they always to tell us, reshoots are expensive.

Gary Pageau 10:28

Right.

Bryan Wetzel 10:29

Film is not.

Gary Pageau 10:30

Right.

Bryan Wetzel 10:31

And uh now you don't have that. You just look at it digitally and go,

Why “Fix It In Post” Fails

Bryan Wetzel 10:34

that's good.

Gary Pageau 10:34

Yeah. Or I'll tweak it in post, right?

Bryan Wetzel 10:38

Yeah, I hate that. A lot of people this is the thing. People would see the movies. I was doing a music video, this will illustrate this. Fro out in Nashville, and it was for an RB group. And he came in and he started describing this thing. Have you seen The Matrix? I want to do, and after he was done, I said, How much what is your budget? He said, I got 10 grand. I said, You're gonna need to get another 300,000 at least, because that technology this is not today. I could probably do that in AI in no time. But back then, that would have required a whole team of uh digital animators and green screen shoots, and yeah, that would have been a good six month, but people seem to think that it had become easy. And so you'd be on a shoot and something would go wrong. They said, Well, just fix it in post. And I'm like, he said the wrong line. I'm not what am I gonna fixing? We can re-record his voice. And I said, But his lips are not gonna match, right? Yeah, that became uh the fix it in post thing, get used to make me really irritated. Like we're right, we got here, we got the crew, we got the lighting people. Why would we fix it in post? Do it now. Let's do it the right way.

Gary Pageau 11:56

Yeah, so from there you got into some video production, which I think is interesting because uh that's a different little skill level than still photography, right? It's a it's a different aesthetic, it's a different look, it's a different feel. It's obviously different cameras, different technology. Was that an easy transition for you to make? Was it just a natural? No, it wasn't at all.

Bryan Wetzel 12:17

And I worked with other people to get cut my teeth and try and see what the differences were. I even went on some productions for free. I'm like, I just I need to because in film, this takes me back. You could get a different speed film, right? You go down to 200, 100, even below that, depending on your situation. In video back then, video was nothing like it is now. We were shooting originally on three-quarter inch, and then we moved to beta, but the chips were beautiful if you had good lighting. Right. But it was not good in low light. You had and it got grainy if you tried to ex blow it up. It got grainy if it was low light, and you tried to let the camera do the work for you. So you could tell a bad production from a good production, but I think my my iPhone today probably does better than those. I have an old Ada cam in the closet. That cost me $40,000 in 1994 that couldn't do the imaging that my phone does now. And what happened was I saw the future oh, really quickly. The reason I switched to video from film was because if you're gonna do corporate work or if you're going to do instructional videos, even for an Ashika, they don't want to pay for a film shoot. That that's an expensive. So once video became at least viable for that type of stuff, that's where all the work was moving. Right. And it was a plus that I could still do the photography with it. Right. Because I could offer that service. Right. But I had to switch the video, it was just a necessity.

Switching Early To Digital Video

Bryan Wetzel 13:52

But I switched to digital, it's probably the first in the state of Georgia to switch to digital because the Olympics were coming in '96. So I switched in '93. I had a media 100 and an avid, but we were charging $350 an hour. Right. Because we were the only ones. And then I got the digital cameras right before the Olympics, and that set us apartment when they were just getting big because they wanted these uh digital cameras that Canon had come out with.

Gary Pageau 14:21

Right.

Bryan Wetzel 14:22

And they was still digital tape. And when it came to digital, by the way, I had rent this is what happened with that too. I had rented a digital camera because I needed a third camera for two beta cam shoots. The digital camera looked so good compared to the two beta cameras. I was like, what am I doing here? So I sold the betacam cameras while they were still had some value. Right. And the digital cameras were so much cheaper. Even back then, you could get a broadcast quality digital camera for six thousand dollars, seven, maybe a little more, depending on what you if you got interchangeable lenses. And uh so I ended up coming out with money on that deal. But uh yeah, as soon as everyone heard that we had digital, I it was unbelievable. Hoke Cole Enterprises at my door at IBM. I made a living off of corporate stuff, and I didn't want to do corporate originally, but it paid so well.

Gary Pageau 15:16

Yeah, and it was what was your original interest, if not corporate?

Bryan Wetzel 15:21

I wanted to be a filmmaker, I wanted to be Spielberg, I wanted to be Cobola.

Gary Pageau 15:26

Yeah, and that was part of you lived in Georgia, right? And that then there wasn't a real film industry back then, though.

Bryan Wetzel 15:31

But back then, yeah, it's one of the biggest. But we back then, no, you had to leave the state. And that's funny because just as I was getting out of film making movies, the TV and film industry came here. But no, back then you had to get out, so it was either corporate or you had to go where the movie industry was. Now that's not true. I weren't or uh there were occasional films that shot here, sure, but for the most part you couldn't make a living.

Gary Pageau 16:00

Okay.

Bryan Wetzel 16:00

And the Hollywood brought their people here when they came here, be for the most

Georgia Film Incentives That Worked

Bryan Wetzel 16:05

part.

Gary Pageau 16:05

Yeah.

Bryan Wetzel 16:06

Because there wasn't any talent to work on the film that experienced. But there was the uh the film incentives, is the reason when the tax write-offs and all that kind of yeah when Georgia, I think that would be Sonny to Purdue, the governor, they did it right. So other states offered tax incentives, but Georgia offered one thing that just it was unbelievable how many film studios, even now. I think there's five huge studios just near me. And Ozark was made here, stranger thing. But what they did was they made the tax incentives uh transferable. So I know I met an attorney who got out of being an attorney to be, and all he did was if you wanted to do a film here, I would say, look, I'm spending this much, I'm gonna have $300,000 in tax incentives. If you have a corporate client who would like to buy those from me so that I can fund my film now, you could they were transferable. I could sell the tax incentive. He would broker the deal, and so you could get funding without having to take a loan. Sure. That made all the difference in the world. There's a lot of corporations here, and so you could say, Hey, I can sell you $300,000, $500,000 worth of tax credits. All you have to do is pay me $450,000 to buy it. Yeah. That was a brilliant thing.

Gary Pageau 17:26

Yeah, it's funny because a lot of states have tried it and hasn't I live in Michigan and we tried it and gave up on it, so it just hasn't worked out. But did they make them transferable? They did an analysis after 10 years and they found out that uh not only did the it was we're basically paying people to make movies here, but there was no industry established here. Like you said, there's people coming in just filming and leaving, and then there was actually the number of film jobs in the industry in Michigan actually dropped because of that. Really? Yeah, yeah, it was it wasn't wildly successful. Let's put it that way. We don't have one right now, we don't have a film program, and everyone is always looking at should we have one? Should we restart it? How can we do it?

Bryan Wetzel 18:08

I had a friend who worked on Sleepy Hollow when it was being shot here when it was on TV. He said that they when they were in the pitch meeting, they said we're gonna shoot it in Georgia because we can sell those tax credits. So that's the key. And I've seen other states, I think Florida's now making their tax credit transferable. People have moved here now. From there's people all over the place. Uh Georgia.

Gary Pageau 18:31

So, but then you stayed in that, but you or you were in that for a long time, but then you didn't stay in it. What was the what happened with your next step?

Bryan Wetzel 18:42

So it was still in video. What happened was I had a friend and I we decided to start a corporation that we made educational videos. Sure. Where that used real teachers.

Gary Pageau 18:54

Okay.

Bryan Wetzel 18:55

And we were gonna we didn't know about Khan Academy, which had they weren't out yet, but they were apparently in production, and Steve Gates or Bill Gates

Building A Teacher-Led Video Library

Bryan Wetzel 19:04

was giving them millions. We created twice as many videos of theirs and on 10% of the money they got. But we made well over 1900 or 1,500 videos and 1900 assessments that were all video with real teachers. So I had set up a studio and I used my live production experience to be able to shoot because it's not going to be able to edit 1500 videos forever, it'd be too expensive. We set that up, and then I just spent the next three years, four years, just all I did was shoot math, English, history videos with the teachers. I'd edit the we had it set up so we could do it live where they could tell us straight live, and all I had to do was put the front on and then put the ending credits on. Sure. And even that I got to where I was able to do some of that in live. Right. But I always sweeten up the audio and then I'd get them out on the internet. We had a site set up, and then eventually that was sold to a company out of California that was doing an even larger site for schools. So that took me away from the engine. I was by the way, while I was doing that, I was still contracting at Cox Media Group here in town. So I just went underground to the corporate side of things.

Gary Pageau 20:22

So, what was your idea that education was a market for those kind of videos? So just because there was so much content there, and what was going to be the delivery system? Was it going to be the internet or a subscription service? Or what I'm trying to figure out why you said, Oh my gosh, that's a great opportunity.

Bryan Wetzel 20:39

I think it was because when we were planning this, it would have been in 2008. There were videos on YouTube, but they were people doing really rough video quality video or on an overhead projector in some cases. We used to send our videos out to three other teachers and get them to uh quantify that this video is accurate. Right. You can actually see all the videos because we were received them back or the rights to them. They're on YouTube now under scoobsed.com, S-K-U-B-E-S-E-D dot com on Twitter, but it's on YouTube. But uh to answer your question, we just thought that I I thought we can do a way better job at this. Right. And we did the quality. I'm very proud of those videos. I wish the company had done better, but what we did is we set up a site that had the in there and we made it so that the teachers could create playlists out of the videos and then assign those as homework. Because our pitch was, and we would sell to school systems all around the country. The pitch is was easy. Textbooks have gone away. When I was a kid, whenever I had trouble with my math homework, my dad, by the way, was a CPA, so he loved math. So we would fight a lot. But he when I couldn't do my math homework, he would say, Okay, open up your textbook. And then we would go through the example and a lot of shouting and fighting. And at the end of it, I could do that math problem, that math homework, because the textbook walked me through what I was supposed to do. But the textbooks went away. And so now they just they say go out on the internet and find it yourself. And we just thought that was that's absurd. What teachers should say, here's the video you should be watching because this lines up with what I'm teaching. And at the time, Common Core was a year away from Cummings, but we thought we'll get a jump on that and be the first. The funny thing is the schools loved it. We couldn't get investors for the third round or the second round, really. Right. It's hard to pay a people to go all around the country selling something unless you can pay them.

Gary Pageau 22:48

Yeah. Oh, they want to get paid. It's crazy that these people want to get paid for what they're doing. Yeah. So talk a little bit, if you can, about your other ventures. You've done a grill, you've done a gym, and you're I think you're still involved in some of the other projects. So can you talk a little bit about kind of that evolution? Because none of those seem these those things seem like they're contiguous in terms of their journey.

Bryan Wetzel 23:12

So it's a longer story than we probably have time for,

Buying A Gym And A Restaurant

Bryan Wetzel 23:16

but when I had my production company, I didn't know how to run a business.

Gary Pageau 23:20

Right.

Bryan Wetzel 23:21

Had already had a couple failed little studios, mostly I also had partners who didn't do their pull their share. Right. So I started it and I went out to a chamber of commerce meeting, and there I was like, who here is the and they said they pointed to this older guy, and they were like, but he's very difficult. He's grumpy and he's curmudgeon. And I don't know if you want to talk to him. But I found out he had three businesses and he was very successful. So I walked over to him and waited my turn, and I said, I will buy you lunch once a month at any place you choose if I can pick your brain for an hour. Right. And he said, he looked at me for a minute and a few seconds and he said, Okay, but you have to bring a notepad with predetermined questions. We're not gonna meander, we're gonna get things done, and you gotta have to have a pen so you can write down and make notes. And uh after about two years, I would say after the first year, I did run out of a lot of our lunches were just friendly lunches that we become close. He taught me how to run a business, right? And I wanted to share that, so I started doing some speaking engagements to small business communities, but then I got into the gym by pure accident. I was tired of contracting at Cox Communications and Cox Media Group, and it was getting very ridiculous there too. But the gym I worked out at put up a sign that we're closing, and so I worked up a business plan over the weekend and I went in and made an offer, but I eventually got it. Probably one of the best deals ever made, and I still have it. That was 2017. The restaurant up the street from us also went out of business, and we had been going there struggling, slowly going downhill, and it was re there were the reasons why I was going downhill were glaringly obvious. Very bad service, insistent food. I told the owner who had invested in a restaurant, I said, Look, if you make the deal sweet, something I can't pass up, I'll come in and take over. We'll change the name, we'll get a new menu, we'll do. I didn't realize how much work that was, by the way.

Gary Pageau 25:31

Um recurring theme, I've noticed.

Bryan Wetzel 25:35

Yeah. But the restaurant is worse. Plus, we opened up three months before lockdown.

Gary Pageau 25:41

Right.

Bryan Wetzel 25:42

So we were killing it, and then all of a sudden, boom. Right. So we came out of that struggling big time, really crushed us. And then we started picking up in 2021. I was like, okay, we're out of the woods. And people love the restaurant, but a lot of people weren't going out that year. People forget how freaked out people were. Oh, I know, trust me. And then my hate the guy who ran my kitchen, Jermaine, great guy. Everybody loved him, everybody knew him there. He worked, he was the kitchen manager, but he everybody who came into the restaurant waved to Jermaine, and he was hit by a drunk driver leaving our place on New Year's night. So it would have been 2022 by then. And that just really took the wind out of things. And I had lost, I caught my manager stealing cash. So I now I'm running it. And to run a restaurant and try and do your other stuff, it was just killing me. I was never home, never sleeping. And my wife finally said, Look, it's me or the restaurant, and couldn't figure out which one was more expensive to leave, but I wanted to stay with my wife, so I sold the restaurant for not very much, but enough to just walk out. And I write books now. I have two books out, and that's really because I need a creative outlet. Right. I've been creative my whole life. Sure. The gym is wonderful. Writing is the path for me to just get my thoughts out and create stuff and sure. Make me feel like I'm productive.

Gary Pageau 27:22

So, what are some of your lessons you learned back then when you're having lunch with that gentleman that really solidified you that you could have a sick run a successful business? What are some of the two or three things that not having a business background, but having some business failures in your past that you said, oh my gosh, I wish I would have known this?

Bryan Wetzel 27:43

One of them was learn to

Mentorship Lessons For Small Business

Bryan Wetzel 27:45

say no without explaining yourself. And one of the things he told me late is that a lot of times we say yes to things we regret later, either because we don't want to seem like we're a jerk or because we want the money, even if it's not enough or small. And then you end up realizing I'm working really hard for not what I'm worth. Right. And the explaining yourself in that, he said, is the key because once you explain yourself, it becomes, oh, this is a debate. This is or it's a negotiation. He said if this goes even to your family and friends. If your friend says, Can you help me move this weekend? But you've already promised your wife or your kids or your girlfriend that we're going away, you say no. You don't say no because I'm going out of town on Saturday at noon, so that your friend can say, Well, start at eight, we'll be done. Not a negotiation, but I don't have time. This is okay, and I can't do it. The other one was, and this is a biggie, is learn don't love your business, but don't fall in love with your business.

Gary Pageau 28:50

Right.

Bryan Wetzel 28:51

Because when you fall in love with your business, and it's hard not to because it's your baby, you created it from the ground up.

Gary Pageau 28:57

Right.

Bryan Wetzel 28:58

But it's hard to walk away from a girlfriend or from a relationship that's bad, and it's just as hard to walk away from something you've spent your heart and soul and a lot of money, and you have trouble when you're falling in love with your business recognizing when the end of the road may have already passed you. And so now you're just throwing good money at a bad situation and top it up. That was the biggie. His other one, and I tell people this is the first thing I tell people when I do a speech to small business owners, is that you need to do a business plan. If you can't write down how you're gonna get from point A to Z and actually see it work out, back then it was on paper, but now it would be in a computer. If you can't see the financials and how you're gonna make the money when you compare it to all the expenses, that you may forget if you're just thinking about it in your head. Sure. You can't keep all that in your head. Because also, by the way, your heart and your head sometimes will lie to you, but you haven't considered taxes, regulations, all these things that might escape you. But when you start going through it, you'll see real quick. I've done business plans twice, maybe three times, where someone wanted me to help or get involved in a business where I would I put it on. I do I use a site called Live Plan. They're not um I don't they don't sponsor me or anything. They let you walk through everything, even financials, all the stuff you need to write, things to consider. If you can't see it work out, the only way to make it work out is to cheat. Right. Of course, we'll get more customers than put down here.

Gary Pageau 30:36

Right.

Bryan Wetzel 30:37

You got if you keep it real, you should be able to walk away from by the way. Anybody who's never had their own small business, it's a lot of work. Right. Don't go into it lightly. And if you can't see it work out, it is gonna be a lot of work and you're gonna be very upset with yourself.

Gary Pageau 30:54

Yeah, because that is one of the things where I think uh small business owners and entrepreneurs can become somewhat delusional, if you will. Yeah, if we just double down on this thing that's not working, we can gut through it and make it work, and you see it over, and it's sad, but it's because I think people are told in the business community you need a passion and belief that you can make this happen.

Bryan Wetzel 31:19

Yeah, and it doesn't pay the bills.

Gary Pageau 31:22

You have to have that passion to get up at four in the morning to do that stuff to get there.

Bryan Wetzel 31:27

But if you don't have a real business subway shop up the street from us, they were two blocks over from a subway, and they did sub sandwiches. And theirs were better, by the way, because they were handmade thicker, and he was struggling and he came and asked for my help. I said, Why are you charging what you're charging? He said, Because that's what Subway charges. And I said, Okay, well, first of all, you don't get the deals on supplies that they get because they order them through the corporation in mass. I said, Second of all, you're doing a custom sandwich that's a little thicker and everything, and people will pay for that a little more. And I said, and just second of all, you can't compete with Subway, you have to set yourself apart by being that hey, our subs are handmade right in front of you. I know subways are, but it's all very measured and everything. They just everything's cut in-house and he cooks in the morning, he makes all the bread himself. I said, You can charge a little bit for that. But I just said if you had done a business plan, I asked him, You did you do a business plan? He said, No, I've been in this business for 20 years working for other people. I said, I get that, but you weren't paying the bills, paying the labor, you weren't paying the taxes, you weren't. There's other things than just working as a manager in the business. And absolutely know that. Now, people often too, and I'm guilty of this. I come from the production industry. I think I know probably in my head whether what'll work and what won't.

Gary Pageau 32:58

Right.

Bryan Wetzel 32:58

That doesn't necessarily mean I'm right with it's so many moving parts. Sure. And you really need to put it down so you because look, I'm a list maker. I make lists, I make lists every day, and if I don't get it done, it goes to the top of the next day's list and has to be the first thing.

Gary Pageau 33:14

Right.

Bryan Wetzel 33:15

And if you read the seven habits of highly affected people, this is on it from every single one of them. Yeah, and this is like a the business plan checklist. Yeah, I I need to do it. I agree.

Gary Pageau 33:26

It's it's people try to make things more complicated than they need to be, right? And really, all most businesses come down to the same sort of core functions.

Bryan Wetzel 33:36

A lot of them do make one uh mistake when they come to me. They're like, I'm struggling, I'm like, where'd you cut them? We cut our marketing, but we have sales going on right now, and I'm like, how are they gonna know about the sales? You're missing the logic there. You need to market the sale, otherwise, the sales just in people who come in every day who are not enough, obviously, to support the business, or you're gonna be cutting your budget, are gonna be the ones taking advantage of the sales. You need to pull people in, and maybe the marketing budget wasn't the right thing to cut. Maybe other places that are smarter, right? But they don't see it that way.

Gary Pageau 34:14

Speaking of writing things down, where can people go for more information to learn about Brian and the things you do?

Bryan Wetzel 34:22

So we set up a site that way you can just go to the website and it's got all my social media, it's got my books, so you I don't have to give out 20 addresses, and it's Brian Thomaswetzel.com, B-R-Y-A-N, T-H-O-M-A-S,

Where To Find Brian And Wrap

Bryan Wetzel 34:37

W-E-T-Z-E-L.com.

Gary Pageau 34:41

Great. Brian, I've learned a lot from this and I've gotten a lot from it. I think we could probably talk even longer if we wanted to, because it sounds like you've got a lot to share, but I appreciate your time. And maybe we'll connect again on another time.

Bryan Wetzel 34:53

Yeah, I'd love that. My wife says I never shut up, so I'll I have enough to fill at least another podcast or two. There you go. All right.

Erin Manning 35:05

Thank you for listening to the Dead Pixel Society podcast. Read more great stories and sign up for the newsletter at www.theadpixels society dot com.