Adam Torres and Craig Tanner discuss the Grant Cardone Foundation.
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Show Notes:
The Grant Cardone Foundation is providing opportunities for entrepreneurs. In this episode, Adam Torres interviews Craig Tanner, CEO at Print Basics, Inc., explore the Grant Cardone Foundation and Cardone Capital.
About Print Basics
Established to revolutionize the traditional process of how printing is done — long before the job ever makes it to the press. As partners in one of South Florida’s most reputable and established full service commercial printers, Craig Tanner and Ike Abolafia have brought their vision and foresight to meet the future needs of a growing client base and changing industry. Their vision of a multi-platform printing service has created an environment for error free jobs, timely turn-around and cost-effective solutions using cutting edge technology. They have established one of the finest and most knowledgeable teams in the printing industry, which only adds to their strength as an industry leader.
Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. My name is Adam Torres. And if you’d like to apply to be a guest in the show, just head on over to missionmatters. com and click on be our guest to apply. All right. So today’s guest is Craig Tanner and he is CEO over at Print Basics Inc.
Craig, welcome to the show. Good morning. All right, Craig. So, so you don’t know this, but I’m recording from Miami today. I was over at Grant Cardone headquarters and I had the privilege of judging one of the pitch competitions. And for those of you that are listening to this, that don’t know exactly what I’m talking about, if you haven’t been following the series, Grant Cardone holds these amazing pitch competitions for high school age kids and they come, they pitch their entrepreneurial ideas.
And it is. It’s insane. It’s absolutely amazing. Craig, I just want to throw this out there. You’ve been a judge before, like how was it for you? Like what did that mean for you? It was an incredible experience. I really was not prepared for what I was going to see that morning from the way Grant manages his office and the excitement surrounding their facility to watching these kids come out with their amazing ideas and how prepared they are.
Yeah, , I was pretty blown away. And I want to go a little bit deeper here, just in your experience. Like, , how did you get involved with the foundation? Like, how’d that all come about? I work with an organization, I own a printing company in South Florida, and I work with an organization that works within the school system.
They partnered up with, with grants foundation, and they actually called me up and said they had an opening for a judge and asked me if I would do that. And we love giving back to the community and helping out wherever we can. And it was just an opportunity for us to help out. And again, completely unexpected.
It was an experience. I wasn’t expecting it. It was wonderful. Yeah. I know for the competition, I judge there was the participants, like some of their ideas they had I mean, one wanted to talk about, or they wanted to start documenting and telling the stories of homeless to raise awareness around.
And another one was thinking about like, you know, drugs and education in school and how that can be re reimagined and how to, how to teach kids. Another one had a a vision for a platform. Form that was aimed towards e sports and gamers and inclusivity. And I was like, man, Craig, .
I don’t know about you. I’m not going to, we just met, but I wasn’t thinking about that when I was age 15 to the word age, 15 to 19. How about you, man? No, definitely not. Look, I was always an entrepreneur and I remember selling donuts in the gas lines in 1972. But that was a long time ago. I wasn’t thinking about raising capital, right?
No, no, definitely not. I was probably selling comic books or baseball cards or something. I wasn’t thinking about raising capital or putting together a plan. No, I thought it was really interesting how each one of the judges had their own different take on, I’m noticing different aspects of the presentation.
We had one of the kids who was so nervous that she was staring at her cue cards. And I said, I don’t know if you were presenting to the cue cards or to the audience and you just try to give them some, some information to say, this is just forget about seeing 200 people out there. There’s one person focused on your mom and just talk to her.
For me, being in the printing business, I was identifying with somebody’s logo and said, you had a great logo, but it was low resolution and . All those little things are important when you’re presenting to a group of people. But the girl that won first place when I did the judging had an idea to clean garbage cans and I have to tell you, there’s a company that comes around our neighborhood for twenty dollars a month and offers that service with a very expensive truck.
But , I told this girl that the minute she opened her mouth. I had a smile on my face. She was so engaging, so excited about what she was doing. She had a website. She had videos on the side of her doing what she does. I said, I would pay you twice what I would pay that guy with the truck and just to have you outside my house doing it by hand.
And she wasn’t scared to get in there and get dirty. And, and, you know, I’m not going to give away obviously the secrets that, you know, but she won a nice chunk of change. And it was just so exciting for her. Oh, no , I can give away that secret. They won thousands and thousands of dollars. It was absolutely amazing.
And you know what the woman, the girl that you talked about, I got to remember to I need just now I’m, I’m writing this down literally as we speak in the middle of this episode, that truck, you’re talking about sparkling bins. That’s I’ve interviewed them. That, that, that’s the one. CEO has been on my show.
It’s interesting is of that big old, amazing truck. I got to introduce the CEO of sparkling bins to her because I’m, I’m sensing some type of synergies here. I think he’d love that story. I, and you’re the second person that brought that up, by the way, I got to reach out to Phil on that one. If Bill, you listening to this.
And if I haven’t reached out to you yet, reach out to me. I need an intro because I want sparkling bins to know her. I’m like, man, that might be some, some, some future funding for her business. And this is the other part that’s interesting. Super interesting to me is is thinking about how, as adults and being a little bit further along in business and just in life, how we can give back sometimes through that in ways that we don’t think we can through connections, through advice, through , like, what is that?
Even beyond the competition. And I, and I asked you this question, cause I’m hoping that this sparks some things for the other entrepreneurs that are listening to this show, what has that meant in your life? Like others helping you in different ways as an entrepreneur, like what has that meant to you?
Wow. You know, I’ve been doing, I’ve been in the same business for 36 years and, and I started out working with my brother in law and father in law when they started a printing company in 1988. And my father in law he was an important factor in my success. And I remember him telling me, do one thing and do it the best.
And don’t go off in different directions because people come to you with opportunities, just, , focus on being the best at what you do. And I remember the first day I got into the business, he said, there’s paper, there’s ink, go sell something. That was my training. So, but, but I do remember a little, little things that happened over the years that I, I try to , use that as advice that I give to others.
And. , they say that it takes 12 touches to prospect before you’re going to get business from them, and people make a phone call and think that things are going to happen. It doesn’t work like that. I can tell you that going back about 25 years ago, I was trying to reach out to. Back then Alamo rent a car three years, I reached out to this gentleman and three years.
He said, I’ve got nothing for you. And I finally said, what about business cards? I hate them. I can’t stand them. I said, can I come in and see you? He gave me the contract and three weeks later, he quit his job. The lady that took over for him ended up being one of the closest allies we ever had in our business.
He ended up eventually working for the hard rock and we now handle all the printing for the hard rock for the state of Florida and other locations across the country. You never know where it’s where it’s coming from. You just got to be diligent and focused. That is that’s what I’m talking about.
These are the stories right here. And I love that you brought up the thing about advice, because sometimes that advice is what we need for our young entrepreneurs, the egg hack, the season entrepreneurs, right? Obviously we get that, but I feel like All of us that have been out there and have been in the trenches for some years, like we should make a, whether it’s through something like Grant Cardone foundation or through whatever the particular way is that we’re doing mentoring a young entrepreneur or something else, but really making time for that next generation and those that are just getting started.
Getting started or even the, even the youth in terms of like helping the, even with just advice, it doesn’t always have to be money or awards like the grant card on foundation gives or funding a business or that kind of thing. Like advice or insight or resources or context, like all that stuff helps.
Right. Absolutely. And, you know, and if I had to give one of these kids some advice, I would say, find a nonprofit that you’re passionate about and give back 100%. Don’t look for anything in return and good things will happen to you, but just find, find the passion in a nonprofit that means something to you.
And it could be somebody who experienced cancer in their family or homelessness, as you mentioned, or some other, some other issues. And I noticed some of the kids, yeah. Their business is focused on some of the hardships that they had in their life and how they can fix them. But just give back to a nonprofit and you’ll, you’ll feel good about what you did.
And, and it will, it will turn around and benefit you in the long run. Amazing. Well, Craig, man, I just want to say. Really appreciate you giving us some time today to talk about your experience with with being a judge on the, at the pitch competition and just what it means to give back as an entrepreneur and otherwise that being said, if somebody wants to follow your journey or even check out your business how do they do that?
They can check out our website at printbasics. com. And they can email me at Craig at printbasics. com. Unfortunately, as I’ve gotten older, I let the younger generation do their thing and I’m not on Instagram or, or LinkedIn, or actually I’m on LinkedIn, but but it is printbasics. com and we’d love to help anybody that we can, especially nonprofits.
Wonderful. And for everybody listening thank you for tuning in. Number one, number two, if you haven’t hit that subscribe or follow button yet, do that, please. This is a daily show each and every day. We’re bringing you new content, new ideas, new stories, and hopefully new inspiration that can help you along the way in your journey as well.
So again, hit that subscribe or follow button. And Craig, again, appreciate all your work. Appreciate you giving of your time and giving back and being a judge. And again, thank you for all you do. Appreciate it. Thank you so much for your time. Have a great day.