Transcript

Announcer: Broadcasting live from the Business Radio X Studios in Phoenix, Arizona, it’s time for Phoenix Business Radio. Spotlighting the city’s best businesses and the people who lead them.

Mike Jones: Welcome to AZ Brandcast, this is Mike. Every month we get together and talk about the remarkable Arizonians and businesses that they run, and that they lead. And in particular about the power of branding in those businesses, and how to build great brands in Arizona. Today I’m really excited. We’ve got a really cool guest on the show, don’t we Chris?

Chris Stadler: Yes, we do.

Mike Jones: Yeah, we’ve got Shelly. Shelly Chaney from DollarDays.

Chris Stadler: What’s up, Shelly?

Shelly Chaney: Hi, everybody. Thank you for having me.

Mike Jones: Yeah, we’re really excited you’re on.

Shelly Chaney: Me too.

Mike Jones: And we’re gonna be talking a little bit about creating purpose in your business, how to engage your local community, and some really cool things that DollarDays is working on right now. But first Chris, tell us about our sponsor.

Chris Stadler: Yes, Mike, yes. So our sponsor is Conscious Capitalism Arizona. This local association is on a mission to share with the whole world, how doing business for good is just good business. This local chapter of Conscious Capitalism Incorporated hosts tons of local events and provides resources for business leaders to instill a higher purpose in their company and engage all their stakeholders. Be sure to check them at consciouscapitalismaz.com.

Mike Jones: Yeah, we love those guys. They’ve been really supportive. It’s awesome. So now it’s time to meet Shelly, little more than we already have. Thanks for coming on. So before we do the formal like who are you, and what do you do, and you know what do you like to do when you’re not working, we wanted to ask you a quick little kinda teaser question, hopefully to get the conversation going. ‘Cause we like to keep things really chill and laid back at AZ Brandcast. So our question today, because it’s so freaking hot, is if you could spend the summer anywhere else other than Phoenix, for the whole summer, so think like three months-ish. Maybe six. I don’t know. Where would it be?

Shelly Chaney: That is a great question. I actually like the heat so I’m gonna pick a place that’s still really sunny but near the ocean, so I’m gonna say maybe Greece.

Mike Jones: Oh.

Shelly Chaney: I haven’t been there yet, but I’m dying to go. And I’m looking at everyone’s Instagram and I’m very envious of everyone that’s like lounging by the water.

Mike Jones: Yeah.

Shelly Chaney: So I’m gonna say hopefully next summer I will be in Greece.

Mike Jones: That’s awesome.

Shelly Chaney: Yes.

Chris Stadler: And the water is like super blue and clear.

Shelly Chaney: It looks crystal clear.

Chris Stadler: Yep.

Shelly Chaney: Yep.

Chris Stadler: Plus it’s just the Mediterranean.

Mike Jones: Yeah.

Shelly Chaney: I don’t mind the heat as long as I can just be by some beautiful-

Mike Jones: Some water?

Shelly Chaney: Water, yes. Beautiful beach, jump in the ocean.

Mike Jones: Yeah, if you didn’t like the water and you just liked the heat I’d recommend Death Valley.

Shelly Chaney: I have been wanting to go to Monument Valley. Close!

Chris Stadler: Is that pretty warm? Is that pretty hot?

Mike Jones: Yeah.

Chris Stadler: Yeah?

Mike Jones: Yeah.

Chris Stadler: Where is it, California?

Shelly Chaney: It’s in Utah I think.

Mike Jones: Well it’s on the Arizona, Utah border. You’ll see it as you’re driving if you drive up through the middle-

Shelly Chaney: You’ve definitely seen it in a lot of western movies.

Chris Stadler: Okay. Alright.

Mike Jones: It’s up on the Navajo reservation, in the north eastern corner of Arizona.

Chris Stadler: Does it have a monument?

Shelly Chaney: Naturally made, I guess?

Mike Jones: There’s these really cool rock formations. That’s why it’s known as Monument Valley. And you can just drive through it, I guess there’s a cool road. I’ve never been there, it’s been on my bucket list for a while.

Shelly Chaney: I haven’t either. It’s on my bucket list.

Mike Jones: And I haven’t made it up there.

Shelly Chaney: There’s a bunch of beautiful places in northern Arizona that I want to go to. Road trip!

Mike Jones: Yeah, there we go!

Chris Stadler: Sweet!

Mike Jones: AZ Brandcast road trip!

Chris Stadler: Some place with whiskey.

Shelly Chaney: Definitely.

Mike Jones: We’ll bring our own.

Shelly Chaney: Some great Old Fashioned’s.

Chris Stadler: Just in case.

Mike Jones: Yeah, well. Yeah that’s a topic for a different time, Chris.

Chris Stadler: I think it’s a topic for now!

Mike Jones: Gonna have some people on from the tribe and talk about … yeah, we can have a little whiskey conversation.

Chris Stadler: Mike, where would you go?

Mike Jones: I wasn’t ready for this Chris.

Chris Stadler: Yeah, I’m sorry. This is what we do here.

Mike Jones: Well, yeah. I would spend it in Colorado. I would be somewhere up in the mountains for the whole summer. I just love it up there.

Shelly Chaney: And you just got back from there.

Mike Jones: I did, I was just up there for a week doing some backpacking. So I’d like to go back. If I could spend the whole summer there! That’d be great. But I like coming back here, you know? I don’t think I’d want to relocate up there. I’d rather-

Shelly Chaney: Kind of other best of both worlds.

Mike Jones: Yeah. Spend the winters here, enjoy 70 degree weathers in shorts and T-shirt on Christmas day, everybody loves that. And then head up to Colorado when things start to heat up down here and beat the heat.

Chris Stadler: Leave the scorpions behind.

Mike Jones: Yeah. I don’t need to see anymore scorpions.

Chris Stadler: Who does?

Mike Jones: I don’t know. Someone out there probably does, but I don’t. Alright, so Chris your chance.

Chris Stadler: Okay.

Mike Jones: Where would you want to be?

Chris Stadler: I don’t know. The southern hemisphere.

Mike Jones: Somewhere where it’s winter.

Chris Stadler: Somewhere where it’s … yeah, I don’t know.

Shelly Chaney: Go to Australia right now, if you want to get the reverse.

Chris Stadler: Probably New Zealand.

Mike Jones: Okay.

Shelly Chaney: That would be beautiful.

Mike Jones: That’s a good pick.

Chris Stadler: Some of the mountains in New Zealand and do some snowboarding or something, I don’t know.

Mike Jones: That’d be cool.

Chris Stadler: Have some Schnapps!

Mike Jones: Bringing it back. That’s awesome. Alright Shelly, let’s get to something serious here. So, tell us a little bit about what you’re doing at DollarDays and kind of what you guys are up to.

Shelly Chaney: Well, lots of great things going on at DollarDays. I have actually been with the company for, I’d say about two and a half years now and I’m officially the Vice President slash General Manager of the business.

Chris Stadler: That’s awesome. Congrats.

Shelly Chaney: Thank you. Yeah, actually when I started I was really overseeing merchandising operations, and then my roles just kind of grown. But really what I focus on mostly is just a lot of the coordination of the teams and the business units, and focusing on the merchandising. We’re doing a lot of great things with private label, which I know we’ll talk about at some point today. And just coordinating. We have a lot of great partnerships, so just maximizing the business, making sure that the teams are all really working together and really striving towards our ultimate goal and mission of the company.

Mike Jones: That’s awesome. Tell us a little bit about that mission. I know there’s been some transitions over the years. You guys have been around since what, 2001?

Shelly Chaney: Yes.

Mike Jones: That’s awesome.

Shelly Chaney: So, we actually … this business has been a pioneer in the e-commerce space. So it is a wholesale B to B e-commerce company, which has really evolved though because when we first started it was really based on bringing in lots of products. So kind of more of a marketplace. At some point I think we had 300 thousand plus products.

Mike Jones: That’s crazy!

Shelly Chaney: So there is no doubt you could find everything you could possibly need on our site. And we really catered to small businesses and non-profits, kind of from the beginning, but really when things started to change is when hurricane Katrina happened. And we started getting inundated with lots of requests from non-profits and charities really needing secured goods for those areas most devastated by the disaster. And that really kind of set a new path for the business, in terms of there’s a real opportunity to help these organizations and there’s really not a lot of other outlets for them to find goods.

Shelly Chaney: Because everything we do is in small case pack sizes, up to the truckload. So we can do very large shipments. Wholesale pricing, they can come to us and get much better pricing on goods that they need in bulk quantities. Over time it just started to become something that we began to focus more on, and created more national partnerships. Right now we’ve been fortunate enough to work with organizations like Salvation Army, United Way, you name it. So really kind of set a new pathway for us in the last, I would say the last year we’ve made some changes.

Shelly Chaney: We moved our office. We used to be up in the Scottsdale Airpark, which was really cool ’cause I could look out my window and see all these jets land, and it was really neat. But we definitely outgrew the space. Not only outgrew the space, but we kind of wanted to update the space, and so we found a new office. We’re over in Phoenix now on 44th and Osborn. And-

Mike Jones: It’s a great office. It looks awesome.

Shelly Chaney: Thank you. I was fortunate enough to be able to be a part of that, so got to design the space. And really with the thought process of we wanted to be much more of an e-commerce startup, even kind of like an agency feel. Very open and modern, a lot more collaborative spaces. You saw it, it’s just like a lot of glass and the view’s incredible. We’re overlooking Camelback Mountain, which is for me, being from Arizona, is like a very iconic mountain. We just wanted a new space, and to just reinvigorate the business.

Shelly Chaney: Came up with a new tagline. So it’s DollarDays, the brighter way to shop. And we feel like that really speaks to what we do, is we want the shopping process to be easy. And we have an amazing customer service team, and sales team, and they really have great energy. They have really created very intimate relationships with our customers. So we feel like that, the brighter way to shop, it embodies what we’re doing. And our logo we have a sun, which obviously on the radio you can’t see, but the sun is kind of our icon. And so everything for us is just bright, and positive, and great energy.

Shelly Chaney: And it really does embody Arizona. We really want to stay true to our roots, and we love being based and started in Arizona. So after 17 years we’re just really excited about the new space and where we’re going.

Mike Jones: That’s awesome. That’s really cool. Chris, what’s our next discussion point?

Chris Stadler: Yes. We are interested in hearing a little more about your involvement in charity. So you mentioned hurricane Katrina, you mentioned some partners that you have, the Salvation Army and … what’s the direction you guys want to take with that, and is that something that you’re … are you looking for more partnerships like that?

Shelly Chaney: Yeah, lots of great stuff there. We definitely are getting into new markets because of the requests and the needs of our partnerships. So disaster relief is definitely one area of the business that we are making sure we have the right products, and can mobilize those products. We’re actually working with an amazing organization called Good360. And we’re part of their organization now in providing goods for any time a disaster strikes. So when hurricane Harvey happened last year they came to us and said, “We’re really having a hard time finding these specific items.”

Shelly Chaney: And I think it was mops, and mask, and bleach, and cleaning supplies, because of the floods. So they’re not an organization that is well equipped to source products, so they look to us to do that for them. We’re really kind of the procurement partner for them. And then we have all of our warehouses strategically located, and it just so happens we have quite a few in Texas. So we were able to mobilize the goods that they needed and warehouse them in our warehouses. Then we also, because obviously we are so in tune with what’s happening and we’re passionate about what we’re doing, we decided for a week to donate 5% of our sales to them to help them mobilize their efforts.

Shelly Chaney: Helped a lot of residences in the Texas area, as well as Louisiana. And I think we raised a little over $30 thousand for them.

Mike Jones: That’s awesome!

Shelly Chaney: Yeah. We were really, really excited to be able to do a cash donation to them, as well as goods. We also donated quite a few good to them. And that actually spurred this bigger partnership with them, and they’ve asked us to be part of their council. They are looking to us now, actually we’re working with them now to mobilize more goods. And obviously you know the hurricane season kicked off at the beginning of June, so luckily there hasn’t been any yet but in the preparedness for that we are working with them in a strong strategic partnership to have those goods available and mobilize them into specific areas in Texas and in Florida.

Shelly Chaney: In terms of kind of what that sparks, Chris, in terms of newness for us is disaster relief is an area that we’ve been supporting, but I think we’ve kind of taken on a more proactive role in making sure that we have those particular items. Not just for hurricanes but for floods, and fires. I don’t know if you guys were aware of everything that went on in California with the fires. I lived in LA for many years, so I was very struck by what happened there and a lot of my family and friends are there. So there’s just a lot of different natural disasters that happen that we are putting a lot of energy and focus in.

Shelly Chaney: We actually now have a category manager, Matt McHugh, who is focused on natural disasters. He’s doing a lot of certification so he can become an expert. We definitely listen to our partners and what they need, so that’s one area. In terms of just the overall community of partners that we have, we have some really big national partners like I mentioned. Salvation Army, United Way, but we’re also working with a lot of local chapters, and churches, and communities so we’re always looking to expand on that by having the right products, at the right time, at the right price for them.

Shelly Chaney: I think the thing that they love working with us about is that obviously an organization has a cause and a mission, and they want to focus that. They want to focus the resources on funding, and bringing in more donors, but they don’t really necessarily have the expertise on the product side. Nor do they really have the warehousing space to bring in products and what I’ve learned in my time with DollarDays is a lot of these organizations will get goods donated to them, but it’s not the right product. It’s not the right time. So then they have all this overhead and expenses in warehousing these goods.

Shelly Chaney: And often times … I think there’s some stat out there like 80% of donated goods end up in the landfill. Don’t quote me on that, but that’s something that I’ve heard. It’s quite a bit. Whatever it is, it’s a tremendous amount of products that are just not in the right place at the right time. So what they love working with us is that they don’t have to buy inventory. They can literally take our products as a feed and then put that on their site. And then we can just fulfill the orders as they come in, so there’s really no overhead for them, there’s no cost for them.

Shelly Chaney: And we’re seeing a lot of organizations really respond to that. Again, like Good360 we provide the majority of the products on their site that their network, they can push out to their communities and they can just buy the goods, and then they’re donated to the local charity of their choice. That is actually identified as a need for them.

Mike Jones: Yeah, that’s awesome.

Chris Stadler: Wow.

Shelly Chaney: It’s a really interesting business model. There’s really no one doing it like that.

Chris Stadler: It’s like a just in time charity model, like for charities right?

Shelly Chaney: Yeah. For charities that-

Chris Stadler: Like [crosstalk 00:15:01], you know?

Shelly Chaney: Yeah, well they basically have a need, and it might be a year-round need, it might be a seasonal need, or it might be an event-based need. Right now we’re in the heart of our season, which is back to school. So there’s a lot of backpack drives going on, we have some local events actually going on right now. We have the back to school clothing drive that is putting together backpacks, or doing a backpack packing party. And actually part of our team was there this morning at 7:00 AM unloading all the goods that they procured from us. School supplies, and backpacks, and so they’re unpacking everything.

Shelly Chaney: And in the morning they’ll do the backpacking party, and then on Saturday they’ll give them out to all the kids.

Mike Jones: That’s awesome.

Shelly Chaney: It just really resonates with what we do. We’re really active in the community. A lot of great partners in Phoenix as well.

Mike Jones: That’s really cool.

Chris Stadler: Speaking of Phoenix, Mike if you don’t mind me-

Mike Jones: No, go ahead.

Chris Stadler: … asking this next question. Arizona, right? So we’re the AZ Brandcast, and one of the things we’re always interested in hearing from our guests is, what do you think is the good and bad about doing business in Arizona? And from your point of view, being the kind of company you guys are having a … you provide products, but then you also have kind of a heart. You’re a business with a heart, right? So what is so good about Arizona? And what kind of is bad?

Shelly Chaney: Well I think I have maybe a different perspective. I was born and raised here. Went to Mountain View high school, I went to Arizona State. Graduated. And honestly I couldn’t wait to get to California. I always wanted to live in California growing up.

Mike Jones: We all know that person.

Shelly Chaney: So I did, I spent 17 years in LA and worked in a couple different industries, mostly the fashion industry. E-commerce marketing. And spent a lot of time working in New York. Great cities, vivacious, just a lot of expansion. And then had the opportunity to move back to Phoenix about five years ago. Like I mentioned our office is in Scottsdale, and then we moved to Phoenix last may, our office, and we started a great partnership with the city of Phoenix. And they have been wonderful. They have completely embraced us, welcomed us in with open arms and introduced us to lots of organizations, businesses, and non-profits and charities.

Shelly Chaney: And I’d have to say one of the things I love most about being in Arizona is it’s just such a friendly, and collaborative environment. From my experience we’ll meet partners and the next thing I’ll know I’ll get emails from lots of other people just inquiring about us. “Oh, I just met with so and so, and they were talking about DollarDays.” And it’s definitely a very close knit environment and community. And people really just embrace you, and want to recommend and refer you to other partners. So I would say that’s a little bit different than LA and New York, and I found it to be super refreshing.

Shelly Chaney: I think we’re just starting to skim the surface. I know DollarDays has been in business here for 17 years, but I feel like we’re just starting to really get connected. We definitely, as a company, made it our goal to be more rooted in the community. We have committed the company itself to a program called Donation Days where each one of our employees is given two full days paid off, and encouraged to go and volunteer in their community for their choice. Find something that you’re passionate about and spend your time, paid and during the work week, and go get involved. We really want to embody what we’re doing with the partners that we’re working with.

Shelly Chaney: In terms of negatives? I don’t know if I know of any negatives. I think that for Phoenix being maybe in the top five now in terms of metropolitan size, I think it’s just a great time to be here. I think more organizations and businesses are moving here, so there’s a lot more opportunity. I think that’s helping maybe with the workforce, in terms of finding talent. I think more and more people are looking to move here and I think maybe that might have been a challenge in the past, but I feel like more organizations are being here, the tax benefits of being in Arizona. The cost of living is better.

Shelly Chaney: I know, for me, I was living in Manhattan Beach and my rent was sky high. And one of the perks of moving to Arizona is I could buy a house! So the cost of living, the benefit of living in Arizona I think is attracting great talent. We also, obviously, are getting more familiar with the landscape and the partners here. But we’re also a part of an organization called Galvanize, which we’re really excited about. And that’s just wanting to be part of this innovation that’s happening in Phoenix, and more of the startups that are happening here. I know that I read some stat where this is one of the best startup cities in the United States right now.

Shelly Chaney: So I think from that standpoint I just think it’s gonna get better and better.

Mike Jones: That’s awesome. That’s encouraging to hear.

Shelly Chaney: I don’t know if the weather’s gonna get better in the summer, we can’t help that.

Mike Jones: No, no.

Shelly Chaney: Other than that I feel like it’s a really great place to be.

Chris Stadler: Well, we haven’t reached 117 yet, or have we?

Mike Jones: I think it was-

Shelly Chaney: Pretty close!

Mike Jones: It was close, I think.

Chris Stadler: The sound engineer is nodding.

Shelly Chaney: Close enough?

Chris Stadler: Yeah, yeah.

Mike Jones: But we haven’t done 120 this year.

Chris Stadler: They were talking like last year was like-

Shelly Chaney: Not yet.

Chris Stadler: … can a plane even take off? With some of those models I think it was Bombardier or something that couldn’t quite take off from that.

Mike Jones: You’re scaring all of the out-of-towners. They’re all like, “Why? Why do you live there?”

Chris Stadler: Yeah, Grady our sound engineer is gonna have to-

Mike Jones: But, you know what? There’s-

Chris Stadler: … erase this.

Mike Jones: … no hurricanes. There’s no earthquakes. Last time I checked we haven’t had a fire on the side of a hill yet.

Chris Stadler: There’s haboobs.

Mike Jones: There are haboobs, which are pretty cool.

Chris Stadler: Which, in addition to being interesting, is super fun to say!

Mike Jones: They are. They’re pretty cool. They’re a fun one.

Chris Stadler: Okay, alright. Enough of that tomfoolery. Mike, what’s-

Mike Jones: Yeah, so I think this plays off of actually that conversation. So we talked about kind of where you guys are feeling Arizona’s at, and all the positives that it’s been for DollarDays, which is awesome, it’s really encouraging to hear. And I think that would resonate with my experience here, that just things have gotten better. The workforce is booming, and there’s really cool companies coming here which I think is better for everybody. And there’s some cool stuff going on. In light of that, are there other types of companies or industries that you think, “Hey, let’s see more of that here in Arizona.” Like that would be a great fit here?

Shelly Chaney: That’s a great question. My backgrounds really e-commerce and marketing apparel. I just saw yesterday this line Gwynnie Bee is based in New York, and they’re coming out here and they’re opening this huge fulfillment center. And so I think … I was kind of looking into that. It seems like this is, in terms of real estate, a great investment. It seems like it’s, cost-wise, definitely more affordable. So I would say obviously we know the presence Amazon has here with fulfillment, but definitely organizations that have the fulfillment side of the business? Definitely a great place to be.

Shelly Chaney: We’ve got definitely the workforce to support it. Lots of available land. Obviously we’re a sprawling city, so there is definitely opportunity for that. I would say that this is a great place for anything creative, too. I came from LA, obviously there’s a huge movie studio industry there, but maybe there’s opportunity for more of that here. And again, anything that just really needs land, fulfillment space, or warehouse space. I think that would be a great opportunity. And then again, just like I said, a lot of startups are coming here. And I think the innovation is key. Working with the city of Phoenix, they’re really looking to bring in top companies.

Shelly Chaney: And we work with Hank Williams over there, and just what they’re doing from a strategic development standpoint is really impressive.

Mike Jones: That’s awesome. Yeah, I think I’ve seen that, especially in that last five years. Just the cities and the state itself, the different entities have just been really open and wanting to accept new companies coming in. And my involvement with a lot of startups around town, and the community of startups here. It’s really cool to watch and see how that’s … that’s not just something that’s happening, it’s something that’s being initiated-

Shelly Chaney: Absolutely.

Mike Jones: … which is really cool.

Chris Stadler: So building off of that, can you also think of any companies that would find particular inspiration here? Like is it sunshine, is it scorpions? I don’t know, is it cowboys?

Mike Jones: You’re stuck on scorpions.

Chris Stadler: I know, I love them. They’re my muse.

Mike Jones: This is from the guy from Oregon, so it’s all gonna make sense here.

Chris Stadler: I was like, “Scorpions? Wow!”

Mike Jones: Us natives are like, “Uh!”

Chris Stadler: But it’s fascinating. You take a blacklight outside-

Mike Jones: I know.

Chris Stadler: … and just some salad tongs, which is my weapon of choice, and I like to capture them alive and throw them in together and do experiments.

Shelly Chaney: I’m not much for scorpion catching. But yeah, if you think about it in terms of lifestyle we have every major sport, right? I mean I’m a major sports, avid fan. And then spring training? That time of year there’s a buzz here. And then I see, like I live in the Arcadia area, and there’s so many new restaurants going up and bars going up, and shopping, and retail. It’s an exciting time to be here. It’s kind of like you’re seeing this revitalization, and gentrification in a lot of cool areas. I find that super-inspiring. Like in the Phoenix area and some of the historic areas. A lot of home building, a lot of restoration. I think it’s getting … actually having a vibe, which I think maybe we didn’t always have? I don’t know.

Mike Jones: No, I think it’s been a while since we’ve had a vibe.

Shelly Chaney: But I love it. I love going downtown Phoenix, and I love seeing just a lot of the wall art, and just all these cool places going up. There’s this place called Churchill, I don’t know if you guys have heard of it, but it’s this really cool retail location where they’re building the whole space out of containers. A lot of local companies are going in there, like State 48. A lot of really cool local brands-

Mike Jones: That’s awesome.

Shelly Chaney: … are going in there. I cannot wait to check that out, it should be opening up in the next few weeks. So I just think there’s a cool vibe happening. There’s the music venues like the Van Buren and it’s attracting a lot of cool talent. From music to sports, lifestyle, shopping. I mean great weather, nine months out of the year.

Mike Jones: Yeah.

Chris Stadler: Yeah. Yup, it’s true.

Shelly Chaney: I don’t know what more you could ask for. Low cost of living.

Chris Stadler: Yeah. Lots of sunshine.

Shelly Chaney: Great sunshine.

Mike Jones: No, I think we’re-

Shelly Chaney: Lots of hiking.

Chris Stadler: Beautiful sunsets every single night.

Shelly Chaney: That’s gorgeous.

Chris Stadler: It’s like every single night it’s like a new beautiful sunset.

Shelly Chaney: The sky lights up.

Mike Jones: This is officially the Arizona hype episode. This is awesome! We’re like hyping.

Chris Stadler: But it’s cool, yeah thank you. Yes, absolutely.

Shelly Chaney: A lot of great things going on. I see it, and things are opening up. My friends that come to visit, they’re like, “Wow, I had no idea it’s so cool here.” And it’s like, yeah. I mean, they’re not here in the summer visiting me, but.

Mike Jones: Yeah, yeah, yeah. You don’t invite them out then. That would just ruin everything.

Shelly Chaney: Yeah, I don’t. Don’t even bother. But I have a pool, so-

Mike Jones: Exactly.

Shelly Chaney: And I have done so many staycations this summer it’s insane. Literally every weekend it’s been like almost a staycation.

Mike Jones: Yeah. There’s a ton of great resorts, and cool small hotels-

Shelly Chaney: Great deals.

Mike Jones: … great deals in the summer.

Shelly Chaney: The kids can swim.

Chris Stadler: Staycations are great here.

Shelly Chaney: You can lay out. Swim up bar.

Chris Stadler: Yes.

Mike Jones: Some of them have like, I mean if you’ve got kids they’ve got awesome lazy rivers and slides, and fake beaches.

Chris Stadler: I’m all about the lazy river and the fake beach.

Shelly Chaney: There’s so much great things about the city for me personally. Like, living in LA, like commuting to work an hour, hour and a half each way. I don’t have to get on a freeway here to go to the office. There is something to be said for that.

Mike Jones: There is.

Chris Stadler: Well, I get on the freeway but you drive like 150 miles an hour, so it’s like you’re not going the speed limit. Unless you want to get run over.

Shelly Chaney: And we’re a great center point, right? I just went to Palm Springs this weekend, I was there in three and a half hours. The weekend before I went to Sedona to go to some of the wineries, hour and a half and then some wineries, you know? I travel a lot for work, I’m at the airport in 15 minutes. Get in and out of Sky Harbor so easy. Just a great city.

Mike Jones: That’s awesome. I concur.

Chris Stadler: You know what’s the best?

Mike Jones: What’s the best, Chris?

Chris Stadler: I’ll say what’s the best before we go on. The best is flying in from the east coast at 5:00 pm in the summer. I don’t care how hot it is. The sky is so beautiful, you’re coming from a place that’s like humid and jungly, because you’re in Kentucky or whatever. You may have just had some great whiskey, but that’s beside the point. And you fly in to Phoenix and you’re home, and you look-

Shelly Chaney: I just flew in from DC. I was in DC for a little bit.

Chris Stadler: Oh, a swamp.

Shelly Chaney: Whew! I mean I was happy to go there, we had some great meetings with some of our partners like Toys for Tots and Good360. So it was a really great trip, but I got off the plane there and I literally was like … I was wet. Dripping. I was just like I’ve got to probably change before i go to a meeting, it was pretty brutal.

Chris Stadler: No thank you.

Shelly Chaney: I know it’s such a cliché thing to say, but I will take this dry heat over anything. I was lucky enough to go, I think I was telling you Mike that I went to China.

Mike Jones: Yeah.

Shelly Chaney: And again, super humid and a city full of a a lot of people.

Mike Jones: Yes, yes I’m sure!

Shelly Chaney: A lot of people! So to be in Arizona, it’s hot. We get it, but I’ll take the dry heat any day.

Mike Jones: Yeah, and I don’t feel like … I mean, yeah we’re growing and that does mean a little bit more congestion, and more people. And sometimes I think that’s actually good. I think that’s good for Phoenix. But for the most part people aren’t stacked on top of each other, and it’s not like that New York feel where you’re kind of like just always jostling. And you’re always trying to make your own space [crosstalk 00:29:32]-

Shelly Chaney: Open spaces here.

Mike Jones: Yeah, there’s open spaces. And if you want to live on an acre outside of town you can go do that, or you can live in really urban area and live around and have lots of people around you, and have that experience too. I think it’s really cool how there’s these different ways in which people want to live.

Shelly Chaney: There’s a lot of variety.

Mike Jones: And Phoenix really caters to almost all of them. It’s really cool.

Shelly Chaney: All these urban lofts that they’re developing.

Mike Jones: Yeah, downtown Phoenix has just been blowing up. It’s been really cool to watch. Despite some of the old buildings coming down, which is a little sad.

Shelly Chaney: Whatever they can do to not tear those down, and just repurpose them and-

Mike Jones: I think people are trying.

Shelly Chaney: … bring it back to life. I love the vintage aspect of that.

Mike Jones: Change is gonna happen at some point, too. I’m excited. One of the coolest things I think that’s happening in Phoenix is there’s a grocery store going into downtown. Right on 1st and Washington. For the first time in 25 or 30 years, which is crazy.

Chris Stadler: By the, what’s it called?

Mike Jones: The Department.

Chris Stadler: The Department, that one?

Mike Jones: Across the street.

Chris Stadler: Okay. Alright.

Mike Jones: So for the first time you can live in downtown Phoenix, like downtown proper, and you can actually shop for groceries.

Chris Stadler: Get food.

Mike Jones: Right there. You don’t have to go four or five miles out of your way. It’s crazy.

Shelly Chaney: It might actually become a walking city.

Mike Jones: You need a few more sunshades!

Shelly Chaney: We can only hope.

Mike Jones: We need more sunshades.

Chris Stadler: Oh, yeah.

Mike Jones: That’s all, or-

Chris Stadler: Or just like a big air conditioner that just kind of blows across.

Mike Jones: Citywide air conditioner. Well, Google tried out, what was that, citywide WiFi? We should do citywide air conditioning.

Shelly Chaney: A dome. I like the dome idea.

Mike Jones: A dome!

Shelly Chaney: Actually it would be really cool.

Mike Jones: Could it be like Chase?

Shelly Chaney: I was just gonna say it has to have a retractable roof.

Mike Jones: It opens and closes.

Chris Stadler: Yeah, as long as it protects it from asteroids as well.

Mike Jones: Man, you ask for a lot Chris. You ask for a lot.

Chris Stadler: UV coating. Tinted dome.

Mike Jones: We can do that after they build it. Just like your car. Aftermarket, it’s way cheaper that way.

Chris Stadler: Yeah, exactly. Except you don’t want those bubbles.

Shelly Chaney: Early adopters.

Chris Stadler: You don’t want those bubbles, though, if they do it wrong. Because that would just be embarrassing. That would hurt the brand.

Mike Jones: Just picturing you at the dome, like at the edge of the dome scraping the bubbles out.

Chris Stadler: Like a big, giant me.

Mike Jones: Yeah. A big, giant you.

Chris Stadler: With a squeegee.

Mike Jones: Alright. So I can’t remember, our last discussion thing was just kind of finding out what fun projects, or new initiatives, or partnerships you guys are working on that you want to highlight. Kind of give us a little inside look into what’s going on at DollarDays.

Chris Stadler: Yeah, you guys already kind of answered a lot of that already because apparently you’re so excited about it. But maybe, if you can’t think of any more, maybe think of your absolutely favorite one and just kind of like what you hope happens.

Mike Jones: Oh. Chris, you’re good at these.

Chris Stadler: Ah, thanks man.

Shelly Chaney: Well, I think I did mention that we started our own private label lines. I’m super excited about a couple of them. So the first one was Forward Backpacks. Just based on, again, the years of doing this, and our partners and getting feedback from them. So many of them need backpacks, and they need them at a really great price. So we decided to create our own private label line, and our backpacks start at I think $2.50. Which is insane. You can buy a backpack for less than a cup of coffee.

Mike Jones: That is insane. That’s awesome.

Shelly Chaney: And we wanted to make a really great bag, a quality bag, a retail ready being. It’s got a label on the front, it’s got a hang tag. And I’m really excited about this initiative, because it was definitely a big investment for us. And we are close to being 80% sold out for the season.

Mike Jones: That’s awesome.

Chris Stadler: Yeah, congrats!

Shelly Chaney: ‘Cause what that really means is that then we get to go and reinvest, and make it a bigger program for next year. So we’re gonna expand the line. More styles, more SKUs, and then again we get to go out there and market to more of our partners. And ultimately more kids have a backpack for school. So I’m super passionate about that. The other line that we did, which is kind of in relationship to that, is Big Box. Which is bulk school supplies. And we started this a couple years ago. Actually was a teacher for a minute. My sister-in-law’s a teacher in Houston, and obviously you all see the news and how much teachers are spending out of their own pockets to fund their classrooms.

Shelly Chaney: So we wanted to come up with a line that was really affordable, and they could buy these every day supplies in bulk. So we’re actually expanding that line. Right now we have nine styles, and I think hopefully by next year we’ll have 30 styles. So we think this has so much opportunity, and again it’s helping teachers and organizations have those most essential school supplies. The most basic things kids need in school. Love that we’re helping so many kids, and we’re gonna grow this and make it something even bigger. So the private label is something we’re very excited about.

Shelly Chaney: It’s a big opportunity to help more.

Mike Jones: I love how it dovetails into your guys kind of core purpose. It’s not just like, “Oh, there’s this opportunity in the market and we’re gonna go create a private label line, because it’s gonna make us tons of money.” But it’s like, no. There’s these very particular specific needs and in some cases not being met at all, and you guys are chasing that which is really cool.

Shelly Chaney: We often hear from some of our partners before they discovered us, we asked them, “You’ve been doing this backpack drive for quite some time, where have you been getting your products?” And it’s kind of the usual suspects. Some of the bigger big box retailers, and it’s like, why spend $19.99 on one bag when you can buy a case pack of 24 at $2.50 a bag? Think of how much more you can buy. You can really stretch your donation dollars and help so many more kids. So it’s … we love it. People that end up buying from us, we do give them 5% back in a merchandise credit to the charity of their choice.

Shelly Chaney: So it’s kind of win-win. We also have a wishlist, which we’re really excited about expanding on. So non-profit, like we mentioned I was discussing earlier, they have specific needs and so they can create their own wishlist, and really use the products that we provide. And say, “We need 100 sleeping bags, we need 100 blankets.” And they can create their own wishlists and send that out to their network. So it really makes sure that they get the right product, at the right time, at the right price.

Mike Jones: That’s awesome.

Chris Stadler: So I got excited, because I thought you were talking about a wishlist for new kinds of products.

Mike Jones: That’s a different kind of wish list.

Chris Stadler: That’s, no … I was just thinking-

Shelly Chaney: Yeah, we would love that though. And we do, we definitely are listening to our customers. And based on what, just doing this for 17 years, a lot of what we’ve developed is just listening to the customer and what their needs are. But I like that idea. I think that I’ve seen that too, where you can be like, if we were gonna develop a blanket, which color? Or if we were gonna develop a sleeping bag, what degrees do you need it at.

Chris Stadler: Scorpion repellent.

Shelly Chaney: Well, you know Mike-

Chris Stadler: With a CamelBak, so you don’t get dehydrated.

Mike Jones: You’re stuck Chris, you’re stuck!

Shelly Chaney: It sounds like, too, for you Mike when you’re camping in the Colorado Rockies. It was like, do you need it to be below 40 degrees?

Mike Jones: Yeah.

Shelly Chaney: So I do, I think that would actually help. We’re listening, we want to hear more from our customers and what they need. Because that’s really what we’re doing, is just servicing their efforts and their mission.

Mike Jones: I think it’s a great lesson, too. Just doing business well means just doing good, right? Taking care of people, listening, having empathy.

Shelly Chaney: We’re trying to do more good, the right products, just to provide those goods to the community.

Mike Jones: That’s awesome. That’s so cool.

Shelly Chaney: Yeah. We’re getting ready to move into … you know, back to school is a big season for us. But we’re also getting ready to move into, I know it’s too hot to think about it, but we’re moving into winter. So our next big initiatives are community outreach, homeless shelters. So we provide a lot of blankets, and sleeping bags, hygiene kits. A lot of winter accessories and winter wear. And we actually developed a private label line for that called Wolf. So our Wolf collection is really gonna cater to those community outreach efforts.

Shelly Chaney: Super excited about that launch. Coming next month.

Mike Jones: That’s awesome!

Shelly Chaney: Coming soon.

Mike Jones: Cool, we’ll be looking out for that. Shelly, thank you so much for coming on. This has just been an awesome conversation.

Shelly Chaney: This is super fun for me, thank you for having me.

Mike Jones: I’m so glad. We actually still have a few more minutes. So we should … let’s utilize the time that we’ve got.

Chris Stadler: So, first let me just open it up and say, is there anything else you wanted to talk about? Any other feelings you have about Arizona? No more scorpions, whiskey, or haboobs.

Mike Jones: They just keep coming back.

Shelly Chaney: It’s hard to say that, because I always feel like I’m gonna say it wrong. That ginormous sandstorm, dust storm.

Mike Jones: Dust storms.

Chris Stadler: What is it? For people who are, it’s just dust.

Mike Jones: It’s just a dust storm. It’s a wall of dust that’s about to envelop you and give you a giant, dirty hug.

Chris Stadler: Without the benefit of, and sometimes it comes with thunderstorms, right?

Mike Jones: Sometimes you’ll get a thunderstorm that follows after it.

Chris Stadler: But no rain, because that would actually clean out the air.

Mike Jones: That would be asking too much.

Chris Stadler: Asking too much of Arizona.

Mike Jones: We’ve had some good storms this year with some good rain, which has been surprising.

Chris Stadler: It’s true.

Mike Jones: But, yes. For those of the uninitiated, haboob is just a giant dust storm.

Chris Stadler: We could think of a better name, to be honest though. It’s just, we’re all children and we keep like saying haboob. We’re all teenage boys.

Mike Jones: It’s funny, I feel like that word really only cropped up in the last seven, eight years here.

Shelly Chaney: Like I said-

Mike Jones: I don’t remember that word growing up.

Shelly Chaney: … I was born and raised here, left after college. I had never experienced it.

Chris Stadler: I’m trying to think of like, is it-

Shelly Chaney: Unless it was something that we just didn’t have the name for it, but I don’t remember that growing up at all.

Mike Jones: I think it just got called like a monsoon storm, or a dust storm. I don’t think people called it by that term.

Chris Stadler: I’m just thinking, is there a syllabic benefit? Like, is it actually fewer syllables to say haboob? No.

Mike Jones: No.

Chris Stadler: Dust storm. Haboob.

Mike Jones: No. They’re both-

Chris Stadler: Monsoons.

Mike Jones: They’re all two, man.

Chris Stadler: So what’s the benefit of haboob?

Mike Jones: I think it’s literally the inner junior high boy that everyone-

Chris Stadler: I can think of no other explanation.

Mike Jones: I mean it’s actually arabic, that’s what it comes from.

Chris Stadler: Oh, okay.

Mike Jones: That’s the term if you’re in-

Chris Stadler: Is it a gulf war thing? Like people came back and it’s like we’re all-

Mike Jones: Maybe, that’d be interesting. There’s a good market research [crosstalk 00:40:27]-

Chris Stadler: Phenomenon.

Shelly Chaney: I’m gonna bring you off of the haboob conversation.

Mike Jones: Shelly’s like, “I’m done.”

Shelly Chaney: I can … we have a few more minutes so I can talk about some fun stuff coming up. I’ve got some fun stuff coming up.

Mike Jones: [crosstalk 00:40:40]

Chris Stadler: I was buying you time.

Shelly Chaney: Thank you, thank you.

Mike Jones: Tell us more, Shelly.

Shelly Chaney: So some fun stuff coming up for us. Like I mentioned we’re getting really involved in more of the local non-profits here, and local businesses. So we’re partnering with a really cool, yummy sandwich place called Even Stevens. I don’t know if you guys have eaten there. The food is amazing. But we absolutely love what they’re doing. We actually participated in social media day, and got a chance to sponsor the lunch with Even Stevens and then learn more about their organization. They have about nine different locations in the valley, and each one of their stores gets to pick four local charities that they want to sponsor.

Shelly Chaney: So I don’t know if you know the concept, but it’s buy a sandwich, give a sandwich. So what they do is they actually donate the ingredients and the food to a a food bank. So they match that, which I think is just a great cause. But they also have four different specific non-profits that they partner with. And so what we decided to do was do what we’re college the Sandwich Series. And we’re gonna have Even Stevens come in with those four partners, so we’re gonna do it over a course of a couple months.

Shelly Chaney: And they’re gonna come in and bring those four non-profits, and we’re gonna do what we call Lunch and Learns in our organization, and have our teams get to learn more about what they’re doing.

Mike Jones: That’s awesome.

Shelly Chaney: Yeah, we’re really excited. And it’s gonna be just a matter of us learning more about their cause, and their missions. And then hopefully for our teams to be able to say, “Oh, that’s something I want to get involved in.” Use on of your donation days and go and volunteer to support that cause, that mission. So we’re doing a Sandwich Series. We’ll be promoting that, too, across all of our social media platforms. We’re putting much more emphasis on social media. It’s something in the last year that we’ve wanted to really embrace.

Shelly Chaney: We feel like it’s really in tune obviously with community, and referrals, and just networking. So we’re really excited about that program that we’re doing. And stay tuned, and join our social media platforms so you can learn more about what we’re doing. I’m doing a little plug, our social media [crosstalk 00:42:48] was just here and she’s kind of giving me the eye like, “Hey.” But actually on our social media platforms we do a lot of partnerships. A lot of sweepstakes, contests. We’re getting ready for national non-profit day. We’re gonna be giving away a thousand dollar sweepstakes.

Mike Jones: Nice.

Shelly Chaney: So you come and you nominate a non-profit, and so that’ll be really exciting. But, again just getting more rooted in the community. We also have a really great partner coming to do a Lunch and Learn called Local First AZ. Which, I love those guys and what they’re doing over there. We actually got to meet with them and learn more about the benefits of buying local. I was completely blown away by the benefits of doing that. So we wanted to bring them in to speak to our team, and our company. If you haven’t checked them out, please do. They’re a great organization. They’re really embodying what’s happening in the valley like we’ve been talking about.

Shelly Chaney: I went up and went to their website, and joined. Basically I’m a localist. And it only cost me $10 a month, which I’m happy to give them my $10. So I encourage you to go to their website and see what they’re doing. They’re doing some really amazing things in the community.

Mike Jones: Yeah, we’ve been … Resound, our agency, has been a member for a few years now. It’s been a great opportunity resource for us to get more plugged into the community here. We’ve just seen a lot of benefit through what they’re doing, and the initiatives that they’re putting on. I’m really excited. I know they’ve got a lot of new initiatives coming out especially for business owners, or people in leadership in businesses to just get more connected and understand kind of what is the community here, and how can we support each other. And really, even shop local at a business to business level.

Shelly Chaney: The shop local, to me, obviously that’s kind of been a buzzword. But to actually hear from them exactly what they’re doing, and what it means, and how buying locally really supports so many different … it’s kind of like this domino effect. And I was really surprised. So I definitely encourage people to check them out and learn more about what they’re doing. And then it definitely brought awareness to me, all the different companies in Arizona that I wasn’t even aware of. Like office supplies. We buy from some of the nationally known brands, you know, brand named retailers.

Shelly Chaney: But there’s definitely some companies locally that I’m like, we should be buying from them. There are literally two very close to us, so I definitely encourage that. We’ve been doing stuff like working with the Phoenix Business Journal. They just had a non-profit summit on Friday that we went to, and it was really great getting to meet … I mean some of the non-profits, obviously we work with already, but getting to meet a lot of new ones. So it was really just a collaboration of business and non-profits in the community.

Mike Jones: That’s very cool.

Shelly Chaney: A lot of ways you can get involved.

Mike Jones: Yes there are.

Chris Stadler: That’s interesting. I mean a lot of that sounds like the conscious capitalism stuff that we talk about, so there’s always that question about how does business, how do you divide that with a company? So like Milton Friedman’s the one extreme where he’s like, “Businesses should never spend business money for non-profits. It should always be the individuals, the shareholders.” But now we’re coming kind of a … we have a few minutes left, so what do you think. I mean, obviously you guys are kind of taking that approach of, we even pay our employees to go and volunteer.

Shelly Chaney: Well, I think because we believe in what we’re doing, and we’re passionate about the causes of our partners, and we’re equally passionate as individuals. So we really want to encourage that with our employees. And for us, it’s … we have a lot of businesses that buy for us that are donating to non-profits. So it’s a partnership across the board, really. We have a lot of … at the local banks that come to us, they do a lot of back to school clothing drives, backpack parties, and so we’re kind of supporting each other in those efforts. We try to do everything we can for our customers. We try to give them the best prices. We do free shipping for them. Again, I think we just feel like we’re all in this together, and we love doing more good for the community.

Shelly Chaney: And the partners that we work with have the same mission.

Mike Jones: Yeah, and it’s that kind of win-win-win model, right? When we all help each other we all win. It’s not this zero-sum game where someone has to lose when someone else wins.

Chris Stadler: It’s the myth of the fixed size pie.

Mike Jones: Yeah, exactly. I think that’s a lot of … like, when we talk about conscious capitalism that’s a lot of really what the discussion is about. It’s like, yeah if you see the world as this black and white, fixed size pie that … and it’s so funny, ’cause it’s like if you’ve been in business at all for any length of time you realize this creates wealth. This is creating value for each other, and often times exponentially than what you started with, right? And so it’s not a fixed size pie.

Chris Stadler: It’s like the rising tide really does lift all the ships.

Mike Jones: I think you guys with DollarDays are just such a great example of that. Of just taking care of all of your stakeholders, and how that means that everyone does better. Your partners, you guys, your employees.

Shelly Chaney: That’s definitely what we’re striving for as a team, just within the company really encouraging our employees to get out there. We want them to be passionate about it. And then once they come back, like they’ve been on the ground, they’ve been a part of something and I think that they’re more excited and invigorated about what they’re doing.

Mike Jones: Yup. Yeah, I can definitely attest to that. Just in my own experience, and then companies that I’ve worked with. When employees are engaged with some sense of, this is beyond just making a dollar. You know, even if it’s just making a dollar for myself. Getting my salary, getting to take care of my family. When there’s something beyond that we all get more bought in, and we feel better about the work we’re doing and we see the purpose behind it. We go, “Oh, wow. This is something I really want to invest my time and energy in. And feel responsibility for.” And when that stuff isn’t there, man, how much harder is it to get up in the morning and grab that cup of coffee and get to work?

Shelly Chaney: Yeah, it feels … it does feel good. We actually put this survey on our site, so after someone purchases, and I read all the feedback. There’s so much positive feedback that comes back from our partners that are like, Frank who manages Salvation Army, it is like, “Frank goes above and beyond. Frank is amazing.” It just doesn’t end, and it’s like I send these off to the different team members and I’m like … you can tell there’s a real passion there. It’s not that you just want to get a paycheck, it’s because they care. And they’ve been working with a lot of these organizations for years. So they do know them by first name, they do know what their names are.

Shelly Chaney: They can say, “Hey, I know what you bought last year. How did that work out? What can we do this year? And how can we make it a bigger back to school drive?” So it’s definitely rewarding on all the different levels.

Chris Stadler: Well, and I think it’s even more than that, too, because … have you heard that study by Arthur C. Brooks where it was that whole, he started out thinking, Well you have to have money before you give money.” Like charity money. And this applies to volunteer work as well. In his study the people who gave, whether they had money or they didn’t have extra money they gave anyway, I think they had an extra for every one dollar was an extra one hundred dollars at the end of the year. I can’t remember what it was, but it was statistically attributable to whatever they gave.

Chris Stadler: And it applied to volunteer work as well. So it was really interesting to see how … and part of the case is that psychologists tell us that when we do things like that, then it just multiplies something in our heart. I don’t know, maybe we have good vibes to share with everybody. And they’re like, we want to work with you and give you our money! But there’s something kind of-

Mike Jones: Well, you’re bought in, right?

Shelly Chaney: Absolutely.

Mike Jones: Like you’re bought in at a different level when you give. Regardless of what the specifics of like, well how does that pan out on the backend? How does that create more value for yourself? It’s the whole give to get, which I think is overplayed and a little too simplistic because you can certainly approach that with the wrong attitude. Just say, “Well, I’m giving to get stuff.” And that doesn’t work out.

Chris Stadler: But hardly anybody’s gonna be like-

Mike Jones: But when you give, you end up getting, right? And I think some of that is also just like you feel more bought in to whatever that initiative that you gave to, or however the means by which you did that. When an employee gets to spend their day volunteering, that intrinsically, not maybe for everybody but I would say for most people, it makes you go, “Wow, I really appreciate this day that I was given. I was getting paid for by my employer, to give back to something I really care about.” And that gives you a sense of buy-in that you don’t get if you don’t have a sense of, “I have a purpose here and I know what I’m doing, and I know what we’re doing as a whole.”

Chris Stadler: Well, that’s interesting. So that kind of goes back to the leadership thing, right? The company leadership, and the company saying, “You know what? We’re gonna take the lead on this. We’re not telling you, ‘You have to go on your own time volunteering.’ We’re just gonna give you a taste, because that’s what we care about.”

Shelly Chaney: And we saw that really a lot of our employees were actually already volunteering their time on the weekends. There was a lot of opportunity to volunteer on the weekends, and we just said, “You know what? We want to encourage that too. But why not as an organization provide at least two full days.” And we encourage them to do more. Like I said this morning, we had a big part of our team at 7:00 AM packing and unpacking school supplies and getting ready for a big event. And then they come in and they’re excited to start the day

Chris Stadler: Yeah, they’re energize. Ready to go.

Shelly Chaney: There’s a purpose, and a cause, and a mission.

Mike Jones: Exactly. That’s so awesome. I think we’ve got time for maybe one more quick question. Chris, do you have anything off the top of your head?

Chris Stadler: Not involving scorpions?

Mike Jones: Not involving scorpions.

Chris Stadler: What about the rock band, the Scorpions?

Mike Jones: You’re pushing it now.

Chris Stadler: No, wait. Was The Final Countdown-

Mike Jones: The Final Countdown.

Chris Stadler: That was Europe. Not Scorpions.

Mike Jones: Was that Europe? I don’t remember.

Chris Stadler: No, I think it was Europe, yeah. Alright, well favorite ’80s band. What is your favorite ’80s band?

Shelly Chaney: Oh my gosh. Okay, so the ’80s is the-

Mike Jones: We’re pulling from the deep archive.

Shelly Chaney: I mean, okay we’re gonna have go to there.

Chris Stadler: Not that you were alive then. Because you never want to assume a woman was alive in the ’80s.

Shelly Chaney: The ’80s is definitely my era. My daughter just had her 11th birthday party and it was an ’80s themed Skateland party.

Mike Jones: That’s awesome!

Chris Stadler: Alright.

Shelly Chaney: Yeah, it was super cool.

Chris Stadler: That’s class. That shows that you raised her right and she has a good cultural foundation, cultural education.

Shelly Chaney: Yes, yes. For sure. I probably have to say there’s a couple. The Cure, Depeche Mode.

Mike Jones: Oh, wow. Okay. Alright

Shelly Chaney: Definitely. Maybe The Smiths. Maybe that’s a little too melancholy.

Chris Stadler: You just named all the bands that I listen to, yeah.

Shelly Chaney: Siouxsie and the Banshees. Sex Pistols.

Chris Stadler: New Order.

Shelly Chaney: New Order.

Chris Stadler: Okay.

Shelly Chaney: Echo & the Bunnymen. I could keep going.

Mike Jones: There’s some punk in your background.

Shelly Chaney: There was, yeah. Yeah.

Chris Stadler: Echo & the Bunnymen, I tried to like them but it was just like they had one good song I liked. Bring on the Dancing Horses, is that one?

Shelly Chaney: Yeah. Yeah, Oingo Boingo.

Chris Stadler: Never got into them. It was The Smiths for me. ’80s.

Mike Jones: I hadn’t discovered punk rock quite yet. I was all about R.E.M..

Chris Stadler: Really? Okay.

Mike Jones: I was a big R.E.M. fan.

Chris Stadler: I tried to like them more, too. Didn’t work out.

Mike Jones: Still am. Especially ’80s R.E.M. is like that really kind of alternative, grungy … I mean they weren’t really grunge, but they kind of had this more dirty sound in the ’80s coming out of Atlanta. Kind of like South meets alternative rock. It was really cool.

Chris Stadler: Yeah. They had a point of view.

Mike Jones: It was a good sound. Michael Stipe, nothing he said or saying you could understand. It was great, I loved it. He just mumbled is way through every song.

Shelly Chaney: There’s just … the music and the movies out of the ’80s, you just can’t top it.

Chris Stadler: I know. I think, let’s see. The Smiths was big and then I don’t know, I think there were two phases for me in the ’80s. Because there was like a Poison-

Mike Jones: Of course there was!

Chris Stadler: Motley Crew.

Shelly Chaney: See, I did not get into any of that.

Chris Stadler: When I was younger.

Shelly Chaney: I was all the alternative stuff. I wasn’t the rock, though.

Chris Stadler: I may be the oldest one here, though. So I was getting paid to mow lawns with my Sony Walkman, my tape. I’d turn it up really loud so I could hear it over the lawnmower. Fort Benning, Georgia. Mowing lawns, man.

Mike Jones: Some heavy metal.

Chris Stadler: In the heat, and in the humidity.

Mike Jones: That’s awesome.

Chris Stadler: Alright, how we doing on time?

Mike Jones: I think we’re about ready to wrap. We’ve got about two minutes left.

Chris Stadler: Right on, let’s wrap her up.

Mike Jones: Cool. Thank you, Shelly, so much for coming in. This has been awesome.

Shelly Chaney: It was my treat, thank you.

Mike Jones: And thanks for kind of sitting through our extended version there. We actually got through the questions a lot faster than I thought we would, so that’s awesome.

Chris Stadler: Yes. And if people want to know, want to contact you or find out more, how do they do that?

Shelly Chaney: Easy enough. So visit our website at dollardays.com, and that’s D-O-L-L-A-R-D-A-Y-S.com

Mike Jones: Surprise. That’s how it sounds.

Chris Stadler: There’s not a Z? Daze?

Shelly Chaney: No, not dazed and confused. And then if you feel free if you wanted to reach out to me, it’s Shelly Chaney, C-H-A-N-E-Y is my last name and I’m on LinkedIn. And you can also email me at schaney@dollardays.com

Mike Jones: That’s awesome.

Chris Stadler: Right on.

Mike Jones: Cool, and then for anyone … thanks everybody for listening, but if anyone wants to check out more episodes of AZ Brandcast we’ve got a nice catalog on iTunes and Apple Play, or you can use your Apple podcast app to find AZ Brandcast, A-Z B-R-A-N-D-C-A-S-T. You can search for us on those channels, and then also hit up our website and get on the newsletter, Azbrandcast.com, and you can always connect with us on Twitter or any other social platform but we do like Twitter. @AZBrandcast.

Chris Stadler: AZ Brandcast is sponsored by Conscious Capitalism Arizona, and is a member of the Phoenix Business Radio X network. This is Chris and-

Mike Jones: Mike!

Chris Stadler: And we’re signing off.

Mike Jones: Thanks guys.

Chris Stadler: Thank you.