The Make-or-Break Step You Shouldn't Skip - An Episode on Feasibility Studies
Join Andrew and Rhen as they kick off an 4-part series that walks you through every stage of capital campaigns—from those critical first steps of the feasibility study to post-campaign transition back to your annual fund. Whether you're considering a campaign or just curious about the process, this series has everything you need to make informed decisions for your organization.
Show Notes:
Before you start asking for major gifts, there's one crucial step that can make or break your campaign: the feasibility study. Andrew and Rhen share the reasons why Petrus consistently recommends this research phase—and why skipping it could be a costly mistake.
A feasibility study gives you concrete data to answer the big questions: Is now the right time? Can we realistically reach our goal? What do our donors think of our proposed project? A feasibility study is an important investment in your campaign's success, and it helps organizations make smart, strategic capital campaign decisions from day one.
If you'd like our free resource on feasibility studies, please click HERE.
INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT:
01:56.94 Host Okay. Well, howdy everybody. Welcome back to the Petrus Development Show. My name is Rhen Hoehn from Petrus. Joining me today is Andrew Robison, owner and president of Petrus. How's it going, Andrew?
02:08.80 AROB It's going great, Wren. I am enjoying this fall weather, and it's got me thinking about the future and growing and building big things.
02:20.37 Host Exactly. We're in October, so I've got my pumpkin coffee mug, fully in the spirit, embracing autumn. Love it.
02:28.92 AROB Good.
02:29.31 Host But we're going to keep the banter short today. Let's dive right into our topic. So this is going to be the first of a four-part series breaking down, kind of step by step, how you go through the different elements of a capital campaign.
02:42.36 Host So today we're going to talk about feasibility studies, what they are, whether you need one, what all happens there. Now, in the next three episodes, we're going to talk about kind of the campaign preparation phase, what happens kind of in between the study and the campaign.
02:56.18 Host We'll talk about executing a capital campaign, and we'll talk about the wrap-up and transition back into your annual fund after a campaign. So if you've ever been curious about what happens during a capital campaign, what's different than your everyday normal fundraising, and how it all proceeds, we're going to break that all down for you these next few weeks.
03:15.03 AROB That sounds great. I think that I get a lot of questions from folks, whether they are fundraisers, whether they are priests, whether they are volunteers that are curious about what a capital campaign is, how to do it, but don't really know who to ask other than just to call me up or send an email or text and say, "Hey, I'm curious about this."
03:36.57 AROB So hopefully this will give a place that we can direct people to. We've got four episodes. They're all short. They're packed with just the information that you want to know about fundraising for a campaign.
03:50.37 AROB Go listen there and then holler if you have questions.
03:52.86 Host When I got into fundraising, my impression of a campaign was it's just a something to have a reason to ask people for, if that makes sense. Like, "Oh, we're just going to raise a little extra money maybe for this one thing, then I have a reason to ask everybody for that project."
04:05.68 Host It's not that simple. It's a big process.
04:06.92 AROB Right.
04:08.17 Host There's a lot of strategy to it. So we'll kind of break down what all is involved there.
04:12.46 AROB Right.
04:12.71 Host Let's get started. What's a feasibility study? If you haven't done a campaign, you may not have ever even heard of this. You may find that, you know, if you're in a setting where you have a diocese over you, they might require you to do a feasibility study.
04:25.03 Host What even is a feasibility study?
04:28.28 AROB So practically speaking, a feasibility study is where you develop your story—your "what are you raising money for?" What's that going to cost? Call that a case for support.
04:40.18 AROB You sit down with, or you ask people who might fund it, to help you understand whether they would fund that and at what level they might fund it at.
04:53.49 AROB That gets you information. Those are the interviews. And then you put that information together into a report to provide you with the data to help inform a decision: Should we move forward?
05:04.55 AROB Is this the right project? And are we going to be able to raise this amount of money? So it's about moving into a big campaign or a big project with data supporting your decision versus "I really want to do this, so let's go and do it."
05:23.55 Host Maybe the first question there is who does this study?
05:26.98 AROB Yeah. So feasibility studies are best when you have an outside firm that comes in and asks these questions. And there's a couple of reasons for that. So Petrus does feasibility studies. There are other firms that do studies, but number one is that we've done dozens of these. I've literally sat down and conducted over a thousand personal interviews for feasibility study projects.
05:53.53 AROB So I have—we have—experience. We know what the process is like. We present it very professionally to your donors. And so it kind of gets everybody oriented in the right way. This is a project that they are being mindful about, they're being purposeful, and they're doing it the right way. The other reason, aside from sort of that professionalism, is that it allows for honest feedback. So we sit down with people and we ask questions about how do you like this organization?
06:31.63 AROB What are they doing right? How do you like this project? Do you feel like it's oriented in the right way? And would you support it if it moves forward? And so the feedback that they give to me, if I'm doing those interviews, is very honest because they're not having to worry about hurting Father's feelings or whatever.
06:49.08 AROB So it's about getting honest feedback that then you can take and put that into a report, and it's true data versus colored data that people are sort of couching what they say to avoid hurting feelings or disappointing the leaders, the people that they know and they love.
07:07.62 Host So you mentioned interviewing people. Can you maybe step back and talk about what is the kind of step-by-step process going through a feasibility study here?
07:12.53 AROB Yep. Yep. So a feasibility study kind of falls into three different phases. The first phase is the preparation phase. So what we do in the preparation phase is we help to refine your case for support and then produce a preliminary case for support document.
07:30.50 AROB So that answers really kind of four things. Why are you doing this project? What is—sorry, back up. It answers four questions.
07:40.98 AROB What's the problem? What's your proposed solution to the problem? What will the impact of that solution be? And what's the cost of that solution? So you put all that together into a case for support. This can be a couple of pages of text. It can be a formatted, beautiful document that has pictures and stories and charts and numbers.
08:06.84 AROB But that is kind of that first part of that preparation: Why are you raising money for this? That's your case for support. And then we also assemble the list of people. So typically, Petrus does this a little bit differently where we interview a lot of people, usually around 80 to 100 interviews.
08:23.63 AROB And so in order to get 80 to 100 interviews, we need a pool of probably double to triple that. So usually 200 to 250 is the number that I shoot for. Well, you want to be strategic about who you're inviting.
08:34.77 AROB You want your people with influence, people with affluence, people with means to support it. And so we assemble that list and then we send out invitations to them to participate in the study, explain what it is, and then schedule that.
08:47.94 AROB That's all kind of that first phase, preparation phase of the study.
08:52.50 Host Gotcha. So you interview those people. What about kind of the broader community? Do you do anything else to gather input from kind of the rest of the stakeholders?
09:02.83 AROB Yep, that's a good question. So after the preparation phase, we move into the interview phase, and that's where we sit down one-on-one—usually me as the consultant or somebody on my team—one-on-one with your donors.
09:13.51 AROB Father doesn't need to be there. The development director doesn't need to be there. Again, we want confidential conversations. Those interviews typically last 45 to 60 minutes. We record the responses and then later we'll put all of those responses into a final report.
09:29.65 AROB So those are the personal interviews. We do probably around 25 to 50% of those in person, sitting down with them. The other 50 to 75% of those interviews can be done virtually over Zoom or over the phone.
09:45.02 AROB But we do all of those one-on-one interviews. That's part of our interview process. After we conduct those, typically an organization will then also take a modified version of those questions and do an online survey to their entire online community.
09:59.94 AROB So that gives everybody a chance to provide feedback. It kind of sets the stage for, "Hey, this project might happen." We did a project campaign years ago, and it was a parish, and they had not done a study. They had already started their campaign, were struggling a little bit, and they called us in to help with the campaign.
10:19.36 AROB And so we were a little bit, you know, felt like a little bit disadvantaged because we hadn't done the study, but, you know, wanted to help them out however we could. I would say the overwhelming comment from individuals that we were going to be asking for gifts for this project were, "I didn't even know this thing was happening."
10:36.86 AROB "I haven't thought about it, wasn't aware of it. I need some time to like wrap my brain around this is happening before I decide if I'm even going to give." So feasibility study, the one-on-one interviews, that online survey—it just sort of prepares people for "this is a project that's happening."
10:52.98 AROB They can start thinking about it. They can get details right before you do those interviews, before you actually tell people what is happening. There's a lot of parking lot chatter about what this project could be.
11:05.94 AROB And in my experience, 100% of the time, that parking lot chatter turns out to be totally inaccurate and way off base.
11:13.94 Host Thank you.
11:14.91 AROB So, right, there's a lot of people that kind of come in and say, you know, I'm sitting down with an interview and they say, "This sounds like a really bizarre project. I don't even understand why you're doing it." And I say, "Okay," explain to them what the project is. And they say, "Oh, well, that's not what I heard, you know, after mass, or that's not what I heard at the football game on Friday night." So it's kind of like, okay, this is a way to sort of set the record straight. This is what we're raising money for. This is why. So the second phase is all about interview and collecting that data.
11:45.55 Host You said there were three phases, right? What's the third one then?
11:47.33 AROB Yep. Yeah. So the third phase is where we take all that data from those interviews, from the online survey. We compare it with the questions that we asked on the front end, right? So we might've started with that case for support.
12:01.55 AROB We need to raise $10 million to do these three initiatives. The responses from the interviews, after evaluating those and assessing those, we realized $10 million is a little bit high.
12:17.11 AROB I'm not sure there's capacity for that. So we would recommend setting a goal of $7 million. Well, that changes the scope of these three things. These are the elements that people felt most passionately about or were most eager to support. So our recommendations are to lead with those initiatives as you're raising that $7 million. So it's really about kind of taking the data, putting it into a report, and then putting it into recommendations. So I think that's really valuable because a lot of times, you know, the priest or the principal or the board chair, they don't really...
12:52.63 AROB Kind of—we can give them all the data, but they might say, "Okay, I still don't know what to do with this," right? So it's about marrying that data with recommendations. Again, we've done dozens of these. I've done thousands of interviews, so I can tell—you know, our team can tell—if this is what the results say, here's how you'll be most successful with recommendations. Again, it's up to the client whether they say, "Yeah, that's the way we're going to do it," or "We're going to do it a different way." Excuse me. But at least they have the data to fall back on when people say, "How did you come to this decision?"
13:28.49 AROB So the first phase is about preparation. Second phase is about interviews and data collection. Third phase is about reports, recommendations, and then ultimately using all that to discern the right path.
13:40.99 Host Could you spend a little bit more time on what are some of the possible outcomes, recommendations, and how can that affect the campaign going forward?
13:49.36 AROB Yeah, sure. So results, recommendations kind of fall under three different categories, right? One of the things that we're looking for is we're testing: Is this the right timing?
14:00.34 AROB Is this the right project that people support? And is this the right amount? So the recommendations are usually going to fall into three different areas, either area one, which we all love.
14:12.18 AROB Yes, everything is correct. Right. The timing is right. People are really excited about this. The project is right. People love the project, and the amount is right on. We think that you'll be successful in that. The other side of that is it's all wrong.
14:23.43 AROB Right. The timing is not right. Your organization is not ready for a campaign. You know, now is not the right time, or the project—everybody hates the project. They think it stinks. Nobody's going to fund it.
14:34.17 AROB Or the amount—you want to raise $10 million; that's not possible in 100 years. You need to reset your sort of expectations. Typically, the results are going to fall—recommendations are going to fall somewhere in the middle, right?
14:48.21 AROB The timing is right.
14:48.82 Host Yeah.
14:49.72 AROB The project is right, but your goal is a little bit high. Or your goal is right, Wren, but people don't love this. I'll give you an example. I was at a parish campus ministry and they wanted to do a campaign.
15:03.87 AROB It was a sort of a laundry list of items, right? Build out there, or build a new rectory, remodel the offices, get more seats into the sanctuary. And so they had this plan of extending the balcony. It would add about 10 seats; it cost $100,000.
15:19.45 AROB In the feasibility study and leading up to that, people were like, "Yeah, Father, that sounds great. Let's do it. Sounds great. Yeah, you're brilliant." In the interviews, we found out people actually did not feel that way about the balcony.
15:30.76 AROB They love the offices. They love the rectory. The balcony, though, nobody liked it. And so when we took that feedback to Father, he said, "Great. Well, then we'll find another way to add those seats in the sanctuary. I'm not going to do something that everybody hates, but now I have feedback, direct feedback, honest feedback." So again, that was a—they moved forward with the campaign.
15:48.44 AROB But they changed the plan a little bit based on the feedback. So that's typically how the responses are going to come: Everything's right.
15:59.63 AROB Everything's wrong, or you'll be successful with these tweaks.
16:04.46 Host What happens if it comes back, "Everything's wrong," or "Now is not the time to do this"?
16:08.63 AROB Yeah, so I've had many, many calls, but I can remember one. It was a school and they wanted to raise $6 million. That was their need. And they called me and they said, "Hey, we're in a little bit of a pickle here."
16:21.97 AROB I said, "Great, what's going on?" They said, "Well, our goal is $6 million. We've raised—we've raised a half a million dollars. We've asked everybody on our board. We've put everything out to the community and we've raised a half a million dollars, and now we don't know what to do."
16:35.85 AROB And so I was like, "Well, what did your feasibility study say?" "Oh, we didn't do a feasibility study. We just jumped right in and started asking for funds." Well, that's a really kind of sticky situation to be in, right? Because everybody knows you're doing this.
16:46.34 Host Yeah.
16:47.53 AROB They're all in love with the $6 million project, but, you know, without major adjustments or somebody stepping in and saving the day to go from $500,000 to $6 million in that situation was just really impractical.
17:01.89 AROB And so it's a lot better to have proper expectations and a realistic goal going into it than to be stuck in that situation and have to dig yourself out of it. So sometimes the plan is, if everything's wrong, the plan is, "All right, we need to change our scope of what we're doing."
17:19.55 AROB The other outcome that could be is, "Okay, we need to—" you know, the recommendations are, "You have these three projects at $10 million. We think you can raise $5 million. But you have a lot of untapped potential with people that may support down the road, but aren't ready for a campaign ask right now."
17:39.21 AROB So the recommendation might be, "Let's start with phase one, $5 million target for these two of the three, but use our campaign to leverage it or to build excitement and energy to cultivate new donors."
17:52.67 AROB "And then we'll come back and do phase two at a later time to get the remaining piece of this project." So it might be a timing situation that phases, and it might be—we did a project and it was a school. They had to completely rebuild the school.
18:07.58 AROB So they needed new classrooms, new chapel, new athletics facilities, you know, a number of things. And people really felt strongly that these two areas were really strong. They loved those. They would give their last dollar to build those.
18:25.12 AROB These other two areas, they were like, "I don't think that you're going to get a lot of support." Well, from the school standpoint, they're saying, "You know, we need it all. In order to be a school, we need all of these things." And so in that regard, it was a timing consideration, but it was also a messaging situation, right? So it was, "We're raising money for all of it. Here's why these two elements are important that maybe you just didn't—we didn't communicate properly and you didn't understand." So we can adjust the messaging to build excitement and enthusiasm around that.
18:55.92 Host Got it. If you're thinking about doing a feasibility study, what should you expect in terms of timeline and cost?
19:02.73 AROB Yeah, so every firm approaches feasibility studies a little bit differently. Like I mentioned, Petrus, we feel really strongly in doing a lot of interviews. And the reason for that is because everybody that we meet and everybody who we sit down with and talk with—it's building buy-in and ownership of the project, a little bit more excitement.
19:21.57 AROB And then also we're asking them, "Who else should we be talking with?" right? So we're building out that list. "Who do you think would make great volunteers for this?" So we get a lot more information the more people we interview.
19:32.82 AROB That extends it a little bit longer. Typically, I tell people to expect three months for your feasibility study. That gives us time to do that preparation, to do the interviews, and then to do the sort of evaluation, assessment, reporting.
19:45.48 AROB We can accelerate that if they come in and they say, "Hey, we already know what's going in our case. We can get that done tomorrow." Great. Or it can go a little bit longer if we're having a hard time getting people to interview. Maybe they have, you know, a national base of donors. And so we're doing a little more travel, but three months is kind of a good timeline.
20:05.18 AROB Yeah. You know, a lot of people will say, "Well, we want to get done quicker." You know, I was in a conversation the other day with somebody and they said, "We don't want to rush this process. Like, we want to be successful in this campaign."
20:15.61 AROB "This is not the time to rush. We want to let this breathe. We want to let it run its course." And so they were totally fine with that three-month timeline. So three months is typical. Cost depends on a couple of different factors, but typically you're looking to spend somewhere between $27,000 to $36,000 in total for your feasibility study. There's a lot of time, energy, resources from the staffing standpoint, from the consulting standpoint that go into these interviews and go into this whole process.
20:45.90 AROB But again, that's an investment in making the right decisions for your organization moving forward. And so that's kind of typical costs: around three months and somewhere around $27,000 to $36,000 in cost.
21:01.52 Host Yeah, if you're doing a multimillion-dollar campaign, making sure that you're set up to do that correctly, that's a no-brainer investment.
21:08.72 AROB It's a no-brainer. And the other thing is, you know, I've been in fundraising for a long time, right? Like, you know, as a major gift officer, even when my whole responsibility was to go out and see people, you know, it would take me six to eight months to sit down with 100 people one-on-one.
21:26.62 Host Oh, yeah.
21:27.41 AROB And you know what we're talking about is we're sitting down with 100 people in a three-month timeline. That's a lot of cultivation. That's a lot of donor stewardship.
21:38.28 AROB And so it just—it's good for your organization in general, even regardless of the benefits to the campaign.
21:45.74 Host Definitely. Good. Anything else you'd like to add about feasibility studies?
21:50.08 AROB I think that a lot of leaders, they sort of, you know—sometimes there's a need, sometimes it kind of gets punted down the road. But then all of a sudden, you know, everybody says, "Hey, we need to do this."
22:04.31 AROB "It's urgent, or we've waited too long. We need to do it." And they're kind of ready to rush right into the raising, asking for money part of it. Feasibility study is an investment in having a more successful campaign.
22:15.93 AROB I can tell you again, that example that I talked about, where we came into the parish—almost every project that we've come into afterwards to kind of help them with the campaign, and when they didn't do a feasibility study on the front end, it ends up being not as successful as they wanted it to be in the beginning.
22:37.94 AROB Because either the original goal or the original hopes weren't realistic, or that feasibility study does really have a dramatic impact and a positive benefit on the donors' mentality and how they approach how they give to a campaign. So it feels like, "We're just ready to get going. We want to start asking people for money." But I do always encourage people, "Hey, do this the right way. Your donors will respect the process, respect your leadership if you're doing this from a prudent standpoint."
23:11.50 AROB And ultimately, it's an investment in having a more successful campaign.
23:17.42 Host Fantastic. If you're thinking about doing a feasibility study, we have a free resource for you. You can download it for free. If you go to PetrusDevelopment.com/180, because this is episode 180 of the Petrus Development Show, PetrusDevelopment.com/180, you're going to find basically a kind of a worksheet. It's a feasibility study readiness checklist. And it also has the top 10 questions about feasibility studies.
23:42.82 Host So you can download that for free and use that as a resource as you start preparing for a feasibility study.
23:48.76 AROB Yep. I've been involved in a lot of campaigns, either as a consultant or as a fundraiser. And a checklist like this would have been huge just in terms of like setting my mind—not just my mind, but like all the people in the organization, right?
24:02.94 AROB You know, my priest, he wants this to happen. Like, "Let's do it."
24:05.80 Host Mm-hmm.
24:06.51 AROB The leadership council or the board members, they want this to happen. "Let's do it," without a full picture of actually what needs to happen. And so this type of checklist would have been huge for just getting everybody to have the conversations that you ultimately need to have in order to make decisions on how to move forward.
24:24.76 AROB So I would definitely recommend going to PetrusDevelopment.com/180 to get that checklist.
24:31.32 Host Correct. Excellent. And before we wrap up, quick announcement. If you are listening to this when it comes out, it will be tomorrow, October 17th. Registration closes for our East Coast workshops this fall. So in a week, we have our sessions in Allentown, Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C. So you can still register for those through tomorrow.
24:52.00 Host And if you want to join us for our West Coast Raise Day workshops, there's going to be—in San Francisco and Los Angeles in November. Prices go up for those tomorrow and registration closes in just a couple weeks. So go to PetrusDevelopment.com/raise to see all the details for our one-day workshops around the country.
25:09.79 AROB Yeah, sounds—
25:10.86 Host With that, let's wrap up with the game, hey?
25:13.46 AROB Yeah, sounds good. What do you got for me?
25:14.69 Host We like to keep it light, keep it fun at the end. So I was recently in Texas with you and I was talking to one of my friends yesterday and he was telling me what his experience is in Texas. It's always a unique place to visit for all of us Northerners.
25:27.60 AROB Sure.
25:28.55 Host You're from Texas. You're in Texas.
25:29.84 AROB Yeah. Yeah.
25:30.90 Host So I think today's game that we're going to play is you've got to keep three and cut three of these items without knowing what comes next. And these are all quintessential Texas things.
25:43.77 AROB Okay.
25:44.85 Host So you've got to decide which of these three you're going to keep, which of them you're going to cut, get rid of forever without knowing what comes next.
25:49.89 AROB Okay.
25:51.59 Host How does that sound to you?
25:52.13 AROB Am I like going on a cattle drive and these are three items that I can take or not take? Or am I—
25:57.91 Host Sure, yes, or I guess so, or whatever you cut gets sent to Oklahoma, or I don't know.
25:58.83 AROB Yeah. Okay, right.
26:05.07 Host It's no longer associated with Texas.
26:07.29 AROB Oh, okay. Wow. That's a lot of pressure.
26:08.87 Host How about that?
26:09.12 AROB All right.
26:09.37 Host Are you ready for the first one?
26:10.56 AROB Let's go.
26:13.09 AROB Yep.
26:13.83 Host Number one, the Lone Star flag.
26:16.12 AROB The Lone Star?
26:17.76 Host Yep.
26:17.89 AROB Oh, that's like—we are the Lone Star State. I don't see how I can cut that. So definitely, it's on our flag. I've got a star. We've got multiple stars at our house, on our garage, in the living room.
26:30.54 AROB Yeah, no, we got to keep the Lone Star. Keeping it.
26:33.11 Host All right, we're keeping the Lone Star flag. Next up, barbecue.
26:37.57 AROB Barbecue?
26:37.95 AROB This is—here, I don't think I like this game anymore.
26:40.12 Host You're going to have some tough decisions to make on this list.
26:45.60 AROB Ah, okay. Well, now I have to think about what—if armadillos is on the list, I'm definitely cutting armadillos because I hate those.
26:54.66 Host I saw my first one last time when I was down there.
26:54.70 AROB Barbecue, the...
26:56.74 Host It was exciting.
26:57.55 AROB You did?
26:58.46 Host Yeah.
26:58.68 AROB Yeah, they're nasty, rotten, dirty creatures. Just thinking about—yeah, back to barbecue.
27:04.67 Host Sorry, barbecue.
27:06.92 AROB I can have a lot better thoughts about barbecue. Okay, I got to keep barbecue. Brisket, barbecue.
27:11.61 Host All right.
27:12.49 AROB Pulled pork, ribs, jalapeño poppers, beer can chicken. No, we got to keep the barbecue.
27:19.17 Host Right. Well, you got four left and you can only keep one of them.
27:20.93 AROB I'm in big trouble here.
27:21.97 Host So yeah, you are in trouble, I think.
27:23.39 AROB Oh, man.
27:26.96 Host Number three, boots.
27:30.09 AROB I love cowboy boots. Those are like my work shoes, but I have a feeling there's going to be something else on here that I'm going to want to have even more.
27:34.25 Host Yes.
27:41.09 AROB So I'm going to cut cowboy boots. Although I do love wearing cowboy boots. Those are my dress shoes. Those are my fancy shoes, but I'm going to cut them.
27:50.46 Host All right. All right.
27:51.61 AROB Okay.
27:51.91 Host I was hoping you'd give us a clip there where we could just cut "cowboy boots" underneath them. Give us something clean that we can use of you dissing cowboy boots. We'll see. Next up, number four. You can keep one of the next three. You have to cut two of them.
28:05.63 Host Number four is Whataburger.
28:08.22 AROB Oh, Whataburger is tasty. I love Whataburger any time of the day. Breakfast, great food, good burgers, middle of the night snack.
28:21.16 AROB Can't beat Whataburger, but I'm going to cut it because I'm preparing for something else that I need to keep. Okay.
28:28.62 Host All right. You got two left. You got to keep one, cut one.
28:30.82 AROB All right.
28:32.62 Host Who knows what it's gonna be?
28:34.35 AROB No idea.
28:34.42 Host Number five, Buc-ee's.
28:36.78 AROB Buc-ee's. Oh my gosh.
28:37.95 Host Buc-ee's.
28:39.03 AROB Yeah. Buc-ee's is a little bit different than Whataburger in that I can't imagine driving anywhere beyond like two hours in the state of Texas and not stopping at Buc-ee's.
28:51.87 AROB So I feel like it's just like—I'm like Pavlov. I'm like the dog, right? Like I go, I get in the car, I start driving for multiple hours. I have to stop at a Buc-ee's. I'm going to keep Buc-ee's.
29:03.45 Host Excellent. We did stop there when I was with you. And for some reason, the location of my phone got frozen at Buc-ee's for the entire week. So my mom called my wife asking if I had lost my phone at a Buc-ee's.
29:14.25 Host Nope. I guess my phone just knew it didn't want to leave.
29:15.60 AROB No, Wren's just still there. He can't decide between the spicy jerky and the beaver nuggets.
29:23.32 Host Or brisket. Yeah, exactly.
29:25.58 AROB Or the brisket, yeah.
29:26.60 Host Oh, man. All right. Well, you're keeping the Lone Star flag, Texas barbecue, and Buc-ee's. You've gotten rid of cowboy boots. You've gotten rid of Whataburger. You have to get rid of this next one. Unfortunately, it's not armadillos.
29:40.36 Host You're getting rid of the Alamo.
29:42.41 AROB The Alamo!
29:43.47 Host Oh, man, you have forgotten the Alamo.
29:45.27 AROB Oh, man. Yeah, well, I have been to the Alamo a couple of times. It is historic. It is fun. It's also really tiny and a little disappointing when you actually see it in real life.
29:59.48 AROB So—
29:59.64 Host It is when you're surrounded by a big city, too, honestly.
30:01.90 AROB Yeah, that's for sure.
30:02.48 Host You imagine kind of being out in the plains with the Alamo. It's kind of cool. You step outside of the building and it's all skyscrapers around you in San Antonio.
30:10.20 AROB Ripley's Believe It or Not.
30:10.75 Host It's kind of like, uh...
30:11.18 AROB Yeah.
30:13.15 Host I'm honestly kind of okay with that, but I'm also not from Texas, so what do I know?
30:15.11 AROB Okay. Yeah.
30:17.71 Host All right, well...
30:17.83 AROB Yeah. Yeah, I'll go with that. All right, good.
30:21.55 Host With that, that's going to wrap up our episode. So thank you, Andrew, for enjoying this little game with us.
30:29.13 AROB I appreciate it, Rhen.
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