AUGUST 15, 2007
VCU - WEBCAST

Captioning Provided By:  Caption First, Inc.

	>> JOE STEFFY:  Hi, my name is Joe Steffy.  Call me Poppin Joe.  Meet 
my dad Ray.  Dad, tell them about Poppin Joe.
     
	>> RAY STEFFY:  Good afternoon.  My name is Ray Steffy.  Joe and I and 
his mother, Janet, are here today to share with you how Poppin Joe's Kettle 
Korn got started.  What we would like to do is draw a roadmap for you, in how 
we started from the very beginning and became the successful business that we 
feel we are today. 
    
	First of all, I'd like to go back to the why of how this all started.  
Basically, at Joe's birth, we made a promise to him, 1) that we would do all 
that we could to give him every opportunity to be what he could be to the 
most with a disability, 2) that we wanted to give him a quality of life that 
was equal to that of his brothers and sisters, and 3) that by the time he 
became a young adult he would be part of the community around him and do and 
have friends like everybody else. 
    
	Basically, 16 years after that, we went to a transition meeting through 
the school, and they told us that Joe had very low expectations, that Joe 
could not focus on work, and he would probably never work and that probably 
it would be a dead end for him. He possibly would end up in workshops and 
also live in a group home. Basically, for us, as a family, we saw more 
evidence of Joe than that. 
    
	>> JOE STEFFY:  I learned by watching.  I do exactly what I see others 
do.  I liked working mornings at Hill Top Stables.  I fed and watered horses 
and let them out to pasture.  I did that during my high school years with 
dad.   I worked at an aquatic center with peers on a maintenance crew for 
five years. 

	>> RAY STEFFY:  Basically, from that meeting that we had, we felt that 
Joe had abilities to work and was able to focus, and keep on task.  So we 
decided we would do is go into some sort of small business venture that Joe 
could be a part of to see and make sure that we knew what we were saying when 
we said that we knew that he could work.  We went out and we had discovered 
Kettle Korn and thought that would be a low investment type of a business we 
could get into and it had a process that we could develop Joe and seeing if 
he could do each one of the tasks involved.  In the year 2000, we purchased 
the Kettle Korn equipment.  We started popping at Wal-Mart and at grocery 
stores in the greater Kansas City area. 
    
	It did prove to us that Joe could work and basically within a year's 
period of time, Joe had mastered all of the different parts of the process of 
doing Kettle Korn.  That would be the popping, the bagging of the corn, and 
also the working of selling the corn.  It was at that time, after about 2-1/2 
years that the business kind of took on a new meaning to us.  It wasn't 
something that we were trying to show that Joe could work.  But basically, we 
came up with the idea that Joe could someday maybe own this business.  Also 
at that time, Joe, he became, he identified himself as Poppin Joe.  So we 
moved toward exploring the possibilities of making this a real business 
venture.  It was in that year that, in the state of Kansas, as well as many 
other states, the Developmental Disabilities Committee had a program they 
were funding called Partners in Policymaking. And Partners in Policymaking is 
a program where you go in, and over a year's period of time on weekends that 
you learn to be an advocate for others, or for yourself, that kinds of thing. 
    
	It was through this program that at one of the meetings in late spring 
that we went to a session that was put on by Dave Hammis, and he presented 
how people with disabilities could possibly own their own business.  With 
this, we kind of saw a light of hope in the fact of thinking that there was 
hope that Joe could own his own business, and that we would move forward from 
there. 
    
	That kind of took us out of the deep dark helpless negative energies 
that we had developed, thinking how could we work something out for Joe.  So 
Dave really enlightened us in the things we needed to do, to make a business 
work for Joe.  In reality, it is a lot of work.  Kettle Korn business isn't 
anything that just happens.  You have to work at it in developing places to 
go, as far as festivals and that kind of thing as well.  We had decided in 
our business plan that we wanted to make and use outlets to sell on a retail 
basis because Kettle Korn is something that most people can only purchase at 
festivals or special events.  Whereas, what we wanted to do was to be able to 
bag it in a facility, and then take it out and sell it to retail outlets, 
which would make Kettle Korn more readily available to the population. 
    
	>> JOE STEFFY:  I graduated from high school in May 2004.  Wheels were 
put in motion for me to own Poppin Joe's Kettle Korn. 
    
	>> RAY STEFFY:  I'd like to introduce my wife, Janet, now who can tell 
us a little bit about how we started in that process of the developing a 
business plan, that we applied for grants, and made Joe's Kettle Korn 
business so successful.  Janet? 
    
	>> JANET STEFFY:  Hi.  The book Entrepreneurship for People With 
Disabilities, by Griffin and Hammis, is the handbook to go through and look 
at, if this is something that you are considering.  It was like a bible for 
business to us.  We did need a business plan, to make this into a viable 
business, and this business plan was a huge detour for us. 
    
	We went to vocational rehabilitation.  They had met Joe, I think at 14, 
16, and 18, at their office. And they knew that we wanted to do something 
different with Joe.  They were not surprised that when we came, that we were 
wanting to own the business.  The lady there directed us to an ad from a 
newspaper for First Steps.  That was our introduction to them.  I enrolled in 
the class and under the direction of First Steps, where I went 12 weeks, 
three hours a week, each week, we developed a part of what was considered the 
feasibility plan-Will this business work?  Can you make a profit?  
Information was identified and researched, based on absolute facts.  The more 
absolute facts, the more apt you are to have a successful business.
     
	We had identified some strengths and weaknesses from our trial work 
period.  And there are very valuable lessons that you learn when you set up a 
trial work period before you start the business. This helps the business to 
be successful. Ray will now tell you about products. 
    
	>> RAY STEFFY:  As Janet mentioned, you need to have a knowledge base 
of your product.  That was one of the advantages to us in having run the 
business for the two or three years prior to Joe taking over the Kettle Korn 
business.  Basically, you have to develop an expertise in your product.  You 
want people to know that you know what you are talking about, and how you 
handle it, in that basically by doing that, they become trustworthy of you, 
and will become full-time customers. 

	The spiel that I've developed, we have developed and Joe is working on 
now is, Kettle Korn is an old German way of popping popcorn with sugar.  We 
Germans have to have things that are sweet.  Popcorn pops between 420 and 460 
degrees.  At that temperature, when you put the white sugar in with the 
vegetable oil that we use to pop the corn in, the sugar breaks down into a 
liquid so you have a hot liquid sugar.  The kernel pops then comes up through 
the liquid sugar and gives it a sugarcoating.  In the bottom of the kettle 
that we use, it's about 500 degrees.  You have to stir the corn, so that it 
doesn't burn.  By stirring the corn, it commingles so when we dump it on to 
the screening table that we use, at that point all of the corn has a uniform 
sugarcoating. 
    
	That spiel is like pushing my button that we will go into and it 
explains what Kettle Korn is and how we pop it and the temperature it's 
popped at, that kind of thing.  By doing that, people believe you have a real 
expertise and know what you are talking about with Kettle Korn, and they are 
more willing to buy from you, because they trust you. 
    
	Basically, one of the needs is, you have to know your product.  The 
next thing was, that we were going out like we mentioned before, we were 
going out to festivals, is the only thing we were doing.  At this point, we 
decided that what we needed to do was bring Kettle Korn to the marketplace.  
And that most people could only buy Kettle Korn when they go to a festival or 
to a special event.  What our idea was, was to set up a facility that we 
could bag our Kettle Korn, and take it out to retail outlets and that way 
having them sell it, that would give us a year-round business.  Whereas 
normally, festivals only occur in the Kansas City area from early May or late 
April all the way around through until late October or near Halloween.
     
	Basically, this would expand our marketability.  Once you had people 
that knew where they could buy your product, they would return to purchase it 
time and time again. 
    
	That is one of the things, was you had to show that this was a need.  The 
second was, we looked at measurable markets.  Basically there is a lot of 
competition out there when it comes to Kettle Korn.  There are a lot of 
people that know how to do it, and do it, but every product is different.  
We looked at the competition there might be.  We also in thinking that we 
wanted to distribute to retail outlets, we needed to establish some kind of a 
distribution system, that we could get our corn to the places on a regular 
basis, so we always had fresh corn available to be sold to the public. 
    
	Then we looked at disability -- I don't like that term -- but basically the 
special needs part of Joe and his life, in that we always wanted Joe to be a 
part of the business.  Any time we were out at festivals popping, we wanted 
Joe to be there.  People noticed that.  They would be more desirable of 
purchasing the corn, when they knew it was Joe's business, and basically that 
he was involved with it. 
    
	The next part that you need to look at in drawing up a business plan is you 
need to look at what regulations, government regulations, there might be 
involved in the business that you might be pursuing.  In our case with Kettle 
Korn, when we started out in the year 2000, through the year 2004, and using 
this as a venture to see if Joe could work, there we were going out a limited 
number of times, to festivals and that kind of thing.  In the state of Kansas 
there is a regulation that says you have a temporary license.  You can get a 
temporary license to go out as long as you don't go out more than 7 times in 
a year's period of time.  But we live on the Kansas/Missouri border.  We were 
going out into Missouri as much or more than we were in Kansas.  So we never 
violated that part of it.  But we ever really needed to have a permanent 
license. 
    
	This license, in going out to festivals, is issued by the local county 
departments of health, or if you are going to go on a more regular basis, you 
have to secure a license to go to festivals through the state department of 
health. 
    
	Whereas, when we were considering popping corn in a facility, and packaging 
it, that falls under the Department of Agriculture.  With it, you have to be, 
you have to have a license first of all, and you also have to be inspected.  
These were things that you must look into, if you are drawing up a business 
plan.  You must know what regulations there might be that you might have to 
follow, that you might have to apply for and get as far as permits, licensing 
and that kind of thing. 
    
	The next area that you need to look at is risk.  Of course, in today's world, 
when people seem to be so sue-happy, when you go to festivals and that kind 
of thing, you have to have liability insurance, because you are putting out a 
product that is being sold to the public.  Basically you have to look into 
what kind of insurance you need to get, who the carriers might be, and what 
the price might be.  That is something that you also need to consider when 
you are putting a business plan together.  

	You also have to look at cost.  The cost of the product itself, and the -- 
basically, in the cost, we have to figure for the product, number one is we 
use soybean oil or vegetable oil.  We purchase that through Wal-Mart or 
through Sam's Clubs in five-gallon containers.  We also use regular white 
sugar, which we are constantly looking for specials in supermarkets where we 
can buy it up.  And we always are aware of what the costs might be per pound.  
The other thing that we need, of course, is corn.  We buy our corn through a 
grower out of Nebraska.  What we do there is, we buy in 100-bag lots, and we 
will go and pick up 30 to 35 bags at a time from him as our needs are there. 
    
	Of course, bringing this all together, you can't, as our small team of three, 
we were producing more, having more needs for corn bags to be sold than we 
were able to supply.  So then we had to look at what kind of labor cost there 
might be for us, in hiring people to come in and help.  Of course, when it 
comes down to the distribution, you have to figure the cost of the vehicle, 
the cost of maintaining that vehicle, and what it costs with today's gas 
prices and everything, to see that your vehicle, that you get your corn out 
to your retail outlet. 
    
	On the other side of your cost, you have to look at the operating part of the 
business, in that number one, we don't have it listed here, but you have to 
look at your maintaining of your equipment that you are using.  Number two, 
of course, like we mentioned with the risk, you have to consider what your 
insurance costs are on a yearly basis, and what that would break down to per 
units that you are producing.  And number three, of course, with licensing in 
the state of Kansas, we have to have a permanent license to produce in our 
facility.  And number two, we have to have a permanent license to go out to 
festivals, because we do both sides of this business.  The licensing costs 
are there. 
    
	Then, you are obligated to pay taxes, when you are out at a festival.  When 
you sell product, you are responsible for paying the Internal Revenue of your 
state, the tax fee that would normally be on food products of that sort.  So 
you have an obligation there as well as paying any taxes that you would set 
aside for your employees, if you have that kind of a situation. 
    
	Then, you have to look at the limited investment that you have.  But at this 
point, basically, I think we need to go back to where we had the product cost 
and that kind of thing.  These are the main points that have to be brought 
together in knowing the cost of all these, to do what is called a feasibility 
study.  The feasibility study brings all of these costs together, and the 
cost then is figured out, whether with the price that you put on your 
product, if this can be a profitable business. 
    
	So that's where the business plan really gets all of the nuts and bolts that 
are brought together to make the plan work.  That is something that Janet did 
in the course work that she did with First Steps, is she took and we brought 
all these figures together, and we saw that we could make a profit at doing 
this.  Even when we have labor cost and distribution cost and that kind of 
thing involved, that our product was a profitable product for us so that the 
business could go forward. 
    
	Then we go to the limited investment.  Well, Janet had drawn up our business 
plan.  The business plan is one that we projected out for five-year period of 
time.  If we could bring on retail outlets of so many a year or so many a 
month and we could go to so many number of festivals over a year's period of 
time, then we should generate enough profit with the business that it could 
go forward.  But of course, you have to have the initial funding to start 
your business. 
    
	From that business plan that was drawn up, with all of these figures, over a 
five-year period, then what we did was we submitted it to voc rehab.  We 
submitted it to Social Security to do a PASS plan.  Then we also submitted it 
in the state of Kansas, and a number of states have this under their DD 
Council, is they offer grants to people with special needs to start 
businesses.  And in the state of Kansas, they will contribute up to $20,000 
towards starting a business in the state of 
Kansas. 
    
	What we did was, we went to the DD Council, and asked them if they would 
consider purchasing equipment for Joseph, which would cost about $9,000.  We 
made an application to Social Security.  We also made an application, and the 
Social Security was for their PASS plan, to voc rehab.  We asked them if they 
would consider purchasing a computer for the business as well as a laser 
printer, in that some of the costs that we discovered we were trying to 
alleviate was that in our bags, we needed to have labels on the bags, and you 
can only place orders for 10,000 at a time.  We weren't in a position we 
could do that. 
    
	What we did was, we would buy bags and then we would make labels and put the 
labels on the bags, and then we would use those bags to put our product in.  
We had made an application to three different sources for grant money. 
    
	The thing that really made this successful for us was, in our situation, the 
three entities came together. Voc rehab, they were in contact with Social 
Security.  The people at Social Security were in contact with the people with 
the DD Council.  All of them talked between themselves, and said what they 
thought looked good about our plan, what didn't look good about our plan, 
that kind of thing.  Then we did make some adjustments to that.  Basically, 
they all gave approval that they would support us in this effort.  

	For those of you that might not know what a PASS plan is, to give a layman's 
term view of it, a PASS plan is a program with Social Security, where Social 
Security is willing to support someone starting a business with the hope that 
that business will be successful, and by it being successful, then they will 
be able to go off of Social Security, which is what happened with Joe.  The 
business has been successful over the last year or two, that he now is not 
receiving disability payments from Social Security because he is making 
enough money off of his business.
     
	So those three entities, but that was the main source of us being successful 
with our business, was these three entities coming together—all of them 
granting us the monies we needed and that coming together, that we got our 
new equipment.  We got a new computer with a laser printer that we could do 
our labels, and then the PASS plan which put money in Joe's account for an 
18-month period of time to support our purchasing of our raw materials, the 
corn, the oil, and the sugar that we needed to make our business go forward. 
    
	It was due to these three entities working together that our plan really 
became successful. 
    
	Of course, after being able to work at this for a year, then we started 
seeing a continuous flow of money that as our profits came in, we could use 
those profits to purchase new raw materials, to go forward and be more 
successful.  Since that time, in this past year, we have been able to 
purchase on our own a caramelizer which we use to make caramel corn.  At this 
point, we have five different products.  We do Kettle Korn. We do a cinnamon 
Kettle Korn.  We do a, for people that are diabetic, we have a cheddar corn 
which is just a regular popcorn with a white cheddar powder on it.  Then we 
also do our caramel corn, and a new product that we have is, what is called 
sweet cheesy.  And that is where we take our Kettle Korn and we add a white 
cheddar powder to it and come up with that product line.  They all have been 
successful, but our mainstay in our business has been our Kettle Korn. 
    
	One of the items that we need to go into, I think too, is the networking part 
of our business, in that building the team of people who have information and 
skills is what comes out of good networking. 
    
	Basically, within the arena of festivals, all vendors, they have a 
camaraderie, I guess you on could say about them, where they are more than 
willing to share with one another, where they have had good experiences and 
where they have had bad experiences as far as festivals are concerned.  The 
places that you might want to go, where you have a high potential of profit, 
festivals where the management of the festival may not treat you well, that 
you would want to stay away from.  This is all done through networking and in 
the sharing one with another as a vendor -- you learn some of the tricks of 
the trade.
     
	Basically then, we look at vendors and supplies.  Of course, when you go into 
new product lines, there are new things you have to get.  So you have to look 
at these kinds of things.  We have gone to the Internet.  We recently started 
using a new cheese product that we purchased, basically through investigation 
on the Internet. 
    
	We have always strived to have a good product, put out a quality product for 
people.  And we want to be known for giving generously.  Giving generously 
from the standpoint of, our desire is, especially at festivals, is we always 
give free samples.  Anyone that comes by, the goal that we have from the 
standpoint of the counter is, it's not asking them if they want to purchase 
our product, or buy Kettle Korn.  We want to know if they would consider 
trying a sample.  Basically, and what we do is, if we can get them to say 
they are interested in trying a sample, 
what we will do is, we will tell them the larger cup they can make with their 
hand, the more sample they will get.  We found in watching, we don't have 
real close data on this but three out of four people that try our corn will 
end up buying our corn before they leave the festival. 
    
	So, that is an incentive for us to work towards getting the corn in people's 
hands, to try it, because we feel we do put out a good quality product. 
    
	And of course, you have to build up a feeling of trust with your customers.  
That goes back to what I mentioned earlier, as far as having the knowledge 
base of your products.  One of the things with popcorn is there is two 
different kinds of popcorn for those of you out there that don't know much 
about popcorn.  There is what is called butterfly popcorn, and there is what 
is called mushroom popcorn.  Butterfly popcorn is a popcorn that you find in 
most theaters and it's the kind of corn you will purchase in most grocery 
stores to pop at home.  Most corn that is used in microwaves is butterfly 
popcorn.  It's a popcorn that has wings in all directions, that kind of 
thing.
     
	Mushroom popcorn is what is considered a confectionery type of popcorn.  It 
is more in the shape of a round ball.  It doesn't have wings that will break 
off, because in confectionery type things, you are mixing molding, or 
stirring corn and by doing that, if you were to use butterfly corn, you would 
knock the wings off.  In telling people that, because a lot of people say, 
man, this corn you have is so big and looks round like a ball, then you can 
explain to them that there are different kinds of popcorn.  What this does is 
shows them you have a knowledge base, and by having a knowledge base then 
they will become more trustworthy of you.  And their possibility of buying 
from you will go up a great deal. 
    
	The benefits that we found for Joe and Poppin Joe's Kettle Korn as far as 
being a member of the community -- of course, Joe owns the business.  There 
have been a number of articles written about him in the newspaper, and how 
his business has been successful.  Joe does the popping at festivals and 
events.  He has a small weekly route, of course.  Through this, he is out in 
the community a great deal.  

	More times than not, when we go out some place, people say, “Hi, Joe,” and 
they recognize Joe before they recognize his mom and dad.  We kind of 
appreciate that in that it makes him a member of the community.  And that, as 
you will recall, in the beginning, when we said some of the whys, the whys of 
the business, and some of the commitments that we made to Joe at his birth.  
One of the things was we would strive at making him a part of the community.  
Also, Joe does numerous fund-raisers for the school system, for organizations 
in the community.  We are more than willing to go out and pop corn and give 
corn away for church organizations, that kind of thing, because it's only 
going to promote Joe's business and who Joe is in the community. 
    
	I guess one of the things also with Joe and the business, is how he has -- 
what it's done for him from the standpoint of self-esteem, in that when we go 
into a retail outlet, Joe will do all of the restocking of the shelves.  He 
fronts everything up, puts the new product behind, that kind of thing.  Then 
I will figure out an invoice for him, as to how much, and that all of our 
corn that we sell through our retail outlets is on a consignment basis. So, 
they only pay us for what they sold. We will figure out the invoice for that 
product that they have sold over that week's period of time.  I will give the 
invoice to Joe.  He will print "thanks" on it and sign his name, Joe.  He 
will take it up to the cash register, to the cashier.  And then they in most 
cases will pay him out of the cash drawer.  He will stand there with his hand 
out.  They will put the money in his hand.  He will fold the money up and put 
it in his pocket.  And he walks back to the car three inches taller because 
he is a contributor to society.  He has a business that is doing something.  
And people recognize this. 
    
	Janet and I have talked different times, that basically if Joe's business 
never made any money, what we have seen in growth in him, how he holds his 
head higher, how he walks taller, that kind of thing, that is far worth this 
breaking even with the business because it makes him a member of society and 
him feeling good about himself. 
    
	I guess I covered a lot of those things right there.  One of the things also 
in this one is, Joe.  Any time we go to the bank, Joe takes his money from 
the Kettle Korn business.  He goes into the bank himself, and the tellers 
there will recount his money with him and that kind of thing.  So that is a 
big deal to him.  It's a big deal to the people in the bank, too.  Joe of 
course pays taxes now.  He is making enough money that he is a contributor 
from that standpoint.  Joe has a place to belong.
     
	Okay.  So, kind of in summary, basically to write a good business plan, first 
of all, you have to know your product or your service.  With that, you need 
to know also what your market possibilities might be.  You take and the 
product like I say you have to develop an expertise in what your product and 
service is and be very knowledgeable of it.  Second of all, you need to know 
what regulations might be involved in your business or service, what kind of 
licensing that you might have to have.  And you need to go through your 
county, your state, parish or whatever it might be, and see what those might 
be, that you have to meet the requirements of.  Of course, you need to know 
what your risk is.  In the Kettle Korn business, of course that is a food 
item.  There are all kinds of potentials as far as your liability out there, 
so you need to be covered from a risk standpoint.  You have to know your 
costs.  There is a breakdown of your costs.  You need to know what your 
production costs are, that's how much each one of your raw materials costs, 
what it costs to bring those together, or what your service costs are if you 
are in a service industry.
    
	You need to have a figure as to what your operating cost is, what it costs to 
maintain the equipment.  What are your insurance costs, what are your 
licensing costs, those kinds of things? Those all have to be knowledge -- you 
have to have a knowledge of those.  Basically, then what you do is take all 
of these parts and you bring them together to make what is called a 
feasibility plan.  The feasibility plan is one that you take the cost and you 
have what the cost of your product is, and then you take what you are selling 
your product for, and you figure out.  You subtract one from the other to see 
what kind of a profit that you can make off of the items you are selling or 
the service that you are providing.  

	If it shows to be profitable, the next step you have to do with the business 
plan is you project out over a five-year period of time, as to what your 
growth might be, what you want to attain as goals.  Do you want to put on 
this many retail outlets, you want to service this many more customers.  You 
project that out, to see how much success you can have over a five-year 
period of time.  By taking and inserting the figures that you have from your 
knowledge of your product cost into this feasibility plan, then you can 
project what your profits could be.  You bring those all together, and that 
is what you would call your business plan.  You get that typed up in a 
presentable manner.  Then what you would do is seek out where there might be 
grant monies available. 
    
	All of you, there is monies through a PASS plan that is available to you.  
You might check with your DD Council, in the state that you live, and see if 
they might have monies available for starting up a business, if you have a 
special need. 
    
	You go to voc rehab, and there are monies there.  The important part, like I 
tried to emphasize before, is these entities need to work together, so that 
you come up with a successful plan that can, and monies, that you don't have 
parts out there that you are having to pay for yourself.  If you can work at 
seeing they are knowledgeable of one another, you told them who else you are 
applying for grant money, that kind of thing, I think you will be far more 
successful. 
    
	I guess at this point, that kind of covers everything we have.  We look 
forward to visiting you and answering your questions at the chat room a 
little later on.  Thank you and we hope you have a very good day.