Podcast: Speaking of Quality: Wealth Management Insights with Hank Smith
Season 4 Episode 3 Title: Small Business, Big Impact: Entrepreneurship and the Economy

Episode Transcript:

Maxine Cuffe 00:02 

You are listening to Speaking of Quality: Wealth Management Insights with Hank Smith, a podcast by the Haverford Trust Company. On Speaking of Quality, Hank chats with authors, influencers, and wealth management experts to bring a sense of clarity and calm to the complexity and stress of personal finance. Here’s your host, Hank Smith.

Hank Smith 00:25

Hello and welcome to another episode of Speaking of Quality: Wealth Management Insights. I’m your host, Hank Smith, Director and Head of Investment Strategy at the Haverford Trust Company. On this podcast, we explore topics ranging from quality investing, retirement resilience, stock market trends, estate planning, small business ownership, behavioral psychology, and more.

This season, we’re focusing on unpacking the economic drivers of today and tomorrow. I’m excited to be joined today by Kim Wright, owner and operator of several locations of Nothing Bundt Cakes throughout the Philadelphia suburbs. Kim is also the co-founder of Wright Commissioning, a Philadelphia-based commissioning firm that works with construction companies all throughout the United States.

Kim is here today to offer a unique perspective on the role of small businesses and franchises on the U.S. economy. Kim, welcome and thanks for joining Speaking of Quality. 

Kim Wright 1:24

Thanks for having me, Hank. I appreciate it.  

Hank Smith 1:27 

I should point out that Kim moved to the Philadelphia area about 10 years ago and is a decided and devout Philadelphia Eagles fan. How did that transition happen so quickly?

Kim Wright 1:42

I don’t think it was a quick transition, Hank, I will tell you I fought against it. I was born and raised a Dallas girl. In the 1990s, the Cowboys had a great run and I had a lot of Super Bowl parties at my house, so it was not an easy transition. My husband is a diehard Eagles fan, he was born and raised here in Philadelphia.

The biggest factor for me is that we have four sons ranging from eight years old to 15. I felt like when they were young and toddlers and living here in Philadelphia, they sometimes wore Dallas apparel and at playgrounds, grown men would come up to them and say not nice things. I just felt it was not in their best interest for safety to keep them in those things. My parents had to stop sending them Cowboys gear, and ultimately they decided they’re Eagles fans and I accept that. That’s how we’re raising them, and I have conformed to support them

Hank Smith 2:43

Well, your sons are obviously bright individuals and I congratulate them on going all in with the Eagles. You’ve spent the entirety of your career as an entrepreneur, and your first business was Kim and Kompany Photography. Tell us a little bit about why entrepreneurship and small business was attractive to you. 

Kim Wright 3:13

When I first started Kim & Kompany Photography, I had gone to college and received a degree in photography, and that’s how I started my career with a great small business. They are still my mentors to this day and they really taught me how to be a great small business owner, how to value your employees. When I had my first son, Aiden, I had a hard time working and I felt drawn to be home with him. So, it was a choice to be able to control my own schedule while prioritizing my son and myself as a new mom.  

Today, my viewpoint on entrepreneurship has really grown because I feel like then it was a matter of controlling my schedule and being able to balance things. I feel as an entrepreneur, every opportunity I look at and I take is really looking towards a greater future, building wealth and building a legacy for my family. 

Hank Smith 4:21

Ten years ago, you and your husband founded Wright Commissioning. I had never heard of the term a commissioning company. Could you tell our listeners a little bit about what that is and what it was like starting a business with and working alongside your husband for nearly 10 years? 

Kim Wright 4:49

I get asked that question about what is commissioning all the time, even people in construction. It’s a niche field in the construction industry, and even in the construction industry, it’s still confusing for people, because ultimately, we don’t design anything. We don’t build anything. We don’t install anything. So, people are always saying, “What do you do?” Ultimately, we are professionals that provide a professional service, and we know about all the building systems in a commercial building – plumbing, electrical, HVAC, emergency egress, smoke ventilation, are a few of those things.  

Ultimately, we are there as third-party quality control over all of the subcontractors that are working in any of those departments. Essentially, we’re making sure that the systems that are installed in the buildings are, number one, per the specs of what the drawings and what it’s meant to be, that they’re installed properly when the people are onsite to install those systems. Then at the end, ultimately that the end user and the people that are in maintenance and that are occupying the building are able to utilize the systems as they’re meant to be utilized. Primarily, the reason people have a commissioning agent on board is because they’re trying to achieve a LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification, which in effect is good for the environment, it’s energy conscious. If we don’t utilize the systems properly, then we’re not affecting either of those things. 

Hank Smith 6:24 

In order to get LEED certification, which is very important for entities that care about the environment and the climate, they need a commissioning agent to certify that. Is that correct? 

Kim Wright 6:41 

That’s correct, it’s required in order to obtain LEED certification that you have a commissioning agent on board throughout the whole project for the oversight. 

Hank Smith 6:50 

This is a national business, tell us a little bit about your competitors. You’re a private business, but some of your competitors aren’t private, is that right?

Kim Wright 7:03 

We’re the only independent commissioning firm that I’m aware of, which means we don’t provide any other service. Most of our competitors come from engineering firms that have a branch of commissioning within their entire company. Ultimately, we feel like we get a little bit of an edge for those that hire us, because we’re truly objective to every design that we’re looking at because we don’t have any personal ties to it. 

Hank Smith 7:33 

What motivated you to segue from Wright Commissioning and start a franchise, Nothing Bundt Cakes, and growing that from one store to a half dozen with plans for more in the future? 

Kim Wright 7:53 

I always say that my journey was from buildings to bundts and it’s been a great journey. Ultimately, my husband and I were already small business owners with Wright Commissioning, and as a small business owner, you wear so many hats. You are doing the work, you’re doing the marketing, you’re building relationships to build your pipeline for business development. You’re innovating if you need to, you’re hiring. You’re just doing all of the things to make that business successful.  

When we decided to diversify and to consider an additional source of revenue and for our future, I said to my husband because he was looking at things like bars and restaurants because we have some history of our past in that, I could not see us doing that. We had three kids at the time that we were considering it, and I just felt that would be overwhelming.

I said to him, why don’t we look at the franchise industry? We moved to Philadelphia from Dallas, and I thought to myself, if we were going to make this investment and if we were going to truly look for an opportunity, then we needed to do something that the local area did not have yet. So that if we did it and if we liked it and it was successful, we could scale it and really begin to build some wealth for ourselves. Ultimately, we started looking at different franchises that were not local, but that we may have been familiar with in the Dallas area. Nothing Bundt Cakes easily was at the top of the list.  

I was a loyal guest and fan myself. I loved the cakes, and I loved the spaces and the way that they looked when I walked into them. I loved the way that they smelled. If you haven’t been to one of our locations, we offer a lot of great retail for gifting and for yourself like wine glasses and coffee mugs and just a lot of great gifts, and I always loved that too. We ended up validating with Nothing Bundt Cakes and going through their validation process, but what really drew me to them and made me have them as my final choice, they talked about their three core values of the ability to make genuine connections, a servant’s heart and the spirit of a champion. I felt like their challenge to me to be able to connect with my community and in effect serve my community, was something that no other franchise system had discussed at all. Nothing Bundt Cakes truly encouraged, expected and believed that the more we give to our community, the better and more successful we would be as a business.

That sealed the deal for me. I felt like it really spoke to my heart and to who I was as a person. Then to add in that it was a great business that I was already a fan of. Then with all of the numbers that we reviewed, it was a home run for us. Here we are still with five bakeries open and more to come. We really feel like it was meant to be.

Hank Smith 11:14  

The Fortune 500 companies get all the attention in the business press, but really the engine of the United States economy is small business. It makes up nearly 50% of private sector employment. It makes up nearly 45% of GDP. Tell us a little bit about the challenges of being a small business owner vis-a-vis much larger corporations that you have to compete with. 

Kim Wright 11:54 

Well, I think that the number one challenge in any small business is HR and hiring. I think post-COVID-19, we certainly saw that heightened. I still think that it reigns as one of my top challenges daily. The real reason for that is, while I have a successful business and I’m continuing to grow it every day the best I can and with the support of amazing communities, there are still costs involved to that and the costs are growing every day. I can’t always just have a price increase, that’s not always the right answer.  

What that does for me is it makes it hard to be competitive for my hourly wage employees compared to a lot of other places. I just read the other day that Costco is now paying $32 an hour, and while that might not be the average or the normal for everybody, when young employees read that, it creates an expectation in their head. That’s really hard to compete with. I understand they’re young and they don’t have any experience and that’s what they’re reading, so that’s their expectation. I think that’s one of my largest challenges in terms of competing with larger spaces in places as a business for top line sales.  

I think that the way that we try to impact that the most is by being productive and collaborative in our communities and giving and gifting as much as possible. We do a lot of fundraising with sports teams and drama clubs and anybody that needs it. We donate a lot to banquets and nonprofits. All of those things help in having people select us versus a larger competitor that maybe has more marketing dollars behind what they’re doing or more brand recognition because of maybe the time that they’ve been open for business or how many units they have out in the market. 

Hank Smith 14:04 

Kim, you mentioned the challenge today of hiring. Tell us about the challenge of operating a small business during COVID-19, and particularly in that first phase that I would call the “lockdown phase” where the economy was truly shut down for a number of months. 

Kim Wright 14:26 

Now that was a time that none of us anticipated. I think that for all the hats we wear as small business owners, that was not a hat any of us had in the closet to pull out. None of us were ready for it. And I think we were all just reactive and in survival mode. What I love about that time, when I look back on the silver linings, is that because Nothing Bundt Cakes as a brand expected us as owners to be community oriented and community minded and actively participate, we had done that for the two years that we were open prior to the pandemic. And then what we did was the shutdown happened. I had a very limited team, a skeleton crew, truly because had so many young people that worked for me and their families weren’t comfortable with them going to work. That was completely understandable. As a mom myself, I supported that a hundred percent. But for those that continued to be on the payroll and want to come to work, it meant that I didn’t have the business to support their hours. So that was my number one goal, was to be able to keep them employed because they were willing to come to work. What we did was we kept their hours, and while we may not have had the business, particularly in that first month of lockdown because people were truly staying in their homes, we made a deliberate effort and a conscious choice to gift and give the cake that we were making because my bakers needed those hours and my frosters needed those hours. We gifted it into the community, to our first responders, to the hospitals, to the urgent cares, to the places that were doing drive-through testing and even to places like the grocery stores that were overwhelmed and overloaded and had empty shelves because they were so stressed and we wanted to make sure that they were recognized and that they were supported.

By doing that, I was able to keep my own staff with the hours that they needed and we were able to make it through. And the other reason we were able to make it through was because the communities were making conscious choices to support small business. When they finished their crazy week of working from home and homeschooling, they thought, what could we do to celebrate this momentous occasion of it being Friday and we survived in our house and everybody’s still alive? They chose to come to places like Nothing Bundt Cakes because we had supported their baseball team and all the things that were important to them. That made a huge difference for us, and that’s what allowed us to survive and even thrive during COVID-19 when so many people had to close their doors. It was a scary time, and we were so happy that we were able to not only impact the community, but we felt their loyalty right back to us. 

Hank Smith 17:37 

It’s a great story and lesson that giving back can actually reap tangible rewards, not just personal rewards and feeling good about yourself, but ultimately building the brand through connections. You’ve been the living embodiment of that. It just warms my heart because regardless of who I’m podcasting or what the topic is, invariably philanthropy gets talked about – as it should, because philanthropy is so pervasive in the United States, and it really is unique to the United States compared to the rest of the developed world.

It isn’t just the big foundations, the Gates Foundation, the Ford Foundation, et cetera. It’s really individuals like you and your husband Bill that are giving back to the community either through organizations that you just discussed or your church or community foundations. It’s really part of the fabric of the United States. I applaud you and it’s a win-win.  

Kim Wright 19:02 

I agree, and really it came from an example. I am the daughter of an immigrant, and I was able to be gifted a lot of that in my past. People donated to things that maybe my family couldn’t afford, opportunities like different camps or different schooling that I wanted to go to in the summer, and I was a recipient of a lot of that generosity. It feels great to be able to gift that back in my own way. 

Hank Smith 19:33 

You’re not just standing still and enjoying the successes of your six Nothing Bundt Cake franchises. Tell me about your plans for growth and is the environment more difficult than when you first started your photography business a dozen plus years ago? What’s the environment that you see today and going forward for a small business owner? 

Kim Wright 20:10 

I think that it’s a lot simpler. When I had Kim & Kompany photography, it was a one woman show, so that simplifies a lot of different things and I had control over everything, but it also meant I was limited on when I was available and what I was able to do as one person.  

I think that being in this brand, Nothing Bundt Cakes, and where we are at currently compared to where we have been is a really exciting time for us. I feel like it has truly changed my life. It has changed me as a small business owner, and it has really broadened my business acumen, I would say tenfold, a hundred-fold even. I definitely see we are growing and we have plans to grow and double our numbers of bakeries. We’re very excited about that.  

I think the history that I have with this brand and what I see in the economy, even what I’m seeing in January of 2025 compared to January of 2024, numbers are very encouraging. I’m hoping it trends for all of 2025 for all of us. I do see great things. I can share with you that we as a franchisee in this brand, we were bought out by private equity a few years ago. We’re experiencing some changes there, which a lot of them are exciting, right? They’re bringing in their experience and their depth from their other brands and as a private equity firm to hopefully benefit. Clearly, they’re going to benefit themselves in the long run. In the short term, as a business owner, I know that that will roll down to me too. I am actively watching all the different moves and choices that are being made to see how I can harness them and really utilize them to my advantage. 

Hank Smith 22:13 

Entrepreneurs rightly have a reputation of working incredible hours, because as you said earlier, you’re wearing multiple hats, you’re in charge of so many responsibilities that bigger corporations have separate divisions for. How do you manage the time management given that you have four boys? You shared with me earlier that they all play hockey. That is not a parent-friendly sport. It requires an immense amount of traveling and hours that are either very early in the morning or very late at night to get ice time. Yet, here your husband and you are both entrepreneurs. Do you sleep? 

Kim Wright 22:54 

We don’t sleep a lot. I can tell you that this morning we started at 4:30 a.m. wake-up call, which is typical for Tuesdays because our boys are on the ice at 6:00 a.m. for training before they go to school. Then we’ll end tonight with an outdoor game late tonight. We don’t get a lot of sleep in this house, but it will come when maybe they’re in college or out of this house.  

What I can tell you is we spend a lot of time on our travels while we are waiting at practices working, like so many other people that we see no matter what sport or activity your child does. We’re constantly on, we’re constantly available. And what I’ll tell you is, while many people seek work-life balance, I just embrace the chaos. I embrace what I call “the imbalance” because I want to be achieving in all the different departments, and it’s not for everybody, but it is what works for me.
I am just constantly working in every small pocket or window of time that allows it, whether it’s on my laptop, on my phone, or on an iPad. I have so many different devices and I am always on one, but you know what? It’s because I love it. Entrepreneurs, we love what we’re doing. People think that we’re crazy because we’re always considering other opportunities and what else is out there. That’s just how our brain functions. It brings me a lot of joy because when I find the right thing, like Nothing Bundt Cakes, it’s a vehicle to make more of an impact than I can as just an individual, and that makes it worth it.

Hank Smith 24:43 

You mention the technology – the iPads, the iPhones, the desktop laptops, all of that. Could you have done all of this 30 or 40 years ago when we didn’t have this technology? Clearly the answer is yes, but it’s made it much easier, but in some ways even more difficult because you can do so much more because of this technology. 

Kim Wright 25:12 

I think that now the expectation is that there isn’t an excuse to be out of touch or disconnected because we have all of those options. So, I think it actually makes it harder today because the mentality and the expectation is that we’re always able to be on, even though maybe it’s not the healthiest to always be on. 

Hank Smith 25:35 

Tell me a little bit about being a female owner. In the Nothing Bundt Cakes franchise system, are there a lot female owners or are you the exception? 

Kim Wright 25:51  

I am not the exception, and I love it. At our annual conference every year, I take some of my team members. I have a great upper management team that I work with closely – without them, my bakeries would not be running as well as they are. And I take them annually and I always give them a little warning before we go. I always say this, “Hey guys, I know that you think that I am extra, right? I love a lot of glitter. I love all joyful things and I’m extra. But when you go to this conference, there are going to be hundreds of Kims, so get ready for a lot of extra because it’s going to be amazing.” What I love, because I do have a lot of female leaders on my teams, when we go to a Nothing Bundt Cakes conference, when I first joined this brand, we were 90% female owned and we’re still very, very close to that number. So it feels really empowering and different to be at one of our conferences where you are in a room full of women who are really diving deep into conversations about top line and bottom line sales and all of these financial and operational conversations.

I remember sitting on the plane coming back to Philadelphia, and I sat next to another owner and he was a man. He said to me, “I’ve been to a lot of conferences in my life, and this one was amazing. It was just like any conference: tiring and so much information.” He said, “The difference was that I felt uncomfortable because I was low in numbers as a man here and I had never experienced that before.” He said that the vibe in a female dominated room talking business was something he had never experienced before. He found it refreshing and impressive. Of course, for me, I remember I was new to the brand at that time. It felt really comfortable and really encouraging, and I look forward to that conference every year because of it. 

Hank Smith 28:13

Kim, tell us where your six locations are in the Philadelphia suburbs. A number of my colleagues knew I’d be podcasting with you, and they just absolutely rave about your cakes. But they also say, “Hank, you’re going to have to pick up your workouts because if you don’t, you might be putting on a few extra pounds.” 

Kim Wright 28:43 

I always say it’s worth the calories at least because it is that delicious. My first location that I opened was the Wynnewood location, and that was in 2018. After that, I opened Springfield in 2020 directly after COVID-19. I also own the location in the Gateway Shopping Center in Wayne, one location in Collegeville as well as the one in Warrington in Bucks County. 

Hank Smith 29:12 

When I do my wrap up podcast at the end of this season, I will have been to Nothing Bundt Cakes in the Wynnewood location because that’s the closest to my home. I look forward to giving you a big plug to our listeners, because I’m sure I will love it and will end up being a repeat customer. 

Kim Wright 29:37 

I can’t wait for you to try it and what we call your “first bite.” When I meet people and they say, “Oh my gosh, I’ve had it, I love it.” I always ask them tell me about your first bite, because it’s such an amazing experience, and a lot of people don’t think that cake can do that to you, but it can. At Nothing Bundt Cakes, we say, “Cake changes everything.” That’s why you always remember your first bite. 

Hank Smith 30:03 

These cakes are made on the premise, you’re not having them delivered from some bakery factory. You’re doing it by hand every single day. 

Kim Wright 30:16 

Every day. We have ovens on site, and we have real bakers and real frosters. They’re making the frosting from actual ingredients, and they’re making everything in the bakery that you walk into every day. 

Hank Smith 30:31  

You’ve officially got my stomach growling. I think this is probably a pretty good time to say thank you so much for joining us on Speaking of Quality. I enjoyed learning about your experiences as an entrepreneur and hearing your perspective on how small businesses and franchises are boosting the economy.  

Thank you for listening to this episode of Speaking of Quality Wealth Management Insights. Our next episode will be released shortly. In the meantime, please send suggestions or questions for me or the Haverford Trust team to marketing@haverfordquality.com.

Don’t forget to subscribe, rate, review, and share this podcast. Until next time, I’m Hank Smith, stay bullish.  

Maxine Cuffe 31:19

Thanks for listening to this episode of Speaking of Quality: Wealth Management Insights with Hank Smith. To hear future episodes of Speaking of Quality, please subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. To learn more about the Haverford Trust Company, please visit www.haverfordquality.com.

This podcast is provided as general commentary and market overview, and should not be relied upon as research, a forecast or investment advice, and is not a recommendation offer or solicitation to buy or sell any securities or to adopt an investment strategy. Any opinions expressed are as of the date this podcast was recorded and may change at any time, and are the opinions of that commentator not Haverford’s. Any opinion or information provided are believed by Haverford to be reliable at the time of this podcast recording but are not necessarily all inclusive or guaranteed for accuracy. Before making any financial decisions, please consult with an investment professional.