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[E-commerce Education Vlog Intro (Introducing Fulfilled)]
Hello everybody! Welcome to Awakening the Entrepreneur Within. I'm Michael E Gerber speaking to you from Carlsbad, California in my little home office just dying to bring the knowledge, the wisdom, the passion the energy that's needed for you to grow beyond where you are to do things you in fact haven't even imagined you have the capability of doing. As always in awakening we have our guests and our guest here is quite astonishingly successful he's Justin Singletary and he's the founder of fulfillment dot-com. I don't know how in the world Justin you acquired the name fulfillment but maybe you can tell us the very beginning how you do that. Absolutely it's good to be on with you Michael. First off by God's grace is how we acquired that domain name. So I'll tell you a little bit of our story and that'll help fill in the gaps on how we got that wonderful domain name because it's opened so many doors for us. My story is I was brought up in Savannah, Georgia; beautiful Savannah Georgia by the way and I was brought here due to the fact the military station been here. I joined the army and became a ranger at 1st Ranger Battalion and became a sniper team leader so is it what it is. Justin, you join the army became a what it's an Army Ranger 1st Ranger Battalion now everybody doesn't get to become an Army Ranger right? They don't they don't there's this turn ring yeah they don't get to become and I mean you don't go to the Army's I want to join become an Army Ranger. So I'd love to just talk about that for a second here get on to fulfillment.com because becoming an Army Ranger in my mind has something to do with your enormous success. When you left the army to come on the street and go into business for yourself. mm-hmm. The two don't seem to fit but they absolutely do based on the conversation you and I were having just before we came on. Absolutely we get people to care. How do we get people to want to? How do we get people to desire to? How do we get people to do the impossible work that it takes to do? You become pre-eminently successful and you became an Army Ranger. So tell me what an Army Ranger is, tell all of our guests feel like. Well an Army Ranger is simply a glorified grunt. We the operation is really it used to be Airfield seizures but our mere agents. They're , it's a special operations unit and we just do a lot of great and creative missions and the people we work with are really high speed top-notch guys and that's what I probably miss the most about it is is the guys that we served with. So I mean it was just a joy to be able to be around comrades you know, that that have that went through kind of that sacrifice to get there the US Navy SEALs but in the armies and and we don't do a lot of swimming. And you're like the Top Gun pilots in the Air Force . I would I would say we're we're not at the top you know we're quiet professionals you know we have a good time doing what we're doing but we're very mission focused. But every time I speak to a Navy SEAL or every time I speak to a Top Gun guy he sort of downplays how extraordinary they are so I completely understand when you do that but I simply want people who are listening to us your that absolutely variance of working with the best guys on the planet. Absolutely. There was a lot of people that tried to be you know an Army Ranger and I'm not just saying graduating Rain Ranger school but being into a Ranger Battalion there's a lot of guys that tried to do it. The guys that made it were the guys that had a bigger y-you know, they they had a bigger purpose it wasn't that hey I'm gonna go try out for this. It's this is just one stepping stone in my journey of life that I'm gonna be an Army Ranger. That's just what I'm gonna do. There's no quit there so you tend to find guys that have that sort of attitude are the ones that actually make it through to become an Army Ranger. So it wasn't a little bit of a gap on, you know what it takes, you know it's it's some prayer and you know you know just being able to put one foot in front of the other and enjoy it. Yeah yeah yeah . But it's how you put that one foot in front of the other Justin, let's not diminish that because the same thing is the greatest entrepreneurs of all time. When they just in codes put one foot in front of another. It's not just that they put one foot in front of another. It's that they're on fire. That's where it's their ability to focus is what I think. Focus on the outcome you're looking for instead of the activities, you're focused on the outcome. So I think I learned that early on is really as where you put your focus that's where your Energy's gonna flow and if you put your focus on the pain that's where your energy's gonna go, that's that's what you're gonna be thinking about. If you put your focus on well this is this is what this is. My outcome that I'm going to achieve that's what you're thinking about you put your folks there it's a lot easier to achieve it and the way you speak about it sounds easy but understand no it isn't what that outcome is. Absolutely. It's seeing it you your business you see it before it ever happens you already know what's gonna happen and they they're just like I said put one foot in front of the other until you get there. No I got it, it's really hard to describe that to people and you you know more than most Michael, it's it's it's really first I feel like you got to work on the way that you see the world you know, the lens in which you see the world and if your lens is a negative type of lens then that's how your life usually turns out if your lens is always seeing that glass half-full then usually your life just turns out a little bit happier than the next guy and I think that really says a lot about the guys we served with. They were always more positive than the rest you know they focused on the good. I got it and of course we can then talk about Steve Jobs and we could then talk about Bill Gates and we could then talk about Ray Kroc and we could then everybody whose cup wasn't half full have whatever absolutely completely full bring their vision, their purpose, their mission the picture they have had an internalized in their minds eye as the outcome. They're there to produce. That's right. I think it's something I've been writing about, speaking about teaching about and doing all of my life and what I understand and what's so staggeringly painful to me is how difficult it is to get people to see it. Absolutely that mental preparation is one thing that people like to skip over, they just like to get into it. Well there's you've got to be mentally ready for what's to come or you know you're not gonna be prepared for it. Do you see a lot of these greats that they drop out of college because that vision is so it's they don't need college anymore it's it's already happened in their minds they know how to execute. Okay so we sort of get what is to be an Army about. Getting fulfillment time, okay so I started after the military a couple things happen. What's important to discuss is I jumped into internet sales of health and beauty products. I wanted to be an entrepreneur, I wanted to make money when I sleep because I had so many other goals and aspirations that were outside of money that I thought you know being an Internet retailer really helped me accomplish that so I did really well with that but I had a pain point to where I couldn't find a good fulfillment solution. The fulfillment solutions that we were using and I was back in 2011 they didn't really have the transparency I needed, they didn't have the follow-up, I need to have somebody I could talk to about if something went wrong there was a lot of issues I was dealing with so I decided to do my own fulfillment. Now wait a second because define for everybody what you mean by fulfillment. Absolutely, so fulfillment the way I'm defining it is is ecommerce order fulfillment. Let's say you have a product that you sell online and somebody orders your product. Well they buy from your website the information comes to a fulfillment center possibly like ourselves and then we ship it out to the customer that purchased the product and we send you back the information tracking number all excess so it's it's really we handle your product for you. You never even get you don't even have to touch your product, we receive it from a manufacturer and we ship it out to your customer. So we store, we pick pack and we ship your product. That's what the fulfillment that I'm talking about is defined as. Got it and the problem was as you began to sell stuff. Mm-hmm. You said you couldn't find a fulfillment capability that was too much neater. To be honest when he went to my standard we were doing our own fulfillment we're like okay we got to scale this thing. When we got to about fifty to hundred orders a day it was like okay well, let's have somebody else do this so we can focus on other areas of our business the marketing side of the house, customer service side of the house, there's so many relationships you know that we wanted to to entertain that we were busy packaging packages and you know and just dealing with the fulfillment and the poster side of the house that we're missing opportunities so at about 50 orders a day or so maybe maybe it was a hundred orders a day we said okay well it's time for us to outsource this. It was a good time for a sound source and when we did we searched around for a couple of good fulfillment centers. They were good for a couple of months and then you know we started having problems, people weren't getting their packages, there was mispacks, the packages were coming in late. There was numerous things and we couldn't, I couldn't really take one invoice and reconcile it to exactly what happened, what got shipped out it was really hard to see what we're paying for, so at the end of the day I decided you know what I see there's a void in the marketplace. There's this this isn't I don't know somebody other than Amazon that is doing a great job at fulfillment right now . This is something that we can really do a good job at. Well that's interesting when you said other than Amazon yeah this happens to be the biggest fulfillment center on the planet. For their own products. For their own products that's right right, so you decided you're gonna create a fulfillment center as excellent as Amazon's for other people's products for independent online retailers people that have their own website and they're they're not using Amazon and they're selling it amongst other means I mean right now we have 65 different ecommerce platforms that we support so there's a lot of different ways to sell products these days so really to make a long story short it was called at cost fulfillment right, so we charge less than all the competitors around and we got a large percentage of the marcus year i had eight hundred square feet above a pizza shop and and we were we had so much product in there i thought the floor was gonna cave in and going on top of the pizza shop. But it was were the good days man you know we were we were actually trying to figure out a way to have a shoot from the second-story out of the window into the delivery or the the USPS truck when it came everyday so it was a fun time but we really focused on. I had a ranger buddy of mine that actually become a developer and we spent many a nights you know working on our art technology so that we can add more value to internet retailers or our clients so we actually we're the cheapest guys on the block Michael and soon we figured you know we don't want to be cheapest guys. We want to spend more time and development. Spend more time developing this business out to where we were adding more value to our clients so we were like well this name act cost fulfillment isn't gonna fit anymore. So you didn't want to be the cheapest guys you want to be the best guys. That's right that's right. You know if we got into the game being the cheapest guys cuz honestly I didn't have the bankroll you know to build an Amazon or something that could compete with another large fulfillment center so we're like well let's just guys they just don't care you know where they care but they just they want the cheapest price on the block let's help them out and their friends so we'll know we'll take care of them and let's just grow this business how I like to say slow is smooth smooth is fast. Let's not grow it too fast to where we self implode let's not take on we have no debt still at this time so we just wanted to do it in a way that was methodical, in a way that we knew we can build a very strong foundation so the business can grow and still be strong at the end of the day. So you essentially utilized your determination to be in quotes the cheapest cars to make access readily available to folks who didn't understand the difference between the cheapest guys and the best guys. Yep they wanted the cheapest and they gave you an opportunity then to go to work on the systems through which one achieved the result that you wish to achieve on your way to becoming the best we are still supplying the same the same service or maybe in a better service because we didn't have that many clients at the time but with 800 square feet there you don't have a lot of bills, and when you have to or you know one two three four employees you know you don't have a lot of payroll so you can charge a lot less for your services. We're doing with that handful of people that handful of space . Yeah was figuring out the mechanics of it way that enabled you to rise above everyone else right because you were working on it the e-myth phrase that we continually use because we invented it what just doing it doing it doing it doing it that's right I was in the business every day I was in the business you know and try it trying to troubleshoot and trying to figure out what systems can we put in place so we can move to a new activity in the business and eventually you know so I can be working on the business. So I spent a lot of time working in the business and and there was some times where I probably should have outsourced where I didn't if I if I would have known what I know now I probably wouldn't be able to do it two or three times faster. Yeah but Justin when you speak about that I want to give you just an insight about it when you speak about it working in the business in my vernacular the way you were doing what you were doing was literally working on the business inventing the systems of the business . You're exactly right here never enable the systems to liberate you feeling it doing it doing it that's right. I had to be in the weeds listening to what the customers were the clients were saying you know seeing how all the operations were going in though is kind of in the trenches working on everything but you know you're right while I was working on everything you're also building systems to make those things and fix things forever and make things more efficient, faster for for future projects or future shipments and that's a very very very important thing for everybody listening in because that's really what the e-myth is all about when I talk about working on it not in it I mean not being the system yourself but inventing the system that's going to ultimately make you an ordinary person significantly more effective at what you produce which means you can then attract novices to do the work that needs to be done because it's already orchestrated and was system that produces that result that's right in people and attract people that are that are prepared to do what I need them to do that's they're at in their life cycle you know I mean maybe it's it's something that is very easy for them to do but that's what they want to do you know yeah so I absolutely that we were working I correct myself you know on the business it seemed like at the time we're in the business because you know everything's being thrown at us sure absolutely of course you were but you got to understand this language we're using yes we're literally designing a business to work that's right in a way that would make that business significantly more effective than the competition that's correct you were designing a role for your company in the world so that you would become fulfillment calm innards that's right when we felt like we had the right tools or we got to the point where we added enough value we decided that we didn't want to be the cheapest guys in the block anymore so it's it's hard to make money be the cheapest guys in the block unless you know it's at scale but we decided well we really want to change the way that fulfillments done we see a lot of things or we're anticipating things that are coming down the road where one facility is just not going to be enough so let me backup but based on the fact that we thought we had enough value it's like okay we got to change your name now at cost and film it isn't gonna work it work anymore for the for the well what we stand for then our name was at cost fulfillment then cost fulfillment which represented us perfectly at the time yeah so we found that um you know at the time I had a business partner and we talked about it we're like you know what what could be what's the best name out there that we you know swing for the fences on this you know and we found that eBay enterprises just I believe they acquired GSI commerce and brought along a domain name fulfillment coms so they're holding this domain name not really doing anything with it so we offered him $50,000 for the domain name and we didn't get a response from him so we went back to the drawing board I want this domain name how do we just get their attention you know I I mean we're we're thinking about throwing a blind you know bid not even having the money to figuring out how to get the money so we're excited ok what's the number where they'll get back in touch with us they'll call us back so we threw a number 500 thousand dollars for that domain name they called us right back and it we ended up doing the deal and I think you know I think at the end they said okay just as long as you don't sell the Amazon in the next 24 months we'll do the deal but it was funny how you know we got no response and then we got a call right back so I'm sure we overpaid for that domain name but it has paid us dividends based on the fact dollars come from all over the place the sofa you know grandma you know I mean we pulled it together we needed to get it , we got it but you know between me and a partner. That's right that's right so we had assets that we had a good internet , a good online nutraceutical business at the time so you know we found the money you know eventually and we paid for it and it was like okay now we've got to deliver on where fulfillment.com now . Now we have to be the best you know we're making ourselves be the best with that domain name. That's incredible I just absolutely love that I hope everybody heard that I hope everybody took that in, guy picks an impossible name finds out who's got it offers them an outrageous amount to buy it and they don't even respond so you develop ten times that amount no one you would get the response and they immediately call you. That's right that's right. There you are without $500,000 having offered $500,000 and I've seen amount of money for a name lady yes is mm-hmm because our Ranger knew that name would become who he was. Well I'm gonna tell you, you know in theirs I understand there's a lot of people that have different religious preferences but I like fulfillment.com Jesus fulfilled the Scriptures and I believe there was a lot of Prayer that helped us get that domain name. Wonderful okay so now I know you got the name now everybody knows how you got the name you bought the name. Absolutely. You've paid through the nose for the name. We did, it was we had big shoes to fill now if you google fulfillment I mean just the word fulfillment we would sometimes be above the dictionary the dictionary definition so as far as just the organic traffic from the search engines when people are searching for us it's helped us out tremendously, it's helped us in the beginning, it helped us seem like we're a much bigger company than what we actually were and it really. What's that of course, yeah. Does it attract an enormous number of leads of people who want your services? Let me say I think it's just the right amount because we've adjusted to the lead generation, we've adjusted the business to it and it's allowed us instead of to spend a lot of money on pay-per-click ads and you know social media and other marketing tactics that people just throw a lot of money at. It's allowed us to spend that money in kind of other directions on yeah I'm getting the know you have standards that you've already established yes signs of customers you will accept that's right we've got a target we tend to see a lot of people aren't truly ready for a fulfillment center it depends on your product of course we tend to see is about 50 orders a day when we have people that we used to you know our doors rope and we'll take anybody when people are ship one or two orders you know a day or they're shipping one or two orders a month you know we restored a lot of product here and we've got to charge them for that product so we feel like under about 50 orders they may not be a win-win for them we're actually developing out so we can widen our funnel to help those people that are not shipping 50 orders a day we're actually launching hopefully this year a program that's that's a posted printing platform so people can actually if they're at their office or in their garage they can go to film accom and print postage and then when they get to that 50 orders a day they're still in the same platform and they can use us for fulfillment maybe on the other side of the country that they're not on or they can use us for you know all of our locations so we're going to be expanding that funnel probably this time there sometime this year so does everyone who is shipping 50 a day get to use your fulfillment center we we've I would say we ship everything from pills in a bottle to beds in a box so we've got a very wide range of people well we've what we tend to look for is independent online retailers what that means is if somebody has a website and they've got a product a tangible product that they ship out and it's about 50 orders a day and they're connected to an e-commerce platform and even if they've got their own custom code we've got all restful API so we can really integrate with anything that's really our target market and do they have to fill out a questionnaire when they contact you we we like people to go through our request a quote on fulfilling comm it helps give us a little bit more information and see if there's the right fit but we tend to like to reach out to everybody at the end of the day we like to place them in places like or give them access to our education blog that we have on phone comm that'll help them maybe get to that 50 orders a day there's a lot of great vendors in that free education vlog that they talk about their services not only allowed vendors on there that are actually helping clients that we already have so I know they're legit so we try to try to help them in other ways they can get to that volume I got it so that's a critical part of your company yes I'm in short the way in which you move someone from here to there that's right understanding that it's not as easily done as I've just said moving somebody from here to there because in order for somebody to become in quotes a ranger to the qualify to become a ranger they have to go through a very very specific process that's right that enables them to do that Mike well I didn't do it on my own yes I'm saying the guys around it we helped each other right we helped each other get from A to B so starting out in an e-commerce I needed the help and it's not like who I knew it's it's I like to say it's not who you know it's who knows you so the network that I tried to establish or even in Ranger Battalion. That the guys that I hung out with were the guys that were gonna succeed those are the guys that I went to when I had a problem where I wanted to to talk through things with I made sure that the people that I hung around with especially in e-commerce were people that were successful that people that that knew what what to do now and not what to do five years ago because the landscape is changing so fast. No I got that but let me suggest another piece of this puzzle, then we're not really talking about that there is a very specific process one has to go through and there's a very specific process one has to go through to become a ranger to be kind of a US Navy SEAL even if I'm a Top Gun to become whatever a true entrepreneur absolutely epic set of skills and and systems that are critical for one to move through that process the Quran says somebody it's not just getting motivated and jacked up by somebody it's getting motivated and jacked up by somebody who's in fact paid the price of going through that very critical process and has the right system for you to follow that's right you've got it and so I'm going to that without even knowing because we haven't done a lot of work together you've only spoken a few times together um you were attracted to what we do and we were attracted by what you've done yeah and we ended up in this conversation together but what I really want to suggest is there is a significant way to go beyond where you are by in fact developing what it is you possess internally by developing that in people who haven't a clue what that is mm-hmm another sand they haven't a clue what that is because nobody's ever even suggested it to them there was no method to that madness so I'm gonna suggest not only do you Justin but to everybody listening in that's really the work we've been doing for the past 40 years that is truly determining what it is that transforms a company of one to a company of 1,000 what it truly takes to awaken the blessed entrepreneur within the Creator within to go beyond where he or she is and we love to say that um if we're born in the image of God as it said and I know you believe this if we're born in the image of God then we were born to create mm-hmm and if every single human being is born to create then the question that drives them to create what well to create a world fit for God mm-hmm and each of us are called to do that in one specific way mm-hmm so effectively you found your calling leaving the military coming to good earth planet USA you discovered your calling and began to be a US Ranger in the work that you set out to do mm-hmm but in your heart in your heart you know you were born to create you know you were born in the image of God you know that's what in fact your work is telling you to do and that's the great result that you're setting out to produce absolutely he wants us to do the best at whatever we do no matter what we no matter what we touch we need to have passion for it we need to do we need to do it our best and I'll be honest with you what I've seen people around me what I've seen successful entrepreneurs what I notice if somebody gives if somebody shows me their last 24 hours or a 24 hour period I can tell you or you can tell if somebody's gonna be successful based on where they spend their time they spend their time in educating themselves mentally preparing themselves you know those are the guys that are gonna or guys and gals that are gonna be successful the ones that spend their time wisely like I think it was Arnold Schwarzenegger said sleep faster you know I mean he said that he spends like six six hours of sleeping and if some people need eight sleep faster so I it's just like where do you spend your time if you're not spending your time in a program or if you're if you're not actively doing something you need to be preparing to do something and you know what this brings me to I read the e-myth your book after your your beautiful wife handed it to me at Board of Advisors I went on my honeymoon and I brought the book with me and I shouldn't have you know I shouldn't have read started reading a book because it led me on my honeymoon to start developing a new blueprint for the next three years of filming calm I was I was doing that on my honeymoon so I don't think my wife will be watching this I think what I was working on she knows now but you know it's it's really I learned a lot from reading your book Michael and exactly what you're saying there there's there's systems that I didn't think that I didn't think I was doing the things that I was doing in the beginning but when I read your book I realized I was doing those things and I realized there's more of those things need to be done in order for us to get more efficient more SOP we need to have a product that it that can be duplicated and can be improved upon so I just want to say you know that story as far as reading the book and then coming up with a new vision or more precise vision for the team was crucial and it's gonna be crucial for our next three years that's wonderful and understand while you say that it's going to be crucial for the next three years understand it will be crucial for the life of your company absolutely so today somebody who fires it and then of course it's up to them yep absolutely working on your business is tantamount to working on your life absolutely effectively Jason you are I'm Justin I'm sorry you are a born again entrepreneur working on your life and you do it persistently oh its consistency and I enjoy it you gotta enjoy it you gotta enjoy the hard road you know what I mean that the easy road gets hard and the hard road gets easy I have tended to my hard pass and I learned early on that I enjoy the outcome of the hard pass more than the outcome of the easy pass but folks on that as every single one of you to click on Justin's website Justin will you give everybody that absolutely is fulfillment com if and be honest we I'm really easily easy to reach I enjoy helping people and talking through strategy on things there's so many pieces of the puzzle when it comes to e-commerce so many pieces that people just don't know exist out there so it you know I'm my email address I'll I'll just give it out I don't know how many listeners are gonna be listen to this but my email address is Jay Singletary s ing le ta ry at fulfillment comm if somebody wants to chat they've got an idea we'll schedule some time and you know I'll you can bend my ear for a little bit and we'll see if I can help out adjust that's really really gracious of you I want to give everybody who's listening to us a gift and it's my latest book and you can get it free at free book dot Michael eager burr dot-com go to free book dot Michael Gerber dot-com and the name of that book is making it on your own in America or wherever you happen to live a joyous path to radical self-employment which effectively is what Jason did, Jason I'm sorry Jason my brother's name Jason - my mom does that all the time so don't worry about that Justin has done and is doing and every single one of you can do it - and it will then introduce you to radical you the only entrepreneurial development school on the planet online for every single one of you to enter into what we call the Eightfold Path that's the process by which you learn what Justin is practicing every single day of his life you get to do that too you get to and hear me it's a five-year school online for only four hundred and seventy nine dollars and 40 cents a freaking year how much does Wharton School of Business charge right how much does Harvard charge that's right yeah seventy thousand dollars a year that was Stanford charge $125,000 a year. Four hundred seventy nine dollars and forty cents to provide you with the 40 years of experience I've created working with over a hundred thousand students of ours and now it's available to you right now just do it! So Justin thank you thank you thank you very much for joining us. Thank you Michael I love talking to you and like I said if I can just comment on that please you need to be mentally prepared for for this game and and that round for you University will do that for you. Thanks and you know where to reach me that's Michael Gerber at Michael Gerber dot com or Michael at Michael Gerber dot com but you can find me. Let's find me I'm here love you all. Thank you all, see you again bye-bye.Thank you!
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Attention ecommerce store owners and advertisers! Are you tired of attending the same boring trade shows that never produced lasting relationships? Are you looking for a break from the computer you're staring at right now? Would you like to shoot an unlimited amount of ammo from some of the coolest guns you could ever imagine? Would you like to shoot ground targets from a helicopter? If you answered yes to any of those questions then stop what you are doing right now and register to attend the third annual ghosts and guns e-tailer appreciation event coming up on October 25th and 26th. Rub elbows and buttstocks with the other top selling ecommerce store owners and hang with the brightest e-commerce minds on the planet. Before we got here at ghosts and guns we had no idea what to expect. I was just happy about the free breakfast! So past that point I was like this is gonna be amazing and it has been a game-changer I mean Brittney how's it been for you? I never thought that I would get on a helicopter or ever shoot a gun from a helicopter, so I survived it was amazing yeah I'm like ready for another round. It's all-you-can-eat and all you can shoot. See how you stack up against your peers on the sniper range. Or test your skills while hanging out of a helicopter well engaging targets on the ground, or maybe you might like to shoot at night with the same night-vision equipment that our military special ops use. So if this is you then you don't want to miss this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to attend the most unique networking event of all time. Doesn't that sound better than hanging around some boring hotel all day and listening to speakers drone on and on. You've worked hard to get to where you are you would deserve to check off some bucket list items. So if you're an e-tailer or e-commerce store owner that's currently selling more than a hundred physical products per day and you can prove it, request an RSVP right now before the last spots are taken by another lucky chap! Mike Calhoun here founder and CEO of Board of Advisors dot-com the world's greatest mastermind for entrepreneurs and CEOs. The experience with Mr.Justin Singletary's Ghosts and Guns engagement is far more than we expected our first time. It's fun, it's results-driven and it's designed to bring the top econ guys and girls together. The innovators in the industry to converse to collaborate to bond and just share a unique experience. Originally we were pumped just to come and shoot guns out of a helicopter and I mean who wouldn't be right and we learned that there was far more available, lots of options, and a wide variety for everybody really. My favorite personally was the long-distance sniper shoot where I got to pretend like I was a Mr. Singletary for a moment. The night of the reception, Justin before the event was personally connecting us with relevant meaningful relationships to our organization which I thought was pretty special and I I know the complexities of what it takes to actually do that based on what we do at Board of Advisors. Plus this is not just a Boy Scout meetup it's designed for everybody husband's bring your wives wives bring your husbands. And if you're looking to bring the team together and create a tighter bond and a special experience for your clients or maybe just have some quality time with the top ecom guys and girls in the industry, Justin Singletary's Ghosts and Guns is where it's at . Again my name is Mike Calhoun if you find yourself showing to Ghosts and Guns I'd love to meet you just come up introduce yourself and I'll show you around, I'll make you feel like family. Mike Calhoun Board of Advisors dot com. Love to see you there
[Music] Hey I'm Justin Singletary. Welcome to FDC's ecommerce education vlog. As a young entrepreneur I remember the challenges I faced trying to find mentors and experts to help me wade through the mountains of information about starting an e-commerce business. Sometimes the information I found was good but other times it wasn't so good. There's nothing more frustrating than investing time energy and even money into a fruitless idea. Let's face it, most people who offer business advice don't really care if you succeed or you fail. If they're interested at all they're in it to make a buck and that's all. I believe that it's our responsibility as influencers to pay it forward. A quote that resonates with me is by Sir Winston Churchill, "We make a living by what we get but we make a life by what we give". Our goal is to encourage and inspire new and determined entrepreneurs to reach their potentials by providing education and insight from top industry influencers. We will be sourcing short three to five minute videos from those who have done the hard work of becoming successful entrepreneurs. Each video will highlight a specific high-impact instructional point that can be implemented by the viewer right away and remember when you're green you grow and when you ripe you rot. This is Justin Singletary signing off. Stay green! [Music]
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Ron Holmes: For people who have an idea, bet on yourself.
James Lacey: On this episode of the Fulfilled Podcast, Ron Holmes shares how his military experience and faith drove him to invent and create Ryker Grip. It's designed to improve shooting ergonomics for law enforcement, military and competitive shooters.
Ron Holmes: The Ryker method, it revolves around the product that I invented, which is the Ryker Grip.
And if you are in military law enforcement or a competitive shooter, there's plenty of options out there for forward hand support of the support arm where you can place the hand, but everything was on the bottom of the rifle. I retired from Marine Special Operations in 2010 and prior to retiring to have multiple surgeries.
That left me with essentially bilateral shoulder elbow surgery. So I've got rubber bands that hold my shoulders in, I've got fishing line and screws in each elbow, and, you know, above or below a couple of inches, on, on each arm and that combined with an inch of height loss, when I went to government service after I retired, we did, we were doing a lot of shooting and I found that just traditional methods of holding the rifle.
My support arm was just painfully going numb on me. I like to say, and these are things that I do say quite frequently is that my superpower is that I'm left handed. I grew up in, in the pseudo special operations arena in the nineties. And in the nineties, we didn't have a tactical industry.
The tactical industry honestly, didn't, didn’t explode wasn't really created until 9/11 and all of a sudden overnight we had a ton of companies out there producing equipment. So in the 90s, we had to get everything through catalogs and you knew somebody and write letters and order stuff through and send a check and all this kind of stuff.
So a lot of the stuff back then came. side specific gear towards a right handed shooter. There was not a lot out there for left-handed shooters. So I used to have to undo and redo and make my own stuff. So I've always had, if I had a me problem, I have, I've come up with a me solution. And I started creating and just playing around.
I was like, how come nobody's ever gone off the side of the rifle? So then I started taking existing grips I have. And then I, started melting and screwing things together and burning ruined a pan. One of my wife's pans, got in trouble, cause I was like heating it up and melting plastic and everything and just to make it, just to make it work.
And then we, I found this moldable plastic and then I started, I started making these molds. And when I was going down range, I was giving them to other guys and we were all running them and I was running it for quite a while before my partner, one of my partners and I, you know we're talking, he's like, “you should invent something.”
And I was like, I invent something every day, dude, and now we have a, we have, I think, 14 products, off of that 1. And then along the way is I just created the grip to allow me to shoot pain-free. I wasn't thinking about anything else. I wasn't thinking about anyone else.
I wasn't thinking about putting this thing on a shotgun. I wasn't thinking about putting it on, a saw, like a heavy machine gun. I was just thinking about having it on my, my, my five, five, six platform. So I could shoot pain-free. And then when we started prototyping, we're bringing other guys to the range to try it out, to get feedback.
And the feedback all started to sound the same. Like guys would shoot it and they would turn around and be like, I feel faster. I don't know how to explain it, but I feel faster and I just feel like, natural. So at that point we started to, and this is the benefit of my team and I'll talk about leadership in a second, but this is where we, instead of just sitting there and okay, cool, not addressing those comments that they were common. We actually brought in a doctor of biomechanics and ergonomics to help us with this process, with the development process. So we have 2 medical doctors, we have a team of statisticians that helps us measure speed and accuracy, and we have the engineer firm.
So we brought all this stuff in. So if you think about in the firearms industry, and you think about all the accessories and all of the things out there that you have purchased or been issued, depending on your line of work, how many of them actually have quantifiable data, behind it that supports it.
And so then we were like, holy cow. So in that whole process, the patent writing process and everything like that, our patent, we own the side of the gun, we own the side of the rifle for purposes of hand placement. That was kind of funny because when the, patent writer came back and he was just like, all right, I think it would took I don't, I honestly don't remember.
It wasn't fast enough for me because I was super pumped now that we're like, we're going to do this and I want to change lives in have everybody shooting this way, but I think, it's 6 to 9 months, whatever we, so we sit back down with him and he goes, okay, you guys are either on to something or you're on to nothing and we're like, what in the world does that mean dude?
And this guy was like, look, he's just either nobody's thought about this or nobody's ever done it. And he goes, so right now, he goes, you guys own the side of the gun. Like, that's it. So we had patent pending status that day because we thought we already had the attorney. We had already lined stuff up.
So about my team, both of my, partners are, they're veterans. They're Navy guys. One was prior enlisted to officer. One was, was a, pilot. And when they did away with the P3 platform, he just stayed in. and went a different route. They both retired. So the thing, I think one of the big things that's really strong about our company is the diversity and the leadership. Is if you try to start a company and all three of you are exactly the same and you have the same background and the same ideas and the same training, the same schools and the same vision.
You are not going to go very far. You have to have, I think we've heard it put is, you have to have. You have to have the no man, you have to have the idea man, and then you have to have the middle of the road guy. And I'm the idea man, and I'm the optimist, our one partner, who's our no guy, he's, always no, we have to earn a yes out of him, and then in the middle is our, partner is Josh, who's our CEO, and he's very even keel, he's like mom and dad combined.
So having that diversity in there has helped. I've learned so much about business and that's because I truly feel is that we have a diverse, view on leadership. and I've honestly, we wouldn't still be, and we're just a small business and we're not big and we're still every day we're on the struggle bus, and that's fine and it's fun and it's a challenge, but, we would not still be here, almost like 9 years into this process, if it was not for the diversity and ownership of leadership.
James Lacey: That's, it reminds me just immediately of the kind of many members, coming together, like we're, none of us are the same, like someone's a hand, someone's a foot, someone's fingers, someone's a toe, et cetera.
and if you were all the same, it would be just redundant. And so, I think it's, yeah, beautifully depicted as far as the diversity of leadership goes. It's not too often that I, get to have a conversation with someone that's kind of, more so on the inventor side and being able to also take their expertise and focus like in, really in that area. And of course, I'm sure there's many things that you have to do as well, that outside of that. But, a lot of the time it's more so kind of somebody created a solution and then they've gone off and just tried to make business out of it where it feels like you created something, invented something that was of such use.
And then it just started being tried and tested by people that almost out of like, necessity was created and into a business and into a product. How do you explain or like, how would you say to somebody to say, maybe they've experienced like a challenge or an issue and there started, creating their own, like self-medicated, if that makes sense, whatever it's a product or whatever it might be, to fix their issue.
But now they're like, Oh, all of these people in my community are telling me that they have the same thing. I think I need to create a product or business out of this. How do you like make that jump? Because that feels like a huge gap to me.
Ron Holmes: Yeah. I think you know one of the first things, cause this, this phrase, I say this a lot and it carries through.
Even when you're mild success, greatly success, success in your company and down the road, but you don't know what you don't know. And the best laid out plan that you're going to have and the schema maneuver going forward into this, you are not, you're, if you're 50 percent accurate, you are extremely lucky on that, but you gotta have, you gotta have the, resiliency to lean in and to just continue to try. So I think one of it, one of the things is, I made this product. I had a knee problem. I came up with a solution. So I could do my job, right? So I could do my job effectively. Why was, why I earned that position?
I, I earned my right to be at this place. It was difficult, but my, you know it's performance and some other things on how you get there. And it was, great. But I wanted to make sure that I stayed there and I wanted to make sure that I was also doing my teammates to my left and right, that I had their back the way that they had mine, and I needed to create something to allow me to operate at that higher level.
That's what my grip gave me. I wasn't thinking about anything beyond that. It wasn't until I had a conversation with my, one of my partners, one of my best friends who's a business development type of guy and we just started chatting and then here we were. So the big thing is, lean in and bet on yourself, right?
And you're going to get, you're going to get pushed back and it was difficult. And in the beginning it was like, one of the things in the tactical space and in a firearms industry, Is everybody asks for change. Oh, I want this. Oh, I want this. I need this. So everybody has a thing, right? so you have to look at it as, in the beginning, in, in all honesty, it's just like it hurts feelings.
Like with this, the company is also named after my son, and the product is named after my son. So when people come on, the internet, and then you sit there and it's It's hard for me not to take this personal having to look at that and then realize it's just okay, just because I like it, doesn't everybody like it.
So in the beginning we had this thing, we called it like the “embrace the hate campaign”. So we believed in ourself. We went all in on ourself. Okay. So we leaned in into this and, everything is there's, there has to be. If anything, on our walk with Christ and everything, there's suffering and everything.
There's got to be a little bit of suffering. So part of our suffering has been in this journey and it has been with like, Oh my gosh, not everybody feels the same way. And, so we kind of did this “embrace the hate campaign” and we started engaging and talking to people and everything like this. And then I started doing more and more vendor shows.
And, just, so the thing is if you have an idea, try it, believe in yourself. Like if you, if it's good for you and don't ask your mom, cause your mom's going to be like, oh yeah, honey, this is great. I love it. You go ahead and do it. No, you need, people around you. it's, I tell people in my circle, they know, I'm the friend that's not going to tell you, what you want to hear, I'm going to be the one that tells you what you need to hear, and then if you can't handle that, then that's going to challenge our friendship because I don't want you to, I respect the same from you.
I don't want you to tell me what I want to hear. I need you to tell me, dude, you're messing up. Like, I dude, you need to do this. This is good, but this was bad. fix this, right?
That's what I need. I need those hardcore corrections. I think a lot of that's missing in society because people think that feelings are an acceptable form of, leadership and they're not. So you, if, you believe in yourself and you have a supporting cast, right? Like a good team of ownership in, in, in internal leadership, right?
But then you're supporting cast as my wife had my back at day one on this and my partner's wise, this is really cool. You guys are creating something that didn't exist and you're trying to bring it to the world, and then you just keep walking, walking that path and you know, we've had some really cool things like there's a medal of honor recipient who's a really good friend of mine and we took him to the range and we had him shoot and through his injuries, he has limited mobility. In his, right arm, he can't move his wrist this way or this way.
So his hand is, his very little movement. So he can't rotate his hand to hold a rifle in traditional means. He's got one eye and he has a glass eye and we took him out to the range and he was shooting. He was, “Can I keep shooting?”
I was like, “man, you can shoot, until we have no more ammo”. And he's sitting there shooting and he turned around and he was like, “fellas,” he says, “I'm gonna tell you right now.” He said, “as I am today,” he goes, I could go back to Afghanistan.” He goes, I haven't shot like that since before the injury.
He goes, “I'll go back today with your product.” He goes, I goes, I have not been able to hold a rifle like this since before I got hurt. Right, so I shared that with my partners. Cause they were with, we were with, I was with some other people on this range. I shared it with my partners and our, we have a silent partner in Alaska.
And he said, fellas, he goes, if We closed up shop today and we don't sell another product and we go out of business. He goes, we're a successful company, because we just gave someone back something that they lost that they never thought they'd have again. That's something you can't write into a business plan, right?
That is something that it's not even, it's not even on the table of ideas. So then we started getting letters from other wounded veterans and cops and people who have neck and arthritis issues, and a cop who had a lung transplant, who's never been able to shoulder a rifle again, and now he can shoot because by placing your arm out to the side, it takes all the pressure off his chest and he can shoot comfortably again, right?
So now you start hearing all these things and you're just like, holy cow, this is a blessing. This is amazing. And any, and. And you do it, So I'd say for people who have an idea, bet on yourself, bet on yourself. And one of the things that I have learned is that I have got to lean in more and you also have to understand that it's not you.
It's not you. It's that this was given to you. This is a gift given to you. Now it was given to you, thaat doesn't mean it's all, the work's going to be done. You still have to pick it up and go forward with that, with that gift that was presented to you. So that's the other big part of it, which I've learned and I'm now on that side of things. I'm really leaning into that.
James Lacey: Man, there's a lot there. It's just like putting a fire beneath people's feet. I think, to dive in that is and also to find those people to come around them, to be that support group. and the kind of those, cheerleaders, not, like you said, not just your mom and, or whoever it is, your, brother, your sister.
But, People that will genuinely tell you how it is. I think that's huge. What, you're almost 10 years in, right? I think, with, Ryker and if I'm not mistaken, and what, do you learn over time far as stewarding? Both inventing products, but also a business and kind of what have you learned on the day to day of staying focused, staying disciplined, you know obviously you, you have a Marine background, so I think that's going to help more than most would have.
but I think that's a challenge today, especially with kind of instant gratification and wanting things now. But just understanding that things take time sometimes. How would you speak to that person or how would you speak into that as far as discipline, focus, the day-to-day.
Ron Holmes: If you're going all in and you're going to believe in yourself and that this is something that you're seeing it as whether it's a career shift, right?
Or you're, you’re not happy where you're at, but you have this idea and you want to do this and you believe in it that much where you're free time, you have to dedicate to it. You have got, but now at this part, now, if you're looking at it as a family unit, this is why I say it's important to have a very strong supporting cast. Because your families, you're going to be doing more things, taking some time, some family time away and everything like that.
So you have to have, you can't live in a vacuum on that. You have to, it has to be, like I said, a supporting cast. Everybody has to be the same. And I will tell you too, is that is, my wife understands the tactical side slightly because I've taught her all the stuff that she knows on that. She has clients and she's like I'm, you know, and now it's learning how to be mentored leader and all this, but you also have to be a good follower.
So you also have to understand how to receive word and translate it, to help you with that problem. You don't, you also can't be afraid to ask for help. You know, like I said before, you don't know what you don't know. Being the you know, being an inventor, having an idea and trying to do something that doesn't exist is a challenge, going to market and learning all of these things. I think one of the other things too is patience is a big thing. Is you gotta have patience.
A lot of people will say comments like why don't you make one that does this? Why don't you make one that does that? Yes, I want to do that. I want to do that. Why is this cost so much blah blah blah. These are also they're not invalid questions But they're questions from somebody who is shopping with their wallet, but not ever invented something right there.
They've never sat down and gone and searched for a manufacturer. They've never had a conversation with the manufacturer to negotiate molds and product costs. And then now sitting down with the distribution center and who's, holding, I don't hold all of our products and that wasn't an issue at all, but all of our products are, are sourced and manufactured. Everything we make is 100 percent American, American made, sourced and manufactured. Two of our three, two of our three manufacturers are veteran owned. Right? So that's also massive for us. So all of these things is it, it's nothing, nothing is fast.
Nothing is fast. Deadlines, It's almost like that, that, that line from, pirates of the Caribbean. when she was like, I have the rule book and the rule books as probably ah, it's merely like a guideline, not so much as like a rule. That's what timelines are in industry, in manufacturing. And it's yeah, if they tell you two months, but it takes another month and it takes another month, right?
Cause now you have to balance it out. Now you have to look at this as do I want to rush? Do I want to rush and make mistakes that are going to cost me more money? Or would I rather delay and put out the right, the right product at the right time? So there's, again, you don't know what you don't know.
And that goes for a client that goes for consumers as well as as producers, right? and the biggest thing is, is you have to all, all lesson plans, all, mission statements, all business plans must be written in pencil. Because they're going to change. Nothing is permanent. You get, you've got to be able to change, in the military we always had that saying. Don't fall in love with your plan. and because when you fall in love with your plan, your plan is going to fail. That's the bottom line. So write everything in pencil and, stay resilient. I don't know. Is that good?
James Lacey:That's awesome. Especially that, the, closing line right there, write everything in pencil, stay resilient. I love that. what, does faith come into play as far as business decisions go?
Ron Holmes: Now? Now it does. You know it's funny. It's cause I think back on a lot and I've always, I, personally have always struggled with, the, duality, Of like of in man of good and evil in my life and as a father, my son is, eight.
And you know, the big thing is, I want to be the example and my wife and I want to be the example in the home of, we have to start our day first with with time dedicated to the Lord, right? That's awesome. I'm up at, essentially 4:30 every day. I come downstairs before I go to the gym.
I read my devotional, I have my time. And then, then the, I come home from the gym. My wife goes to the gym. My son gets up and we always talk and it's okay, you know go sit down, have your time with God. And so for us now, it's being, for me being, you know my wife and I had to be the beacon in the home and that's our path and that's our way of life.
And to talk openly with our son about this stuff, now learning how to translate that into business, As well as I'm learning how to navigate it myself. and I've come across some, almost I've I've I have a very strong faith network in the industry, in the firearms industry. My buddy, Steve, who's the fifth watch, the fourth horse, fifth watch is his stuff, and, and Jay struck and there's a whole bunch of other people, and we're in the firearms industry, we're trying, he's pulling people and we're all pulling people in and it's, it’s great to talk to other people and learn how to navigate that in that, in such a, of essentially a violent industry.
So leaning into that now, it's amazing and it's amazing as to the things that I'm seeing in my everyday life and in the business side of things that are being revealed. As far as like who are, people who are, followers, who are believers and who are people who are not. And where I'm at now is, is I don't, that's what you want to do then that's the path and that's how you want to represent yourself. Then that's fine. But where I'm steering my business, I'm steering myself and I'm shielding us from that. Now I would pray that something changes in their life and gets them off of that path. But on the same sense is I have to make a business decision, also a faith decision.
And the faith is telling me you need to leave in the businesses leading on faith is I need to protect my brand and not associate myself with that. So I think in the past I would have overlooked it. I would have been like, whatever. I would have put my head down and be like, I can make this work. Let's just accomplish the mission.
And now that's not the case. And I think now I'm at a point with the faith and, and I think that I see it now and I, and it's not so much that maybe I've always seen it. Now, I realized that I have to make a better choice and I'm aware of that. I'm being shown that now for a specific reason that is not, that's maybe where I used to be.
That's where I used to accept that things, but I don't, now I can't. I have more responsibilities than to, for the purpose of selling product. I'm not going to sell out like that. It's just not going to happen. does that make sense?
James Lacey: Yeah, it makes a ton of sense. And I think a couple areas that you touched on, I don't think are spoken about enough and for example, the, last thing you mentioned is yeah, you're not willing to compromise on those, I, think we're seeing a huge surge right now in the desire to, shop locally or shop small businesses or that type of thing, because.
people are not willing to, compromise on basically what they're supporting. And, and I think just what you said, like to, as a, consumer, you, it starts to become important knowing who you're buying into, not just the product you're getting. And I think to hear, somebody that's leading a company say something like that, it's like, I want to be a part of that because I trust these people and, because they're not willing to sell out just, for the bottom line, you know?
And, so I think that's huge. and I don't think it's spoken about enough. and prior to that, just, even sharing like the breakdown of how you operate as a family with the Lord and, also then learning how to navigate that into business. That's one of my passions is, how, how do those things, come together in, in naturally unison?
Because a lot of the time it is the case that you're like, your head's fully immersed into whether it's embedding a product or whether it's, which is, actually very Christ-like in itself being a carpenter. But, but, whether it's embedding a product or whether it's, making business decisions at an executive level, you know it's a lot of the time you are so immersed in that, the rock that is Christ, and I, yeah, I just think that's huge.
And I don't think it's spoken about a lot by, by people that are inspirational, and yeah so it's just really, powerful to hear that. Do you have a favorite quote or favorite piece of advice you've ever received from a mentor?
Ron Holmes: So one of my favorite quotes is from Muhammad Ali, And it's something that stuck with me and it wasn't really ever said to me, but I've heard it and I could be off on the numbers a little bit, but basically Muhammad Ali said, if you're the same man at 45 that you were at 25, you've wasted 20 years of your life.
And that right there is one of the things that I always say is that I've been my own firearms instructor for 16 years, right? You have to remain a student. A good friend of mine, who's another brother in Christ, Scott Puckett down in South Carolina. He is, his saying is you have to be a seeker and you have to be a seeker in all things.
And I, because I do it this way and I teach it this way, that doesn't mean I am, if you think that you're above criticism, if you think that you're above, change. If you think that your way is the only way, then you're living in that vacuum, right? So you have got to evolve. You've got to develop.
Look, I'm 53 and I have an eight year old, right? And I'm going to tell you, I love being an older dad. It is awesome. It is awesome. I am a better father. I'm a better father at 45, 50, 53, right? Than I would have been at 25, 30, 35, 40. Hands down. I get to bring a whole different perspective to him. My wife is 10 years younger than me.
So my son gets this very broad spectrum of culture that's brought into his life. So yeah, you have to constantly reevaluate yourself and change. You have to constantly, constantly be able to continue to move on. You know another thing that I always, I was in high school, we were in business classes, and one of the things it was is he, I think it was like 58 years old.
Colonel Sanders did not start Kentucky Fried Chicken until he was 58, 60 years old, right? He had failed miserably at everything he had ever done up until that point. And he started in like a little airstream making chicken amd driving around to, he was like the first food truck, if you look back on it now. And people don't even realize that he didn't start KFC until he was 58.
And I think he died when he was 74 and he sold KFC, he sold it for like $3 million in 1976 or something like that. And it's and I'm like, oh my God, Dee, he didn't need it. His vision stopped like he was there and then it just stopped. But it's almost like Dr. Eagle was like, Oh, I want 1 million, right?
But that's the thing. It's just, you shouldn't be limited to an age thing. You shouldn't be limited to, Oh, the other thing that I can't stand hearing is like, Oh, it's just always, this is the way it's always been. That's not acceptable. That's not where you need to be in your personal life, in your home life, in your, in your spiritual life.
You need to change that. You need to have the courage to, to realize that's it. Now you have to put it out there. give me a direction, give me a path. So I think that, that whole quote. If you're the same person at 45, that you were at 25, you've wasted 20 years of your life. I think that's a very, very true statement, from a pretty iconic person, whether, what are his beliefs are and everything like that, but what that man stood for.
And it's pretty, it’s pretty interesting too, because like just knowing what he did and everything and, going to jail because he didn't want to fight in the war and everything like that. And like, being a veteran and stuff like that. And I, I'm not, I'm kind of like ambivalent. I understand his position.
I don't hate him for not doing that. Right. I don't, not at all. because that man, if you look at it, there's a lot of value he's added to people's lives. But that quote, that's one of my quotes that I always lean back on because it just, you constantly have to look inside and you constantly have to have the courage to look at yourself and look yourself in the mirror and be like, “Yeah, today wasn't a good day. Let's, not do that again. Okay? Let's remember what led us into that direction. Let's remember that. And when we feel that and we see that again, let's immediately make that course correction.” So that's one of my favorite quotes.
James Lacey: I'm never gonna forget that. I've never had that one before of Muhammad Ali's. So that's definitely gonna stick with me. I think. Yeah, it's just one of those. Like you said, you have to constantly ask yourself internally. I love that. We are, coming up on that time. And I want to make sure to honor you and, your time. And just there's so much, I was actually going to say, I, you could be a life coach like this.
It's incredible. The level of, it's I don't know, just the urge of life, but behind you, as you speak and what you share is, and what you were saying, even about being an older dad, I think, you know your son is so blessed to have that and because he's, growing up with that in the home and, just having a short conversation with you It's like feeling the urge, to, to just, Take more from life and, get up and get on. A lot of people need that. I think it's really powerful, but, just coming up, one of our favorite questions to, to ask here and kind of being connected to, who we are at fulfillment, is asking the question what does real fulfillment mean to you?
Ron Holmes: You know it's, my, my partner, Josh asked me, he was like, he's “what is success in your eyes?” And I say, I don't know. I was like, I don't know. I was like, I know what failure is. I was like, and I know what success is, but once you get success, it's always been like, okay, I passed this test.
I accomplished this. That's got me to the next thing. That's got me to the next. And I was like, so I don't know. I was like, so then we're sitting there. I was like, I think, I guess when every Marine in the school of imagery is issued, one of our grips and slinks is issued our product. I says, I said, that could be fulfillment.
when, we can provide, you know our family, when I think fulfillment, some of the other stuff that we've talked about was getting to a point where we can select a veteran-owned business that, is, it has a unique product and mentor them and guide them. That would be cool, right? So fulfillment for me is I don't think I've hit that yet.
Like I know I haven't because I want, I want to keep going, I want to make sure that, that I pass on as much as I can to my son about everything. So the fulfillment is I guess I'm still working for it you know? Working for fulfillment is one of the things that we've done. We started January 1st last year is the Bible in a year.
And, I'm coming up on, I've been, on it. I think I'm three days ahead on, on it right now. It's been difficult. I don't, I'm like, I'm, still a student. I'm still raw and I'm still like, what are they talking about? I'm like, I don't understand. Numbers killed me. I don't understand it. I was just, I looked at it as just are they talking about,
I started thinking military. I'm like, are they talking about moving troops and maneuver, but who are they maneuvering them? I'm so confused. So I'm good. I have to, obviously I'm going to start a Bible studies and all these things, but I'm coming up on completing that task of fulfillment of, doing completing the Bible in a year.
And I'm excited, on this because it has been, there's been dates. Like I've been ahead, I've been behind, I've caught up, I've been ahead. So, and now I'm like on track, everything's good. But now when we're going to church, receiving the word different and I'm hearing it and I'm like, Oh my gosh, I've heard this.
I remember this. I get this. I know what he's talking about. Now. I kind of understand this. It's helping. So there's spiritual fulfillment is coming. The more that I lean into that, the fulfillment of the people that are coming and revealing themselves and I'm revealing myself and all of this. It's,
that's, fulfilling, but, and, and that, but there's never a, there's never a finish line in that, so it's always, okay, I got this. Let's keep going. Let's grow. Let's grow. Let's grow. But fulfillment with a company for a business is, is keep moving forward. Just keep moving until you hit that point when, you know, it's time to sell it, close it and do something different or, but I haven't hit any of that yet.
So we have merged, we've merged brands. We're merging with, another veteran-owned weapons manufacturer. and that is just been like, a blessing, for the last two and a half years and how we met and we've been together pretty much, been joined at the hip, and everything that we do, cause we're doing the same things.
So it just made sense. And, it, none of it is by accident. I don't think it's all by design and it's all part of. What I'm supposed to be doing. So yeah, the fulfillment one, that's a hard, that's honestly a hard question.
James Lacey: That's a big one. That’s a big one, yeah there's a diversity of answers that come with it. But, I think the range that, you actually talked about, even connecting it to the different areas in life as well is really beautiful.
A lot of the times, I, myself or others, it's like a singular answer. And often I think we forget of the different components to life and finding the specific specifics in each area, because you know, you can say an overarching answer and that can be theoretically true.
But if the other things are out of whack or out of line, I think we would feel lack, in, in some areas. And so I think that's really great. Wow, Ron, man, I could speak, honestly, this could go for hours. This is awesome. and, but yeah, I'm gonna, I'm gonna wrap it up here. I just want to make sure though, that people know where to find out about Ryker, follow along with yourself and just stay in touch.
Where would be the best place for that? for them to be able to either connect with you or follow along with Ryker. And also, is there any final thoughts that you would like to add on?
Ron Holmes: Yeah. So the best place is honestly, is like we have our website as RykerUSA.com. You can check out Mitchelldefense.com, that's who we're partnering with. we, but Instagram, we do everything through Instagram. So RykerUSA or instructorone, instructor spelled out O and E. And then the summer camp that we started, which is, it's God, family, country, and it's called life skillz. And that's S-K-I-L-L-Z. So it's life skillz USA. That's another one. And, that's kind of it and so really just DM me on Instagram and, you know we can set up training, talk about products. And all the above our YouTube channels, Ryker USA. We've got a ton of videos on there, but, final thoughts is, for me, a big thing is, is learning that all the stuff that I have done.
I'm not alone. It wasn't me. It wasn't me doing it. And I was, like naive is a polite way to put it, to think that I'm the one that got me through the test, I'm the one that did that. Now there's certain things that I think there's certain abilities that, that we have, we all possess. But just humble, you get humility is a big thing.
Breathe, you don't always know what somebody else is going through and I, one of the things I always like to say is that, it could always be worse. It could always be worse. And a lot of times you have to take a break, a breath in the middle of workout. You just have to tell yourself, this isn't the hardest thing I've ever done.
It's just the hardest thing I'm doing right now. you take that and, remain a student, a friend of mine, Bert Soren, he always says is” be present and lean in”, and that should fit cover, cover down on everything. Is being a parent, being, a student and, in God's word, being a business owner, being a friend, being a husband, being a neighbor. Look, everybody's so quick to tear down, look at how you can build up, one of the things I always say when I went on emails and posts and stuff, I say, train safe, train smart, train with purpose, be the difference and be a good human. And I think that is, we could all do that. we could all lean in and be better and build something up.
So I think that would be it.
James Lacey: Love it. Ron, thank you so much for your time and for sharing so much wisdom and encouragement for people. I know this is going to bless a lot of people. And, that is it for today's episode of the Fulfilled podcast. We will be back with you soon.
Will Nitze: It never gets easier. Just go faster.
James Lacey: This week on the Fulfilled Podcast, we sit down with Will Nitze, the innovative founder of IQBAR. Discover how his dedication to brain health inspired the creation of nutrient-rich, keto-friendly bars designed to Nourish both mind and body.
Will Nitze: I'm Will, that's who I am. I just moved to Miami about a year ago. I'm married of a couple of years, was in Boston for about 10 years before that, went to college in Boston. What IQBAR is, it's really the only brain and body pro-plant protein bar. We also sell hydration products that have that same brain and body value proposition, and we also sell coffee as well, but about 85 percent of the business still is our hero product line, which is our plant protein bars.
James Lacey: Awesome. I know, you know I've touched on, or I've seen a little bit of your story, but you went through Harvard, graduated from Harvard, and then you experienced some health challenges. Is that right?
Will Nitze: Yeah. Nothing like crazy, but I just felt terrible on a daily basis. I was eating a high carb diet and it wasn't like a weight gain thing or anything like that.
I just felt lethargic. Which I think a lot of people do, maybe most people do. So, I quickly learned that was mostly due to my diet and so I started obsessing about diet and read a book called Grain Brain that really changed the way I thought about diet. It was really covering the intersection of nutrition and cognition and not just in the short run, you know, if I eat a pizza at noon, I'll feel terrible at 3 pm, but also the long term. What if I eat a pizza every day for 30 years? What's my brain going to look like? Turns out I'm far more likely to get Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, garden variety, cognitive decline. So that was a wake up call. And then I always kind of wanted to do my own thing. So all those kind of like variables collided and I was like, all right, I'm going to start a brain food company.
No background in consumer goods. no background in entrepreneurship, just sort of put one foot in front of the next and here we are eight years later.
James Lacey: Eight years wow, that's impressive. And now you can find IQBAR at Sprouts and a bunch of other grocery stores. And I know you guys are selling very well online too.
Is there for somebody that you've, you had no background in entrepreneurship, it, I don't know if it was always a plan for you or always on the cards, but to dive into something that is especially the consumer goods market, there is a fair amount of competitors in the space. It's like, it's a pretty overwhelming task to take on and with no background in it, what would you say to, to somebody that's kind of similar place, like has a dream or experiencing a problem?
And they're like, man, I feel like there's a solution to this, but they have no idea how to jump that gap.
Will Nitze: It's like that saying like, “You don't eat an elephant in one sitting” or whatever. It's like, you just have to figure out what the next problem is and just sequentially solve one after the next.
So, you know if you start with like, okay, what product do I want to make? Period. Okay. Let's say it's a protein bar. Great. The first thing I always do is go find someone who owns and operates a protein bar company and ask them what they did for a second, third, fourth, and what they wish they did differently.
So I, I was in Boston at the time and I, there were a couple actually, luckily protein bar startups there. And I, one of them agreed to meet with me and I was like, how do you manufacture? Where do you manufacture? What should my cost of goods be? What should my gross margin be? Just ssk a hundred questions, right?
and then you get, do that as with three, four people, and then you can triangulate a path for yourself. Don't just take their advice at face value, use your own judgment and use their advice, and then you know what step one is, step two And so for example, one of the bar companies I talked to, connected me with our first contract manufacturer in Spokane Valley, Washington of all places.
And that was how we started manufacturing, right? And then, and then it was like, okay, how am I going to start? How am I going to start getting sales? Well you know, I don't have money. Kickstarter is great way to get free sales. Cool. Who's run a successful Kickstarter campaign, called five people who did that to ask a hundred questions, got a bunch of notes and triangulated the path forward on Kickstarter.
And so we've just. I've kind of done that, or I did that across all aspects of entrepreneurship in year one. And then at some point you become the experienced one. And you're also in parallel doing a lot of trial and error right, where you're just trying stuff and you could go ask 10 people how it worked for them, but it wouldn't even really help you and so you're parallel pathing, like great advice from people who are one, two, three, four years ahead of you.
And then your own trial and error and data gathering. But yeah, eventually let's say three years in or four years in or whatever. You're like, okay, I actually have a sixth sense for how this business should be moving and you rely less on, on advice.
James Lacey: That's good. There's a, the hearing the balance of almost like learning theory and experience from people who have already gone before you, but then actually you're implementing at the same time. Whereas I think a lot of people kind of YouTube university world, a lot of people are able to access a lot of information, but then maybe miss the step of action.
And, and so it's interesting to hear you talking about the tandem there of just actually having to implement as you receive that learned experience from others.
Will Nitze: It should be at least equal parts. Trial and error and following someone else's playbook.
James Lacey: Is, do you have any, you said you're eight years in now to, I imagine a lot of trial and error, a lot of learning. And, yeah. Is there any, anything you've learned over the course of almost 10 years that you say each and every day I've learned to just do this, to stay focused or to stay consistent?
Will Nitze: I would say you got to get your own personal life in order. The entrepreneurial lifestyle is not compatible with like, partying and going out a lot and spending a lot of money. Make sure that you have your house in order, you have a very, very, very low personal burn rate, you have stability at home. I think everyone should be married. Like, have a good partner with you,who's going to be supportive. Like, check all of those boxes because the entrepreneurial side is going to be utter chaos. And so I just don't think you can juggle two different realms of chaos in your life, I think you only have room for one. So that, that'd be the first thing. I would say the second thing is, you have to chart a path eventually to profitability. Today especially, that wasn't always the case in consumer goods.
You could burn, burn, grow, grow, grow and sell your company even before you turn a single dollar in profit. That's just not the case today and so, even if you're not going to get to profitability for four years, it took us, six years to, to become profitable. But we only burned a small amount of money each year.
And so just like Chart out, you'll be wrong, but do it anyway. Chart out how you're going to get to break even for consumer goods. For us, it was always. We need to get to a certain volume. That is what unlocks profitability is volume, certain number of units, we're moving out the door. And so that was the North star.
Everything's working backwards from that. And then ultimately we got there, but, you know, when I started IQBAR, that was not profitability was not a focal point and now it's like, it's everything. I would say, I’m in, I mean I could keep riffing, but like on the hiring side, I have a strong bias for hiring only people you know, or a direct referral. Basically everyone on our team, it falls into one of those two camps, one person out of the whole team does it.
but like making bad hires can really kill you and having people who aren't super motivated for you to win, will just drag you down. My wife works in the business. It's like, you couldn't get better buy in than that. I think that's just really, really, really critical. And then the last thing I would say is you as the founder have to be the product engineer, in my opinion.
Now, obviously there are exceptions, but like, I see in consumer goods, so many, so often, like someone will have an idea, I want a low sugar muffin, whatever it is, and they'll go find someone else to make it. But they never really got up the curve, the technical curve around product, because they didn't obsess over it.
They weren't literally making it in their kitchen over and over and over again. And so they don't have a really intimate familiarity with the technical side of the product because you will have to keep iterating your product and do product line extensions and this and that, and have someone who's on the founding team, not really understanding that, I think is bad because ultimately you're going to get to a good enough product and then you're going to try and commercialize it and scale it and it's just like good enough does not, you cannot win in today's market with good enough. You have to get 5 percent better and 5 percent better and 5 percent better. so I guess a shorthanded way of saying that is someone on the founding team needs to be truly obsessed with product, because product improves all downstream metrics.
Everyone obsesses over customer acquisition costs and conversion range, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. guess what makes all of those better? A better product. so that'd be the last thing I would say.
James Lacey: That's great. Yeah. Obsessing of a product. I think that has become like, increasingly important. Like you said, Oh, maybe 10 years ago you could have something that's half decent and just market it really and you'd be okay.
There's less competition in generally most spaces. And, but now, yeah, I think people are so well-versed and everything is very, It's like under a microscope. And so unless your product is excellent, it's harder I think. So sounds like you guys are excelling at that based on results and also what I've experienced just as a consumer. Do you have a favorite quote or piece of advice that you've received?
Will Nitze: I think probably my favorite quote of all time is, cyclist, Greg Lamont.
And the quote goes, “It never gets easier, you just go faster.” It never gets easier, you just go faster. Which is so true. I'm eight years in, it's actually not easier than year one. You're just better. You're just like, you have more scar tissue, you have more muscle memory, and you will just always, the equilibrium is like stress and grinding and how do we get to the next mountaintop.
But you just get so much better. But like it's, maybe it gets a little bit easier, but it's more or less just as hard now as it was at the beginning, because, you get so much more ambitious each year.
James Lacey: I've seen you say before that you believe that the correct me if I'm misphrasing this, but, you believe that the correct way startup should move nowadays is ops first. Is that right? And if so, what do you mean by that?
Will Nitze: Yeah. I, so people, again, like there is a, something that a lot of people said to me when I started out and they're like, you just want to be a sales and marketing organization. That's what you should be. Get a formulation dialed in, get a manufacturer, get them on a turnkey model, which means they handle all the ingredient procurement.
And then they make the finish good and they just deliver it to your doorstep. And then you should just be focused on sell, sell, sell and market. I think that's a horrible advice today. Frankly, I thought it was always horrible advice. I think it's the literal inverse. And here's why, the at least in our category, price is unbelievably important, what you learn as you get scale bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger, is you need to deliver value to the consumer.
And you need to hang with the big boys and you need to be able to price with the big boys. There is just no way to do that other than to be operationally excellent. So like, instead of doing a turnkey model, we buy all our ingredients. We're incredibly obsessive over costs. We work with our manufacturing partners to get labor costs on the product.
Now, the tricky part is you also have to be excellent at the sales and marketing side. So it's not like this or that, but it's just, it was so lopsided in the sales and marketing direction. You know, and whatever, call it 2018. And I just think now, first of all, like all those businesses, they would grow, but they would lose money all along the way.
Like you have to get to 15 to 20 percent EBITDA. You need, you have to get to really meaningful net profit. And there's just no way to sell and market your way into that. It has to be this big, big chunk of that. I think part of the challenge is a lot of people when they start consumer good companies, is they're not an office person, right?
They're like, I just had this idea and then I can make a prototype. And I just want to get it in as many hands as possible. And they don't think about, no, you need to be nerding out over all the COGS line items. And if you're not going to do it, hire someone to do it. But I really do think it's why so many consumer good brands go under is how they just obsess more on, on ops earlier, they would have been all right but they just never did.
James Lacey: It kind of feels like the equivalent from a brand perspective where people establish such reputable brands that it's hard for them to go under because they have such a strong IP. And then at that point, it's like, you said, at that point, they just need to manage the line. And so, you know, make sure that your costs are lower than your income.
And, but yeah, so I, I think now in a way that you establish by the sounds of what you're saying, you establish such a valuable product and operations are aligned, and then you can scale and build brand from there. Whereas before I think it was just like, just build a great brand IP and then from that point, we can do whatever we want.
Will Nitze: the other thing too, is literally just being able to make product, deliver product. So once you get into these like big retailers, The volume swings are so big. And so the demand planning side of the business becomes really challenging.
So think of that as the umbrella, and that needs to trickle down to how many bars we need to make for across nine different flavors, which then trickles down to how many ingredients you need to buy for across all of those. That's the other operational thing. It's not just like your gross margin, It's demand planning.
How do we make sure we're always making product that can get to the end destination and I would even layer on a final thing, you want the product to be as fresh as possible. So we're, we’re working in like you know, date-coded products, right? These are not lasting 5 years. So that's just add the whole other thing.
How do we time it? We make the product and we get it in the distributors hand within a month and then the distributor gets into the retailer within 3 months, and then it gets consumed within 4 months. No, it's very complex.
James Lacey: That is, they sound like a large sum of mathematical equations that you're having to work.
Will Nitze: It's all simple math, but it's, there's a lot that can go wrong.
James Lacey: What inspires you or motivates you during challenging times? just what you're describing, this constant headaches, I'm sure. But what, what keeps you going?
Will Nitze: Winning. I want to win. Like especially now that it's like the saying, we didn't come this far to just come this far. I mean, that's how I feel. You need that W and for us, that's like exiting the company. For others, maybe it's, I don't know, maybe they want to do it for 30, 40 years or whatever, but. And for us, it's how do we build a big, really valuable asset and sell that asset, for better or worse.
I think it's always weird when founders are coy about that. It's like, no, that's 99 percent of people's goal. If I spent eight years getting us to where it's got and then you don't get that W. I mean that'd be devastating, right? So I'd say that more than anything fires me up.
James Lacey: Is there anything that you are maybe connected to that I don't know. Anything that you're super excited about for what's next with IQBAR or What you're leaning towards?
Will Nitze: 2025 is going to be a monster, monster year for us. We're going into at least a thousand, maybe 1200 targets. We're going nationwide with Costco. I think we're gonna go into a bunch of new Walmarts.
Like there's just this explosive Q1 that's going to happen and it's terrifying, but it's really exciting at the same time. And it's like very much the big leagues now. It's like, okay, can you hang? Can you? Can you, can you again, operationally be excellent and deliver on all that and make sure the trains are running on time.
And so I'm fired up about that challenge. On the whole though, just it's frankly, nothing new. It's just more of the same. It's like, how do we push, like in past years, it was, we were coming out with entire new product lines. And that's super exciting but at some point you we have three product lines and it's like, all right, that's our, those are the horses we're riding in on.
More horses will not help us. We need to train those horses to run faster and so it's just more of the same, It's just amping up what we're already doing.
James Lacey: Leadership can be a lonely place sometimes. I think the role of a CEO, the role of a founder, you, I mean, being married helps. but It can often, yeah, you can often feel isolated, right? I think when you're leading people, and you're leading a movement, how do you stay connected to either people around you, the world outside, like is there anything that outside of the business that keeps you just connected to the world and not immersed in being isolated and leading what you are.
Will Nitze: The way I think about leadership is you need a benevolent dictator. I believe,
James Lacey: I agree.
Will Nitze: Actually, I think solo-founded companies are much cleaner than co-founded companies. So you need that person and there just is no two ways about it. You, if you are, that person will be lonely in many respects because the box stops at you.
And so I think this dovetails with what I said earlier around. You need to make sure that your home life is in order. Fitness is in order. Your health is in order. So that you can withstand the burden of being lonely in that context, because there just is no way around that. So like, again, entrepreneurship, even more broadly is not for everyone.
But sometimes some folks can't handle that. That being said, there are ways, I think, to mitigate that, in that for us, I want everyone to be the CEO of their department. So we have a pretty flat hierarchy. There isn't, there's no like middle management. The best idea should always win. And so you, as that benevolent dictator. need to check your ego and make sure that the best idea is always winning.
Like I know when I'm out of my depth on e-commerce or marketing or ops or whatever, and my sort of lieutenant in that realm will tell me that. And I'm like, okay, yeah, like you know better than I do. And so I think it's that balance. But you really want everyone to feel like they are the owner of their domain and they aren't being insanely micromanaged or whatever. But at a high level, I do believe you need a benevolent dictator and, and so that just is what it is.
James Lacey: I totally agree with that. I've actually heard God defined, like the biblical God defined as a benevolent dictator. And, and that's if you were to study his character, that's how he would lead.
and you're really just basically saying you should be like God, which I think is a good,
Will Nitze: don't develop a God complex. Yeah. Don't think that you're infallible and everything you ever thought that you have is smart and right and like you need checks and balances for sure.
And you also need to re underwrite your ability to lead the company every year. Let's say you're doubling every year. everything changes when you double the go to market changes, what's needed to run the company changes. So are you still the best benevolent dictator for that company in year two, year three, year four?
And you need to like, learn rapidly and adjust rapidly to be able to keep up with your own company. Most entrepreneurs are great at 0 to 1 and not great at 1 to 2. So either be humble and realize you're not the guy or rapidly learn and get better.
James Lacey: Is there any mistake that you've learned from, like any main mistake that you've learned from in either a specific one or generally how you've learned from mistakes over the past eight years?
Will Nitze: I think generally brands are ready before they think they are. For a variety of things, if you're like a small brand and you're doing two, three, four or five million and we keep growing within like smaller retailers and online and this and that, and you're just, you're not ready. What I've found is we were ready, before everyone told us we were for retailers like Walmart and Costco.
And so I think there's just people are kind of gun shy to take big swings. and they wait too long and but the reality is just like starting a company. The time is never right for anything. And it's a question of can you succeed despite not having name brand recognition for your brand?
Because there's 10 other things you can do. You can price your leg competitively. You can have a great product. You can have great packaging. You can have tailwinds of a macro dietary trend, blah, blah, blah. And then you can win at Walmart, even though nine out of 10 or 99 out of a hundred people don't know who your brand is.
So I would say I often usually wish we moved earlier. Versus regretting that we moved at all. And you're not going to be perfect. So the one caveat I would say is don't take big swings that will put you out of business. Like always be mindful of that. Don't bet the farm, but if you can take big swings, take them generally earlier.
James Lacey: Do you think that has anything to do with yourself or the team? Like because I'm thinking about, I think that's actually brilliant advice. I haven't heard somebody say that before. Usually it's more on hearing on the side of, like you just said, caution or like you're not ready yet kind of thing. but I also think that probably is largely connected with, Team talent mindset, and actually being able to handle what comes with that
Will Nitze: and money can't forget money, right? You gotta have the balance sheet to be able to take swings, but yeah, those other variables too.
James Lacey: Do you have a, do you have a biggest roadblock to scaling right now? Is there anything that you guys are like, this is the rock that we need to move to, to go to here.
Will Nitze: No, execution. Execution risk. That's it. It's all there for us. We need to execute on it. There are no, the roadblock is our ability to execute. That's it.
James Lacey: That's awesome. I'll jump into, our favorite and final question, seeing as it's connected to the name of the podcast. What does real fulfillment mean to you?
Will Nitze: I think it's, I think fulfillment is different than happiness. which is a key distinction. A lot of people say I want to optimize for happiness. I would much rather optimize for fulfillment, which is basically like feeling like you're working towards something meaningful, at all times. Like per, like purpose is what I'm doing.
Does what I'm doing matter? Everyone has a different definition of matter, but I would say matter, meaning I'm challenging myself. I'm improving society. I'm improving consumers' lives. all those things aggregate into mattering and purpose for me. And then again, the challenge thing is so key. Like never stop challenging yourself.
I would say boredom is like the inverse of fulfillment. So if ever you're feeling bored, that's a big problem. Boredom is worse than pain, in my opinion. And so if ever you're feeling bored, something went wrong, something went wrong. So how do I avoid boredom and run towards challenge and purpose.
James Lacey: That's awesome. That reminds me of things like hearing things that just Jordan Peterson would say of like life is suffering, or basically, and you just got to embrace it and learn how to deal with it. And different people saying similar things. And at least that's definitely what I'm learning as an individual.
And I think your answer is fantastic. Boredom is worse than pain. That's a statement.
Will Nitze: There you go, put it on a bumper sticker.
James Lacey: Will, thank you so much for making time to be honest. Is there any final words that you'd like to share? And also where can we follow along with IQBAR?
Will Nitze: No, nothing further. IQBAR.com, Amazon, you can find us. Costco, if you want to go to a store, Costco, Walmart, soon to be Target, Wagman Sprouts, H E B Publix. We have a store like a locator on our site. I'm Will Nitze on LinkedIn, I put out harebrained ideas if you're into that and that's all I got.
James Lacey: That's awesome. Thank you so much for making the time to be on todayThat is it for today's episode of the Fulfilled podcast and we'll see you next time.
Addison LaBonte: Don't let the fear of striking out keep you from playing the game.
James Lacey: Get ready to meet Addison Labonte, founder of Sweet Addison’s. Addison's mission, to make gluten-free treats that are clean, tasty, and satisfying. Listen as Addison shares her story of passion.
Addison LaBonte: Sweet Addison’s is a brand of soft and thick desserts that are made with wholesome, better for you ingredients.
So I have been a lifelong baker and after college learned that I had to be gluten-free for health reasons. So immediately I started to try to make all of my favorite dessert recipes using gluten-free flour and it's been a lot of trial and error. It's been eight years now since I've been a gluten-free, so I've had a lot of, I've had a lot of, I'll call them lessons, not failures in the kitchen. And I launched sweet Addison's in January of 2024 because the gluten-free products that I was looking for weren't on the market.
So I'm a very healthy person. I love working out and I look at all the ingredients I eat. And I was a little bit alarmed at the ingredients that are in a lot of the things that we eat, especially gluten-free products, they're typically loaded with extra sugar to make them taste normal. So I thought I'm going to create a brand that's a truly better for you dessert experience. It's been a whirlwind, but it's been a lot of fun.
James Lacey: That's awesome. And for anybody that hasn't seen Sweet Addison's website, you just go and I guarantee you'll end up buying something like that. It is so, it's beautifully done, but also just look so delicious. And the ingredients are, like you said, so clean.
I always think it's an interesting journey from the point of concept to actually creating a product or brand and, you know, or experiencing a problem and then actually building something into a solution that feels like when you speak about it in hindsight, it sounds like such a, like just a skip into that you know, but I feel like there's a huge process.
And for somebody that's, you know, walking through something where they've experienced an issue in their life and have seen a solution that they're thinking, Oh, maybe others can benefit from this. What would you say to that person that is in the place of how do I go from this idea to actually beginning to build a product or a brand?
Addison LaBonte: I really believe in mentorship and finding a great mentor, someone who's been there, done that gone before you, who's been successful at whatever you're trying to pursue and meet them for coffee, call them, get on a zoom call with them and just ask them all the questions that you have. I have found most people to be incredibly generous with their time and their knowledge, when I thought about starting Sweet Addison's I had no idea what I was doing.
I didn't know how to ship products around the country. And are these cookies going to spoil or crumble? Or how do I order bulk ingredients? Am I allowed to start out of my home kitchen? How do I get the barcodes on these products? What is a nutrition label have to look like?
I mean, I truly didn't know anything, but, Everything you can figure out through Google and YouTube and people in the industry. It's just a matter of making those connections, doing your research, everything is figure-out-able. It's out there for people to figure out and to learn. Nothing is just going to be handed to you and given to you. You really have to do the work, but it's truly out there if you're interested.
James Lacey: Do you think there's an element of, I suppose, fear, but also impatience that some people may have on the side of wanting to do what you're saying and kind of agreeing with what you're saying and kind of agreeing with what you're saying and saying, yeah, there is, there is the ability to know all of this, but it just seems so much.
And it seems like it's going to take so much time. from your experience, like you said, you've been on an eight-year journey, I think is what you said. And so what would you say, to that person that's a little bit impatient and they want it now? and how they can approach things.
Addison LaBonte: I totally understand that because once I had the idea for sweet Addison's, I wanted to launch it as soon as possible.
But I needed to have certain things in place before I was ready to launch it. You don't necessarily want to mess up your launch. But at the same time, I do think it's important to move with speed and to launch your product and then get customer feedback and then tweak it as needed. I would just encourage people to not try to wait for the perfect time or the perfect packaging or the perfect product.
You're always going to be innovating and things will never be perfect. I mean, most companies are always a work in progress anyway. So if you wait for everything to be perfect, you will be waiting forever at the same time. I don't think it's smart to act just out of impatience. Sometimes, good things will take a while and that's okay.
If I had launched with the first iteration of the chocolate chip cookie, It was a disaster. I mean, these cookies turned into pancakes. They just in the oven, they completely spread. And I thought, ew, I don't even want to eat this. And also, I can't ship something that's, razor-thin, a razor-thin cookie.
It's just going to get demolished in the mail. So it's important to both take your time and move with speed, which I understand that's a juxtaposition, but you need to have a really solid product, but things might not be perfect. So again, having a mentor for me was really instrumental in all of this.
And then touching on your question about fear, It's terrifying. I mean, I put my name and my face on this brand, and it was about a year ago now that I was finalizing the first recipe, getting things set up legally, getting my website up and going, and I just remember feeling this sense of fear thinking, what if nobody buys this?
I've done all this work. I've spent thousands of dollars on ingredients and recipe testing and all this time and what if it's not really a business and nobody cares and nobody buys it, and there's always going to be that sense of fear, but you just need to have enough courage and you need to be brave enough to overcome that.
James Lacey: Wow. So it's only been a year since you have been really all in and published and gone live. Is that right?
Addison LaBonte: I launched January 30th. So it hasn't even been quite a year yet.
James Lacey: That is, that is wild because I know that you've been, in some aspects, taking off fairly quickly for launching a brand that, that recently, I saw that you were in was it New York, what you were in and doing a pop-up?
Addison LaBonte: DC, Washington DC.
James Lacey: DC Sorry. Yeah. And so just, I feel like I'm, and I'm, following you and I feel like I'm seeing you everywhere. That's, it's incredible to have such a, I don't want to say quick because everybody thinks something is an overnight success, but they don't see the 10 years that have gone into it working on something like you were sharing a little bit.
But yeah, I love what you're saying about mentorship and, and I think it is actually really true. The balance between patience and also wanting to act with urgency in a way, it's like it is something that feels like they contradict one another, but you have to walk in tandem with that. Is there any things that you've learned either of the past year over the past years as you've been walking this journey and having this idea and wanting to bring it to fruition that you've learned of how to stay focused or motivated on a day to day basis. Any like, daily routines or things that you've just learned during that process.
Addison LaBonte: I am naturally a very disciplined person. I was a division one college soccer player and that experience has really set me up for Success. It forced me to become very disciplined. I've never struggled with motivation, but I also think that motivation is somewhat of a myth because I don't wake up and say, I can't wait to work 20 hours straight today.
And it's going to be so much fun, and I have all this energy. No, I'm exhausted. It's because I'm disciplined. So discipline comes in where motivation would fail you. So I think discipline more than anything is what it takes to be an entrepreneur and there are so many times where I have to choose my business over doing fun social things or taking the day off or just, hanging on the couch, doing whatever, watching TV, I have to be extremely disciplined. So For me, that's what the success comes down to.
James Lacey: I think I heard somebody say recently that there are quite a few people who are disciplined and then there are a fair few people that are consistent, but there's very few people that are consistently disciplined. And I thought that was brilliant and it sounds like, you are maybe one of those very few people that are consistently disciplined, which I think is what it takes.
Addison LaBonte: I, I agree with that. Consistency is huge. I have to get up everyday and choose to work on this business. You know being self employed, there's no boss that's telling me the hours that I have to work. But also, I wouldn't trade entrepreneurship for, A corporate America job. I get to be my own boss and I get to choose when I work and I'd rather work 100 hours for myself than 40 hours for someone else. It's crazy to say, but having some autonomy over my time and but I just wouldn't trade it.
James Lacey: That is a really interesting statement because I think that's become a conversation, it's become more known. I think for a long time, entrepreneurship was this very, nice sounding thing where you just work for yourself and you have all this freedom and you're going to be an entrepreneur because you want your freedom back and it's going to be great.
But in fact, it takes a lot more than it does, working a job in corporate America. So for you to make that statement, it's really interesting. I think it is a very telling sign of somebody who probably is called to entrepreneurship saying, I will willingly gladly work a hundred hours versus 40 for someone else.
That's a bold and powerful thing to hear. Is there anything that, keeps you motivated and inspired in the tough times? I know you said that, it's discipline over motivation, which I love. In spite of that, is there still something that kind of you, you grip onto and say, this is my why.
Addison LaBonte: My biggest why is my customers, the messages that I get from people saying how I changed their life or my desserts were part of their birthday or I've even had several people get my cookies for their wedding, which is mind blowing to me. And I've had messages from people saying I bought these for my birthday and I haven't been able to eat cookies because I'm gluten-free and whatever it is. So, my biggest why is my customers and I'm not just saying that to, to sound nice.
They really keep me going on the tough days because I'm able to remove the focus off of myself and instead of thinking about how tired I am or you know, insert emotion, frustrated, whatever it might be, I just think about my customers and how much I want to deliver for them. So they're my biggest why.
And then I also, I also think being a division one athlete allowed me to have a very long-term vision and know that even though things are a hustle right now, that someday this will pay off and I'll have a team around me and I won't necessarily be working 20 hours a day. And it also allowed me being a college athlete, allowed me to compartmentalize my life.
And it allowed me to see, it allowed me to succeed at things that I didn't necessarily want to do. And, I didn't want to run fitness tests at six in the morning, but I had to, and I had to succeed at those, right? Or else I wouldn't be on the team. So when I'm working these long days and long hours, it allows me to say, this isn't forever and this will pay off, but this is the, I guess, sacrifice that I'm willing to put in right now.
James Lacey: Yeah, that's huge. I don't think that's talked about enough is the preparation period and even prior to maybe what it is that you're working on now, it could be in completely different contexts. Is there any, you kind of touched on this already, is there any specific mistake that you've experienced already in business and like a major lesson you've learned from it or just overarching general mistakes and how you learn from them?
Addison LaBonte: I would say that one of the biggest lessons I've learned is, everyone you meet will give you advice and will give you their perspective on things. But at the end of the day, you have to trust your own gut instinct. So I've heard people say, do this, don't do this. You have to do this. You can't do this. And I have to trust myself as the CEO of this business to decide what is best for sweet Addison's going forward.
And so there are people that said, why would you get into the food business? It's, it's very competitive. It's cut-throat, the manual labor. And I said, cause this is what I'm passionate about and this is what I think my gift is to the world is these desserts and baking, and so I'm going to pursue this.
And then there's people that say, open a bakery. And then people say, don't open a bakery. So it's, you get all this unsolicited advice and I, most people mean really well. They're just trying to share their experiences with you. But at the end of the day, you need to be the CEO and you need to decide what is best for your business.
James Lacey: That sounds like that comes with experience.
Addison LaBonte: Yes.
James Lacey: Otherwise, I think you could probably end up turning in 300 different directions, at the same time and going around in circles. Leadership can, I think, become quite a lonely place. you're running a business, you talked about this earlier sacrifices that have to be made.
You can become maybe slightly isolated in a place of leadership too. Is there anything that you're learning, in how to balance that and stay connected to your friends, family, or just even outside world, outside of business?
Addison LaBonte: You're right. Entrepreneurship can be very isolating and lonely. It's a lot of time by myself and it's also a lot of my weekends and nights I spend working and some people don't understand that and that's fine. Because the average person doesn't work until 2 a.m. and they don't necessarily understand that, so it can definitely be difficult, and it can feel very lonely at times, I would just encourage people to get outside, go for a walk or run with a friend or family member.
Since I spend so much time in the car, that's a great time to catch up with a friend and you know, call them or whatever it is. I actually have some of my friends who help me package the cookies, ship orders out.
So I'm able to see them that way. But I've also had to say to some of my friends, listen, it's not you, it's me. I love you, you're amazing. But right now I need to focus on this and I would love your support. And just realize that if you don't hear from me for a couple of days, it's not because something happened.
It's just because I'm really busy working on my business and so far, my family and friends have been very, very supportive and I'm incredibly thankful for that, but it is a lot of time spent alone.
James Lacey: Yeah, it seems like from what I've heard elsewhere as well, the, there is a lot of importance that comes with the support of those around you.
And you know, because of the decisions that you have to make, and you've talked about the sacrifices. It's maybe harder if people don't understand those and can become hurt or distanced by them, but those that kind of are willing to accept and say, we get it, go for it. And even if we don't fully understand, we want to back you and support you in this.
And like you said, it's so cool that you have your friends, a part of the journey, a part of the growth. I think that's like you talked about long term, that's probably going to tend to something that's really beautiful.
Addison LaBonte: Thank you. I appreciate that.
James Lacey: Is there a favorite quote that you have or a favorite piece of advice maybe that a mentor has given you that comes to mind?
Addison LaBonte: There's two quotes that I really like. One of them is don't let the fear of striking out keep you from playing the game. I think it's so important because there's always the fear of what if this doesn't work out or what if I fail, but that shouldn't hold you back from pursuing your dreams. I really believe that life is way too short to not, not chase after something that you really want to do, and then my, one of my other favorite quotes is there's no traffic on the extra mile, because most people aren't willing to go the extra mile. So you're, and that's where the loneliness comes in. You'll often be the only one there. But that's what it takes to be number one.
I've also heard the quote, you have to be odd to be number one. And I think that's funny. I was a math major in college, so I think it's just a little bit comical, but I, it's very true. There's a reason why successful people are successful and it's because they're willing to do the things that 99 percent of people aren't willing to do.
James Lacey: It makes sense. I love that. I've never heard that you have to be odd to be number one. That’s so true.
Addison LaBonte: Yes.
James Lacey: Is there an element, element of faith that goes into decision making for you or whether it's faith in yourself, faith in God, that comes into your business decisions or comes into your journey?
Addison LaBonte: Absolutely. I'm a Christian. My faith means everything to me. And it's funny, back when I had this scary health diagnosis, I, was like, okay, God, I don't know why I'm going through this and why I suddenly have to be gluten-free and my whole life has to change. And now I can look back and say, wow, God knew exactly what he was doing as always, because it's now my whole career and it's my passion and I'm able to have this amazing job that I love. And, you know looking back, It all makes sense. But at the time I was very confused, by I had all these health issues and I mean, I was too sick to run. My doctor said you might not ever be able to run again. And yeah, I was diagnosed with something called compartment syndrome, which is a blood circulation and inflammation issue.
As I was running, my legs would lose all feeling, they'd be completely numb. And went to my doctor and he said, you have compartment syndrome. I suggest that you either get surgery or you quit running altogether because you're doing permanent nerve damage. This is very dangerous for you. You might not be able to ever run normally again.
And I did a, an overhaul of my diet and it ended up being gluten. That was the issue. And eight months after my doctor said that to me, I finished my first marathon and I was able to do that safely. I felt every step of the way. It's just, so I ignited this passion in me to share my story with people.
And I started an Instagram account called (organically) Addison and I just took off. I'm at like almost 200, 000 followers on Instagram. And that's where the cookie business came from. As people said, you're talking about all this gluten free stuff and making all these cool recipes. Where can we buy it?
So again, I never in a million years thought I'd be an entrepreneur. I never ever thought I'd be doing what I'm doing, but it's way better than I could have imagined.
James Lacey: Wow, that is, I'm speechless. Just there's so many components within that story that without faith, without having a relationship with God, I think it could have gone in such a different direction.
And you know, you, you're walking that, that journey out, which, you know it's easy to hear things like that, I think and also in hindsight, as a listener, or you see the victory and the testimony on this side in some ways. But having, walking through that, I can only imagine how difficult that was, the athlete that you were and hearing information like that.
So to think that eight months after you, you finished a marathon and that you found what was causing the issue and then have now built out a career, a business, a growing brand. Yeah, that, that sounds like a God story to me.
Addison LaBonte: Absolutely.
James Lacey: It's really beautiful. Is there anything that you'd say to somebody that maybe is in a similar place that you were when you just received that news or when you were walking through, the pain of what you were going through something that maybe just to encourage someone saying, I kind of, I get it, but there is a way out or that there is hope?
Addison LaBonte: There's always hope. I would encourage people to be their own advocate. So my doctor was trying to have me get surgery or quit running. And I thought, I'm not interested in either one of those, there has to be a better way. And I was willing to go through the process of healing myself naturally.
And it, it ended up being gluten, that was the issue. But I would really encourage people to be their own advocate. Just because a doctor says you need to do this or you need to do that. Nobody knows your body better than you do. And you have to stick up for yourself and not just accept what someone says just because they said it. So there's always, always hope. Never lose hope.
James Lacey: That's good. Hope, hope, Everlasting. Is there anything specific that you're learning at the moment?
Addison LaBonte: There's so much I'm learning every day. It's so much. I would say, I would say coming back to just trusting yourself and knowing you, you know what's best for your business.
Now, again, it's important to have mentors and it's important to have the support of family and friends, but at the end of the day, it's your business and you have to decide where you want to take it and what you want to do with it. So it's so important to not second guess yourself. And I think that's one of the biggest lessons I've learned this year is there's been so many people that say, I want to help you. I want to do this, you should do that. And it has to come down to me and what I want to do and where I want to take this business.
James Lacey: Makes sense. Is there anything that you're experiencing as the major roadblock right now to scaling is that, as you're growing, you're coming up on, on a year in business. Is there any specific roadblocks that you're having to navigate, how you innovate or that type of thing?
Addison LaBonte: The biggest thing right now is building out a team. I've never been someone's boss. So trying to hire people and train them on certain things and I also want it to be a really fun, collaborative working environment.
I don't want to be a dictator. So building out the team as we grow in scale has been the biggest challenge, but it's something that's absolutely necessary if I want to really grow this business.
James Lacey: Makes sense. I think that's wise leadership. Just, closing out is just a couple last things I'd love to ask you.
And one, one key question that we'd love to ask everybody. But real quick, is there anything that you would share just, from your heart, either from business experience, from faith perspective, just really anything that's maybe gripping your heart at the moment from experience in business or life, that if you were to just, after hearing us talk about this journey, in life and business, that you would want to say to somebody, if you had 30 seconds of their time, to just encourage them.
Addison LaBonte: God's plan is always better than your plan. That's what I would say. That's simple. It comes down to that. I never in a million years, like I said, thought I'd be doing this, but it's way better than what I previously thought I wanted. So I have to trust in God's plan for my life and really step into this place that he has me at right now. So that would be my encouragement to people.
James Lacey: That's a good one. You never know what life has for you. Is there anything that you're really excited about right now? Or like, that's coming up that's next for you or the business that you're just excited to step into?
Addison LaBonte: I really feel like 2025 is going to be one of the best years of my life. 2024 was life changing. I mean, I'm having so much fun. And as I continue to grow and scale this business, I think it's off to the races and a short term launching a couple new flavors for the holidays that I'm really excited about. But I just think looking ahead to next year, I really want to grow this business and I'm incredibly thankful for the mentors that I have in my life and these people that want to run this race with me. I'm just incredibly grateful for the people that God has put in my life at the perfect time.
It's kind of crazy to think about this year, since starting this business, I have met some of my favorite people I've ever met. And it's really cool to think that if I never took this leap of faith and started this business, I wouldn't have them in my life. And it's really hard to imagine my life without some of these people. So again, it just goes back to, you know, God's plan is the best. But I'm, so excited for the next year and beyond, I just, I wake up every day and pinch myself that this is what I get to do and I have amazing customers who order for me and love my product and just, being able to bring that sense of joy and hope to people is, is incredibly fulfilling.
James Lacey: That is exciting. I'm excited. That's it's got me excited. Just thinking about it and thinking about and following along with sweet Addison's journey. I'm definitely going to be doing that just because I'm fascinated and I believe in what you're doing as well from that solution, I think so.
I know so many people that have had real bad experiences because of gluten and have had to step back from it and have found it really difficult. And so I think delicious, delicious desserts that are gluten free and good for you. It's a huge thing for people. So I'm really thankful for what you're doing.
I just wanted to, wrap up with, a final question, which, we love to ask, which is what does real fulfillment mean to you?
Addison LaBonte: Waking up every day, getting to do what you love and surrounding yourself with people that you love and who uplift you, it just comes down to, I love what I do and I love serving my customers.
And like I said, I wake up so excited every day to do what I do and being able to share this experience, both with family, friends and the customers. That's what real fulfillment means to me.
James Lacey: That's awesome. Addison, thank you so much for your time. Is there anywhere that we can follow along with you, Sweet Addison's just want to make sure that people know where they can go to either grab some deliciousness or, or follow along with you.
Addison LaBonte: Yes, absolutely. So my website is sweetaddisons.com on Instagram, we are sweet.addisons and then TikTok is eatsweetaddisons. So that's where people can find me if they want to use the code free cookie at checkout on my website, they get a free cookie on their first order.
James Lacey: Awesome. That is amazing. Thank you so much Addison for your time today. This was just so fun and encouraging. I hope you were blessed. That is it for today's episode of the Fulfilled podcast and we'll see you on the next one.
Andrew Michinard: My biggest thing is just do it. Don't listen to the naysayers and jump in. The regret of not doing it will be even more painful.
James Lacey: Our guest today, Andrew Michinard, founder of Trybe Labs, shares his entrepreneurial journey and the challenges of disrupting the traditional medical model. Get ready for an inspiring conversation on health business and the mindset that drives success.
Andrew Michinard: We created Trybe out of a necessity about a year and a half ago. Yeah, I was going through some stuff. And, you know, a typical guy, I never interact with the current medical model, unless something's like really wrong. We were, coming out of the end of COVID we had a COVID lab before this, working 16 hour days and just didn't feel great.
Super lethargic. And a friend of mine was like, Hey, you should probably get like your blood work done. It sounds like he might have some markers off. And I'd never thought of like, say, hormones or like some of these other sort of longevity markers or health in general. And I actually made the step to try to go see a doctor.
And I got to the doctor. He didn't have a phlebotomist in his office. So he's like, I gotta send you for blood work. So I went to a lab, got seven tubes of blood drawn. Two weeks later, I called the doctor back up. He's like, nah, they never sent the, sent me the results back. So then I had to go find another lab.
Like a month and a half long process, to finally try to get some answers. And at the end of it, I didn't get any answers. And I looked at my partners at the time and I was just like, there's gotta be a better way than this. And with that, an idea was born, we're lab guys. We own labs.
And really our whole focus with Trybe is just to empower people to take control of their health. it's you hear the buzzword, early detection saves lives. But if you make early detection so impossible and put up so many barriers for people to even have the initiative to go get checked Out they're not going to do it.
So what's the point? so really our whole goal with Trybe is just to create something to make health care easier to get you know Whatever you're interested in You can get that checked whenever and wherever you want. And that just increases engagement, gets people invested in their health because it's now not this, I always say to people, if I'm going to take a day off of work or half a day off of work, I'm not going to go sit in the doctor's office.
I'm going to go play golf. You know what I mean? So that, that's really why we started it. That's really our, why, The modern medical system. I've been a med rep for 20 years. It's, you see the system. And the funny thing, James, is that 70 percent of all medical decisions are based off of lab work, but that's like the last thing.
So you, got to go to a doctor. He, you fill out all these forms, you sit in a waiting room, you sit in another room. And then it's like, I need to send you for blood work. I don't know anything about you. So Trybe kind of flips that paradigm and it's get your blood work done and then, whether you want to talk to one of our partner providers or partner nurse practitioners, or just go talk to your provider, but you already had the answers in hand.
You know what I mean? So it just cuts down the time and, it, it's been a wild ride. I'll never forget. I tell the story all the time. Our first order was from some random guy in Hawaii. We had not put out any Facebook ads. We barely had a website and an order came in. but yeah, it's, we launched, officially, I would say July of 23.
So we're, a little over a year and it's been, like every entrepreneur will tell you it's been a rollercoaster.
James Lacey: That's incredible. What a brilliant idea though. I, it is so true. The headache that causes, to just all that you have to go through. And I think it was a brilliant example is, you get a day off, you don't want to spend it sitting in the doctor's office, getting your blood work done or whatever that is.
So yeah, what a brilliant solution. anything that I think saves time for people or brings convenience. And then also by the sounds of it is. It's not just saving time of bringing Venus, but it's actually, it's just a better solution. Yeah, is it's always gonna be a win. How did you go about going from, seeing the problem, the experiencing the pain point, but then actually building a productized solution.
And I think that for me is a big gap in people's minds. Sometimes is they experience something. They have an idea that is a solution to a problem. But then it's like, how do I realize that? How do I create a brand or a product out of this? there's a huge gap there. What would you say to that person that's maybe in that place?
Andrew Michinard: You bring up a good point. I have a friend of mine. He's uber successful out in Silicon Valley and he's created and exited like four different companies. And I'm always like, how do you, and he's literally something ticks me off or like bothers me. And then he's, I just figure out a better mousetrap.
And so that was similar with what we did. And we had the advantage of owning our own lab. So we were lab guys to begin with. So we lived in the space that we were trying to solve, but. The next part of that equation was like, okay, how are we going to make this convenient? So what is the collection methodology and being in the lab space for as long as we have, I didn't even realize that there was already like direct consumer companies out there. There are some big players that are already billion dollar operations, which was nice. It was like, okay, we don't have to convince people. And you're also coming off the whole Theranos disaster. that, that was like in our mind. And, but we decided early on to a lot of, direct consumer at home blood testing companies use finger prick testing.
So you basically take a lancet, prick your finger, and then you got to fill in these blood spots. my partner, Alejandro, who's also our chief scientist from a science perspective, didn't really believe in it. And then when we started testing out the competitors, like that collection experience, they call it pain free.
If you've ever had to prick your finger and squeeze blood out of it, it is a horrible experience. I consider myself a tough guy. And I remember the first time I did it and I'm always the Guinea pig. I was like, if I was a customer, I would never do that again. so we were introduced. They were early on stage.
They were still waiting for their FDA approval. we're doing a lot of research on other ways to collect blood, even from sending mobile phlebotomy out to people's houses. But that's just, that's tough to scale. you need a lot of phlebotomists. So there was a company out of Seattle called Tasso.
It's a device that sits on your shoulder. If you go on our website, you see it all in all of our content, but it sticks to your shoulder. You press the button. The small little Lancet makes a quick little swipe and then the blood drains into a microtainer. So we're actually getting real blood, not like a fingers, finger prick that you're putting on a piece of paper.
So Alejandro, he's a genius in the lab. He's listen, if we're going to do this, I want to do the exact same testing that they're doing at your local lab core in quest or your brick and mortar lab. But I, the difference is we can do that same collection at home. So we're getting actual like real blood.
Which then allows us to use FDA, instrumentation, FDA reagents. The device itself is FDA has a five, 10 K FDA approval. So it's everything we do. We just want to mimic what people are used to, but they can just do it right in their home. Cause we do get like a lot where like people will press the button and there's like a 45 second gap sometimes before that first drop appears. And I think people are like, Oh, this thing stinks, like it's not working, take it off and you're like, if you actually felt a little more, you might be like, okay, it definitely, something happened, but yeah, that, that was a game changer. We actually delayed the launch for waiting for their FDA approval.
But, see, we had the idea. We knew we could run the science on the back end, but it was like that, middle piece that we had to figure out. and then once that device came out and the nice thing is there's more competitors coming into the market. and I think this whole direct consumer, whether it's laboratory, pharmacy, telehealth, this industry is just.
We live in an Amazon world and that includes healthcare. it's, I want it now. I don't want to leave my house and, what do you have for me? So it's, really exciting times.
James Lacey: That is really interesting to hear. And it sounds like you guys are somewhere on the cutting edge of that. It makes me think of as well, whoop the wearable device that I see those ads everywhere and I've seen their story a little bit, similar thing is just people want to get real data on their health, at the convenience of.
Being a part of their lifestyle or at home out of curiosity, what keeps you motivated or inspired when times get tough? I think that's a big thing for entrepreneurs is, and it sounds like you've had, decent period of experience within this space of entrepreneurship. And I know even prior to jumping on the podcast, you've had to endure what it is to sell.
You've been on the D to C side. What would you say keeps you inspired and motivated during challenging times?
Andrew Michinard: Yeah, it's, the entrepreneurial life is not for, everybody. Some days we're walking around the lab, like we're Kings. And then the next day we're like, do you think anyone will just buy this and take it away because there's so much that goes into it, but I always tell people, like, when it's your own thing, like you've create, let's take Trybe for example. it was a thought that manifested itself into something real and now this is, you're nurturing it, it's your thing. But, from a why standpoint, I, have a healthcare journey, like I was an athlete growing up, got in like really bad shape. So I'm 16 years in recovery. So like my health is like everything to me, I've become like, very conscious of it. So for me, I think health is everything for people. The obesity issues, the health issues, the cardiac risk is the number one killer of Americans.
And it's just what is the difference? what is our, why, why are we actually doing this? And then you get stories from people. It's like those little wins that you get every once in a while, like an email from a customer, thank God. I found you guys like, I'm definitely afraid of needles, but I need to monitor my health, but I would not go to the doctor because I don't want to get your own blood. A lot of our panels contain a test called a PSA. So that's like a prostate, check, monitors like your prostate levels to early detection of prostate cancer. We found several people that would have never gone to the doctor or scheduled a physical because most men don't schedule physical because of that unpleasant ending.
And that's still the gold standard, to us, it's like, if we have some way to give an exam, and we found people that had elevated, PSAs and they were able to go to their doctor and get it checked out, back to that thing we talked about before early detection saves lives, but we're giving people a vehicle to do that.
And I think those are the things that inspire, like you need small little things. In order to keep going because if you just get your butt kicked every day and we do a lot You know what? It's, we as a startup You have a small team running around and you know you're wearing a lot of hats and it can be pretty exhausting where you start. Maybe I should just put my resume out and let somebody else deal with all this headache.
But for me, like I really think we're impacting people's lives and that's critical for me And then also, just the fact that when it's your baby You know, it's like, it's something you've built, like there's a pride in that, and it's you, watch the building blocks and the stepping stones and it's Oh, wow.
Like we just hit a certain amount of orders or we launched a new panel that's going to, potentially have an impact over, over here. So that's really what keeps me going.
James Lacey: It makes sense. Yeah, that experiencing the impact that you have on others as well as seeing that baby grow and become a toddler and become a teenager, et cetera.
Is there, I guess in connection with that, any advice that you would give to people that are aspiring to say, turn their idea into a realized solution, or a realized business. Anything that you would say to them as far as the day to day, like any routine hacks, any, yeah, anything that you've just experienced that like really helps you stay focused on a day to day basis.
Andrew Michinard: Yeah, it can get, if you allow your day to get out of control, it can get out of control pretty quickly. And I'm by no means an expert on this, but it's funny we're having this conversation because even, like last week, I used to have all these, Guardrails, put in and then, things over the last three months here have just been pretty crazy.
And now we're moving the lab to a new location. So there's like a lot going on. And I think I go back to like early like y'all have like your toolkit, things that like you used to do. There was a book I read, a guy by the name of Craig Valentine, called the perfect day formula.
And a lot of it is just, what Jocko Willink always says, discipline is freedom. And I was allowing my day to dominate me instead of me controlling the day. And so I, you have to hit reset sometimes cause you're just going, you're going, and then your business takes over.
So for young entrepreneurs, it's organization is key, setting out your goals for the day or like the tasks that you have to do. and not allowing. You have things to distract you. So to me, organization and discipline, and a lot of that starts the night before. It's, instead of sitting down, and just, doom scrolling, the internet or watching the game, I take 30 minutes, okay.
What does my day tomorrow look like? Let's look at my calendar and what are the things like I really need to get done to call it a successful day. And for me, that kind of keeps me on track and I'm not perfect by any means. Cause in a startup, the unexpected is the expected. but yeah, and I used to do a young entrepreneur, just do it, I think. I cared so much. I probably let a lot of ideas go or businesses go like when I was younger because I was scared of failure or I was scared of what people were saying where people thought. And I think that holds so many people back. Gary V. Gary Vaynerchuk says it all the time. It's, we literally live our lives like you.
Based on people that we hate and what their judgment of us is. And it's just it's such, and we all fall for it. Yeah. But it's, just do it if you have an idea, especially if you're young. But even me, I'm 47 years old and people think they could have a great idea when they're 55.
James Lacey: Definitely.
Andrew Michinard: And they're like, I'm too old to do it, or, I'm 60. And it's we're all gonna live to 90 something now. It's like there is so much time in this internet age or with a, a phone that is a supercomputer. You could change your life in a year. my biggest thing is just do it.
Don't listen to the naysayers and jump in. I love that. Cause the regret, will be worse than if you, if the business fails, the regret of not doing it will be even more painful.
James Lacey: That's brilliant. I, it's so funny. I, it's probably the last thing that any. Young entrepreneur wants to hear organization discipline.
I heard somebody say once, it's rare to find disciplined people and it's rare to find consistent people. It's super rare to find consistently disciplined people. And, I was like, Oh, that's interesting. Yeah, I like that a lot. And I was also really convicted by it because I was like, Yep, I am not that.
And I need to be, it's that is, I think, a recipe for success, no matter what it is, like you said, if you go in and you fail, if you're somebody that is consistently disciplined, then you're going to come out the other side with a lesson learned and then applying, implying that learning experience, leadership can be a pretty isolated place at times. It can get lonely. Have you experienced that? Is there anything that you've learned as far as like staying connected to the outside world or just like life outside of the business? What would you say to that?
Andrew Michinard: I think that's, if I'm going to be honest, what the thing I need to work on the most, this is now our third venture together with our partners is that, you're grinding a lot.
When you're the boss, everyone's yeah, all buddies text me all the time. yo, can you play golf? Like Wednesday at 11? I'm like, no, I can't. I got to work. They're like, what do you mean? Like you own the company. And I'm like, yeah.
Andrew Michinard: Exactly. I got to be there. I've had moments, where, I've let it like overwhelm, personal life, marriage, kids. Like you, you can get very consumed with this. And it can be to your point, like a lonely existence. It's what am I doing this for? And I think you just have to like, take a step back and listen to the beginning of every startup. It's just going to be a grind. You don't have the money to hire people.
You don't have the money to like, buy your time back a little bit. and I think that's where I've struggled and kind of going back to that point of like, it's your baby. Like it matters so much to you, that you have to be disciplined and you're fine. Okay, I need to take an hour, go to the gym or, I like, I haven't seen my buddy in a while.
Let's go get some lunch or make time for yourself because then this, just becomes like not fun. And you start seeing like the months, the days, the months, the years go by and you're like, okay, great. Like we might exit, five years from now. Or it might be nothing and I spent three years with just no joy, So you've got to carve out that time or you'll burn out that's good and that's me, you know saying like i've gone through burnout, and it's we're grinders here like we were hands on like lab guys and I think that's like our biggest challenge is like taking a step back and going You know what?
I'm gonna go to my daughter's event, it's more important for me to be there.
James Lacey: Yeah, that it's such good advice. I think it's so difficult for, business owners to remember that sometimes it's just that, you know what, it's okay if I miss this meeting or it's okay if I am, like you said earlier, even it's okay if I don't answer that customer's email in this very second, if I get to it in an hour, once I finished this task or once I'm finished putting my child to bed or whatever that might be, I think that is such an important reminder and often.
Takes a lot of the pressure off of this overwhelming need to constantly be available, constantly be present. And I think that can, like you said, that leads to burnout and that can crush. And so I love that advice. Yeah. Even though.
Andrew Michinard: Yeah. My wife, I have to make a conscious effort to like, leave my phone, like at home, cause it's the famous, like Simon Sinek, like you feel that buzz in your pocket and you're like, Oh my God.
What is that? And then it's like this compulsion, this addiction of to check it. And I just like, cause then I think of it, like I'm a consumer, if I email a company about a shirt I bought or something like I'm not expecting like an immediate response, if they get back to me in 24, 48 hours, cool.
And then it's I have to like, remember that even like our customer service, people, it's I want you to do it as fast as you can. But even like from my side, like when I see something, it's okay, You got some time, finish this, swallow your food
James Lacey: Yeah, you can finish eating. It's okay, right? Is there, is there any. Mistake that you've experienced in your business. and like a core lesson you've learned from it, whether that's like a specific mistake or just maybe general how you've learned from mistakes.
Andrew Michinard: Yeah, don't wait for it to be perfect. I think I have everything you've been involved in or I've been involved in, it's like you're, we can't launch yet. We can't like, what about this font here? Is this the right color? Like this? I don't know about this. And then you weigh so many, Money, time, effort. And it's just it's never going to be perfect. every day we're like, ah, I don't like that page of the website. if you let that overwhelm you, just launch and listen, you have to have the shell and it's got to be like something viable.
But, you're such a prisoner to we're going to put this out in the world. Everyone's going to judge it. and because it's like your thing. You're so hyper-focused and critical of it. And I remember when we first sent out like our beta website. I, like I said send on the email and I was like God, they're gonna destroy this thing, and everyone was like, this is awesome.
Like website looks great. Like it was super functional. I loved the result comments and I'm like you do, you do like okay, but we were trying to like fine tune everything and craft everything and it's yeah, it's It's don't wait for it to be perfect. Cause it's never going to be perfect.
The fixes come when you launch, because that's where you really find out what's wrong. Like what you think is like the problem isn't the problem. It's customer interactions. And, I think even letting people know that this is a beta launch or, this is a rough draft, if you will, pick it apart.
Yeah, I would say don't be scared to launch, it's never going to be perfect.
James Lacey:That's good. touching on that, I guess it's connected. Are there, are you guys experiencing any roadblocks right now to scaling? Is there anything you're learning within that?
Andrew Michinard: Yeah, it's, we're in that interesting part of a life cycle where We're very busy, like we're scaling, but scaling is expensive in the direct consumer market. we're reinvesting every dollar that comes in back in marketing. So we're in that like unique spot of we were not making enough money. To let's call it pay ourselves and do other things, but we're busy enough that we have all these bills coming in because in order to fulfill things, it costs money.
So it's, you're in this middle and, things Really looking good and it's you get stuck in this We're in this middle ground now where things are great. our revenues are growing, 20 percent month over month. you're reinvesting it all in the business.
And, it's like the universe sees that, be careful what you wish for. But, yeah, that's like the challenge is, because we're self funded. It's our money, we pay for everything.
James Lacey: One of the fun questions. Do you have a favorite quote or piece of advice that comes to mind?
Andrew Michinard: So my favorite, it's, not a quote, but the thing I always go back to as an entrepreneur, and I didn't see this till probably seven years ago, but I remember the first time I saw the man in the arena, that I think I got goosebumps right now, just even saying it, I'll never forget reading it the first time as an entrepreneur.
And it just brings up, so many things of, what, our life is like, and, being the, person standing in the arena, the naysayers and the critics, but, I'm the one with, the, dirt and blood on my face, because they're too scared to go for it, but, it goes back to that, fear of criticism from other people and judging.
And I just remember reading that for the first time and going man, that sums up like the entrepreneurial. Like journey, and then, you talk about like marketing genius, like we've said it a few times on this call, the Nike slogan, just do it. what a perfect three word, just, they nailed it.
And I think, don't, live in fear. If you've got an idea, don't be scared to fail because. when, you're sitting on that rocking chair and you're 85 and you're thinking about your life and that, what if of man, I had that idea, what if I had done it, so that's really what I think of.
James Lacey: Some incredible life perspective, like a lot of what you've shared, I think is like, really valuable life perspective, obviously extremely relevant to entrepreneurship, but an entrepreneurship is so connected to.
In a way, how we execute on life, I think, because it's so interweaved, or interwoven. Yeah. But just that aspect of saying no to fear and having the longevity of your life perspective, how you're going to look back and what thoughts you're going to have. Is there. Would you say there's an element of faith that goes into your business decisions or decision making process for you?
Andrew Michinard: Yeah, I am, I go back to my story of being in recovery. So faith is a big part of my life. I'm a prayerful person. I do believe that there is a higher power. And I remember, I was living with a guy, this is 20 years ago, and he was reading a book called the secret. And I remember, I was living with a guy, this is 20 years ago, and he was reading a book called the secret.
And I, initially I found it to be icky and then I remember like being like desperate at the time, like desperation, spurs on so much action and I remember reading and just like that thought of a law of attraction and, what you put out comes back to you and, so for me, I do believe that, if you believe you.
Yeah, the universe conspires to give you what you need and what you want. and a lot of what we do is guided by that. I'm a firm believer that, Certainly faith and belief and prayer and all those things, do help guide me.
James Lacey: Yeah, I think there's I love that. I think there's a what you just mentioned about, seeing, like seeing something, believing it, holding it.
I think there's even like a verse in the Bible somewhere that says that faith is the substance of things hoped for. The conviction of things not seen and I'm like, it's you can't hope for something that you don't, that you can see, if it's I'm not hoping that I can achieve this because it's right in front of me.
and so I love that. It's reminded me of what you said, or what you said reminded me of that is just yeah, you have to be convicted of something that you don't see to really move forward.
Andrew Michinard: Yeah. And I think, faith is such like a critical thing. And it's interesting when you look back in your life, like things you hoped for or prayed for, and they didn't work out, but they did work out as you, as you piece the dots back, cause you're like, that thing I was praying for, if I had gotten that, I wouldn't have had that failure that led me over to here.
And then I met this guy, you know what I mean? And then, but if all the while you have faith that whoever you are praying to, it is. Working behind the scenes and you just let that go and just do your thing. Tony Robbins always says there has to be action, you can have faith in action, but if you stand in the desert and say, there's going to be grass, there's going to be grass, there's going to be grass.
There's not going to be grass. Like you actually have to do the work and plant the seed, soil, water. But yeah, faith is a huge thing. Cause it can get lonely and faith helps you get through, hoping and knowing that it's going to work. So
James Lacey: true. Yeah. I love that. Yeah. without some action that faith is, isn't, is going nowhere. Yeah, I know where we're running over a little bit. I want to honor your time. cause I could chat to you for a long time. I think, but, is there, we have a main question. I'd love to, to dive in and ask, but before for doing so, is there anything else that you would like to share?
Either about by yourself, your journey about Trybe Labs, just before I wrap up with this final question and also want to make sure that people know where to follow along with you guys.
Andrew Michinard: Yeah, I would say, just from the entrepreneurial perspective, like I love topics like this.
As I'm unfortunately getting older and I've done a few things. It's, I try to help out. I remember, Sometimes I'll go to the library to do work cause it's super quiet and I can't answer my phone there. And I remember I kept seeing like the same kid and he was always very dressed up, had a tie on and I could tell.
And, I talked to him, he was like, well, you know, I, I graduated college. I'm at law school now. I'm trying to create this company. And I told him about what I was doing. And then, like I think mentorship. like for that was awesome. But like in terms of the entrepreneurial journey, so many of the things we talked about it, listen, it's hard, it's not easy, but it's so rewarding, for me, it's just jump, go for it, the rewards are great.
The amount of pride you have in, building your own thing and growing your own company. I encourage everybody and, I say to people all the time, do it. Even if you work for a company, and this was a mistake I made early on, I remember like Always think of, even if you're working for somebody of your job, like you're running your business inside somebody else's business.
So be an entrepreneur inside of somebody else's company. I remember I had a certain budget, in a sales job I had, and I had exceeded it. And I was unwilling to spend like a hundred dollars of my own money. Could have generated a sale. And I look back now and it's just all right.
The company wouldn't cover it, but like that would have gotten you so much further ahead. So I tell everybody always think you're always being interviewed. You're always running your own thing. Like always think about the fact that whether you're at a job, be a business inside of a business.
And then if you're running a business, just go for it. Take the swing.
James Lacey: That's great. I love that perspective. I've never heard somebody say that before. And I've actually had that experience recently myself is think, have that entrepreneurial mindset, even within a company. I, that is, I think something that should be talked about a lot more because, that's who.
People like yourself, business owners want to hire those type of people that are bringing a mindset of, not just clocking in and clocking out per se, but they're actually bringing value add and thinking, how can I increase the return on investment of what I cost? and so I think that's awesome.
I just want to wrap up with this final question, which is our favorite question, and that is, what does real fulfillment mean to you?
Andrew Michinard: Oh, I like that question. and you're hitting me, hitting me like in the chest right now, because the conversation we had before about entrepreneurship and it's, You can, you could have a billion dollars, but if you're not fulfilled internally, like if your soul isn't filled, you're, poor.
And I try to think about that a lot is that, when I didn't have money and people would say money doesn't buy happiness and I'm like, easy for you to say, and then now that I'm an entrepreneur, we've had a couple of successful ventures and listen, there were times where, I had more money than I've ever had, but I've been miserable because.
I was working 18 hours a day, like not seeing friends, not seeing family. and it made me really evaluate like what I'm looking for in life. And that fulfillment to me is hanging out with my daughter, providing being a, I love that. I'm a someone in my community now that's like a resource for people.
Like people come to me for guidance, whether it's health life, vice, just to hang out, and just to be like a, I want to call it a good Samaritan, but there's more to life than work. And the more that I can give back to people, my community, advice while also building a company, work is not everything, money is not everything.
There are some of the richest people in the world that are the most miserable people. And, fulfillment to me is just going to bed at night, sleeping, waking up, having a great day. And then. I don't know. Just giving back to people. I love being a, being an inspiration even on the recovery side for me.
I help people that are struggling, and now with my business, I help people that might be looking to get healthy and I provide them the tools for that. So it's, it's a rewarding life. You just have to keep it all in perspective.
James Lacey: Yeah. A lot of gratitude is what I'm hearing there as well. A lot of gratitude that you carry.
Andrew Michinard: I am, I am a very grateful person and everyone. I'm smiling all the time. everyone's dude, you're always so happy. I'm like, I consider myself lucky to be here. I've had a great life and my smile is my secret weapon. Cause any situation you're in, just smile and people are like, he seems happy.
James Lacey: I love that, love that. I think like joy is like a weapon. Joy is a weapon. So true. I love that. man, Andrew, this has just been honestly so awesome. I've learned a ton just listening to you and just want to thank you for sharing your wisdom, taking the time to do this.
Is, there any way that we can let people know to, Stay in tune with Trybe Labs and follow along the journey or even check it out if they want to go grab something
Andrew Michinard: Yeah, absolutely. So our website is Trybelabs.us. That's T R Y B E labs.us, we're on Instagram and Facebook just at Trybe Labs and, yeah, we're, we're excited for having people on the journey, help people get healthy at their convenience.
If you're going to take a day off, take a day off for a good reason. Don't take a day off to go to the doctor.
James Lacey: Come on. That's right. That's it. That's quite the way to close it. I like that. Andrew, thank you so much for your time. Thank you for being on the Fulfilled podcast today. That is it for today's episode and we'll catch you on the next one.
Terri Entler: Networking in your community is really, really important. And you'll be amazed how much people are willing to help you for nothing.
James Lacey: Meet Terri Entler, the founder of Healers Pet Care, who turned her engineering expertise into a mission to improve pet wellness. Find out how Terri turned a personal challenge into a trusted brand.
Terri Entler: I am an engineer. I was, I started my career years ago as a, actually was in banking. I started as a teller and work my way up in banking, was assistant cashier. Started having a family, need to be a stay-at-home mom for a while. I didn't go to college right out of high school cause I got married and then kids started happening.
So I always wanted to, and when I, remember when I was searching for colleges right out of senior people, the college professors who showed me the colleges, have you ever thought about being an engineer? And I was really good at math. And I said, An engineer, I didn't even know what an engineer did or anything.
And I was in banking, I was working my way up the bank. I said, nah, I'm going to go into business. So, I did that and I, and then, you need to be a stay-at-home mom and you just can't, you can't, live on one income. It's really difficult. So I started a, I'll play things, a janitorial company so I could work at night and so I always had that entrepreneur spirit inside me when my youngest hit first grade.
I went back to college and, got my engineering degree. And I was very excited to do that. It was challenging. I loved, and having four kids and going to college was a interesting concept. why they, we all studied at the kitchen table together. They did, you know, they, they did their homework. I did mine.
and then from there I got my MBA and I went into high tech. So when my dog got injured and tore every pad and every paw, I thought the product's on the shelf. The vet didn't really have anything but gauze and vet wrap. And it was just a nightmare 'cause it was like losing a fingernail. And you had to bandage it and unbandage it twice a day, soak it, clean it, re-bandage it. And it was all four paws. And you know, it was just like, Oh my God, I was going through gauze. I was going vet wrap and it wasn't it. I said, there, there's just going to be a better way than this. So I created what we call a medical dog booty.
And it looks kind of, it's just real simple. It looks something like this and it has gauze inserts that fit inside that won't stick to the wound when it heals. So just super easy. You unwrap it, clean it, rewrap it, bandage it. and I told my husband, because I, made these in my basement, I said, other people take crazy ideas to market.
Why don't I? You know, and I was lucky enough at that time that my husband was, supportive and he was making a good living and we didn't, I could cut back. So for, so I started looking for manufacturing and like you say, going from that concept to, okay, now what do I do? How do I find, so you network in your community.
There's a lot of communities have, entrepreneur neworks, different things. So I just started talking to people. I need to make this. How do I make this? Do you know of a company that can help me make it? Do know anybody in the area that might sew? Because you can sew these. And I hooked up with some people from Nike, because we're in the Portland area, that knew about apparel. Because I knew nothing about apparel.
I was in high tech. I knew how to build a computer, but I didn't know how to build anything. So I just started networking. I found some local companies that work with small businesses that would sew it for me, even at small volumes. And I created a website and I just started selling them. Then I started talking to people, going to some trade shows and showing people what I have.
And the vet market going around the veterinarians and showing them and they got excited. And when I went to the retail, this is so easy. It's so simple. It was a simple idea and it just started the grassroots. and it is expensive, but every dollar you made, you put back in and you make another dollar and you pick and you just build from there.
And that's how. How you get started, but networking in your community is really, really important, and you'll be amazed how much people will are willing to help you for nothing,
James Lacey: That was something I was just about to follow up on, is, you mentioned networking a few times there, and I was going to ask, what is the value of simply getting to know people or conversations.
Cause I think a lot of the time today, people are behind the screen more than often, or more than they were, 10 years ago. What would you say is the value of networking and how could somebody go about getting started?
Terri Entler: Most cities have a chamber of commerce. That is a great place to start. Chamber of Commerce, usually have meetings with various business owners. There's, there's other business associations, in your neighborhood. A lot of times your politicians, that if you check with your city, there's an economical development group. There's, pretty much every bigger city, has such a thing.
They have websites, they have seminars. So that's really a great way to start is just going down to see what your city has to offer. Cause they really want to promote small businesses and I'm not sure. And there's also the SBA. Oh my gosh, just go to the SBA website. There's so much information and there's a, there's a program called score and score is retired business people that you can get free mentorship and free help with that, I'm pretty sure it's still around, that you can just go like they usually have ex-accountants ex-manufacturing ex-engineers. And so they, there's just so many resources out there that you can tap into, but go in person, don't do it always online.
Try to find it local because getting to know somebody is, and having that relationship, is really, really critical and you can't do that over the phone.
James Lacey: So true. My dad used to say, your network is your net worth. I always loved that. That's
Terri Entler: a good saying. I like that. I'll put that on a t-shirt.
Yeah.
James Lacey: It should be. Yeah. Totally. That'd be great. wow. Okay. So that is, I feel like you should write a book. That is one of the, that is such a fascinating journey. I haven't spoken, I don't think to anybody that has had such a journey of life prior to and young life prior to actually then diving in and having the opportunity to get going.
And you mentioned something else, which I think is very pertinent to the average young aspiring entrepreneur right now, which is You don't necessarily make money at the start and you got to keep reinvesting and it takes time and I don't think people like to hear that so much at the moment. But, what would you say to those that are excited and they're ready to get going or they, I mean, you touched on it, going from concept to an actual business and a product, there's a process. What would you say to that person that just needs a little help and patience or persevering through those steps?
Terri Entler: You know, you're going to be working two jobs because most people can't quit their job and just dive in. So you get, so I did that for probably a good three or four years before I felt like I could do just that.
So be prepared. It takes a lot of time. But again, there are resources out there to help you. And once you focus on your local market, let's say you have an idea for, let's just, I, one of my employees started a t-shirt company. just making t-shirts. He was creative and he learned how to print and he made some t-shirts and he just started selling them.
just at their local market or just locally, they went in around and talked to things and they started selling those and then getting some online and they just start slow. you're not going to go into a Walmart the next day with your idea. It takes a long time to get into the bigger stores.
And so you, if you can win, one of my mentors told me when your local market first, and then from your local, you can go to state level and from state you can, you can build it out. And, because for one thing, you're not going to have a ton of money to, to do it. And so you, you have to just keep reinvesting now, once you get enough concept together, then you can go look for investors, you can start getting people to say, Hey, this is cool.
And you can sell stock and you can get some investors, but they're not going to do it till you really prove that there's a demand out there for it. And that type of thing. So
James Lacey: I was just about to ask the question. Okay, when, should that person start looking for investors? But yeah, I've heard that many times when they, when there's some level of, data or metrics that they can have, Okay. I guess something to go off and it's proved that it's a valid concept.
Terri Entler: Yep. Yep. And you've got to, you got to be that salesperson. as much, I think that's been one of my hardest things is I'm an entrepreneur. I'm an engineer. I think very, A to B, how to get from step one to step two.
I'm not a marketing salesperson. That's not my, everyone's got different brain waves. And you might have to bring in a partner that's good at things that you're weak in. You know, you're not going to be strong in every aspect. And so when investors start looking, they're going to look at your team.
What kind of, who's going to be there to help you? So it's, you don't. And one thing about engineering that you learn, you don't work in a silo, everything's done by a team. And that's the same thing with building a company. You need a team. You just can't, it's just not something you do by yourself.
So find people that believe in what you're doing, that might be willing to, work for free for a while because they see something, they see the vision that you present and that can compliment your skillset to create that whole picture.
James Lacey: That's, I love that. There's, a, it reminds me of, there's a scripture that says, about, many members, coming together and that forms a body.
And it's some people as a hand and some people as a foot. And it's not everybody is a finger or a hand. And it's, you need. For everything to work well together, you need these different limbs. and so I love that. I think it's brilliant. You mentioned, when we get into nurture that prior to jumping in, you mentioned about, you used to do blog and used to share about, the day in the life of an entrepreneur business owner was actually just about to ask, are there any daily routines or hacks that you've learned over, over a decade or well, More in, in business, but specifically with Healers Petcare, is there anything that you've learned to how to stay consistent, how to stay focused?
Terri Entler: I love, when you first. You go through your, like everybody in every business, you go through your emails, what questions do maybe your customers have, staying in touch with your customers is critical. So if it's, even if it's a business to business or business to conserve, direct to consumer, having that touch base with your customers.
If it's a little more challenging with e-commerce because you really are only reaching out to them through email or text messages or stuff. But having, I really, I always encourage my customers to call us because I'm usually the one that picks up the phone. So having that direct, that direct link to those customers is one of the, most important things on my day is looking at, how our customers respond in to my product.
Where can I, and then where do I grow? Where's my next step? So always looking forward. on what I can, what, how many retailers should I call today or doing some sales, talking to my team right now, obviously I have employees, so working with employees, making sure they have their day planned out.
But so that's kind of your day. And then of course, you never forget about your money. Where's your money for the day? So you look at your bank accounts every day. This first thing you look at, what's your finances. If you have a CFO or somebody that's handling, have a run now, what's your cashflow like?
I mean, do you need to create any additional POs looking what's your forecast? All those things are what you're looking at every day to make sure that you have product in the warehouse to sell when the orders do come in. There, there's just a lot that you're going through on a daily basis to ensure that you're on top of it,
James Lacey: which, again, alludes to what you mentioned earlier about the need for collaboration or team, because you don't want to be managing that all yourself.
what, keeps you inspired or motivated during the tough times or, during, when you feel like you're in the trenches a little bit, whether it's just something challenging in the business or whether it's. Tough, just to keep going. what keeps you inspired or motivated?
Terri Entler: Whenever I get a little down, Oh God, why am I doing this? My kids will say to me, mom, once you've done better, if you just stayed working for a big corporation, why did, I said, I'm looking at, At the end, game had this one, but what keeps me inspired when I get a little down like what, I'm not reaching people.
Is I'll get a call from a customer and they'll tell me their story about their dog. I had 1 yesterday that said, I can't get. She's got a hot spot on her paw. She's constantly looking at the vets, giving me this. Nothing's working. I'm so frustrated. I, they told me that my vet told me to call you and, check on your, get your product to help cover the, hotspot and learning.
They're, hearing about their stories and then being able to offer them. Cause we do a whole line of health products now. So I can say, you know what, I know the vets tried that, but have you tried our, our hotspot? Have you tried our, room cleanser? If you use this every day on your dog, You may not need a covering for it because it's going to stop the problem.
So I've been in this long enough. I'm not a veterinarian and I, I try not to give, but I know what works on basic injuries for pets and being able to communicate that to a customer. That's what keeps me going because I know I can help. Those pet owners with basic pet problems, because right now there's a huge veterinary shortage in it and it's expensive.
You can't go to a vet and get out for less than 300 bucks, for every vet visit, you're spending so much. And so over the counter, having solutions like you do for humans, is becoming so critical because people, it just gets too expensive. And knowing that I have things that can help those customers that gets me going every day.
James Lacey: Yeah. It's like having a, it's like having the magic bullet. And if you, when you are reminded of the impact that has, it really, keeps you inspired and motivated because often I think we can forget that you, built a solution that is valuable and then you When it's challenging, sometimes maybe it's easy to forget, Oh, this is actually really helping people.
Or if I stopped doing this, then others wouldn't be helped. and so I, that's beautiful. I, such a powerful reasoning is that you are impacting people's lives and that's incredible. And their pets lives, which means a ton to people. Do you have a favorite quote or any favorite advice that you've been given from a mentor over time?
Terri Entler: Just persevering every day is just continuing to take one step. You might take one step forward, two steps back, that type of thing. There's a good one, but you're going to keep, just keep moving forward. And, if you're passionate about what you believe in and you're helping people, you're going to be successful.
You've just got to turn that passion into action. And I think that's just so important is you've got to be passionate. My husband tries to help me with the business because he was in sales and different things and I've fired him so many times. And, and it's, not that he doesn't mean, he's great and he gives me great advice and he's creative.
That day in day out stuff, that passion has to be there to really get dig down and get into it. So you've got to have people on your team that are super passionate and that's the way you're going to be successful.
James Lacey: I love that. I completely agree. especially when you start working with, yeah, working with either a new company or you start your own company, or you're helping other people with their companies.
If you don't have a passion that goes deeper, then just you're turning up for whatever reason. I don't think it's sustainable. I don't think you can provide value to people and, whether that's your customers or a client, like you said, B2B or D2C, it's, there has to be like a. That innate passion to, to turn up, to bring value and to impact.
I love that. Is there a mistake that you have experienced in business and a core lesson that you've learned from it? Whether it's one kind of main one or just, over time, just how you've learned from mistakes. Is there anything that comes to mind?
Terri Entler: Oh, I've made mistakes. Believe me. I think.
One of the big things that I've done is trying to grow too fast, too soon. I'm trying to reach those, my goal was, okay, I'm going to get in all the Walmarts or I'm going to get in all, and trying to get that spending so much money and effort trying to hit the, the big, light in the, window.
But, starting small and keeping it small and focusing on your limited dollars on growing that, that smaller market and then building, and that's what my mentor told me, but I, I didn't listen as well. If you don't have. The finances or the investors behind you, it can sink you we've been able to pull out.
Okay, but it was a, it's been a real challenge. You just think, oh, my gosh, I got into 4000 stores. That's awesome. It's just been really, really challenging to keep up with that kind of thing. So. you've got to have a really good, I think having your finance guy accountant really help you stay level headed and use and build on.
It's like building a house. You start with your foundation, you build the frame, you keep building and you build until you get that, and that's how you build your business. You've got to have a strong foundation and you just keep building from there. and you would just never put the roof on until you, okay.
Put the framing in and different things, there's steps you've got to take to build that house. And if you skip steps, you, it might, the house might fall down. So it, it's important to continue with those steps.
James Lacey: I love that. I think there's a, it reminded me, I think there's a saying that says something like quick money goes quickly and slow money lasts for a long time. Something like that. I'm butchering the saying, but it's, something like that. And I think it's, I think that's so true. And alludes to what you're saying. leadership can be a, lonely time, a lonely place at times. I think you can often get isolated as a founder, perhaps, you're thinking about a million things and trying to work it all out and leading the charge.
Is there anything that you have learned over time of how to stay, just connected to the outside world, stay at a place of just being level headed while maybe experiencing some level of loneliness or isolation in that leadership role?
Terri Entler: Again, it's, and it's so easy to be more isolated now, I think, than earlier, because we, don't leave our houses as much as we used to. We do so much, and everything's on the phone and texting. So it's one way conversation or emails and you're waiting. So I think one thing is one, take time for yourself, go out, have, enjoy your friends, take, do not, you may be working a 15 hour day, when that weekend comes or whatever, you take that time with your family or whatever, you Take that time and you've got to take breaks.
If you don't, you will get so burned out. Entrepreneurs have a real burnout issue. For me, it's having a weekend with my girlfriends, just something just to reset, you've got to reset yourself. I think that is so critical as you're building your business.
James Lacey: That's brilliant. Yeah, I actually very similar, a couple answers from people that I asked that question to as well, which.
I find fascinating is that the correlation for so many people of really just, pushing everything to the side for a second and resetting, being with people, not being focused on the business. even like you said, just for a weekend away, and how much that helps and just you come back refreshed.
That's, it's really interesting. are you learning anything at the moment? new and exciting that you would, share, obviously life is a kind of a journey of never-ending learning, but you've got a lot of experience in business. Is there anything right now that you feel like you're learning and excited to begin applying?
Terri Entler: Yeah. one thing about life in general, I always look at it. If you stop learning, you might as well stop living. You're constantly learning. So one thing that, for me, because I am in the older generation, all this, this social media stuff is just an AI to me is so fascinating. I am constantly looking at YouTube videos and watching, learning about how AI can help you grow.
I've been making videos using AI because one thing that's a small business is You can't afford to hire a huge videographer or photographer all the time. It's extremely expensive. So being able to take my content and going out or taking my messaging that I want and going create a video because everything is really video now.
It's not just text. So I'm, constantly learning about the social media and Tik Tok. Oh my gosh. I don't know about Tik Tok, but it's a huge platform that has millions and millions of viewers. And, but you've got to have good content for people to get excited about. I keep thinking, gosh, what does it take to have a viral video.
I want one that goes viral. So having that fun thing. So that is what, that's really fun for me right now. I love playing around with the new AI tools, chatGPT, learning, how to word things in a way. that's just been a lot of fun. It's been a lot of fun.
James Lacey: I love that.
Staying, like staying on the cutting edge, staying in a place of innovation. That's, really impressive because I think a lot of people that have such experience in business. It can often go the other way where they're like, I don't really want to step into those things. I'll try and find somebody else to do that.
Or I love that. The fact that you're staying on it so much and saying, so cutting edge, I think that's going to probably pay huge dividends, for the business, and, personally, I'm sure, is there anything that's next for Hewlett's Pet Care, anything that's, coming up that you're excited about?
Terri Entler: I am excited because we, I, one of my customers. called me a few weeks ago and she's lives in Sonoma Valley in California and she's just a fun person. And she called me out of the blue. I never met her before in my life. And she said, Terry, I, just found your product online. I just, this is my dog. It's the first time my dog's ever injured his paw and my vet didn't have anything told me to go find some boots or something.
And I went and I searched, I found your product. This thing is cool. She got so excited about it. That she's actually investing in my company. She's had all this experience in various ways. And she goes, I just want to help you, grow this. And so she's not only going to invest, but she's going to be, coming in and help me with the marketing efforts for, and work for me.
it's just, it's gotten me all pumped up. It's like new life into the company to bring, get somebody who's. So excited about what we're doing that she's willing to put her money where her mouth is, right? so I am just pumped about working with her name's Carrie and we'll be doing some announcements soon, but I, with her connections and that she has in the California Silicon Valley area and other areas I just feel like my company's got a new life to it.
It's got a new, we're going to be moving into a whole new direction with what Carrie can bring to the table. So I'm very, very excited about that.
James Lacey: That is super exciting. Wow. What a story as well. You guys will have to share that story at some point because they're the things that you read about, a customer.
So falls in love with the product that brings a solution that they want to be a part of the business. I just think that's awesome. Is there anything that you would like to share just off the cuff prior to me asking our final and favorite question that we'd like to ask you on the fulfilled podcast?
Anything that you'd like to share? before I close with that question.
Terri Entler: Just that I love talking to other entrepreneurs. feel free. I'd love, any time to reach out to me. I like to share my experiences and then I like to learn where they're at. you learn. It's not just a one way conversation. This, I want to know what how they're doing, what, what, their plans are, what their goals are and how, if any way I can help.
I mean, that's, I just think that's part of life is you've got to share your experiences with others and help them as much and give back, So that's my last thought.
James Lacey: I love that. Just beautiful. Terry, we love asking this question. What does real fulfillment mean to you?
Terri Entler: After talking to you and learning, your fulfillment is fulfillment from within.
James Lacey: Yeah.
Terri Entler: fulfilling your life, fulfilling, your goals, that's what it means. And it can be a very personal thing, it can be a shared experience, it can be a spiritual one, it can be a lot of different things, but, you're, the most important thing in life is, Fulfilled, in your own life more so than in business or anything else is your own personal journey is where you get your best fulfillment.
And that's what, what, why I think about it now.
James Lacey: That's an awesome reminder. I think for all of us is. Yeah. It's like stepping away from, all of the other stuff and making sure that we have that fulfillment within, like you said, Wow, Terry, thank you so much for, sharing just a snippets of your life, your journey, story of Healers Pet Care.
And yeah, and just so much wisdom about what it is to be an entrepreneur. Where can people follow along either with yourself or with Healers Pet Care? yeah, just to make sure that they can stay connected with you.
Terri Entler: go to our website, healerspetcare.com, feel free to email or call us anytime we're here.
We're here to listen to any of your stories. and we want to be here, here to help. And then, we do have all the social media, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube channels that I'm trying to post more on. And, just be, we'd love it if you come follow us and learn more about what we're doing because we're here to help you and your pets.
James Lacey: Awesome. I love it. Terri, thank you so much for your time today. That is it for the Fulfilled Podcast, and we'll see you next time.
Treasure Crocker: If you are someone that has just formed a passion for what it is, whatever you want to do, just continue with it and seek out certain opportunities.
James Lacey: Meet Treasure Crocker, founder and CEO of Pawstries, the all-natural gluten-free pet treat brand for dogs and cats with special dietary needs. Join us in the Fulfilled Podcast to hear her journey of building Pawstries.
Treasure Crocker: So Pawstries is an all-natural and gluten-free pet treat company dedicated to providing treats for both dogs and cats. For our dogs, they're actually human-grade, so you can try a treat if you want to. We have peanut butter, and banana, venison, and bison. And for our cats, we have chicken, salmon, and tuna, and they are catnip-infused.
James Lacey: Wow. That's awesome. So how do you even begin stepping into, you know, like what was the moment that you're like, “I have an idea. I want to start creating snacks for dogs and cats”, it's such an awesome industry. I feel like that must be such a fun industry to be in because who doesn't love just like something focused on their pets, but yeah. How does that even begin?
Treasure Crocker: Yeah. So what's funny is I am a vet tech by trade. So an animal nurse and my eldest dog, I have two dogs, they're actually father and son. So a few years ago, my eldest suffered from an allergic reaction to store-bought treats. My dogs are actually allergic to gluten and chicken, which is why we have venison and bison as an alternative protein and all of our treats are gluten-free.
Not really being able to trust, you know, any products on the shelves in the store, even if it said that it was chicken-free or gluten-free, I turned the packaging around and it has chicken fillers or all these artificial preservatives, colors and fillers and all of those things.
So I was like, I can't really, you know, trust what I'm giving my pet, even though it's on the label, it says one thing, but then the ingredients on the back says something else. So I just took it into, my own hands and I started making their food and their treats on my own. And because I was working as a vet tech full time at the time, when you talk to clients and just tell them that I'm making treats for my dogs.
And so they would be like, “Oh if it's okay with the vet, can we take some treats home?” So I'll say, sure. No, that's fine. So that kept happening. And so they kept returning saying “Hey, my dogs love the treats. I gave to my neighbor, I gave it to a family member”. I'm just gonna, because he's not gonna..
James Lacey: Oh, my goodness…
Treasure Crocker: This is the baby. So, then they kept coming back and I'm like, if I'm giving you these treats for free, maybe I can make a business out of this. I don't have a business background, my background is in biology. So I was like, okay, if there's a need for it, sure. And I know that there are certain breeds that are prone to certain allergens and things of that nature.
So I figured, why not? And so that was almost six years ago and so here we are.
James Lacey: Wow. That's awesome. Six years, I mean, that's like seasoned. Having to start 2018, is that right?
Treasure Crocker: November of 2018.
James Lacey: What is the process for somebody that's maybe in like a, in a moment, let's say they started baking goods or something, they realize that everybody is obsessed with them and then they're now, maybe I can make a business out of this.
How do you go from that moment of having something that you realize that maybe people want and actually turning it into a product and a brand that you can sell and scale? I think that for many is a huge gap. And so what would you say to that person that's in that place?
Treasure Crocker: Honestly, just keep, just continue with it. If you have a passion for it and for me, my initial customers were word of mouth, I wasn't really on social media. I didn't really know what I was doing. I still don't know what I'm doing in terms of social media, but we tried, and I started getting introduced to certain events, small business events, farmers markets, things of that nature and what I noticed as because I'm originally from Michigan and I'm based in Atlanta now is that, as far as the pet community and the treat community, you didn't really have anything. So I really was the only 1 at the time and so I used it to my advantage, but then, of course, COVID hit and we had to figure out some things that we weren't really able to be in person and do events anymore.
So then that really took it to, okay, now we have to really be present on social media and show up and say, hey, these are our treats. These are snacks, come on and get them but also to due to the fact that it has almost been 6 years, we've gone through so many different iterations of business, even how we started.
I had so many flavors, more flavors than I do now, even the process of how we made the treats completely different. They look different, our packaging different. Then we're getting ready for a rebrand at the top of next year. So it's a lot of moving parts, but if you are someone that has just formed a passion for what it is, whatever you want to do, just continue with it and, seek out certain opportunities.
So whether you do have to go to a trade show or a farmer's market, or, any small business, things in your city, wherever you are, I would do that or, just talk to your friends or, people in your community to say, hey, I have this thing, would you be willing to try it or I'll give you a sample and then just go from there.
James Lacey: I love the simplicity of that. That was one of the most simple answers I've heard where it's just yeah, just keep going and pursue it and find the different avenues that work and keep, pursuing them.
That's awesome. Is there any, like six years now being in business prior to that, tech, is there anything that you've learned? You're approaching like a decade in business. Is there anything that you've learned as far as like daily routines or even like daily hacks to stay focused, to stay consistent, that can be a challenge for a lot of people, burnout, or even where to begin. Any advice that you have?
Treasure Crocker: Yeah. I would say, specifically for me, when I left my job full time and I started running Pawstries, I realized going from this structured, nine to five, and then now it's oh, I'm on my own time. I can just do whatever I want. You know what I mean? If I want to sleep and I can't, even though I really can't my body doesn't allow me to sleep in past 7 o'clock, but I had to figure out, okay, how do I still be focused?
How do I still have some form of structure? Because my job, the treats still have to get baked. The job has to still get done and I'm the only one that's doing it at the time. I developed, I am someone that I like to be Zen, so I do yoga and meditation every morning. I also like tea. I also think that my dogs play a role in that because I have to wake up every morning and walk them.
So we walk at least a mile, every morning, we'd be walking about three miles a day, so those little things kept me structured and I would have office days like dedicated office days, and then I would have dedicated baking days. And so that helped me stay on top of everything.
Yeah, I would just figure out what works for you, but just know that at the end of the day, the job still has to get done. So you have to plan accordingly
James Lacey: That's cool. Like structure and planning still playing a big part in just ensuring you're getting the job done, but also finding little, like you said, like you're, you had some level of routine, but also healthy habits by the sound of it.
Somebody had a similar, I think it was a couple of days ago where it was just get out of the house, actually take a step away from, you know, all of the thinking and go have lunch with friends or something like that. Even small healthy habits like that, might just be 30 minutes can often be so impactful.
Treasure Crocker: It can really make a difference. And I've experienced burnout, even I want to say it was two and a half, three years ago, we took a hiatus because I was like, I'm at my capacity.
And so from there, I had to learn like okay, I have to establish boundaries, not only with myself but for other people. And my phone has been on Do Not Disturb since October of 2021.
James Lacey: That's a long time.
Treasure Crocker: And what I mean by that is, you are able to reach me like you're able to call me between the hours of 9 a.m. and 4 59 p.m. Once five o'clock hits, if you're not in my allowed list of contacts, your calls not getting through. I'm not, I don't, it's not, coming through. Even if you try to call back the second time. It's not true. But I just had to learn that I do need time for myself. I can't just be on call for everybody every second of every day.
And so I think that it is also important to establish boundaries, healthy boundaries, as a founder, as someone that is in business. Just to say, hey, outside of this, my workday is done, and if people want to respect that, they can respect it. But that's the line that I'm drawing in the sand.
James Lacey: Yeah, that's powerful. Even thinking about, people with families, et cetera, it can often be a real challenge to find that balance or to just to have the self-control in many ways to just say, no, this is the cutoff point. And yeah, so I like the idea of that. Do Not Disturb unless they're in your allowed list.
Is there anything that really inspires you or motivates you to keep going during the challenging times, which are often inevitable? Oh, wow!
Treasure Crocker: Yeah, so this is Chase. He is actually the reason that I started the company. So this is my little one. Yeah. He's my eldest, but, he's 10 and the baby is eight.
But yeah, it's just, I do this not only for my dogs, but I do it for, other people's pets who may be in a similar situation as I. So my motivating factor are my, I call them my children because I don't have human children. So my dogs are my babies.
James Lacey: That's beautiful. Do you have a favorite quote or piece of advice that you've received over time?
Treasure Crocker: Oh, I'm not really sure if it's a quote. I know it's a saying, I don't really know where it comes from, but the only constant in life is change. And that, I believe in that, because in business and even in life, things are forever changing. And one of, I think something that you have to learn in business is pivoting, because not everything is going to go to plan, every single time.
And so you have to know how to pivot when something kind of hits the fan, right? But the only constant in life has changed. So you have to know how to adapt to those changes, the natural ebb and flow of life, the natural ebb and flow of business.
James Lacey: How do you navigate change? Like, when do you know it's the right time to pivot, and how do you navigate that both in business and maybe in, from a perspective of a founder's life as well?
Treasure Crocker: Honestly, I can't speak for everybody. I can only speak for myself, but I'm very in tune with myself and my decisions and I make a lot of my decisions based on, and I don't want to say this doesn't sound bad, but basically how I feel, it's like my gut feeling, that's how I'm guided.
I'm only making a decision if it feels right to me, if it doesn't feel right, I'm not making it. I'm not putting myself in jeopardy. I'm not putting my company in jeopardy. It has to feel right. It has to make sense. So I think just knowing when you need to make a change and if it makes sense for you, right?
It's like when I moved to Atlanta, it made sense for me to move here because Atlanta is a pet hub. If I was to move to Iowa or, some other places where it's not really the culture for the pet life is it, doesn't make sense. It wouldn't make sense for me to move there.
So just making good decisions, having discernment is a big one, and just believing that, hey, even if things maybe don't work out how you thought they would have, or should have, it probably happened for a reason. I'm a big believer in everything does happen for a reason that nothing is ever a coincidence.
So just, it's okay if you did, we all make mistakes. So it's like, all right, but you have to learn from most mistakes that you make and do better going forward.
James Lacey: Is there anything, yeah, any extra little sauce that you would put on top to tell somebody is like, they're just completely regretting the decision they just made. I just heard the business and they're questioning what to do.
Treasure Crocker: Yeah. I would just say, just know that you're like, you're not alone. Like we all, if it happens to all of us at some point in life. I don't really think that there is a, I don't there's not a rule book to life. Not really.
We're all on our own journey. We're all trying to figure it out. And I think it's ultimately just at the end of the day, doing what's best for you and doing what's best for your company. Because for me, I'm the only one, I started it by myself. I do have a small team of people that do help me now, but it's I am still the decision-maker.
I'm still the deciding factor of everything that happens with the business, it has to work. But I think I do find solace in knowing that I'm not the only one that has tried this and maybe didn't work out or, I tried it and it did work. And so now, maybe I have to be pointed in another direction because I want to do other things as an entrepreneur.
You have so many different business ideas in your mind. So I was like, okay, let's just maybe focus on this one, and then we can get this one together and then we can focus on that. But yeah, I think just, know, and then I think also having friends and other colleagues in the industry does help out a lot because oh, you know what I'm going through, you know what I mean?
So it's, really good to be surrounded by like-minded people and people who can resonate with where you are in life, what you're doing, and even you know, have a network of people that can maybe not elevate is cool, but guide you when you do feel like you maybe are lost or you've hit a wall or you're stuck.
James Lacey: So it's interesting. One of the things I wanted to ask you was kind of leadership can get lonely at times. You're in a founder role, CEO, you're leading people, you're leading business and somewhat, it can be somewhat isolating, I think. And I was going to ask you, how do you manage that? How do you stay connected to the outside world?
Having people to lean on that understand what you're going through. I guess allows you to not stay so, so isolated.
Treasure Crocker: Yeah. The journey of entrepreneurship can be rather lonely at times especially if, maybe you're no longer working a full-time job or maybe all you have is your savings or maybe, the only revenue that you're making is what the company is making.
And so you have to be very diligent. I'm like, hey, okay, maybe I might not be able to go with my friends or, splurge on whatever you are, whatever you want to do, you like, you have to be like, okay, my business still has to run, right? So I have to make some sacrifices. But just once again, finding people who understand, just having that community has been really important to me because they're, almost like chosen family to me and so that's, really big to just make those connections and have friends.
James Lacey: Is there an element of faith that goes into your business decisions? I know you talked about how closely you listen to how you feel about a decision or your gut feeling, or, and I know people will call that different things as well. Is that in itself, an aspect of faith for you as you're making decisions?
Treasure Crocker: Yeah, I'm a spiritual person. There have been times where it's like, Ooh, I gotta bet on myself, and I have to believe that it's going to work. I have to have faith that it's going to work. And maybe if it doesn't work the way that I want it to work, it might work the way that I needed it to. And not unknowingly, unbeknownst to me, it worked the way in which I needed it to, might not work I wanted it to, but it worked out regardless.
Yeah, I just think that having faith in yourself, having faith in your products, having faith in your passions is for me, at least is what drives me. And that would, that's what helps not to make me give up at the end of the day, there've been times I'm like, I want to still do this? But then once again, I have to remind myself, I'm not just doing it for me, even as representation goes a factor in that or, cause I have a younger sister and she looks up to me a lot.
And so it's, hey, I'm just, I'm not just doing this for myself. I am making some form of representation and an underrepresented industry. So we're just here.
James Lacey: I'm just here. That's a pretty bold statement. I'm just here. Pawstries, that it's a pretty cool name as well, by the way, is that a play on pastries?
Treasure Crocker: Yes. So it's like pastries for dogs or cats, like the paw, this isn't a paw, but I can show you one, but he's currently sleeping. Yeah, it's a play. It used to be Treasure’s Pawstries, like my name, but then that became a mouthful. So we dropped the Treasure’s and now it's just Pawstries.
James Lacey: Is there like a huge, crazy, big-scale vision dream that you have? I like this is just like a random question I’m like asking because it like sometimes pulls things out of people that sounds wild or it's super simple and both are fine. But, yeah, is there anything that you would say to that?
Treasure Crocker: There are certain aspects to the company that we will eventually add. People always ask me, what about pet food? It's in the works. It takes a lot, a lot of planning, to do as it's just in the, there's a lot of moving parts, but, yeah, it's, Eventually, we will have more pet products and then outside of that, even as a personal thing, I love tea, I love plants and I love pottery.
So I want to open up a shop for that because here in America, we don't really prioritize tea, we prioritize coffee. And I'm a tea drinker. I'm not, I am a tea girly. But I was like, I want to, I wanted to have a dedicated space, for people that love tea like me. So that's surrounded by plants and pottery and music.
James Lacey: Beautiful. I actually, I had a conversation with somebody, I think two days ago, she works in a specialty, she actually manages a specialty coffee shop here in Orlando. And she was saying about how she wishes those, tea places that would be so focused upon some coffee shops are, and because that just doesn't exist over here so much.
And yep, I think it sounds like there might be a need for it. Yeah, is there anything specific that you're learning at the moment?
Treasure Crocker: Spanish
James Lacey: Really? You're learning Spanish?
Treasure Crocker: Yeah, I am. I don't plan on living in the United States of America for the rest of my life and I would really love to purchase some land in Mexico, so I can, I have this whole, I want to have a homestead and have a little, not really a farm, just, yeah.
I'm learning Spanish. That's what I'm learning. In business, currently right now, I am learning how to properly delegate my task. And, I'm also seeking for a COO to the company.
So having a lot of meetings and things of that nature and just learning all of the business aspects of that. Even what that looks like, what that entails, because it's just been me this entire time. So having to share those responsibilities, share percentage of the company, equity, all of that is just, it's like, okay, like that's, a different ball game. I knew eventually that I would have these conversations and thoughts in my head, but now it's just, it's real. It's right here in front of me.
James Lacey: That's a lot. I love the homestead. My wife is Spanish, like from Spain, Spanish. And yeah, I've always wanted to do a similar thing in Spain, but Mexico is glorious.
Is there, I don't know if you've answered this, but is there anything you're super excited about either in business or, in life? Like anything that you're really excited about that is coming soon or that you're working on or just over the next kind of years of your life?
Treasure Crocker: Yeah. The most immediate thing that I'm excited about is our rebrand. Pawstries is getting a new look in as far as packaging, logos, typography, brand voice, everything is changing. So the way that Pawstries looks right now is going to look completely different in a few months. I'm really looking forward to that because it's, I want to say we've spent almost 7 months, 6 or 7 months trying to get everything together.
And then we have some upcoming partnerships that I'm really excited about. Can't say too much, but I'm excited about it and then, yeah, I think it’s Fall now, and I am from Michigan, so having to explore, what Georgia has to offer, even though I've been here for a little over a year, really just been focused on building the business down here.
But I think I'm excited about hiking, I'm an outdoorsy girl, so I’m like seeing all of the trails and things that Atlanta or Georgia has. I'm excited for that. I'm excited for Fall, I'm just, I'm excited to see where Pawstries will be in even three months, because we do have some things just it's unfolding, so really looking forward to that.
James Lacey: That is exciting.
Treasure Crocker: I'm excited for how people are going to react to the new look because a small handful of people have seen what the new packaging and branding will look like. So I'm excited to see everyone else's response and reactions.
James Lacey: That'll be fun. Is there something you would say to the person that has no idea what Pawstries is, but they love their pets, they love their dogs, they love their cat, and they're looking for something new, like a better snack. What would you say to that person as far as, just your heart, and saying hey, check these out?
Treasure Crocker: I would probably, I have this whole spiel whenever I'm at like events and things of that nature, but if I'm in public, I would probably have some treats on me and I would just ask, Hey, are you in the market for some new treats? And I'll take a treat out and I'll eat it myself.
And I'll just say, hey, you can eat this as if your dog. Who wouldn't want that? And I actually have testimonials. I started a series called “Try a Treat where I get both dog owners and their pets to try a treat. And I've gotten some feedback from that. So it's hey, if you don't believe me, I got, I had the video proof to show you.
It's like try a treat, it's okay. So yeah, I would celebrate that like a treat for you and a treat for your friend.
James Lacey: That's good. I like it. I think the pet industry has come a long way by the sounds of it. We’ve spoken to a few of the pet brands and, just the care that is going behind companies like yours and giving better health to their pets as the reason why you started the company.
And yeah, so it's just nice to know that, no longer are they are people only producing things that are probably hurting people's pets.
Treasure Crocker: Yeah, the thing is that a lot of people, majority of people, especially for millennials, I'm not sure how old you are, but for us as millennials, they feed their pets the same, like they want their pet to have the same diet as themselves.
And so if you're relatively healthy, you want your pet to also have healthy food and snacks. And they, if you have the disposable income, or if you are willing to do that, you invest in a healthier diet for your pet, which is very important because a lot of your pet’s ailments are attributed to their diet.
Some people don't know that, so it's hey, if you feed your pet a healthy diet can last a little bit longer. They won't have as many ailments as, because pets have the same ailments as we do. So cancer, diabetes, heart failure, arthritis, all these things, so it's just you want to be healthy as an individual, why not want the same for your pets?
James Lacey: Wow, that's so interesting. I hadn't thought about that before. Just like the importance of their nutrition. It really is an equivalent to the importance of our nutrition. That makes sense and hence the importance of healthy snacks.
Treasure Crocker: Yes.
James Lacey: We have a kind of key question that we love asking at the end, and I'm just going to throw it out there now, and then I'd love to hear if there's any other things that you'd want to share? And then also of course, like where people could follow along with Pawstries and yourself. The kind of key question, hence the name of the podcast “Fulfilled” is what does real fulfillment mean to you?
Treasure Crocker: Honestly, I think it's just finding what brings you joy, whatever that is, it's different for everybody. And I think sometimes people confuse the difference between happiness and joyfulness, and there's a difference. The feeling of happy is so fleeting, right? You can be happy one moment and sad the next.
But I think just finding joy in a little bit of everything, changing your perspective. Instead of you saying oh, maybe it's raining today, you can say, hey, actually the grass needs the rain or the flowers needs rain. And so it's all it's just, it's the way in which you look at things.
But in just finding joy in that, you could be having the worst day, but if you change your mind, you're like, no, it actually, it's not that bad. I woke up today, I can't say that for a lot of people. So it's like just, finding those little things, just finding what brings you joy.
If it's just as simple as a cup of tea in the morning, or the fact that your dog is staring at you and he looks so cute. It's little things, but yeah, just, being fulfilled, I think it's just finding joy in the smallest things because feelings are so fleeting.
You never really know, and just not having, I think that really attaching any feeling to really anything, because you can be high one moment and then low the next. Anything can happen to anybody at any given point. So yeah, it's just, it's being, just finding joy in the smallest of things keeps me fulfilled.
James Lacey: That's beautiful.
Treasure Crocker: Yeah.
James Lacey: Yeah, it's so cool that you said that. I spoke to somebody earlier today, and we were speaking about joy and happiness and I actually ended up saying how joy is not happiness. Happiness is not joy. Exactly what you just said. Happiness is fleeting and joy is like a state of being and I love that you connected it to gratitude. I think that is so true. It's like just your perspective can shift so much. That's beautiful. You said you're a tea gal and you, I'm just curious, what's your favorite tea? What type of tea are we talking about?
Treasure Crocker: Oh, if you can see the pantry. So there's, actually, there's a tea shop here. It's called “Just Add Honey”. You can actually make your own blend of teas. yeah, it's really nice. But I like, so I have categories of tea if that makes sense. So I have my tea that gives me energy. So my caffeinated tea, it's usually like some sort of black tea right now.
I think it's a spiced blackberry tea. And then I have my tea for calming, so that's essentially anything that has like lavender, chamomile. I drink a lot of hibiscus tea and then I have my tea for for pain. So I drink a lot of raspberry leaf tea, and then I have my tea when I am like ready to wind down and go to sleep, so the tea that relaxes me. Yeah, so it's, there's, a lot of tea downstairs.
James Lacey: It sounds like, so people need to follow along with Pawstries and Treasure purely for the fact, not purely, but also for the fact of this coming tea shop with beautiful pottery and plants.
Treasure Crocker: Treasure Crocker: Yeah
James Lacey: That's cool. Treasure is that I've know I've taken you a little bit longer. Is there anything else that you would like to share with people about yourself about Pawstries and also please let us know where we can follow along.
Treasure Crocker: Yeah, not really about me. Just look out for the rebrand. I'm excited. There are a lot of things that are happening on this side and you can follow along at www.pawstries.com. You can find us on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok @Pawstries and then we also do, sell on Amazon. All of our, products are pulled currently because we're waiting for the rebrand to just go ahead and send them new products.
But yeah, subscribe to our newsletter. It keeps you in the know of what's going on and there's like a little spin-the-wheel thing. If you go to our website and you can possibly win a free bag of treats. The percentage of that happening, I don't know, but it can happen. You never know. But even, if you don't, there are, like little discounts and fun things that you can receive. So yeah,
James Lacey: That's awesome. Okay. Go check out pawstries.com and, keep a look at it for that rebrand. Treasure, thank you so much for your time. This was so fun. And yeah, just hearing about you, learning from you and I'm excited to see the rebrand and all to come from yourself and Pawstries.
Thank you so much. That is it for today's episode of Fulfilled podcast. We'll catch you next time.
Willy Kwak: Make sure you're ready so that when the opportunity comes, you are ready to take that opportunity, maximize it to its full potential.
James Lacey: Meet Willy Kwak, the founder and CEO of Krack'd Snacks, a brand dedicated to low-sugar, keto, and plant-based treats. Stay tuned to hear Willy's journey of redefining healthy indulgence, one snack at a time.
Willy Kwak: So we started the company back in 2019. It was just a small side business at the time while I was working full-time. And I started the company because, I tried all the keto-friendly, low-carb, sugar-free snacks and sweets out there because I was on keto for about nine years myself. And yeah, none of the stuff was good and I was just kind of dumbfounded at how they're selling some of these snacks in all these stores.
And I just kind of thought to myself, you know what, I can make something better. And I kind of needed something for myself too, because I would try all the stuff out in the market. It just didn't hit on the taste or the texture aspect of it. And so basically I kept getting kicked out of keto, because I would be eating really clean on keto, eating keto-friendly, like whole foods and some snacks at the time, but none of them, like when my sweet cravings would kick in, none, none of them really satisfied, what I was actually going for.
And so I would end up just binge eating on like sugary snacks, like candy bars and all that stuff. And so I needed something for myself, which was, I needed something really sweet, something with a good crunch. And we launched in 2021 with our two candy bars, the peanut butter, caramel crunch bar, and the aloha caramel.
And basically what we're trying to do is just help people eat healthier. so our candy bars have less than one gram of sugar. They're vegan, keto-friendly, gluten-free, plant-based, dairy, dairy-free, all that stuff.
James Lacey: That is impressive that you can say all of that. I mean, yeah, it's funny, you go to the grocery store and or you look online and you see so many options and if you just take a second to actually look at the back of the pack, read the ingredients.
You're like, hang on a second. This is like, it sounds healthy. It looks healthy, but you start reading the ingredients and you're like, nah. Yeah, and so I was looking at your guy's site, krackdsnacks.com and just looking through the ingredients, the options, I was like, wow, this is incredible. It's super clean.
And reading some of your story. How do you go from like something that's a passion and idea, and then even seeing a solution to a problem, how do you go from that conceptually? So then actually building it into a product and a brand. I mean, that's a huge step to especially the food industry. And so if somebody may be in a similar boat right now, maybe they're experiencing a similar problem that they've seen the solution to, what would you say to that person from the decision to go from idea to reality?
Willy Kwak: Oh, man, that's tough because there's so many ways to approach it. But what I did was I planned it out a little bit first. I had a general guideline and like a blueprint of how I wanted to do things. But as a small business, as a startup, things change so quickly. And so if I could have gone back in time, I would have told myself, just start, just get out there, get a product out there, try to get that first sale, the branding or the packaging or the product itself.
It doesn't have to be perfect because you can always iterate along the way. I wasted a lot of time. I first made sure the product was really good though. That is the one thing that, there's some things that we can update in the future, but at least the taste and the texture has to be there. That's kind of the big thing that us as a company, we're going to make sure every product that we release, that it's something that people would actually like, because I started the company because I was not happy with what was out there.
And so, yeah, making sure the product is good, but I spent a lot of time on the branding, the packaging, feeling, kind of waiting until I felt like, Oh no, this is like, this is close to perfect. Let me go ahead and release it now. When we actually rebranded last year. And so all the stuff, all the time and money that we spent on it, we changed.
And so for anyone trying to start up, it's really difficult to put yourself out there. But I realized once you get that ball rolling, it's a lot easier and it becomes less scary. You kind of start to see the path of how to grow just as you continue down it. And so I think the best thing is to just start.
James Lacey: I love that. Just start. It's like Nike saying, just do it. You know, it's so true. I like, yeah, I mean, it's such a great, it's really hard to beat that. I think, yeah, I can speak as well from some minor experience. It's so easy to overplan and overthink and then like months down the line, you actually didn't do anything.
So I love that. I think it's so true. Would you recommend any daily hacks or have you learned anything about daily routine that keeps you on track to basically do that just start because it's easy to not easy. It's easier to start in the moment, but then being consistent over time.
Willy Kwak: Yeah, for me, so I used to always be a night owl, I would sleep at 1, 2 a.m. My entire life. Yeah. And I would wake up around like nine or 10 a.m. Something that I noticed helped me out a lot was actually waking up earlier, making sure that I get all my mentally heavy tasks done in the morning. And then I do my less mentally heavy stuff, just more physical stuff later in the afternoon.
But I didn't find that out until I just forced myself to one day just start waking up early because I did kind of notice after reflecting like, Hey, I'm actually feeling a lot better earlier and people, I don't have to reply to emails or answer to calls as soon as it's 9 a. m. Because that's when everyone's trying to contact you, or you're trying to contact other people.
And so I realized that just even that two-hour window, it gave me a lot of mental clarity to really to really make a big dent, in the progress that I wanted to make for that day, but I don't think there was any sort of hack. I just kind of thought, you know what, after I guess some self-reflection, I realized I am more efficient in the mornings.
Let me try to do this. And it is really hard to get into that habit. Even now, I still want to press this news button for like 30 minutes. So I'll do it like six times, just five-minute increments and so I think it's just a matter of building up that willpower, which for me, it kind of comes from me having a habit of going to the gym, all the time. And so that kind of discipline in the gym kind of bled over into other aspects of my life, which, a big one of that is the business.
James Lacey: Yeah.
Willy Kwak: Right.
James Lacey: That makes sense. Yeah, it's, interesting how things like gym consistency and the ability to still say yes, when you don't want to cross over into having to run a business.
That's, that's kind of a win-win. You get health and productivity, both just through, through learning a discipline of staying consistent even when you don't want to. Is there any advice that you've received over time? Is there a favorite quote that you have? Like just fun question that might inspire someone?
Willy Kwak: Oh man, there's a lot. I think if I had to, I would probably take it back to one of the things that my dad said ever since I was a kid. He said, it basically boils down to just make sure you're ready. So make sure you're ready so that when the opportunity comes, that you are ready to take that opportunity to maximize it to its full potential.
That one is a huge one that for some reason it's just always in the back of my mind. It always just kind of pops up randomly. And then another one is one of my intern mentors said, and I learned a lot from him because, he was very demanding, but because he wanted you to grow and be someone that you could be.
And so basically he said, your word is the weight of gold. Basically, when you say something, you execute on it, because that's a promise that you made to someone else, but it's also a promise that you made to yourself. And so when you say something, make sure you follow up on it. I feel like those two are simple, but very difficult things to do.
But, you know, you kind of, when you do execute on it, or when you can follow through on it, you just kind of prove to yourself over and over that you're the type of person who actually does what they say.
James Lacey: That's awesome. It reminds me, there's a verse in the Bible, I think, that says, “a good name is better than riches”.
It's you know, integrity, the value of integrity, will, it's almost like, over time, that'll be more valuable than just riches because it stands the test of time, like you're saying is somebody that can be trusted, with being a man of their word. It's like that person is going to, no matter what, be seen as valuable because they are trustworthy.
And yeah, I think both of those things are really powerful, man. make sure you're ready and your word is the weight of gold. Is that right?
Willy Kwak: Correct.
James Lacey: That's awesome. I love that.
Willy Kwak: I think for me, it's the people who believe in me and the people who have trusted me by investing their time into the business.
I just want to make sure I can repay that to them by making sure the business is successful. So it's not a fee per se, but it's more so like a, they're believing in me, so I need to repay them, with that trust.
James Lacey: I love that. And so it's almost like honor. Like it's like you're, you want to honor them for that risk in kind of believing in you.
Willy Kwak: Yeah, exactly.
James Lacey: That's really cool. Is there anything specific that inspires you, motivates you when times are tough, like that just kind of causes you to keep going.
Willy Kwak: Yeah, so things have been pretty tough this year, just a lot of things going on in the business. We rebranded last year in November and we lost a lot of, we lost a lot of customers because I didn't manage it that well.
I thought I did, but that was more so on the aesthetics and the logistics side. The part that I failed was where I didn't convey to our customers and our fans that, hey, we're still the same company. We just have a different name, a different look, but we're still the same people, the same product, and everything.
And so that was kind of something we were struggling with earlier this year. And so when things get tough, I take it back to why am I doing this in the first place. When we do the events that we've done over the past few years, when we get to see people's instant reactions to them, trying our stuff, people who are diabetic.
Type 1 or type 2 diabetic or people who are on keto, people who just can't have certain snacks because of the ingredients, the way it makes them feel. When they try our stuff and they say, “Oh my God, I didn't know I could have something like this again”. That's something that I really enjoy giving to people and I know we have a good product.
And so when things get tough, I know that our products can make someone feel happy for even just a moment in their life, in that day. And so that's something that, that does motivate me as to help me keep going of like, why am I putting myself through something so difficult? yeah, of course I'm looking forward to growing a successful business having some good profits, but yeah, I really do want to just change the industry and show people, hey, you can have really good-tasting food and sweets and snacks, but you can cut out a lot of the sugar, reduce the amount of ingredients in there. You can kind of really pare it down. Let's start back from step one.
Like, let's try to simplify things because things are just getting too complicated in the processed food space.
James Lacey: So true. I love that. It's a great mission, not just obviously helping people in what you said, seeing the impact that it has, but also the actually impacting an industry by saying hey, let's lead a charge here.
Let's see if we can shift something, bring things back to being a little bit more simple and just a little bit cleaner. Yeah, that's awesome. Like I said, looking at krackdsnacks.com and seeing the ingredients in the product offering, it's, it really is hard to find, but there's not a lot out there that is staying that clean.
And especially from the, like you said, especially being able to people that are in keto, et cetera. Being able to trust what they're buying, that's huge and obviously a big part of your story. You know, leadership can be a pretty lonely place at times. Have you experienced that now being a founder, CEO and kind of growing a business?
How have you managed that and is there any advice you have for staying connected, to the outside world, to outside of business and not feeling too isolated and in that place of leadership.
Willy Kwak: Yeah. I'm very fortunate because being an OC based company in Orange County, there are a lot of other founders that I can connect with.
So that's a huge, it's been very helpful, helpful because I can talk to people who are way ahead of me, a similar path into business or just starting out. And just connecting with them, kind of understanding what their struggles are. I realized a lot of them are similar or a lot are very different, and so I am very fortunate.
But sometimes it's difficult because you just don't know if you're doing a good job or not, because there, there's no quite like blueprint. No one's really assessing you except I guess the amount of revenue. It's I almost connect myself to the revenue of okay, is this a good marker of how successful we're doing?
But, yeah, I'm just very fortunate that I do have this network around me. Other than that, it's just, my family helps me out a lot. My dad helps out with whenever I can't make deliveries or whenever packages come and I'm not there to receive it.
He's always there to help me out. He drops whatever he's doing, he helps me out. My aunts, and my 95-year-old grandma, they also help out in the business as well. Man, that's awesome. And so they're my network. I love building this business because I've gotten a lot closer with my family, just because they are helping out with the day-to-day. So it allowed me to spend more time with them and I've gotten to actually get closer with my family and learn more about them and learn about all the struggles.
My grandma went through because things have changed so much. And so that just that kind of helps put things in perspective of like, how fortunate I am.
James Lacey: That's powerful. You don't often hear people say that they are thankful that they've been able to start building a business because it's enabled them to spend more time with their family, like it's often the other way around. Whereas people like, yeah, I started building business and I don't see my family anymore, or because, and so that is a really unique kind of incredible case scenario. I think, what would you say, if any, are your roadblocks to scaling the business right now?
Willy Kwak: Yeah, so financing is always an issue. I saved a lot of my money, back when I used to be a litigation consultant, so we're bootstrapped, a hundred percent bootstrapped right now.
But when it comes to scaling, it does require a lot of money. If you want to grow at the pace that you want, or if you want to grow at a certain pace, it does sometimes require some funding. And so we're not quite there yet where we need the funding, but it is something that we are exploring, other than that, it's when it comes to something that we're facing is making sure that the quality of the product is the same on a small scale.
And when we continue to ramp up our production, that is something that especially in candy making, it's been difficult to try to do it on my own. And so that's where we'll probably have to hire a professional to help us out more with that when it comes to scaling. And so I would say it's been a, financing, is something that we're going to, come across soon as a potential roadblock, but also just making sure that the quality of the product is there, as we continue to grow, and then always finding new customers, that's always going to be a struggle for every brand.
James Lacey: Absolutely, that's the number one. But yeah, that's, I, it's great to hear somebody say, just retaining the quality as you scale up, because that is a hard thing to do.
Especially when you're keeping something so clean, it's a hard thing to do. But, and I don't understand, you know, the details that go into manufacturing or creating a food product, but, it's good to hear that, that it's despite whatever scale comes, it's trustworthy that it's going to remain such a quality product, you know. Is there anything that you are learning specifically at this time or just really excited about at this time?
Willy Kwak: Yeah, I'm excited because I know there's kind of a path to how to grow and the road is just becoming a little bit more and more clear. I feel like at every step of the business, you're always kind of walking into a new room. You got to walk around and explore to kind of see where things are.
And so I feel like I've kind of stepped into the next level and I'm understanding what we need to do to grow, just making sure we're doing all the things in the right way so that we can have the same consistency in terms of the quality of the product, making sure we're doing everything right.
And so we're growing step by step at the pace that we want to, and so now that I'm kind of seeing how that looks, there's a more clear path forward and what work we need to do and execute on to make sure we can get there as opposed to before, just even earlier this year, I was just trying to throw money at the problem, but that wasn't the solution.
And so that's something that now that I understand the path forward to growing a little bit more. It's exciting, because I know a little bit more of how to get from A to Z.
James Lacey: That's great. You have the clarity of direction, which is yeah, that's a huge thing. I think, it's interesting to hear, the origin of your story being in kind of your experience with, I mean, nine years on keto, that's a ton of experience to then go from that and be like, you know what, I need to build a solution to the problem experiencing, what would you say to other people that are either wanting to go keto, have experienced and living a lifestyle of keto, or even people that maybe just want, lower sugar, healthier snacks. What would be your, I guess, message to them about Krack'd Snacks? Like what, why Krack'd Snacks for those people?
Willy Kwak: Yeah. I always recommend for people to eat whole foods, try to prioritize protein whenever possible, but sweets and snacks are a part of life, at least for me it is, where I feel like there's a lot of enjoyment in eating sweets, even if it's like fruits or just eating, like for me, it's like Sour Patch Kids or Oreos from time to time.
But I think that's the key kind of minimizing it to just occasionally having it and sometimes same with Krack'd Snacks, occasionally just switching out like a regular candy bar or regular treat that you have that might have a little bit of sugar, or for some people who can't have sugar at all, then making that switch or providing them with an option to still enjoy sweets.
And so that's where we come into play. Maybe it's not an everyday thing, but you can, when you want to feel healthier or for the people who don't have any other options. They can go for Krack'd Snacks and still get that sweet satisfaction without getting a blood sugar spike.
James Lacey: That's great. That's great. Is that, do you have a, do you have a big sky, wild dream vision when it comes to Krack'd Snacks?
I know that's a huge question, but I'm just curious.
Willy Kwak: Yeah. Yeah, I do. I, we're starting off in, sweets just like mainly candy right now, but I do want to eventually open up into snacks in general. Hence the name Krack'd Snacks. And so I think there's so many other good brands out there. So I'm so happy because this entire industry it's getting better in terms of the pricing, the prices are getting more comparable to other snacks that have a lot of sweets or that have a lot of sugar, the taste and the texture is getting better, but I still feel like it's still lacking.
And I feel like that's something that we have a competitive advantage in, and yeah, I want to start with candies, move over into other sweets, and other snacks, such as high protein snacks, which that's just something that kind of aligns with my lifestyle, high protein, less carbs, less sugar and just trying to help people eat healthier.
That's in whatever way that is, that's my mission. And that's something that, that I want to make sure, retain, remains the same, no matter how big we get.
James Lacey: That's great. I love that. We have a final question that love asking people and then I'd love to just hear if you have any other thoughts, that you want to share and also just to make sure that we know where we can follow more about yourself or Krack'd Snacks, but final question that we'd love to ask is what does real fulfillment mean to you?
Willy Kwak: That's something I'm trying to find out myself, actually. When I can stay a hundred percent present and not get caught up in my mind, that's when I feel like that's what fulfillment means for me. Very removed from business, but I feel like I'm the happiest when I could just sit down, listen to the birds, take in my environment, and just be thankful and grateful for being alive and being able to experience this. Might sound woo-woo or whatever, but I feel like I get so much stress relief and I just feel calm when I can actually get to that point, but it's very difficult to get there.
James Lacey: I think that's incredibly beautiful. I don't know if there is a higher ecstasy of life than the pursuit of peace and restfulness.
I think that's pretty much everyone's longing is to be at rest and at peace despite whatever circumstances, like that is, I've, I often think that the difference between joy and happiness, maybe there's, this might just be my opinion. I don't know. And I think happiness is experiential.
It's or it's like reactive kind of thing. You, it comes through experiences whereas joy is like a state of being. and so I often think it's, for me, that's my faith and I'm a Christian. And so for me, that's, that's one of the reasons why, I'm like, it gives me the sense of, or peace and joy, despite circumstances.
And so I'm like, this is the biggest cry of my heart. Like without this, I don't know what I'd do. I'd be a mess. But, so I love that answer. Like the ability to sit, listen to nature, listen to the birds, be present. I, yeah, I think that's awesome.
Willy Kwak: Yeah. Awesome. It's awesome that you're able to experience that, through your own methods too.
James Lacey: Yeah, that's encouraging, man. Is there anything else you'd like to share Willy about yourself or about Krack'd Snacks before I let you go? And also please do share with us where we can follow along with Krack'd Snacks, where we can follow along with yourself. Yeah,
Willy Kwak: Yeah. So we've got a few more product launches ready for this year in, on October 31st, we're going to launch our milk chocolate, peanut butter, caramel crunch, and milk chocolate, aloha caramel, and also a vegan white chocolate, pumpkin spice, which all three of those items are vegan. We've been having a hard time, getting a really good milk chocolate.
That's dairy-free and that's still keto-friendly without sugar alcohol. So we have to make it ourself. And took a lot of R and D, but we're able to get it. And so we're going to launch those. So look out for those, around Halloween. And you can follow us on, Instagram. So Krack'd Snacks, that's spelled K-R-A-C-K-D-S-N-A-C-K-S and same with our website, it's just krackdsnacks.com.
James Lacey: That's perfect. Willy, this is being just awesome. Just hearing your heart, hearing about Krack'd Snacks, your desire to see people be healthier and seeing what you're doing, building this business. I'm very excited to see what happens with Krack'd Snacks.
I would not be surprised if I'm seeing it everywhere soon and eating it myself. Thank you so much for being on today. That is it for today's episode of Fulfilled Podcast. We'll be back soon. Thanks so much, Willy.
Willy Kwak: Thank you, James. Appreciate it.
James Lacey: We never lose. We only win or learn. Meet Dr. Michael Breus, the CEO of Sleep Doctor, a company on a mission to help people lead healthier, happier lives through the power of life-changing sleep habits. Stay tuned for Dr. Breus' insights and his intriguing sleep statistics.
That may surprise you.
Michael Breus: The statistic that we're talking about is, I am one of 168 people in the world who have taken and passed the sleep medicine boards without going to medical school. So I never attended medical school, but I took their test. and, I've been an actively practicing sleep specialist for about 20 years.
Oh, my gosh. Now, 26 years. Wow. It's gone by fast. and I've seen just about every kind of sleep patient that there is. So what you're going to hear from me today, while I do have a good handle on the research, I'm a clinician, right? So I'm going to tell you about what happens in clinic. I'm going to tell you about how you can apply these principles to yourself, and, hopefully help you out.
James Lacey: Well, prior to even jumping into understanding more about sleep doctor dot com and kind of how that came about. And what it is exactly that you guys do. How do you even begin a journey into specializing in sleep? That for me is just fascinating.
Michael Breus: Right. So nobody wakes up one day and says, Hey, I want to be a sleep doctor.
Right? Like that, that just usually doesn't happen. Right? first of all, sleep medicine in and of itself is actually a very new field of medicine. The very first sleep clinics, I believe, were in the late forties, early fifties. it was, Built by a man by Dr. William Dement in Walla Walla, Washington of all places.
And it was a narcolepsy clinic, before it was anything other than that. And now, you know, fast forward, we're in 2024, right? Sleep hasn't been around that long. I mean, if you think about it, Compared to Hippocrates, right? So medicine's been around for thousands of years. Sleep medicine's been around for about 75 years.
So it's very early in the system. in terms of becoming a specialist. Now, why did I personally become a specialist? I'll be honest with you. It was not my track. Like it was not the direction I was going in. So I was getting a PhD in clinical psychology, which was my area of interest. And specifically I was interested in sports psychology.
So I wanted to work with athletes and teach them how to throw harder and run faster and the mental game of sports and all that kind of cool stuff. Now, to be clear, the reason I was interested in all of this is because I was terrible at all of those sports growing up. I was the last kid picked every single time.
I was awful. I had no athletic talent whatsoever. So I'm getting my PhD. And when you get a PhD, there's a residency program that you do somewhat similar to medicine, where you go someplace for about a year and you really learn your craft. So as opposed to book learning, you're actually in the clinic working with people.
And I wanted to work in a sports psychology research. Place where they were developing protocols, the best one in the country, believe it or not, University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson, Mississippi, they had an incredible program on eating disorders and athletes, which really combined a lot of my interests.
And I thought, this is cool. I can't wait to do this. Here's the problem, dude. I couldn't get into the program. it was only the Harvards, the Princetons, and the Yales of the world. I went to the University of Georgia. It's a top 20 program, right? but, they had an extra track. They had an extra position available for the internship residency class, but only if you were willing to specialize in sleep medicine.
And so I was like, That doesn't sound too tough. I had worked my way through graduate school, working on all the machines. So the hardware that you use to measure sleep, that was my job. So I already knew how to use their machine. So I'm like, Easy. I'm just going to convince these guys I'm a sleep doctor or at least want to be a sleep doctor and just hop.
And then I'll just transfer, right? Like that. That sounds like a good idea. So I get there day one, raise my hand. They said, ah, Dr. Breus, we were expecting this. We're guessing you want to transfer, right? And I'm like, yeah, they said wrong. It's not going to happen. Here's how this works is your funding is only good for, you have to work in the sleep lab for six months to get a year's worth of funding.
So if I wanted to eat You know, if I wanted to pay my rent, I had to work in the sleep lab. So I said to myself, how tough could this be? I sleep every night. It doesn't seem that hard, right? come on. So I got there. And by the third day, I absolutely fell in love with clinical sleep medicine.
And I knew I was never going to change my path. Dude, I help people like this. It's unbelievable. How quickly you can help somebody in the world of sleep. and by the way, when you change somebody's sleep, you change their life. Okay. It is, permanent. It happens throughout every single system. it is extensive.
And it's, really fun like as a doctor, because here's the deal, like as a normal clinical psychologist, I could see Treatment gains in somebody, but it might take weeks, months, even years. I've got let's say I've got a case of somebody with depression, it could easily take, two, three weeks, months, or even years before I start to see any level of treatment gains in that individual, whereas with sleep medicine, dude, sometimes in 48 hours, I changed somebody's life.
So all the entrepreneurs in the audience, you're going to love this. So I got off from my first job and. I, here's the funny part, right? So you'll remember this. So I was at the stage of my life where if they just offered me 30, 000 a year, I could afford health insurance, right? that's where I was in my life.
So everybody out there, where you were when you were at that point in time in your life, right? So it's okay, cool. let's see, how is this going to work? And so I get through the interview and I crush it. the interview was fantastic for me and he says, we're gonna offer you 60, 000 a year.
We're going to give you full benefits. We're going to give you two weeks off of medical leave so you can go to conferences. We're going to give you two weeks of paid vacation. We're going to give you your own office. We're going to frame all your diplomas and put them on the wall. I was like, sign me up.
This is fantastic. I can't wait. He said, there's one catch. So what's the catch? They said, you have to take him past the sleep medicine boards. I raised my hand. I said, dr. D Marini. I said, buddy, I got, news for you. Remember I'm a PhD, not an MD. He said, there's one year of eligibility left because sleep medicine is such a new, thing.
Discipline within it. We, they couldn't find enough people to take the, boards. And so when I was taking the boards, they were actually allowing some nurses, some PhDs, DOs, because they wanted to get enough people to take the boards to make sure the boards were good, blah, blah, blah. And so I, there was one year of eligibility left.
And so I was like, Okay, let's go for it. challenge accepted. And, there was a reading list. So there was a reading list of 14 different books. they were all textbooks. And so I taught myself neurochemistry, neuroanatomy. I taught myself pediatrics, general medicine, all of that. And so what I would do is I'd read a paragraph and I'd say, okay, what is a question that would be on the medical boards from this paragraph?
And I'd write it on a note card. And then on the other side of the note card, I'd write the answer, dude, by the time I was done with all 14 books, I had north of 6, 000. And it would take me about seven hours. If I wanted to roll through all of them at once, I had them by sections, by book and things like that.
And so here's the best part is after I passed the boards, my very first entrepreneurial project is I called those cards down to about 500 cards, printed them, and I sold them to sleep medicine schools as a study tool. So I've been an entrepreneur since day one.
James Lacey: that, also reminds me of. It also reminds me of early YouTube days, I mean, that's right.
You were very early on what it feels like in the people that are self teaching and are actually
Michael Breus: Correct
James Lacey: Going through and not just self teaching, but then building a career out of what you've entered into. That's incredible. Now, it seems common, but. Yeah, I was.
Michael Breus: Definitely a pioneer, back in the early YouTube days and here's the thing. I think I'm just a natural educator. that's where I find myself to be, most comfortable also to be honest with you, the way I had to study for the exam, the flashcards, here's the thing that it did that I didn't know at the time was going to do for me. It gave me an almost encyclopedic knowledge of sleep medicine. So I still remember most of those flashcards to this day, which is kind of bizarre. Like I didn't know I had that kind of a memory. So what happens is one of the things I'm most famous for is I can answer almost any question about sleep based on research because I had to come up with like when you when you're.
Digesting 14 textbooks, right? And it locks and loads in, and then you have to use it for the next 25 years. Like it becomes a very easy skillset to kind of go with. And that's why I ended up creating the sleep doctor. com. So I was working at a company called web MD. If you guys are familiar with web MD, and he calls me up and he says, Hey, Michael, I want you to check out this website.
So I check it out and they had no sleep information. So I wrote him up a little three pager, he's a friend, right? I was like, Hey dude, you're missing out on sleep at the time. I was just finishing up my master's getting my PhD. he calls me up and he said, that list of all the areas you sent me that on web MD, we needed sleep.
I said, yeah. He said, I handed that to my boss. My boss wants to hire you. I was like, hire me to do what he was like, you're going to help us create content. You're going to become the web MD sleep expert. And then I did. So for 15 years, I was the web MD sleep expert. And it was really just a friendship that I had with a good guy with a guy there.
And I just was nice about it. And I just said, Hey, I think you, your website could be better if you had information here. I wasn't offering to provide the information. I was just trying to point out where the holes were. And he just jumped on board and was like, Hey, we want you. and so I became the WebMD sleep expert and I answered over 6, 000 questions on WebMD, again, reiterating all of this information, getting it into my head.
And while I was doing that, WebMD turned to me and they said, Hey, Michael, you're kind of a ham, you like attention. So would you ever be interested in doing PR for us? And I'm like, What's PR? That sounds like fun. And they started getting me on television. They had a whole PR team and it was like, Hey, represent WebMD, go on the CBS early show, go on.
Good morning, America. Go on the today show, Jane Polly, blah, blah, blah. And so I did all of that. And I got to tell you something, dude, it's fun. it's fun to be on TV and educate people. My attorney calls me up and he's Michael, I think you need a website. I'm like, what are you talking about?
Why would I need a website? He was like, you're promoting everybody else. Why aren't you promoting yourself? And I was like, that's a great question. I don't really, I guess I should be promoting myself. Okay. I should get a website. How do I get a website? He was like, here's the problem. You're starting to become popular.
So if you reach out to people who own these websites, they're going to charge you a fricking fortune. So let me do it. So my attorney went and did it. We negotiated it and I bought the sleep doctor. com. And so all I did was I started a blog, right? Where I was just writing what I, my opinions and talking about new sleep research, talking about insomnia, things like that, slowly got a following, but it was the media that kept doing backlinks to the website, because what I would do is I would go on good morning America.
They'd send me a clip and then I'd post it on my blog or I, and once social media started, then I started posting in social media. So that ends up being really, Good, for me that way, which was, which actually worked out really, well, because then I actually bought all of the social media sites.
So I bought the sleep doctor for Twitter, for Facebook, for, Instagram, like literally you name it. And I, so I started creating the brand at that point, because what I realized was number one, nobody can spell my last name, Breus B R E U S. I mean, when we started, you were like, how do I even say it? And I was like, okay, that's, obviously not going to work. And so the sleep doctor, it's perfect. Like it says absolutely everything in three words and it's very easy for people to find. It's very easy for people to search. And so once we gathered that, we just started sending people to it and being able to work that way. So it worked out great.
James Lacey: Yeah, that is one of the more fascinating starter stories that I've heard in. In the not so recent times, say like the past three years, whereas it seems like a lot of people go content business. It's almost like the influencer app, but that, which is so interesting. And also a lot of people can do that now without expertise.
Michael Breus: If that makes sense, okay, like it's just it's so difficult because it's like I was literally an original sleep influencer. I would argue I've been doing this for 23 years, Like I think it's me and Paris Hilton are the two that have been at it the longest I think she was actually the very first influencer.
Paris is actually a personal friend. and she's a super she's a super cool person So I that's why I bring her up but like at the end of the day Anybody can be an expert if you have a podcast these days, or if you have some kind of academic position. take a look at some of my contemporaries.
There's a lot of things that people don't realize or know about them. So I, give you a few examples, right? So Matthew Walker, Dr. Matthew Walker, out of Berkeley, PhD in neuroscience. He's never seen a patient in his life. Like he's never seen a patient. So when you, listen to, let's say podcasts from people who've never actually been in clinical practice, they're really speaking from a very different place in their understanding of the information.
They understand it from that ivory tower research perspective. Hey, I've got all of these, definitions of my environment. And, yes, this process works well in that contained environment. I'm a real world guy. I think you're right. look at Peter Atiyah. And by the way, I love Peter Atiyah's information.
Did you know he's an MD, but he's never taken the boards.
James Lacey: Wow.
Michael Breus: Look it up. Like it's unbelievable. Like all of these people are out there. And what happens is people have these long form podcasts, right? Where they're there for 60, 80, 90 minutes and they're talking, talking, talking, talking, talking over the course of time.
They just wear people down. And by the way, they talk in such an authoritative way. That you're pretty sure that they know what they're talking about. I do the same thing. I'm extremely authoritative in the way I present information. but it is fascinating when you start to listen to these people. So what I all, what I try to tell folks out there is, look, we're all busy entrepreneurs, number one.
So you're going to have to figure out where to get your information that's, that works well for you. I would also tell you that not every entrepreneur should be a biohacker. that is something that a lot of entrepreneurs take on. They're like, Oh, I'm going to, I'm going to hack my way into being healthier.
It's, not as great as it sounds. and it's actually quite difficult to do. I think what entrepreneurs need to do is they need to focus on some of the basics of their own personal wellness. While they're growing their businesses. And so what we see happen all the time in the entrepreneur world, and I work with entrepreneurs all the time is they burn out.
Okay. So why do they burn out? It's really because they're not taking care of themselves. So I'm fat. I'm glad number one to be on the podcast, but I wanted to emphasize that I have a new book coming out. It's called sleep, drink, breathe. And. And what's great about the book is as an entrepreneur, I give you a very simple program to teach you three or four basics of sleep that will make a massive, massive difference for you.
Like the data is in, I can show you the three things. It's quite simple. I teach you about hydration. Which is kind of an interesting topic, by the way, I've been a runner my whole life, lived in Scottsdale, Arizona for 10 years. So if you're a runner and you live in Scottsdale, you better figure out your hydration pretty quick or you're going to bonk really hard.
So understanding that has been a challenge for me for most of my life. And now that I've really started to delve into it, it's unbelievable how underhydrated we are as a community. As a community, if entrepreneurs could do something, I would say, do yourself a favor and figure out how much water you need to drink and get it.
It's really one of the easiest things that you could possibly do. And coffee counts, by the way, but not past two cups. Okay. coffee's okay, but not past two cups. Okay. because otherwise you get into that zone of stimulation versus hydration. Now, one of the big things that, by the way, a lot of people don't think about drinking water is because there's no real reward for drinking water.
think about it. there are plenty of fluids out there that have a reward associated with them. Coffee is a perfect example. It's an alerting mechanism. Wine That's an example. It's a, D alerting mechanism, right? So like when you think about it, water is one of those things that doesn't have any real rewards tied to it.
So sometimes we have to place those rewards on ourselves for doing that. So maybe by placing some hydration goals for you during the daytime. So I need to tackle 10 emails and I need to drink 10 ounces of water in the next hour. That is a great goal set that. Every entrepreneur out there can do right, accomplish, make that checkmark and know that they're doing something that's healthy for them.
And in the long run is going to help in a lot of other processes. To be clear, if you're dehydrated, nothing works well. nothing works well.
James Lacey: That makes sense. Yeah, absolutely. I've actually heard, I heard a lady recently. I, again, just going around the social media is Barbara O'Neill. I think her name is.
And, and she was talking about hydration and about how, The brain can often be so dehydrated, people don't realize, and you can't be very conscious. Successful cognitively.
Michael Breus: it's like a perfect example of that is a dehydrated brain. So number one, it actually shrinks like it physiologically shrinks because the brain is made up of it's 75 percent water.
So when you're dehydrated, guess what? Your brain shrinks. Now that actually causes physical pain. So the shrinking of the material, right? The gray matter, it shrinks around the nerves and it causes pressure on the nerves. That's called a migraine headache. Okay. So right. So like when you start to talk to people and you're like, Oh, I'm, pushing it hard.
I'm not getting sleep. I'm only sleeping for four hours a night. I got these headaches in the morning. Dude, what are you doing? get yourself six hours of sleep, drink about 80 ounces of water throughout the day, and you're going to be just fine, right? but entrepreneurs in particular, we don't think about that way.
We just think, how do we grow the business? How do we get more cashflow? how do we get more customers? But if we don't focus on our own. Health. We're not going to be able to serve our customers very well at all. And in fact, I would argue we're going to miss serve our customers. We're going to miss important things that are important for our business, but also is important for the process that we're trying to influence with our customer base, whether that's them buying a particular piece of software or working out at a gym or whatever.
James Lacey: And would you say that your book that's coming out in December, would you say that is? Especially for entrepreneurs or really just anybody. Okay. Okay.
Michael Breus: So here's what I will tell you is it's for anybody who doesn't really know where the starting line is for wellness. Like somebody like I was at the gym the other day and I saw this woman and she got off of a machine and she just stood there looking around.
She was just like, she was completely confused as to what to do next. That's wellness. That's am I drinking a green drink? Am I buying a sauna? I'm like, slow down. Like, why don't, you just hydrate? Like, why don't you breathe? Like, why don't you learn how to breathe? that's a big one.
A lot of people don't even think about that. And delving into this, I started to learn a lot about breath work. It is freaking amazing what you can do just by breathing in different ways. There's one technique where you hold your nostril on one side, breathe in with one, and then breathe out with the other.
Just doing that, like a 15 cycle of that, All of a sudden, your whole body calms down like your whole body calms down like these are techniques. By the way, it's not like I invented these things. These have been around for thousands of years, like the yogis and the meditators and like this. These are the people we need to be listening to, right?
We need to be understanding from a cultural perspective. This whole Indian yogi perspective that they got it right. Okay, and we're in a society that's spinning up anxiety and stress like no other you've ever seen, right? And then there's, oh, by the way, you have to take care of your own relationships, your own family, and your own health.
These days and by the way health is getting so expensive from a health care Perspective that so many people really aren't addressing things like that and then people start to say well I don't even know if I can afford the gym Anymore, so we're really seeing this very interesting shift across all people, but I would argue that the book sleep drink breathe it's probably great for anyone who's just saying like I just want a place to start, like, where do I go to, to kind of catch up and figure all this out.
And so also to be fair, sleeping, drinking and breathing are kind of the fundamental behaviors for all other wellness. If you think about it, right? if you try working out and you're not sleeping well, you're not hydrated and you're not breathing well, you're not going to get a good workout. I can assure you of that.
nutrition, I can assure you that you will choose the wrong foods if you're not sleeping well and you're not hydrated. Easy, right? So again, all of these things, I'm trying to get down to what I, call the DNA of wellness. what are the funda, what are the electrons and protons, of wellness?
I would argue it's going to be things like sleep, hydration and breath work.
James Lacey: I love that. It is about time to Decomplicate,
Michael Breus: Yeah. It's just too much. It is. And I think, and I don't think it's serving people. Well, you know, it would be one thing if the complicated nature of this was helping people and people were getting better.
I don't think they are. I think they're spending more money, but I don't think they're getting better. I keep hearing from people throughout, do I really need to buy a 6, 000 sauna and spend, 300 a month on a green drink? Okay. I don't, I'm not convinced that's the place I would start.
If you want to have more advanced, sure that maybe there's some, things there that could be helpful, but if you're the average Joe or Jane, sleeping, hydrating, and breathing will absolutely get you there and get you there fast, three weeks.
James Lacey: Three, three weeks. That's as quick as that
Michael Breus: Three weeks. I can get, I can get you in great physical shape in three weeks just by sleeping, drinking and breathing. Now, I want to be clear. It's not like you're gonna have a ripped body and you're gonna, go on, Sports Illustrated. Okay. But the goal here, right? The goal here is to give you a foundation from which to start.
I would argue so many people show up at the gym and if you don't sleep well and you're not hydrated, You get upset with yourself because you're like, gosh, like I'm not seeing any results, or gosh, I'm not, I'm not pushing a lot of weight or I can't run very far or all of that has to do with these three things.
Every, every single bit of it. I can show you the evidence. It's very obvious.
James Lacey: What would you say to people in a place of leadership, both aspiring entrepreneurs and also successful entrepreneurs are either going to or have experienced. something to do with either loneliness or isolation. absolutely.
How, can they stay connected to the outside world? How can they, stay in a place of rest or so?
Michael Breus: and I actually, so there's, a few different ways, but one of the things that people could do, if we're talking about based on the book, how could they gain some insights from that?
What we've discovered is that, People like to do the plan in pairs and in triples, right? And so what, I tell people do is buy the book, by the way, if people go and buy the book, now the book is coming out December 3rd. If you buy the book now, it's actually kind of a ticket and then you actually get a lot of freebies.
So you're going to actually get, you'll get the plan right away. Like I email you the plan almost immediately. I also let you into a bunch of lectures that I'm doing on sleeping, drinking, breathing. So you have access to that. you actually get a 28 night program and you're entered into a contest to win a free bed.
So we're giving away mattresses. Yeah. Why not? So we're giving away free beds, in the hopes that people will buy books and start to understand the importance of sleep. so I think that's one way is to do it with somebody because here's the thing. And there's an easy way to do this is what you're basically looking for is an accountability partner.
It's super lonely being an entrepreneur. It feels like you're in a vacuum all the time. Cause it's you're the only person who knows your business. And that makes it very lonely because it's I can talk to somebody else who is an entrepreneur, but they're not going to understand my business and my business problems.
I feel like I'm very lonely in that respect. So what's nice about this is. Everybody needs to sleep. Everybody needs to hydrate and everybody needs to breathe. And so this is something that you can actually relate to anybody with. I think there's a lot of community that can be done by just looking at something other than business and saying to somebody, Hey, I've got, I heard this crazy podcast with this crazy sleep doctor.
And he said, Hey, sleeping, drinking, breathing is a cool thing. He's got this three week plan. I bought the book. You want to do it with me? Yeah. Nobody's going to say no. who is going to say no to, I want to learn how to sleep, drink and breathe better. Like I've, already spent some time and energy in this.
Like just go ask somebody, ask your spouse, ask your kid. and then start to form a little group. you can be an advocate for sleeping, drinking, and breathing to anybody. At the end of it all, I think that entrepreneurs by and large, fight this problem of depression and loneliness. And then there's several different reasons.
number one is, You're the only person who understands your business. Number two, you're the person who's founding, starting, and running your business. It's very different when you show up at work and you get a paycheck. For doing your job versus showing up in your entrepreneurial world and doing your job.
There's not a paycheck necessarily that shows up. You're paying for other people. You're paying for expenses. You're paying for all kinds of things. And maybe, maybe if you're lucky at the end of it all, there's something that falls out. And that's called profit, right? And then you just try to, you know, leverage that and multiply that and get that bigger and bigger and bigger.
So what ends up happening is you become very focused on very small different things. And so it's you ever had this happen to you, James? I've had this happen to me is I'm watching a video on YouTube and I forget to breathe. I'm so concentrated in this thing that I like forget to breathe.
It's called computer apnea, believe it or not. I actually talk about it in the book, sleep, drink, breathe, but it represents an idea that I'm so concentrated in this one thing that I forget about everything else. That's what entrepreneurs do. Is they forget about things like food, they forget about things like showering, they forget, like it's unbelievable what happens because we all become so focused on cashflow or on marketing or on customer acquisition, right?
And so what I'm telling all of us out there, I've been there. Okay, I'm a, small business person. Like I'm an entrepreneur. I built a brand. I sold it. I did the whole thing. Like soup to nuts, start to finish. Here's what I can tell you. Did I make a lot of sacrifices? Of course I did. was I there for my family at all times?
No, of course I wasn't. It's not how entrepreneurship works. Okay. but what I can tell you is I built a really cool company. I did well with it and I survived. And towards the end. I finally started to realize the importance of health inside of my entrepreneurship. Now, I'm 56 years old that had something to do with it when you're young, dude, you can run it and gun it for a while before anything really starts to catch up to you.
But here's the thing is the quality of your work starts to suffer and you don't realize it at first as an entrepreneur because you're just doing so many damn things. But over the course of time, if you're not sleeping well, and especially if you're not hydrating, you're in big trouble now. The other thing that I've noticed with entrepreneurs, and this is interesting is their sleep habits are pretty weird.
And it's not so much. It's fascinating. But I have a lot of patients who wake up in the middle of the night and can't return to sleep because they're worried. About things like, Oh, I said this wrong, or, Oh, I pissed my wife off or whatever. Entrepreneurs have the same problem, but they wake up in the middle of the night and it's just idea set after idea, set after idea set, and it's two o'clock in the morning and they need to go to, And so it's a whole different type of human. I would argue now, don't get me wrong. Entrepreneurs have normal insomnia problems where they wake up at two o'clock in the morning as well. and we can, that's something to deal with, but there's, An entrepreneur, I believe has just got a different brain, it's a different mindset.
It's a different brain. It's a different thing that motivates and moves. And so with that, I think you have to, you have to take care of that brain. I will tell you this. I think structure has probably been from as a solopreneur, which is what I've been my whole career structure has really been the, probably the biggest factor that's allowed me to succeed is forcing myself to be structured, living by my calendar, having dates and times and, really.
Pushing that. I think that's been great. also, I think another big thing to avoid loneliness as an entrepreneur, you got to get out of the house. You got to go have lunch with people. and you need to have lunch with people that are not in your field that are doing something completely different because it, hurts your brain to just think about that one thing all the time.
You can, and by the way, you could create a founders club. there, there are plenty of things out there. You could reach out to five friends and just say, Hey, once a month, I'd love for us all to get together for lunch, just to toss around some ideas and, and to, Kindle our friendship. It may have no business consequences whatsoever, but the mental health consequences for you are immense.
Just getting out and getting some type of social interaction without it being a customer. You get to act, you're not selling, then you're actually being. That's a big difference. And I think that also helps with that lack of loneliness as well.
James Lacey: That, really, that reminds me of maybe even an analogy is, regenerative farming, when I think it has something to do with you allowing the land to rest for a period.
And it causes more growth. And I was, yeah, as you're saying that, I was thinking about that and because I've experienced that myself, whereas you actually choose to lay down the overthinking and you go out and you just be, and then you come back and it's like sparks are flying. yeah, so that's really interesting.
Some incredible tips. even. Just, just the, discussion so far is just being packed with, gold nuggets of yeah, how to bring a better, healthier daily life to then going about, and I think having long term success, because a lot of people are so focused on that short term win that it could be detrimental to succeeding over time.
Michael Breus: and also I think you can be sneaky about getting some of this stuff in, take a walking meeting while you're taking your next meeting. That's okay. I'm not saying you have to go buy a treadmill to stick it under your desk and spend all that money. I'm saying go for a walk while you're on your next conference call.
That is a great way to start to infuse things like that. Have your water, but. Buy your desk and, have a goal every day. Your goal is just to get rid of it, right? Just get rid of the water. Now I'm going to tell you, there's a couple of different ways to hydrate that are important that people don't think about a big one is don't gulp.
Sip. So think about it like this. When you wake up in the morning and you walk out to the kitchen, And you go over to the sink. There's a little square that it looks like a sponge, but it's really shriveled and it's hard as a rock. And it's like sitting right there. If you knock it on the thing, it'll make a noise, right?
If, you. Open up the faucet completely wide open and you stick the sponge under it. What happens? All the water just rolls off of it. But if you put it at a, low amount, small drips coming down, right? What happens? It soaks it up. It soaks it up. It expands. And now you've got a useful tool. That's how water is.
Okay. Don't put The faucet wide open straight down your gullet because it's not going to do you any good. You need to sip. So what I like as an example, one of the techniques that I teach people in the morning time is I give everybody the same morning routine. I have people wake up at different times based on something called their chronotype.
By the way, if folks want to figure out what that is, or if they want to check out the book, go to sleepdoctor. com forward slash book and you'll see what I'm talking about. Or you can take my quiz, which is called the chronotype book. Quiz. This actually gives you a genetic sleep schedule. So what I ask people to do.
Yeah, the science on this is crazy good. So if you go to chrono quiz dot com and you figure out your chronotype and then you just abide by that schedule, which I give you for free. all of a sudden your whole world gets much, much easier just in terms of when do you wake up? But the three things that I asked people to do is number one, take 15 deep breaths.
This is just to wake up your respiratory system, become present. You want to drink 15 ounces of water, and you want to get 15 minutes of sunshine. Why, Michael, you're in California, what are you talking about? Is this some woo, recommendation? No, there's science behind it. So when sunlight hits your eyeball, you have a special cell in your eye called a melanopsin cell, turns off the melatonin in your head.
That's what you want in the morning time. So by just going outside for 15 minutes, you're actually helping reset that melatonin clock every single day. And that level of consistency helps with sleep at night. also you can do all three at once and you can sleep, drink, breathe, right? So think about it, right?
You wake up, so you get the sunlight. So that helps with your sleep. You're drinking water, one ounce per minute. And then you're breathing, just generally speaking, taking 15 deep breaths.
James Lacey: That's incredible. talk about simplifying just, yeah, bringing better wellness. That is awesome. I know that, we, talked about chatting for around 30 minutes and I've taken you for longer.
And so I'm happy about that. But, I really wanted to find out just a little fun question. Do you have a favorite quote? Or piece of advice that you've received over time.
Michael Breus: I do. it's something that I think about more often, especially during harder times, but, Nelson Mandela said, we never lose.
We only win or learn. And I really think that makes sense to me. but when you start to look at people like that and understand some of the things that they've been through and see their perspective, it gets very, interesting. Very, quickly. I would argue that winning. Nine times out of 10 is simply executing a plan to to the level that at which you want to do it, losing is where you learn, right?
I always learn so much more when I screw something up or I come in third place or whatever. that's really what helps me start to drive and understand. And so I think for me, that's one of those quotes that I think is an important one to think through.
James Lacey: I have to ask. how was it meeting Nelson Mandela?
Michael Breus: So it was crazy. So I didn't mean to meet him so I was a security guard at the New York dc ball when Bill Clinton was inaugurated I was dating a girl who was part of their campaign team at the time And so she got me this job and my job was to escort Dignitaries to the press pool or press to the to where the dignity because they kept them apart Otherwise the press would drive everybody crazy, right?
And so I've got a group of people with me and I'm walking them down this aisle, but I'm walking backwards while I'm talking to them saying this is over here. Cause I'm like, my job is to tell them where to go and then how to get, interviews with people and things like that. And as I'm walking, these two monstrous black guys come by me.
And all of a sudden I literally bump into Nelson Mandela. Okay. So I turn around and I'm like, and, he's immediately recognizable. And the guy was in prison for 40 years. So it's you feel really terrible. thankfully I didn't knock him over or anything like that, but I just bumped into him and then all of a sudden everything got very weird.
Very quickly. I was like, everybody's what are you doing? And I'm like, Oh my God, sir, I am Sorry, he was like don't worry about it. He was like it was much worse in prison than it is Like he was like making a joke like it was like that was my big meeting with Nelson Mandela I didn't get it. I didn't get to ask him any questions.
That's incredible thing but it was you know, like sleep is one of those really interesting things where you end up that particular situation doesn't speak to this but sleep is one of those situations where I get to have conversations with some of the Most interesting people you could possibly imagine.
I've talked to every presidential person slash candidate. I've talked to Kings. I've talked to princes, princesses. I've talked to, athletes, celebrities. that's the cool part about sleep is it really infiltrates everyone and everything. And so I tell people all the time, like sleep is a lot like love.
The less you look for it, the more it shows up. So don't worry, about trying to get perfect sleep. Sleep is flexible, right? It's okay. If you don't get eight hours every single night. Okay. Don't shoot for that. Cause you're just going to piss yourself off, right? think about what makes sense and then get what you need for you.
James Lacey: That's great. And it's, a lot more restful and yeah, and peaceful of information that I've heard before. that's, good to know, when I want to be sensitive to the fact that, we've run over a little bit, but question, this is one of the key questions we ask. And then I'd love to just hear any last space that you would love to add on, and even any more information on sleep.com as well. But is there. something that you would say to the question of what real fulfillment means to you?
Michael Breus: Real fulfillment I think comes in a lot of different forms to people. and I think we're all fortunate in that we can get a lot of flavors of fulfillment. as an example, I find myself feeling very fulfilled when I'm, for example, working with my son, that or my daughter, that fulfillment in a very unique way.
sometimes I feel fulfillment, if I make a great stock trade, or have a great business deal. sometimes I feel fulfillment, when I work out and I have a personal best, I've been tracking my, VO two max lately and trying to push myself a little bit further in that area. I think I feel fulfillment there.
I think the key for fulfillment. Is allowing yourself to feel it. Most people, they just bypass it. They're like, oh yeah, I did that. And they don't stop for a second and be like, I did something pretty cool for myself. I think that's the big missing piece. When we're talking about any type of fulfillment is just do yourself a favor recognize that you did something cool today. Stop the negative self talk
James Lacey: That's great.
I'm so guilty of that of not right. Yeah, I do. Yeah, that's great. I'm gonna remember that. Yeah, doctor. Is there anything else that you would like to go into touch on? Share with us?
Michael Breus: I’ll tell you what I want people to go buy this book. So do me a favor. Go by sleep, drink, breathe. Check out me on social media.
I'm happy to connect with you. Answer your questions. But the goal really is to get the book in people's hands and hopefully teach people how to sleep, drink and breathe a little bit better. So I hope everybody has a wonderful, rest of their year. Thank you And I look forward to hopefully interacting with you through the book or whatever means possible.
James Lacey: Dr. Michael Breus, that was incredible. The level of experience and insight into such a niche topic, but one that takes up, I think, at least a third of our life, if I'm not mistaken. Yeah. thank you for sharing. And I know this is going to impact a lot of lives. yeah, you heard it. Go buy the book. Go to sleepdoctor.com. You can find more information. and then I believe you can go to sleepdoctor.com/book and you'll find out where to purchase. thank you so much for your time today and for sharing. Of course. That is it for today's episode of Fulfilled Podcast. We'll be back soon. Sweet dreams.
Anja Skodda: Learning and trying new things and getting better. It's always really an intention. I love to learn new stuff.
James Lacey: Our guest today is Anja Skoda, CEO of HappyBond, whose journey began when she helped her own dog, Tony, recover from arthritis. Anja created HappyBond to help pets live longer, healthier lives. Join us to learn how she's redefining wellness for pets with HappyBond.
Anja Skodda: Well, as the name says, it's a HappyBond, and this one is between you and your pets. We are aiming to extend the health span to have them live longer and have more time to spend with them in a healthy way. Even if your dog gets older, but maybe get sick, so we're trying to avoid that and make that time of being healthy and not suffering from any disease much longer.
So we, getting back to those 15, 16 years that you can spend with your pet. Originally, I’m a scientist, a biotech engineer. So I worked in, tissue engineering for cartilage at the time, rheumatoid arthritis research, and had a bulldog Tony, who was everything. He's before my daughter was born. He's like this child and he was about eight years old. He loved to skateboard as a lazy breed, but he really loved skateboarding and he got arthritis in his shoulder and I wasn't able to skateboard. He got really depressed. So being in that field of research and arthritis, I created a supplement for him, to bring him back within a week, which was surprising.
And it was kind of the start and kickoff on the journey when I saw other dogs getting better and how happy people were to see their dogs being active again and even standing up. And to that point that, it just changed their life, that's what I thought, I really want to do that. I want to help people to enjoy that time with their pets and help dogs, cats, potentially dog, horses in the future, to just be able to move without issues and without pain.
James Lacey: Yeah, that's a powerful gift to be able to give. What would you say to somebody that's in the position of experiencing a solution to a problem that they've been walking to, similar to yourself and then having to actually convert that into a business or a brand or a product. I feel like that is a huge gap in a lot of people's minds and they go, ah, I should do this, this is working, but how do I go from step zero to step a hundred? What would you say to that person to encourage them?
Anja Skodda: I was fortunate, I had another product before that happened that I also brought from idealization to commercialization. In the beverage space, which was very different, but I would say, you have the idea, and most of the time it comes from a problem that you're facing yourself, like me, but many founders have that thing like, oh, this should be better.
I'm facing this issue. Why can I not solve that? But to make it a product that you bring out, I think it's baby steps, right? You prototype it at home. You're trying it out on small scale. If you can, do something in the food space, you can mix it together in the beverage space, before you actually go into the next step of branding, building a brand, finding a name, finding the packaging.
And then the next is really bringing it in scale and producing it somewhere. I think there are many baby steps to get to the point where you actually hand off the project and say, and now someone is producing it for me and I just get the finished product here it is, and now I can sell it, to be really, finished good product to have it, bring it onto the shelf.
I think it's a long process, but it's actually not that complicated and it's, very much, universal. It doesn't really matter what product you have, if it's clothes, food, or there's just different, restrictions, different authorities to deal with, and different manufacturing parties.
But if you want to bring out yoga pants, you will have to manufacture them somewhere to and build a brand and find a name and the trademark. So for me, it was since I'm coming from the science background, I'm also very much into protecting my IP. So we started early on doing trademarks patents. So we now have two granted US patents or maybe three by now and, one pending.
So there's a lot you can do. And I think that's one thing that I really, I was really fortunate to meet, an attorney in the IP space very early on. That is working with startups that doesn't have to have a big retainer or upfront payment. And who very early on told me like, you should do this and taught me the right direction.
“Do you want to do like a, how to protect you? Is it a patent? Is it a trade secret?” There's so many ways of protecting your IP. And if to have someone that can help you through that, I think that's one important step to get a product to market.
James Lacey: Yeah, it's interesting to hear the importance of what people call, I think, building a moat or, building a level of protection to your brand or business.
That is something I've heard before. How does somebody limited capital, as they're just getting going or even as you scale, is that like a constant thing that you're having to update as you grow and as you innovate, and also an increased cost as you grow. Yeah, what would you say, from both levels to that person that's perhaps limited capital, how they can go about that?
“I can't afford an attorney. How am I going to build these patents or file these trademarks?” All the way up to, perhaps somebody that's needing to constantly innovate and add to them.
Anja Skodda: I would say I was always, having no capital. We're used to that and I think many founders are, and especially when you start, investors want to see revenue.
They don't want to many times are not really sold on the idea. If you're not very early pre-revenue, it's always sometimes better than getting to the revenue but raising money. But I would say that's what I mean, you need to find an attorney that is actually startup-friendly.
Many of them say, “Oh yeah, I would love to help you. Our retainer is 5k and we will use that for the hours”, but who has that laying around when you just start your business to really put that on an attorney for what you might as well want to spend that in product development. This group I've been working with for a long time now, they don't take an upfront fee and they split the payments if it has to be in 24 months.
So that's why we've been able to get all these patents within a couple of years. Because it takes time and there's a lot of follow up and answering the patents and register that. And so you need someone that can do it, but I would say we paid over time a certain amount, but it was really not painful for the company because it was so little in steps.
That is something that I was very happy that we found him and his company and he’s specializing in startups. So also talking to someone that maybe there is nothing to protect. It's not right for every company to protect your IP, but a trademark for your name and brand, definitely. I think that is the minimum you should do.
And that's not that expensive, depending on if you want it worldwide, maybe that could get pricey, but just in the area you're playing with, you should definitely do that. Find the right website, all these little pieces that you're not necessarily thinking of when you have an idea with a product, you think Oh, the most important is I have to bring the product out and make it perfect, but everything around it is as important.
Like you need the good name, catchy packaging, the story, it has to be sold at least. And, that's how you get your customers, but all that depends, I always say a brand guideline is something that startups do very late in the journey, which actually it should be done very early. Because it got placed through the scenario of what's your vision, your mission, what do you want to achieve?
How does it look? What are your colors? What is the voice, the tone of your company? It's something that is, I think, costly and many startups don't do it until they're in a later stage.
James Lacey: That's interesting. I was actually given a comment on how beautiful your website is. And yeah, and so it's, interesting that you even reference the importance of brand guidelines because clearly just purely a cold approach to me looking at HappyBonds website, I've experienced what you put into practice.
And so I have, yeah, I've actually heard a couple of people say that, over the past few years, but it's not often. And yeah, I think it makes a difference, especially to people that just come across it very organically. And so when you stand out and when you have clarity of brand and clarity of identity, I think it just sets you apart from the crowd.
Anja Skodda: Yeah. I always think like it's a design thing and it has to, you have to like it too. But what is more important is that it's catchy enough to remember. I'm always thinking about the Nike swoosh, like people know.
Of course they had to come up with it at some point. It wasn't there from the beginning and it's something people remember and the tagline and they go through with their branding.
I mean, that's like a big company, but there are a lot of startup brands too, that are really great with that. And it's the recognition. If you don't have a good name or a good recognition of a label or logo, it's much harder because the marketing people see things five seconds and then the next, so it has to be something that gets, that's sticky.
James Lacey: That's sticky, I like that. That's a good use of that word. I haven't heard that in that context before. What inspires you or, motivates you as a founder, either in context with HappyBond or just generally as a businesswoman?
Anja Skodda: With HappyBond, it's definitely my passion for pets. I just love animals, dogs, cats, horses, that's my dream goal in life to just live on a farm. We see many people do have horses and dogs and rescue them and, help them have a better life. That's a big passion to see the stories of our customers, how great their dogs are doing on our food, on the collagen. So, that is one, big driver for me to continue, even if it gets hard.
But then you get this one message, “My God, my dog loves this food, I'm so happy. I found you. Thank you for doing this.” And you're like, okay, you continue. So sometimes it just takes that little to just, get out of this, “Oh, it's so hard” because it is not easy, right? Entrepreneurship is not what people think. Oh, you have free time and you can do whatever you want and build a million-dollar business and sell it.
That's the short version, but there's a long path, and not everyone succeeds. There has to be a lot of failures in between to get to where you want to be. And then as a businesswoman, for me, learning and like trying new things and getting better and stuff, it's always really an intention.
I love to learn new stuff. I was really interested in marketing, which on my science education, I didn't really do, but I always thought. Science is sold so complicated, right? When I talked to people, when I worked in this tissue engineering space, the conversation was one minute and then they left. It's okay, not interesting.
It's too much. So how do you package this into something that can be interesting and that people want to talk about? And it's easy package. And it wasn't easy for me in the beginning to explain the collagen product in a consumer way, instead of the science way. So that learning process and learning marketing, and understand what marketing can do and how big that word marketing, there's so many different pieces to it.
I think that was, I was very intrigued to learn more and I'm going a lot to marketing conferences and summits to learn and was fortunate to work with some really good people and have advisors that are from that space. But I think that's something that, because I didn't have that in my education that I really was intrigued to learn.
So as a businesswoman, I love to learn and to meet new people, network, help other founders, I'm really enjoying that, connecting people wherever I can help. That's something that brings me joy and hope to see someone succeed and have an easier time when you start off and you don't have a network.
Since I moved here, I didn't study here, so I didn't have a network when I moved here. And I think LA or in general, the US is very open to help you and help startups connect. And there's not this bias of, oh, I don't connect these people unless I'm involved. That's very much the case in Europe, from what I experienced. I feel here, it's a much more open environment to help each other.
James Lacey: Hey, I entirely agree that. Yeah, touching on what motivates you as a businesswoman a little bit. It was interesting to hear what you said. A lot of the time you hear people say, stay in your own lane or, what you're good at and just like delegate, delegate, delegate.
And of course that is important, but hearing you, it's interesting hearing you say the draw to learn marketing and to become good at it and to grow and in these different areas and then have network and work with different people. It also reminds me of like accountants saying you should still understand your books and just not hand it off.
And so is there anything you'd add onto that as far as the balance between stay what you're gifted in, or, what your passion is, or yeah, or adding into it. No, I need to grow in this area. I need to learn this. I also need to be able to implement in this side of the business as well.
Anja Skodda: Well don't get me wrong, I do understand that you stay in your lane, but there's a time in a founder's life, especially in the beginning where you wear every hat. It's not like I can just snap and have a CMO and a, CFO that just take care of the stuff that I don't, I'm not as good as. So I think you should learn every piece of the business.
It doesn't mean that you're the best at it, but you understand the basics. So as you say, you should understand your numbers and your accounting because an investor will ask you that you cannot just say, Oh, just talk to my accountant. No, you’re the CEO, you’re running this company, you have to understand your numbers as well as I need to understand if my CMO comes and said, Oh, this is the marketing strategy.
We're going to run. I, at least I want to have an opinion and understand that this is the right way so I can relate to it. So I'm not saying, you should educate yourself in being the pro in every corner that probably won't happen, and everyone has different talents, but until you get there and even when you get there, you want to be able to understand the talent you hired and you want to understand what they’re doing. And so I feel like at least a general overview of every part of the business you need to have.
I always say, if you start working for us, you have to be able to fulfill the orders too. You need to see what goes into this package because if a customer calls, you got to answer the customer call and they, you don't even know what's in the package. Like you need to understand the whole journey of the product and ideally even see the manufacturing plant. And, we even make them eat our food.
James Lacey: Wow.
Anja Skodda: It's human-grade though. Don't worry.
James Lacey: I was going to say eat the dog food.
That's part of the application process. That's wow. I love that because it gives people, how can people communicate your brand genuinely and with accuracy as well, without knowing it, inside and out or from A to Z or A to Z as they say here. Yeah, so I think that's brilliant.
Is there any, suggestions or anything that you've learned over time as far as daily routine goes that helps you stay focused on the business or just to keep going? I know because it's a long journey and I think a lot of people can get very tired and worrisome. Yeah, any suggestions or things you put along the way?
Anja Skodda: I'm fortunate enough to walk my dogs every morning to kick off the day. And that's, it's like an oxytocin boost, because you spend time with your pets, and be out in air and exercise. I'm a big fan of exercising, so I probably, I try to do that at least an hour a day somehow, if the minimum is walking, that's it, but if possible more. That keeps me balanced and lowers distress level, and plan your day, right?
It should always be a little time for yourself. And if you are getting stuck and it gets boring, just put in a day for you and just be creative. Like I always love to, when we used to live in Europe, you could just go to Paris for a day, which is very cheap when you live there and just stroll around.
But even here, go somewhere where you can maybe get, out and get different things, different environment and more influenced by other things. I think that always helped me. But yeah, I probably walk my dogs and spend time with them to really stay balanced and spend time with my family.
I think there should be boundaries too on the weekends, which I wasn't very good in the beginning. I would work crazy hours and in the end, it's not really good for you. And, it comes and haunts you in the end. So I feel like keeping boundaries and the weekend to family and friends and do something fun and try to limit your work and work calls on the weekend.
I know sometimes, there's this investor that is only in town on Sunday and you got to meet them. And I know I've been there many times, but try. I think it should be at least in the books that no Friday at whatever, three, four, five, I'm off and I'm back on maybe Sunday afternoon. I love to see my meetings for the week and get some stuff out of the way, Sunday evening, but most of the time, Monday and that's a fresh week start.
So I think that keeping those breaks and that, balance, work-life-balance that everyone talks about is different for every, anyone, right? You cannot, maybe some people don't have dogs. They don't like to have a pet, but then spend time with friends, go running, do something for yourself, at least once a day. I think that's important.
James Lacey: I love that. I think that's great advice. Is there a mistake that you've experienced in your business or businesses and what have you learned?
Anja Skodda: I've done a lot of mistakes, you learn from it, from the wrong investors, to the wrong people hired. If you don't come from the experience of having a company before or don't have a co-founder, I think that's another thing that if I would do it again, maybe I would try to find a co-founder. It is nice to not have that problem that you don't have to have a conflict, but ideally this other person would help, right? And be there for you and complete you with other things that they're good at. I just never, it was never meant that I had a co-founder.
So I think that's something that I probably would enjoy. Also, if someone would ask me if I'm in the right space, I never intended to be like, Oh, I want to be in CPG and consumer packing 'cause if I would have known what comes with it, I probably would have founded a tech company. That would be much better, easier, but here we are.
So there's a, that's just not a way to go and yeah, otherwise I think hiring your team, it can be really, bringing your business down or up. We never really had the capital, which is one thing that I feel like, capital race is one thing that you really have to do from morning till evening and it never stops.
It's not, Oh, we raised our round and now we have to know, but then you're already thinking about the next round and having a team that can execute while you go out again to warm up that conversation for investors. I just never had that opportunity yet to get to that point. So I feel that I would have done different next time.
I probably would have not brought out too many products. Like I did, we have 15 SKUs and I think I should have stayed with six. It was just too much innovation. And, timing is another thing. The collagen, for example, was way too early on the market in a time when nobody really knew what collagen was.
It was the CBD boom, where everyone was like, Oh, that's the magic ingredient now that will cure everything. And collagen was neglected. Then HIP came very modern in the human space, and now it moves into the pet space. So I was very early with a lot of products, I invented.
So I feel like if I would have the cash, I probably would have waited two years to launch it. It's always, it's sometimes nicer to have someone to.. not be the first.
James Lacey:Yeah. Yes, very much so
Anja Skodda: So, on the food side, I jumped on a train that was already there. So there were others that were first bringing people from kibble dry food to fresh human-grade food. We just made it better. It is a shelf stable now with no preservatives and it's a sustainably packaged in a glass jar. So you don't have plastic anymore. You don't use a freezer, so that's the technology we have a patent pending on, but it just made the fresh human-grade frozen food better, more convenient, healthier, and sustainable.
But someone was first already that kind of paved the way and did a good job from educating people from kibble to a healthier food options.
James Lacey: It's a very interesting conversation point of somebody else already paving the way. Cause it really does take a lot to pioneer something. You're the one that's breaking through all the doors and the walls and then having to educate consumer or the market.
Yeah, and very challenging to even fathom waiting to launch a product that, it works so that you've seen, but then having to just sit on something and say, I got to wait for the market to catch up. Is there anything you would say about the balance between leading a market change or as crazy as that sounds, or, waiting. I know you just touched on that, but, yeah, if somebody's in that place right now, they're like, man, I think this could maybe be hitting in two years, but I have the answer right now. Would you say to that person, wait, or keep going?
Anja Skodda: I always, I didn't wait. I always wanted to bring it to market. I would say if you have enough capital, go for it. The capital is the part because it just costs you more. It is great and I'm always, and don't get me wrong. Even though we have a product that kind of piggybacks on another path of wet food, we still have to educate and we still have a new category that we brought to life.
It's hard enough with that innovation. I'm just saying okay, you want to create a totally different mindset of people that is hard and that's costly and hopefully you're not the only one. Thank God they had other startups moving in the same direction. So it was a whole movement, but if it's something totally new, yes, everyone should always go for it, that's entrepreneurship and we want innovation more than anything. I just think it's hard to get, it's probably even harder to get capital and to have enough capital, to succeed. And it might take longer, but I would always go for it. And you never know, maybe you meet the right person the next day that funds the whole brand and it works out, but it can take longer.
And you have to think about people's mind. It takes time for them to understand something new and accept it.
James Lacey: Leadership can be a pretty lonely place at times. As you become a founder and as you grow in business and then also have the family. How do you stay sane or how do you stay connected to the outside world? I know you talk about walking with the dogs, so maybe that might be an answer. But yeah, on that journey of experiencing maybe some level of isolation being a founder, being a leader, are there any answers that you recommendations that you have for others of how to stay connected to others in the outside world.
Anja Skodda: I think it's really important to run ideas for others that are not in your business, that are like outside, but maybe aren't in businesses as well. So I've built a big network of female founders and female friends that are supporting in every age group, young, older, they've done a lot of stuff and they're very well connected and it gives you a different perspective when you talk to them.
And I try to at least once a week do like a girl's night out or something. Some of them and, run ideas by them and, just tell them and it's, sometimes it's not about the business question. It's more about how are you? Are you dealing with this? Are you okay? And they get your mind off it.
Like you when you have a business problem, you think the world is going to be ending for you and everything is really bad, but then you see your friends and you kind of, my God, it's just a business, there's a life outside of that. And, that you can do other things. So I feel that's important to get perspective, to build like a squad that will always cheer for you because they're not going to be disappointed.
They're not going to say, Oh my God, you didn't make it. They more like, how can we help and connect you to the right people.
James Lacey: Out of curiosity. is there anything right now that you guys are experiencing that is making it difficult to grow? Is there a roadblock to scaling to go to the next level? You're trying to reach something. what would you, yeah, what would you say to that?
Anja Skodda: We just had a big roadblock, which was our supply chain. It took us because we have a very specific product. As I said, it's shelf-stable. So it's a vacuum seal technology that not everyone can manufacture. And it was very hard for us to find a manufacturing partner.
One shut down last year that couldn't scale with us. And then we found the perfect one that shut down this April. So it's been we've been scaling. We worked a lot on getting people to buy our product. They love it. And if you then have a supply chain issue where we couldn't find a secondary one in that short timing, that kind of, throws a big roadblock into the business growth.
And it's out of your hand. On the other hand, it's not because yes, looking back, we should have had a second option from the start, but we couldn't find it. Now we move on with that and we found a new option and we are in production next week. But being out of stock for so long and, especially with dog food, we, thank God we have very good customers and we kept the conversation.
They love the product so much that they waiting. and even the stores, they said, this is their best seller. They’re just waiting for the new production, but hopefully we can have that fixed and, with that roadblock, obviously comes a capital shortage. If you're out of revenue for four, five months, it's, never good for a startup and raising money with no revenue is also not a good combination.
So we have been in a tough spot for six months. We had a, have a lead investor that, helped us out, but still, I'm hoping in two months we will have a different story to tell.
James Lacey: I'm sure you will. It'll be a big comeback. Just to wrap up, I think it'd be interesting to hear if faith plays a part in your decision-making at all.
I don't know if that means anything to you, whether it's faith inbGod or faith, in yourself. but yet, does faith play a part in, your decision-making as you're leading the business?
Anja Skodda: I do believe there's a bigger force out there. I wouldn't put a name on it for me, but, it definitely, I do look a lot at the universe and how the stars and constellations are, and I feel there's a big influence in life, but I also believe that you shouldn't just sit there and wait, like you have to act on it and there are certain times when you can do these things and shouldn't do that, just go with the flow on that.
But they definitely believe there's something guiding us. And, I wouldn't call it luck, but luck is definitely a part of success because if you meet the right person at the right time, everything can change. So I think, but I think you can also be responsible for that luck because if you sit at home, nobody's going to knock at your door, put yourself out there and tell people.
So I think there are two parts of that. And, I think just generally be a good person, try to help people and give back. That's one big thing for me that I've tried to love to do to give back. And, also maybe that's another, question, but I think you, mentioned with the businesswoman, I also, what also keeps me going is being a role model for my daughter.
I want her to see that, you can run a business, you can bring the money in and the family and be independent and still have a fun life. So I think she needs to see that, but that's one part. But faith, yeah, in a way.
James Lacey: Do you have a favorite quote or piece of advice that you've ever received?
Anja Skodda: We have a quote on our website from Pippi Longstocking that I love. It's, “I've never done that, I'll probably be really good at it.”, so that's, is Astrid Lindgren, it's a Swedish author. Yeah, I, only encourage every dog owner to look on the label. Of each food item you're giving your dog, really read it and whenever there's a word you don't understand, you shouldn't feed it.
So just make it simple. It will go back to what they used to eat and just, you will enhance their life if you do this and you will save money on veterinarian costs. So even if the food, the fresh food side is more expensive, I just think it's worth it, just for the longer life and the healthier pet, the more moments you can enjoy with them.
So that's one recommendation. And I hope that pet parents are waking up more and more on, what they were feeding their dogs before and got the industry put in this food, but they shouldn't do. And you can learn all about that, and we have a lot of educational content on HappyBond.com where you can go into healthspan for Mind Body Play where we have a lot of content and blogs and educational stuff to scroll through and text us if you have any other issues or any other questions with nutrition for your pet. We have a lot of experts on the team that are happy to help.
James Lacey: That's awesome. Thank you so much. And yeah, for your time, for your wisdom, honestly, this was super interesting and I learned a ton myself. And so I know a lot of other people will too. Yeah, thank you so much for being with us today. That is it for today's episode of the Fulfilled podcast, and we will see you next time.
Reno Rollé: There will be challenges. There will be doubters. There will be hiccups and problems, but we overcome them in that process of being dedicated.
James Lacey: Our guest Reno Rollé co-founder of Boku International is a true innovator in the world of superfoods, a globally recognized brand known for its organic kosher and vegan offerings. Reno's journey in wellness and business is truly one of a kind. Stay tuned for his incredible story.
Reno Rollé: We're a family-owned business. I've been at it now for close to 20 years, we're a superfood company. We were introduced to superfoods many years ago. Actually, our son, Reno Jr. was a small child and was labeled attention deficit by his school system, which was a little bit scary because they wanted to put him on a prescription drug.
At the time he was, I think six years old and my wife Lynn, comes from generations of family farming. We've always looked to nature. We're not, you know, really much for prescription drugs. So we kind of backed out of the room. This again is back in 1995. We consulted a naturopath who said, you should consider superfoods.
We're seeing some really interesting studies, data on how some of these algae and different of these superfood constituents can really help with cognition, brain function, focus, all this kind of stuff. Of course, at that time, we hadn't even heard the term superfood. We had no idea what a superfood was, but, we ended up finding one, a blend out in California.
Dr. Schultz, had it shipped to the house and at first I have to be honest, it didn't taste great. It reminded me a bit of, like fish food, so it was kind of hard to choke down, but you know, Lynn was able to hide it and mix it in orange juice and different juices and we got the kids to drink it.
And frankly, it just changed our lives. The transformation was remarkable. We were accosted by Reno Jr.'s teacher who was raving about how his grades, his behavior were improving, and how great the drugs must be working. Lynn and I looked at each other and said, there's something going on here clearly because he's not taking any drugs.
And that's when we sort of connected the dots. Which really ignited a passion in us. Once we were impacted the way we were by some of these superfoods and the way they made us feel the way they transformed our bodies, our wellness, we just set out on a journey to learn more and discover. And that led to 2003, I had taken the helm of a very big infomercial company, direct response, television marketing company that at the time was based in Bradford, England and, myself and the chairman, through a rather crazy twist and turn a series of events ended up co-creating what became a New York Times number one best-selling book.
Incredibly successful book in 2005. The only book in the world that outsold us was Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. We were very successful with that book and on the heels of that success, Lynn and I huddled up and said, look, now's the time, we had made some money, let's get together here and, do, what we've been dreaming of doing for quite some time, which was to create the world's greatest superfood blend. And, that's what we did. We launched Boku back in 2007 and we've been sort of organically growing the business since then.
James Lacey: That is incredible. This is a space that I am very much an advocate for and also fascinated with. So selfishly I'm loving this, but, what is out of curiosity, what was the gap between, you having that experience, you guys finding some stuff, making it at home and then experiencing what you had, especially for your son.
But then also it sounds like there was a, it's not like you're like, wow, we need to like, dive in right now and make a product out of this and get it out and sell it. It was almost like you knew how valuable it was. You knew the impact it had on your life, but then you also had to go, off and work and, take a big role in a new company and experience what you did.
And so I'm guessing there was a period of time there before you were able to come back in. And I'm just, I know for some people, the patience aspec of getting to something is quite challenging. And so it sounds like I might be wrong, but it sounds like you had an experience with that.
Reno Rollé: We didn't know anything about superfoods. So we had no idea that a plant, a powdered plant could have such a dramatic impact on the way you feel and then eventually on the way you look. So this to us was incredibly exciting and just fascinating because there was a whole world of these superfoods that existed and we had no knowledge of. So it really began with just reading, you know going on the internet studying and then purchasing ingredients we'd learn about Spirulina, Chlorella. We would learn about these different functional mushrooms and so you know, in the early days, it was really hard to find these ingredients, but we would go out and source the ingredients and then bring them home and try them.
Like it was a lot of trial and error. Lynn and I both, but especially me, I take part in this. It's a week-long intensive. It's like an exercise retreat. It's called the Ashram in Southern California, and it's really, it's a week of focused nutrition where you consume less than 2000 calories a day of pure plant-based organic superfoods.
You're drinking pure water, no caffeine, there are no computers, no cell phones. You do about three hours of yoga, hour and a half in the morning, hour and a half in the evening. But during this week-long intensive, I mean, the transformation that occurs in terms of you removing toxins from your body, it's really one of the hardest things you'll do, because it's not something you want to do.
You're kind of just following orders and marching along. And I tell people, you don't do it for you, you do it for yourself. But what I would do is take these different superfoods. People thought I was crazy. I'd have these green powders, brown powders, different blends that I'd create on my own. And I would mix them in water to sort of reanimate the ingredients and then drink it down and then go off on these day-long hikes.
And, there's no better way to really experience something and answer questions than to go out and do it on your own. And when you feel the difference that these fuels, that's where I learned that really food is fuel. The way that they can change your body and its performance and the things you learn about how capable you are to push past the point where you're comfortable and go ahead and really dive into that discomfort. And you shock yourself because you want to quit. I'm telling you, there are times with every step when you think this is the last one, but you just stay in the moment, you stay focused. And then next thing you know, it's 10 and a half miles later, you've climbed straight uphill and achieved these unbelievable elevation gains.
It really ignites again, this excitement within you that, wow, I am capable of a lot more, but it's stuff like that I would do to learn about the power of these superfoods again, not driven by the opportunity to start a business, just purely addressing my innate curiosity. But the effects, the things I learned were so powerful.
That's when we just, it's you can't hold onto it. If you're like us, you really want to share. And that's where the idea came that we really should take this category to the next level, create a product that will obsolete everything that's come before it and introduce the world to a product like Boku, and that's what we did.
James Lacey: I imagine there are people in a similar position that have an idea and they've been diving into research because they've experienced something, whatever category or industry that might be in. What is the process or what would you say to somebody either from a perspective?
And you touched on this just then, you want to quit at times, when you're hiking 10 miles daily, but in same in business and same in diving into something you talked about trial and error, et cetera. What would you say to somebody in the endurance, the necessity of just keeping going, and, getting to the point of finding that either product market fit or whatever you'd like to call it.
Reno Rollé: It almost happens automatically in the process. I mean, if in fact you are passionate about something, they say “conceive it, believe it, achieve it”, right? If you have the idea and you believe it, you really believe in it and that could be a quick process or a long process, depending on the people, the person. But once you get to a point where you've vetted it out, you've talked to all your friends, you've done your gut checks and you really believe that what you want to do makes sense, then it becomes a passion.
You become excited about it and you just have to keep feeding that and staying committed. It's about being committed. It's about being dedicated. And then, you know, your passion will ultimately form your purpose. And that's a place that we should all aspire to because it's an amazing feeling. It's one of my favorite feelings. And when you're there, it's almost like you don't even know how to spell quit. You know it, because what you were envisioning in your way of thinking and in your process, it's already happened to anyone that's an entrepreneur, a creator, artist, a dreamer, anyone that's ever invented to them, to us, it's almost hard to explain, but people will often doubt your vision.
They'll question it. And it can be a very difficult exercise because to us. It's so real. It's almost already happened. And that's how it is for me. And when you're on that path and, again, your passion is there, your belief is there, your dedication, your commitment, it's unwavering, you're just, quitting is not even an option.
So you just kind of stick with it. And then you learn that there will be challenges. There will be doubters, there will be hiccups and problems, but we overcome them in that process of being dedicated. You learn that they aren't impossible obstacles. They're there for a reason.
You trip up, they are stumbling blocks per se, but if you do the right thing and you don't back down and you're not afraid and you really do maintain that belief, you overcome them. The stumbling blocks become stepping stones if you will. I don't know that there's a direct lesson or tip, a shortcut to how to stay with it and never quit.
But I think again, if you follow the process, it almost happens naturally or not. It's not for everyone, it's a tough world. People will tell you starting and running a business may be the hardest thing you'll ever attempt to do. People that are really, good at it, it's like anything else.
They make it look easy. It's like watching the NBA guys, watching the guys in the NFL, some of these acrobatic athletic movements that, they just make it look so easy. I can tell you the same thing could be said for entrepreneur pursuits.
I mean, it's not a layup. It's not super simple, but if you stick with it and you have something that makes sense and you really believe in it, anything's possible.
James Lacey: I've never heard, funnily enough, I've never heard or thought about the connection between how professional athletes make it look easy and the same way that successful entrepreneurs, also often make it look easy.
And that's just unlocked an understanding for me actually. And just yeah, there is that same, cause I know when I sit down, I'll watch basketball, I watched a game of tennis, whatever it is. I'm like, Oh, I can do that. Like I was, I was okay in high school or whatever. And I'm like, yeah, I could go do that's not that hard. And you get on the court again, Oh, I forgot. I missed eight out of 10 shots or whatever.
Reno Rollé: You know what it is, what they don't show you, you watch the guy dunk the basketball, from the foul line or whatever, some crazy, unbelievable acrobatic move. And you see that and it's wonderful, it's entertaining. What you don't see is the hours and hours of practice and when they fall and how bad it hurts and all that, you know what I mean? And, but it's that it's the same with the business, with, anything, with raising children. You see a happy parent with a well-behaved kid. And you think, wow, that guy's really got it together. And what you don't see is what's happening behind the scenes and all the work it takes to get there. So I don't think it's much different, just again, be creative enough to come up with something.
I like to say that, in that process, trying to come up with ideas for business. It really helps to put, take a holistic approach where it's not just about making the money. Okay, of course, it's about making money. You have to make money to be successful. But what I've learned is if your mission, your purpose, or your cause, if it, aligns with benefiting others, if it's not just about how it can help you, like in our superfood business, we pursued this business because we wanted to make a positive difference for other people, similar to the positive difference superfoods made for our family. And so our, mission statement is to positively impact as many people as possible with the healing power of organic superfood. And I really think because my whole life as an entrepreneur, it really wasn't about that.
It's like, how much can I buy it for, what can I sell it for? How much do I get to keep? Where's the money? It was always, where's the shortcut to the cash register? But what I found is, that I really believe that the quality of a mission where you include the opportunity to make a positive difference for as many people, as many things as you can.
I think will, really shape your mission in such a way or create, form the fabric of a quality enterprise, something where you can lead with consciousness, with morals, with ethics, the kinds of things that we see sorely lacking in leadership now. And in business leadership, political leadership, it seems like it's all about the money. And of course, again, it takes money to eat. It takes money, we need money, but if we can just balance that drive for earning money with the opportunity to make a positive difference and just maintain even that little bit of awareness, honestly, in my opinion, it will make a huge difference in determining, just how successful you'll be.
James Lacey: I love that. I heard somebody say not too long ago that value is the greatest asset. If you're selling value, you will always have customers and, it's what in whatever category.
And so I think I, what I'm hearing as well as like when you're, why is bigger than the bottom line. You are inevitably going to be providing value because you care so much and you become an expert in your craft and you provide value. And then it's a question of, yeah, like you said, you have to make money to succeed and then to further expand, et cetera.
That's brilliant. It made me think of, what you were just sharing then. And before it made me think of a sore as the entrepreneurial Cody Sanchez that I've seen online. I don't know if you've seen her around, but she's become big for buying small businesses, and, she has this thing that I've seen her saying, which is choose your hard.
And it's just a question of everything's hard. Our life is hard, but just choose your hard. And so it's like when you work out, when you don't feel like it, or all of the above. And I think you sound like you're a very good model for that. You're taking those weeks, that week, a year and you're choosing your hard and, it's the same thing with the endurance, that you have to build a business, which has such a, such a powerful, why it's changing people's lives, giving them a superfood. And is there an aspect of faith that leads your decision-making? Is that or, it sounds like you've had to have faith in general, just like believing the unseen. But yeah, do you, does faith play a part in your decision-making?
Reno Rollé: Oh my goodness, so much and it always did, but the longer you stay at it, it's pretty much like anything else. You can come into business, believing in Christ and maintaining faith.
Or you can get to a point where you need to find it. And you know, that happens to a lot of people, where all of a sudden it's like, Oh my goodness, how terrible is this? Things are so difficult, things are so hard. And you find Christ, you figure out that, by letting Christ into your heart, believing in Jesus Christ, and praying for forgiveness because no one's perfect, and then just creating that space for growth, and to maintain your faith. Which again, it's like finding your hard, the thing about, if I heard you correctly, finding the hard as in the difficult, it also prepares you for the fact that it will come, so you have that mindset because, often we become complacent.
We think that we're just going to glide through and this is God's way, but in reality, there's have to be ups and downs, there have to be challenges, there have to be failures in order for us to learn. So to prepare for that, and then I feel like, keeping faith is a big part of that. Challenges will come, but you keep your faith.
It's easy to be faithful when everything's wonderful, right? I have faith that it'll stay this way, but it won't. It just won't, that's not normal life and there will be ups and downs. So yeah, knowing that the world is so fraught with challenges and that there will be setbacks and that there are bad people out there and, trust me, they're lurking around every corner.
And so it's, vitally important to keep the faith, not only to stay strong and be in a position to constantly help others, but also, in order to stay strong and to help yourself out of these inevitable, challenges.
James Lacey: Is there a favorite quote or any advice you've had from a mentor before that kind of comes to your mind? It's connected slightly to the past question, but yeah.
Reno Rollé: There's so many, but I have to, if you're asking the question, I have to think of my uncle Sonny and he was a pretty simple guy, but a very smart man. And he said “nothing beats a failure, but a try”. And, I often reflect on that, and it really is just about maintaining that sense of knowingness and belief and faith.
And, I see that's the theme of this show here, and a lot of it comes to faith is so powerful. Courage, just to have the courage to maintain the faith and the belief in the face of what could be adversity, ridicule, doubt, all these things that it's so easy to cast upon other people, and you will undoubtedly be showered in it.
If you have anything as unique, a unique pair of shoes, let alone a unique idea or concept for business. So yeah, I think just get out there and give it a try. Don't be afraid to fail. Don't be afraid of the inevitable challenges or the setbacks. They're going to come, but they're, if you, can just get your head around the fact that they're just a necessary part of the process and you shouldn't let them devastate you or cripple you or freeze you, any of that. You just got to just keep it moving.
James Lacey: That's that is awesome. I've actually never, I've never heard that phrase and I love it. I'm going to remember it and probably tell them.
Reno Rollé: It’s gonna make my uncle Sonny very happy. Nothing beats a failure, but a try, or like a try.
James Lacey: I love that.
Reno Rollé: You know, just give it a try.
James Lacey: Do you have any advice to people on how they handle negative feedback?
Reno Rollé: There's once again, it comes with time and practice and no one likes to be rejected. That's just no one. You just, you want to get a yes, you want to get a smile. No one likes to smile at somebody else or wave and then they don't wave back.
Those little things hurt, right? They just do because we're humans. And, you eventually maybe you get hardened to it or softene by it. But one thing I'll always recall is in like really basic sales training, I remembered I think I was like closing it like 20%.
So one in five people would say yes and buy the product. And if I made that sale, I would make a hundred dollars. So I remember being taught that, when someone says no, if you have to talk to five people to get a yes, then you should thank them for the no, because you're getting closer to the yes.
And so it's just a bit of small training that really helps me because again, I'm very sensitive. Like many of us, we don't want to be told no, we don't want to be rejected, but hey, if you're going to make a sale on every five attempts and every sale’s worth a hundred bucks. So every no must be worth 20. So you say, someone says no to you, don't be hurt, say thank you and put an imaginary 20 bill in your pocket and walk away. Little things like that can really go a long way
James Lacey: Power of perspective. That is awesome.
Reno Rollé: Yeah, exactly. Good one. Yeah. Power of perspective. How you decide to interpret what just happened or what was just said, and you're in control of that, right?
James Lacey: Yep.
Reno Rollé: No one else. So that is powerful.
James Lacey: That's life-changing. I think for so many that's, yeah, I love that. Leadership, it can often be quite a lonely place. You step into business, co-founder, and you've experienced entrepreneur as well. It can become maybe hard to, or it can somewhat become isolated, I think sometimes. Is there any, hacks that you found along the way to, stay outdoors? I have, an idea of how you might answer this, but yeah, just as you grow in leadership, any, any ideas or, advice on how just how to stay connected to the outside world.
Reno Rollé: Mentors, I think if I understand the question, reaching out when you need a little bit of guidance or uplifting, it can be hard.
And, fortunately for me throughout my entire career, I've had my wife, and we've been essentially partners, throughout the process. And so having that, a partner, a built-in support system because again, there will be times where it just be gut-wrenching. It's really, it can be really, hard when you're dealing with matters of finance and you have bills and people that rely upon you for their livelihood.
And so I, just recommend, yeah, figuring out whatever you need to do to de-stress if it's meditating and whatever that means to you. For me, it's not necessarily sitting down with my legs crossed and palms open. I do understand that, I love yoga. But whatever your exercise, something positive, where you can externalize where you can vent, go out and aspirate, run if it's running, if it's meditating, if it's yoga, if it's hiking, if it's just sitting on a beach somewhere, it's to me, finding that time for yourself, which is so vitally important and not selfish at all.
In fact, I often tell people, my children, look, we've all been on the airplane. When the flight attendant announces that, in the unlikely event that there's a loss of cabin pressure, put that mask that falls out of the ceiling on your face first. Now, by doing that, it's not selfish.
You're taking care of yourself so that you're there to help others. If you start fumbling around with that mass to help children or someone else, and then you pass out, they're done. So to me, it's a really good lesson in life that you need to make that space, that time for yourself and whatever that means.
Going out and being by the ocean, taking a hike, sitting someplace quiet, whatever that is that you can do for yourself to help you get through those difficult times and often again, it's, having the wherewithal, the presence of mind to reach out and ask for help. There's a great book I read very early on called The Master Key to Riches, Napoleon Hill.
And there's a section in that book that talks about climbing the ladder of success, and we all want to do it. We want to get higher than we are. But it teaches us that we should climb with both hands reaching outward. One hand should reach up for assistance, the help of someone higher up on the ladder. They want to help.
Also, your other hand should be reaching down because there's always going to be someone lower on that ladder than you, that's in your position. So if you reach up looking for help when you need it, but at the same time you're reaching down to give someone else a boost. To me, that's that balanced approach.
So don't, be afraid to reach out. There are people out there that have been through what you're going through. And I've learned this and I'm not a guy that asked for help very easily. So it can be tricky. The ego gets in the way than the rest of it. But boy, there's a certain divinity.
There's a really good feeling that you get when you need help and you get it because it's a similar feeling when someone else needs help and you give it. There's a process there and it's reciprocal and we shouldn't really avoid either side of that equation in my opinion.
James Lacey: That's beautiful. I also love the Oxygen mask analogy as well. That's yeah, both of those. That's really, great wisdom. Is there anything I know where we're slowly wrapping up here? And I wanted to touch on a couple of last things. One being, is there anything specific that is next for Boku or that you're excited about? And on the flip side to that, are there any roadblocks right now that you guys are experiencing trying to scale?
Reno Rollé: Yeah, great questions. The future is incredibly exciting for us. As you may know, after close to 20 years in business, we opened our first superfood-infused cafe in collaboration with both Tesla and Electrify America.
So we have this beautiful headquarters in Ojai, California, and we have level three DC fast chargers right in the parking lot. And it's all based on the premise of charge your car, charge your body. So we have clean fuel for transport, clean fuel for humans. So that cafe did very well. And we are in the process now, as I mentioned earlier of developing our second, superfood cafe out here in Pinehurst, North Carolina.
This will be even bigger and better. We're going to have a Boku or Cafe Boku in the morning with superfood-infused coffees and smoothies and foods. And then in the afternoon, we'll transition to a beautiful pizzeria where we're gonna offer next-level, I mean, incredible pizza. Then we have a cocktail bar, beer garden.
We're gonna be offering a superfood-infused beer and cocktail because we have a whole range. Of superfood concentrates, these beautiful functional tonics. So the future is incredibly bright. We're also launching our superhuman, complete superfood meal replacement. Now, this is the product of close to 20 years of leading the industry on the superfood side and what we've learned.
So basically everything we've learned over the past 20 years is in one bag now. So you're going to get your greens, your sprouts, your berries, your fruits, blend of 20 different functional mushrooms, close to 30 grams of plant-based protein, all in one scoop! That tastes frankly like what's left in the bottom of a bowl of Lucky Charms, breakfast cereal.
It's absolutely delicious. And because the base is organic coconut milk powder, you just need to add water and ice and you get this thick, creamy, delicious smoothie that's ridiculously nutrient-dense. So we'll be launching our superhuman first in Canada. We'll follow it up here with a launch in the U.S.
So that's super exciting. And then to the point of challenges or hurdles, yeah, like we were talking about early earlier, they're going to come, they're a real part of business. And while we're celebrating this unbelievable opportunity on one hand, we're mired in litigation.
We've been in a lawsuit for two and a half years with billionaire, oligarchs. And that's not fun. There will be the hard. You know that you have to choose because there's no choosing, no hard, that's not life. You have to choose it. It's going to happen. And then you have the beautiful growth, the opportunities, the blessings, the abundance, the success that comes from your faith, your determination, your persistence, your effort, and those of your team members.
So that's business in a nutshell. I think a lot of people unfortunately go into it thinking. Again, it's all going to be dunks. It's going to be these spectacular, receptions on the sideline with all the acrobatics and that it's somehow easy. It's not, it's beautiful, it's unbelievable. It's definitely worth celebrating and it will come if you don't quit, but it's not easy.
James Lacey: I think you really did summarize pretty well in about 30 minutes. The life of an entrepreneur, that like you just touched on that. This has felt like a journey of the life of the entrepreneur is really cool.
I just want to wrap up in our kind of final and favorite question to ask, connect to the name of the podcast. What does real fulfillment mean to you?
Reno Rollé: It's a great question. First, having the wherewithal, the courage to set goals, expectations, and then knowing that in that process, again, for me, there's something in it for someone other than just yourself.
And then when it happens and you do achieve that particular goal or objective and everyone benefits, where you can see multiple people celebrating the achievement, that's true fulfillment. When again, the benefit is substantial and truly impacts more than just yourself.
James Lacey: That's beautiful. Reno, thank you so much for your time. I want to make sure that people know what to find out more about Boku and yourself if they want to follow along, if they want to buy some of the superfoods. Yeah, let me know what, where can we find more about Boku?
Reno Rollé: Thank you, James. Hey, I really enjoyed talking to you, buddy. I love doing these things, I love sharing stories and, hopefully uplifting people, giving them some guidance and direction because I know it's a world where boy, it can get dark and scary, but you do need to hang in there. And sometimes just little messages, of inspiration can go a long way. So thank you very much for the opportunity. And, let's stay in touch.
James Lacey: That sounds amazing. Thank you so much, Reno. I appreciate your time.
Reno Rollé: All right. All right, James. All the best. Thank you.
Chad Kauffman: I'm passionate about our customers. I'm passionate about our employees.
James Lacey: Chad Kaufman knows firsthand that passion is the key to success. Along with his father, Porter, Chad set out to create an all-in-one litter solution. Join us in this episode, as Chad shares how they built this innovative business and why their commitment to customers and the environment sets them apart.
Chad Kauffman: We manufacture and sell, direct-to-consumer, disposable cat litter boxes. So if you have a cat, you're in an indoor cat specifically, you certainly need a litter box. And so our box is an all-in-one litter box solution. So it's disposable. It comes pre-packaged with a month's worth of cat litter, and it's designed to last for a single cat for a full month, no odor, no mess, and minimal maintenance. And at the end of the month, you can dispose of it or you can recycle the litter box.
James Lacey: Wow. I, used to have a black cat growing up called Felix in spite. I don't know if you guys had the adverts for Felix or like Felix cat food in the US but that was a big thing in the UK, but yeah, so my,
Chad Kauffman: I don't think we have that here that I know.
James Lacey: That was like the biggest cat food there was. And for some reason, the limited creativity I clearly had is the only thing I could think of to call my black cat a little bit the same on the TV was, Felix. But yeah, so firsthand, knowing that problem, that is an incredible solution. How on earth did you decide to get into that?
That's a very specific thing I feel like, to want to create. I've seen, a little bit of the story on the website, but for other people listening, what leads you to build a solution? Is it experiencing the problem? How did you get there?
Chad Kauffman: Yeah, good question, so I'm an entrepreneur. I've started many, many companies and, I was looking to do another startup venture and looking for a multi billion dollar industry, that I could create reoccurring revenue around. And as I began looking at. I was really industry agnostic, right? Like I didn't really care.
I just wanted something that I could, do something better than maybe what was already being done. And my dad, who's the co-founder of the company with me, came to me with this idea of a disposable cat litter box. And, I thought it was a horrible idea at first because I couldn't figure out how you could ship heavy cat litter economically and also make a box that was disposable, but would also last for an entire month.
And I saw a lot of challenges there and I knew that we probably would need to make it out of corrugate, which would be, paper-based. And I didn't know how I could, keep the urine, from leaking through a corrugate box, and do that, that it would withstand a cat for an entire month.
And so initially I said it was a horrible idea. And then I began to just start thinking about how could you do this and started doing some prototypes and testing on some local cat owners and did, reiterated and new version, new version, new version, after each failure until we developed a product that worked extremely well.
And, now fast forward, launched the company in 2018, fast forward to today, we're on our fourth generation of our box. And we have four utility patents now issued on our box and we have some real cool technology that is now integrated into the box to make it. I mean or box could last 6 months if you wanted to, have just refilling it with litters.
So they're bulletproof. Yeah, they're really good solution.
James Lacey: Constantly innovating at this point. Or is it do you think that's going to get to a place? You said you started out by looking at, like, how can we make something last for a month? And now you're saying, we can keep repurposing this for 6 months. That's a huge change in not that much time. Is that like constant innovation going to move forward or?
Chad Kauffman: Yeah, we're still making some innovation on our boxes, but not really around the technology itself. We've perfected the urine proofing of the product, now we're just making some design changes.
We're looking at another entrance to the box where we only have one entrance. Now we may add an additional side entrance so people could reposition the boxes in their homes to best fit how they're using the product. But along the way, as we've created these different generation boxes. We've had to build new, manufacturing equipment to do those boxes.
So, I feel like we're in a really good place with where we are right now and the automation of our manufacturing process.
James Lacey: I don't know if you were in limbo prior to just starting Kitty Poo Club, but, you said you didn't mind the industry. You're just interested in, building something.
Chad Kauffman: Yeah.
James Lacey: What would you say to somebody that isn't an experienced entrepreneur or has experienced success and looking for the next venture?
Chad Kauffman: Yeah. Yeah. Good question. So I've said this to, spoken to many groups and I say this actually quite often is, I think if you're an entrepreneur, it's in your blood to start businesses.
And really, if you think about business, it's truest sense, it's really all the same. You just have different products and services, right? So the product and service may be different in every business that you go into, but in terms of how businesses function, we all have finance and accounting, marketing, operations, manufacturing, salespeople, regardless of what you're selling, whether it's a product or a service, as you begin to scale and you get big enough, you have some, all of those areas are functioning in most businesses and so they may be, a few people that are doing 'em all.
And maybe when you're starting a business, you're doing 'em all. But eventually you start to hire people out that are very skilled in these individual areas. And then it starts to begin to get multiple people in each of those departments and begin to scale up. For me, I don't, really concern myself with any of that because I know and understand how to start and run a business.
I'm looking at where is there opportunity to do something that is better than what's being done right now. So it's that problem solution, right? I never like to get into businesses where there's not a problem. There has to be a problem that you're looking to solve and to be able to do it better than what's being offered to
James Lacey: That's great.
Chad Kauffman: And that's how Kitty Poo Club came to be, right? yeah
James Lacey: No, it's pretty much very similar thread to what I've heard from a few people spoken to recently. Things are birthed out of experiencing a problem firsthand most often. And yes, it's something that people are passionate about, but I think, especially in the case of yourself, as you become a serial entrepreneur, seasoned, it's maybe over time becomes less about just that one thing that you need to be super passionate about and more so about, I like solving problems and when you see one that has a large market size, then it's also worth the effort.
Chad Kauffman: Yeah. And to add onto that too, I'll give you a little bit of a secret to me, I'm actually not a cat owner and most people find that to be fascinating. I'm highly allergic to actually to cats. I can look at a cat and break out and highs. If I walk into somebody's house, I can tell if they have a cat immediately.
I'm just very allergic to their dandruff. And so for me, I didn't birth the company out of, wow, I'm having this problem with my cat. I like cats. And I love my business, and I love the people that work for us. And I'm passionate about serving and creating the best products for people that own cats.
But actually, I don't have a cat. For me, I oftentimes get asked, how can you be passionate about building a product and running a company, something of a product that you actually don't even use? And I'm like, you have to be passionate about your company. You have to be passionate about what you do.
I'm passionate about our customers. I'm passionate about our employees. I'm not necessarily in love with the product because I don't use the product. I don't have a cat. If I had a cat, I'd probably be in love with the product because we really do, meet a major deficiency and have brought true innovation to a pretty stale category called, cat litter, and cat litter boxes, but it's also the biggest pain point as cat owners that they experience.
A lot of people decide whether they're going to get a cat or not get a cat, based upon, do I really want to manage a litter box.
James Lacey: Yep, the mess. Wow. That, that's a huge, yeah, that's a huge problem to be solving convenience. I think, yeah, it really is. I think there's, a statistic that says, almost 70 percent of all, online consumption is on marketplaces and the analysis is because of that being convenience.
And so same thing, with solving a very sizable problem. What inspires you or motivates you in just challenging times? You again, it's not probably not just with Kitty Poo Club, but I'm sure you've experienced this over the past years. what would you say to somebody that's, just struggling there?
They're on their last legs. What keeps you going when it gets difficult?
Chad Kauffman: So a few things, one, my faith is really important to me and, and so my relationship with Christ is a big motivating factor and the way I run my business and that and all that I do. Ultimately I feel like, I'm just a steward and I'm here to manage what He's given to me in the best way that I can.
And so I really feel like He's given me gift and skills. And if He has, which I firmly believe He has, then ultimately, I just need to do the best I can and keep open hands and realize that it's all His anyways. And figure out where do we go from here? And hopefully he leads and guides me in that direction.
Secondly, for viewers that don't have a faith, I have a big responsibility in what I do, for all the number of employees that work for us. And so they're a big motivating factor for, why I do what I do. We have a lot of families that are dependent upon Kitty Poo Club for their monthly and weekly income.
And it's a grind and there's easy days and there's hard days, but that's like anything in life, right? Tell me a business, even if you're an employee, you can go work for a company and you're going to have good days and bad days, it's always a grind. You, just have to, you just have to push through.
Entrepreneurship is not for the faint of heart and it's hard work. And there's a reason why, the majority of the world are employees and not employers because it's very hard to do. And, you're signing up for something. That's harder to do than being an employee. And if you want something easier than go work for somebody, if you want something that's hard and you want to change the world and you want to change an industry that you're in and you've got a better mousetrap, start a business and it's highly rewarding.
And, if you're only focused on the bad days, you're never going to make it through because those bad days are going to come. And, and they're going to go and the good days are going to come. And you just have to have the faith and the diligence and, the passion to continue to push through, some of the challenges that you're going to experience on a day in and day out basis.
James Lacey: I think somebody could just go straight ahead and read, the six keywords behind you, and probably get an answer to, to, to what you were saying as well. As we were touching on earlier, but, yeah, persistence, perseverance, and like we said, patience, I think are often undervalued, and, and not realized as to, yeah, how vital they are to be able to, steward a business.
And I think that word steward that you said is, for people that have faith, people that know God, and then people that maybe put their faith in other things, regardless of their faith. Perseverance whilst you, faith is the conviction of things unseen and the, yeah, is that right?
Chad Kauffman: Yeah.
James Lacey: And so it's just being so, convicted of something that you don't know is there. And if you do see it, then, that's not, hope or faith. But yeah, so I, I just, I love that. And I know it's true for myself and true for, many others. Do you have a favorite quote or a piece of advice that you've had before?
Chad Kauffman: There's so much a favorite quote. One of the best pieces of advice that I got when I was starting my, first company was actually from a mentor of mine. And he said, Chad, never turn down an opportunity, to meet with somebody. And as you gain success, there's going to be more and more opportunities to spend time with people and people that are competing for your time.
But the thing is, you're, going to be shocked by just taking a phone call or a lunch or a brief meeting with somebody, what opportunities could come from that meeting that you never expect. And so never be too busy that you don't have time to spend with people because some of the best opportunities are going to come from that unexpected meeting or lunch or conversation that you're going to have.
And, my friend, his name's Jeff, and he was spot on. He was a hundred percent right. And so I've lived that motto, in my business career of always looking at opportunities to spend time with people. And it's been true. Some of the best things that I've had happen to me. Have been through somebody I was introduced to some lunch I took, some phone call I had that I didn't have an agenda for or an expectation for, and something really cool came from it.
I get a lot of opportunities and it would be, easy to say, ah, no, I'm too busy. I'm too focused and I have time to spend with you. And, I just always wonder when I do that, what did I just miss?
James Lacey: I've never heard that before. I have, that is, profound. I'm going to take that and write it down after this, because you usually it's the opposite that you hear. Especially as people, I actually heard somebody the other day who, as he was rising in success, said that he decided that he had to limit as much as possible the time that he spent with people or the opportunities he gave people and start saying “no” more and more.
And, and I thought to myself, yeah, that's I get it, but that's kind of sad. I, and so just, yeah, I think that's wonderful to hear and it feels like a very, not only wise and something that can create opportunities, but also sounds very loving.
Chad Kauffman: Yeah. yeah, I firmly believe I was put on this earth to make a difference in people's lives. And if you don't spend time with people, you can't do that.
James Lacey: Is there any mistakes that are memorable or that you've experienced in Kitty Poo Club, that, you guys are learning from at the moment or have learned from recently?
Chad Kauffman: Yeah. So one big mistake that I think of, was when COVID happened and, sales were just going straight up, because we do offer such a convenient product and people were at home and, shopping and looking for ways not to go out and public. We really did well, during that time and, that was a blessing.
The challenging side that came from that was, for those in business, they may, remember this just to, if you're just an average consumer, you may not have realized it as much, but there was also a supply chain crisis that was occurring at the same time, because businesses about supply and demand. And there was so much demand that there was not enough supply coming from overseas on containers. And, some of our, litters are silica gel litters specifically. You can't get those, you can't get that product made actually anywhere else in the world.
China is the only country in the entire world that makes, silica gel. And it's one of our bestselling, litters. And as, the demand was skyrocketing, we got pinched and we did not have enough product coming in. We were getting containers that were shipping late, containers that were stuck on the water, containers that were stuck in port and, we're all of our customers are on subscription. So they get their litter and it's delivered to them every month at the same time.
And, we, literally, we have a 120, 000 square foot facility, which is full about half the time with litter and, we literally were down to just a couple pallets and, of, of the silica gel. And so I had a huge number of customers, at the time, probably, I don't know, 50 or 60,000 customers that were getting that product on a monthly basis, and we didn't have it.
And, I was very, concerned. I wasn't sure what to do. And, we ended up deciding to, just be very real and transparent with our customers. And so we shipped them a different litter product than what they had asked for. And, we explained to them what happened. We said that this would be a good solution for them until their original product came back.
And if it didn't work for them, to call us or email us, and the product would be completely free. And, surprisingly, I thought, this had the potential to bankrupt the company, right? It was a lot of product going out and I'm just offering to give, 60, 000 customers for the month free product. And I didn't know how they were going to respond, and surprisingly, being open and honest and transparent and letting people understand, what your constraints are, turned out to be a real win for us. And we, heard more, more accolades coming from consumers are just saying we understand it, we get it, thanks for letting us know. Could you ship the, our regular litter, when it comes back in, and we did.
And I think the learning lesson was, I think companies can have challenges and oftentimes they don't want to be transparent or real with their customers, but realizing that their customers are just people like you and I are, and when somebody is open and upfront and honest with you, to me, that feels a lot better than, not being. And, so we, found that to be just, as you would expect to be treated, we treated our customers like that. And it turned out to be a great success for us.
James Lacey: It's very refreshing to hear and especially on the side of customers are also just people like, we are, so on either side, you still have people that, have emotions and that have logic and are, thinking.
And yeah, when you, almost communicate as people, whereas I feel like a lot of the time, especially in e-commerce, you can feel like there is, there's no connection. There is just, this blank wall that you sit behind. And from the consumer and from the business owner and, but then, yeah, when you personalize it and you actually have genuine communication that feels real and authentic.
It's amazing, and also, it seems like a common thread of what you've been doing. Shared is just innovation. I know that's not some wild, innovative idea necessarily, but, just being willing to say, okay, you know what, let's, try this. Let's just be as real and transparent, but also this is what we're going to offer.
And then we'll, basically supplement it when it comes back in, then we'll continue as per usual. There's multiple solutions that you could have offered during that time, and it could have gone any which way and yeah, throughout that kind of common thread of innovation seems. Seems pretty, prevalent.
Chad Kauffman: I think we live in a world where people try to hide bad news. Bad news is bad news. I would rather get bad news right out of the gate than to find bad news out way after the fact, and then realize that, somebody is trying to cover it up. And, you look at politics today, you look at the business world, everywhere you see, there's some type of bad news.
It's trying to get, covered up or, communicated in a way where it looks positive, but it's really bad. And it's like bad news is bad news. Just deliver the bad news in a transparent way and let them know what you're doing to work on solving the problem
James Lacey: That is, I was actually going to ask you about how you if you even during that time or different time receive negative feedback or interaction with consumers or, even, on the business end as well, maybe competitors or if there is any. Yeah, how you've how you go about handling negative feedback or interactions, because I think that's something that again, some business owners might need encouragement in, because they're having to learn how to be offended or how they respond.
Chad Kauffman: Yeah, it's like any, relationship or, in the world, right? Like you have people that like you, and you have people that don't like you. And, we have people that didn't like the product or, whatever reason and, and yeah, we get some nasty, customers. every month that, are terribly mean to our customer support team.
However, when I started the company, I really felt extremely strong that customer service was becoming an afterthought in today's business world. most people. get poor customer service more often than they get good customer service. And I read, a book about Zappos, customer service, which was legendary, at the time and probably still is, and how they literally went above and beyond, for all of their customers.
And I was so moved by how they treated their customers and how they became evangelists for the brand that I said, I want to do that same exact thing. And as I've built the company, we have five full-time customer support people, which is a pretty good amount of people for a business of our size.
And, they know the customer is always right. And even when the customer's nasty or mean for whatever reason, we're always responding with love and respect and we're doing what we can to meet the needs of that customer. If it's bad news, it's bad news. If your litter box is delayed by no fault of our own by, our shipping company and it's caught in, wherever California or Nevada and it's supposed to be in California, well that's bad news for the customer, but it's bad news. We're sorry, we feel really bad about that and, we do everything we can to work with our shipping company to get it expedited there. And, what we found is that good customer service doesn't always come down to, just giving a refund or a free product or whatever it is.
Yeah. Really where people feel like customer service breaks down is that they're not getting good communication. And so proactive communication actually solves a lot of challenges. With customers when they actually talk to a real human instead of a voice automated system or an AI system and somebody actually calls them and follows up with them when they said that's what they were going to do. And so those are some of the principles that we're pretty focused on and yeah, we will offer free product, we will comp their shipment, you know when things happen that we're out of our control or you know. Sometimes we screw up, we're humans and things get screwed up and You And so we always look to make it right with the customer, but we're always very proactive in our communication with customers. And we're also very focused on love and respect to our customer base. Without our customers, we don't have a company, customer support’s one of our main pillars.
James Lacey: That is a statement to be remembered, without our customers, we don't have a company. That is so true for every single company. I actually heard, you reminded me of one of Uber's stories where what kind of inspired the design. I think it was something out of, the myth is that it was out of something out of Goldfinger, I think the James Bond movie and, whereas you had the tracking of the Uber car that was going to come pick you up. And apparently the marketing incentive behind it was, if customers at least just know where the car is. It doesn't matter if it's going to take longer. You're not necessarily changing the waiting time.
They just know where it is. So they're not constantly questioning that. It was simply just a removing a block of communication. And so now there was this seeming full transparency, and so it causes the customer or the user to be able to rest and relax and know where their cars is and yeah
Chad Kauffman: That's a great analogy.
James Lacey: I thought it was, you just reminded me of that. I think it's brilliant. Any major roadblocks right now that you guys are experiencing as you scale? I imagine you mean, you start in 2018, right? Come into the end of 2024, I imagine it's, you continuing to grow. Is there anything like wanting to jump to the next level that you're looking at saying, how can we, innovate here?
Chad Kauffman: I'm actually looking at changing some of the, moving more to an omni channel and looking at, moving beyond just D2C direct-to-consumer, but moving into retail. And so we're exploring some of those opportunities, now we have a really good, loyal subscription base and we're continuing to grow our D2C business.
It's just, it's becoming a lot more expensive to acquire customers. As you probably know, and the easy days were 2017, 18, 19, even into 20, when, IOS updated their privacy, everybody in the commerce business saw, a spike in CACs and those CACs, still continue to exist today. And it's pretty hard to, I think it's actually harder today to start an e-commerce company than it was back when I did just because it costs a lot to get customers
James Lacey: From what I can hear already experiencing, a very high level of engagement, so why not go into where people are and let their eyes come across the product?
Last couple questions, if that's okay. I know no, we're running. sure. Has a 30 minute mark here, but. Just curious, leadership, can be known as, you touched on this being that you're still open to meet with people. And so this is a little bit different than I've heard before, which is, cool.
But leadership can be a lonely place at times. Is there anything that you would suggest to people that are experiencing that they're in similar roles, CEO, founder, et cetera? And they find themselves getting isolated.
Chad Kauffman: Yeah. Find, find a group or a network of people that are in similar positions to yourself.
And so I'm actually very involved in a, or a global organization called Vistage. And Vistage describes itself as a private advisory board for CEOs and executives. And, and so I have a group of 15 other men and women that are all founders or CEOs of larger companies. And we meet together, one full day a month.
And we discuss business challenges, going back to an earlier comment that I made is that, businesses really are pretty much the same. It's just a different product and service, so regardless of one guy in my business is producing steel and I'm producing cat litter boxes. We still have similar challenges when it comes to leadership, how to motivate employees, how to deal with insurance challenges, health insurance, escalating costs of, of that type of stuff to finance and accounting to marketing to whatever.
And so we're constantly issue processing what we're experiencing in our business. And we have a very methodical way of doing that. And so I have a group of 15 other men or women that I speak to, really on a weekly basis, we meet as a group once per month, but it keeps it very, it keeps it from getting lonely at the top. Because I have other people that I can are successful in their fields that I can bounce ideas and challenges and also have a high level of confidentiality.
And whether it's a YPO or a Vestige or an entrepreneur group in someone's community, find somebody else that is operating at your level and begin to build some trust along with some transparency, because it's hard to build trust without transparency. And you need to have somebody that you can, that you can, really sync up with
James Lacey: The value of being able to bounce off people as well. Sounds like it's not only protecting you from being isolated but also adding immense value to one another. It's a win-win there.
Chad Kauffman: Yeah, it is.
James Lacey: Has there been a significant mentor? Or role model. And I know you mentioned a mentor earlier on, was connected to your favorite quote, but anybody significant that you look up to that has really impacted your life, especially in your business journey?
Chad Kauffman: Yeah, I can think of a whole handful of people. One would be my dad. He was a corporate executive and, we've started a few businesses together, Kitty Poo Club being one of them. And, he's taught me a lot about business and life, and growing up and has had a huge, impact on my life.
I've had some other businessmen, entrepreneurs that have helped me, refine my craft. I was a born, I was, I like to pay. I was a born entrepreneur. I started my first business in fifth grade, sixth and sixth, seventh and eighth, ninth or fourth in high school, another one in college, and then just kept going from there.
So I've always liked the challenge of being able to do my own thing and, and look for opportunities. So I'd say, I started meeting with people when I was in fifth grade that helped me get my business going. My dad being one of them and executive friends of his. And so I've just been a lifelong learner.
I don't, I'm not the smartest guy in the room. I'm the first to admit it. And I never hoped to be, there's always somebody that's further ahead of you in life in some area. And so I'm just a constant learner and that's why I say, I look to meet with as many people as I can because I think no matter that person's expertise or lack of expertise, I think we can all learn something from someone.
James Lacey: I love that. Very last question. One of our favorites, given the name of the fulfilled podcast and of fulfillment.com, what does real, fulfillment mean to you?
Chad Kauffman: Oh, good question. I think it's real fulfillment means, delivering a product and service from the beginning, all the way through the end journey of the customer. And so that can be from, what is it like for the customer when they first come to your website and experience your company for the very first time to taking them on the journey of educating them on why they need your product or service to manufacturing that product or, delivering that service, through the delivery process and then the whole customer experience. And, being able to meet those needs and expectations of the customer. So I think it's an entire journey. It's not just simply shipping a product to a customer. I really think it goes all the way back to what does it look like when they come to your website for the very first time and experience what your company does.
James Lacey: I've never heard that before. I'm actually entailing the yeah, no, I haven't and I haven't thought about it like that, but it makes that makes total sense. Just the entire customer journey really is fulfilling. Yeah, I love it.
Chad, thank you so much for your time. I know we went over a little bit. I really appreciate you just sharing your wisdom and I know it's going to be extremely valuable to many people as it is myself.
Thank you for jumping on the Fulfilled Podcast. Is there anything else you would like to share? And also, where can people find out more about yourself and or Kitty Poo Club?
Chad Kauffman: Sure. You can look, me up on LinkedIn, it's just Chad Kaufman forward slash Chad Kaufman. And, you can check out our website at kittypooclub.com. If you have a cat, I think we have the best litter solution in the market today.
And, I would also add, I would probably just conclude by giving entrepreneurs and people listening, to this podcast, continue to build in your people. Some of the greatest advocates you have in your business or the people that work for you and, I've mentioned a couple times having the margin to spend with people.
A lot of that margin comes because, I have a high level of trust for the people, they work with me and, I have a good leadership team and they do an incredible job, running the business. And it allows me the freedom to be the innovator, the visionary, and spend time looking for what's next and so trust your people, empower them.
I've never been successful, and having a micromanager mentality. I think we should all be macro manager. And, if you can't macro managers, manage somebody, then I think you've probably hired the wrong person. And hopefully, you can hire people that are better than you and allow yourself to be freed up to go do the things that you're called to do.
James Lacey: That's, awesome. I want to cheekily add, ask one question with that. How would you define the difference between micro and macro managing someone? What would be some like key takeaways that someone could understand so they can go ahead and implement that?
Chad Kauffman: Yeah, so great question. I always think of macro a little bit like an airplane.
I think of macro being the 30,000 , 36,000 foot view. And I always try to at least with my team be clear on what we're doing. Why we're doing it and allow them to figure out how to do it. And the how is typically where micromanagers come in. And they start to try to manage what that person's doing down to the very details.
I'm not a detail-oriented person. I know that I'm not. I've always said that. I don't like getting into the details. I like focusing at that 36, 000-foot view, and I like working with people that can figure out how to get from A to B without me telling them how to do it. I don't want to get into the how I want to get into here's what we're doing, here's where we're going. You guys figure it out. And most of the time when I've tried to get into the details, to any great degree, not saying that not ever in the weeds, but most of the time I'm not. And, more often than not, I probably screw things up. And, create more inefficiencies than efficiencies.
And so I always encourage leaders, to hire the right people, that you can, trust. And if you can trust them, then you need to empower them. And, oftentimes I found that I get better results and allow me to focus on the things that I'm good at and allow them to focus on the things that they're good at.
James Lacey: That's awesome. Chad, thank you so much for sharing. Thank you for your time
Chad Kauffman: Hey, thanks James! Pleasure being on here. Nice meeting you.
James Lacey: And, yeah, that is it for today's Fulfilled podcast episode. We'll be back soon. Appreciate you listening.
Adam Pivko: In terms of what motivates us, it's definitely changing the lives and outcomes of people's health and ultimately helping people live longer.
James Lacey: Adam Pivko is on a mission to end the era of one size fits all supplements. As the co-founder of Autumn DNA, he's taken a personal health discovery and turned it into a breakthrough in personalized wellness.
He has worked alongside world class nutritionists. Geneticists and doctors to develop a cutting edge process based on nutrigenomics matching your unique genetic makeup with a personalized supplement routine, making way for supplements tailored to your exact needs. In this episode, Adam shares his vision for the future of supplements, how his journey began and cutting edge process is changing lives.
Join us for the full episode, as we dive into Autumn DNA's approach to health and wellness.
Adam Pivko: I think the way that I would explain it to anybody is there's way too much guessing in what vitamins to take in the world and You simply just don't have to do that anymore. So what we've done is we've made personalized vitamins that are easy, convenient and precise for you to take
James Lacey: That is, I mean, as somebody myself who I've countless times gone to the grocery store and looked through the hundreds, if not thousands of vitamins, and I'm like, what do I need? I don't know.
Adam Pivko: I would love to have like our. Like we do a DNA kit combined with a lifestyle quiz. So nature and nurture personalized elements.
I would love to have our DNA kits on the shelf at, in front of that vitamin rack being like, don't go buy any of this stuff until you know what you actually need. But I don't think those retailers want to give up all that revenue of people trial and erroring with their vitamins and supplements.
So it's a, yeah, it's a predicament.
James Lacey: Customers would love it. This is such a, one, it's such a large industry, but also such a specific industry in some ways to get into what kind of led you down this journey. How did you get into this?
Adam Pivko: Yeah. frankly, I just had health complications of my own and thankfully I was in a fortunate enough position where I could spend money to optimize my health, which I do recognize that a lot of people couldn't. so I, at the time I hired like this personal trainer, a nutritionist, a dietician, and it turns out my nutritionist gave me some really bad advice.
I ended up taking a multivitamin that had something that was essentially poisoning me like every day. It was really bad. And it was all under the belief that, even from a nutritionist, a doctor of nutrition or, whatever their credentials are, that supplements are just generally trial and error.
And I was just super frustrated by that. I'm like looking at the world around us. I'm like, there's no way you still have to guess. There's no way you should be trial and error with your health. Through that journey, I came across a science. It's known as Nutrigenomics, and it's basically how your genes interact with nutrition and nutrition with your genes. It's the back and forth of each.
And I was mind blown by this and it clearly identified why that multivitamin was so bad for me by just one simple report. However, the report that I got was like I don't know, like 400 plus pages and felt like I needed a medical degree to understand. And I ended up still going on Amazon and buying a whole bunch of stuff, not really knowing if it was the right magnesium variety to get or how much to get.
And it was really just still frustrated by the whole journey, but further along my path. So through that, I basically cracked the code to understand not only nutrigenomics, but lifestyle choices and be able to blend them for myself. And then I started doing it for some friends and family and my wife, my mother, other close friends and, started, everybody started seeing like remarkably better results, so I knew I was on the right path and it was really just a hobby to begin with.
I feel like your friends probably, began to. Like you more and more at that point, just as bringing a solution like that. It's funny, I had this one friend, he was a 32-year-old electrician for the, transit board where I live and not the most eloquent dude, but a long-time friend. And he was like 32 and he was still taking like Flintstones, chewable vitamins, multivitamins. And I was like, dude, I'm like, I'm not even sure.
Like I would give those to my kid. It tastes good. So not the point. but, I was like, dude, just. Give this a try. and he's I'd love to give it a try. I'd love to see what you're working on. I'd love to try it for myself. I know there's probably something better out there for me.
So anyways, I didn't really follow up with him. He gave it a try. And then out of the blue, I got this text message from him. And like I said, he's not the most eloquent guy. So to get this text message from him, like really hit me in my heartstrings, if you will. And it said, I remember it was like, I realized now I never knew what healthy really even felt like.
Yeah. I was like, Whoa, I'm like, Whoa, I need to go help more people. so yeah, the rest is kind of history. But in relation to that, the first ever cease and desist that we got, was for the first ever ad campaign we ran, which was still taking Flintstones vitamins, step out of the stone age with Autumn DNA which I think is an awesome tagline, but that cease and desist is framed at home on my wall. so that's how I knew we were on the right path is Not only both those things, the text message from that buddy, even three days after that ad campaign started getting a cease and desist.
It's like somebody's, I'm getting on somebody's radar. Somebody's not happy I'm here and that's how you, that's how I think you know, you're on the right track.
James Lacey: Yeah. I've sadly heard that story a few too many times. and I'm just glad you keep persisting because some people, they take that as the sign to be like, Oh, no, I mean that you touched on this actually, but I'm curious what the connection between your health challenges and then also beginning to see the feedback of those around you is that initially what inspired you to step into this?
Is there anything that inspires and motivates you like still today?
Adam Pivko: Well, like what inspires and motivates like, I don't know. Inspiring for me is, I didn't feel that health and wellness is a health and wellness businesses around me were operating with the highest level of integrity that they could.
So what inspires me is something that we really stand behind it. We refuse to sell people vitamins and supplements that they don't actually need. You want to come and spend more money with me, you can, but only on what's available and recommended for you. I don't care. we're just going to say no.
It's not about money. we have a simple belief that like when we get it right for somebody, they're going to remain for a very long time with us. Because it's just the right thing to do with a high level of integrity to treat your customers right as opposed to sell them as much as you can of whatever they're willing to buy.
So it was a combination of that, integrity missing element in the health and wellness space that I think really inspired us to keep pushing. But in terms of what motivates us, it's definitely, changing the lives and outcomes of people's health and ultimately, helping people live longer.
James Lacey: That's a pretty good motivator and hey, technically, the more you succeed, the longer the lifetime value of the customer, because they'll keep living long.
Adam Pivko: It's funny, somebody else brought that up to me, or it's like the anti-dating app, like dating app is like they want. They kill their own lifetime value by being good at it, as opposed to, for us, if we're good at it, we really enhance lifetime value for customers.
Yeah, it's funny.
James Lacey: That's great. okay. Yeah. there's a lot of kind of hitting on treasure in a way, as you began to dive into research yourself, which I think is incredible. I heard somebody say, I think it was Robert. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think it was Robert F. Kennedy recently that I heard say like everybody should be studying their own nutrition or health or what they're taking now because you can trust information less and less and so this,
Adam Pivko: I don't think it's, I don't think it's just trust information less and less, but I do think you're onto something. My dad is coming up on his 25-year anniversary for having a heart transplant which is a feat in and amongst itself and shout out to Big Pharma and shout out to doctors everywhere.
Like I don't have a hate for them, especially when, they're great, not like they're great at solving problems, but when it comes to preventing them, like that's a whole different story. And one thing that really hit home for me is like when my dad was in recovery after a heart transplant and I was visiting him in the hospital, they came in.
For his meal, they brought him his meal and it was a white bread sandwich with ham and cheese and a side jello. And I remember being like, I think I was like 13 or 14 years old. And I was like, there's no way that's the best meal you could be eating right now for recovery.
James Lacey: And you knew that at that age. Wow.
Adam Pivko: Yeah. there's just, there's no way. Like, how are they not giving you like chicken noodle soup or like any other thing that I could think of at the time? I don't know. It's just like the fact of how big of a piece nutrition makes and overall longevity and how under focus it is in hospitals or with general, doctor and physicians is remarkable to me.
I can't believe it still exists like that today.
James Lacey: Wow. Is there? I'm curious. This is really more of a personal interest question. Is there, an age from when you have, is there a minimum age that a customer could be for you guys? Because I'm just thinking of the early year start in some ways, how incredible that would be from a young age, knowing that what you should be taking from maybe once you hit 16 years old or whatever it might be.
Adam Pivko: Yeah. listen, if a parent's going to pay for it, then sure. I, I'm not sure how much real science and clinical data there is on children with regards to multivitamins and nutrition. And fact, the fact of the matter is we base everything, all of our algorithms, all of our technology, it's all proprietary and it's all based on clinical studies and peer review data.
So if there's not enough data about something, we're just not going to lean into it and make it as a recommendation. Now, with that being said, I do agree with you, the younger you get started, the more Probably the better outcomes you're going to have, however, it's hard to get somebody who's under the age of 30 to be thinking about their longevity.
Of course. Yeah. you just get to this crossing point where you're like, oh, damn, you wake up, you start to wake up with, you have knee pain in the morning, whatever your ailment is, prior to 30 years old, I generally just believe that the average person thinks that they're like invincible or, don't need to make that type of investment or they have other things that they want to be investing their money in that are more important to them.
But yeah, to answer your question, I do think you could absolutely start younger. And I, we don't technically have a minimum age. We do recommend 18 years old, to be doing this yourself, and accessing this data and making well education, educated decisions about your own data, which I think is important.
Yeah, but yeah, that's what you're saying.
James Lacey: Definitely. No, that makes a ton of sense. this is a pretty, for me as a simple person, this is a, seems like an incredibly complicated. Thing to step into. And so is there any along the journey? Is there any mistakes? Is there anything that you look back and that you would say to somebody that's stepping into maybe a complicated industry or solution that they're looking to create that you say, Hey, maybe this is what I learned.
Or is anything and maybe it's very just Tailored to what you're doing, but somebody might get value from it.
Adam Pivko: Mistakes, man, endless and endless amount. that's what I've learned. That's what I've learned about entrepreneurship in general is that at any given moment, there's a million things you could be doing to improve your business. Any given second and constantly your email inbox is filled with a whole bunch of more shiny new objects and You know your buddies are talking about something else that they're doing and you know Everybody's at different levels of success and like it's really hard to judge what's right to do at what time?
Oh all entrepreneurship really is and all I think is Even working in the working world, what it is it's just guessing more often correctly than you don't like, whether it's entrepreneurship or not, like even think about your boss right now, like nobody has all the answers. Everybody around you all the time is guessing entrepreneurship just has a slightly higher level of risk associated to that guess, it's really being able to prioritize.
Understand that when you're an entrepreneur, everything takes longer and costs more than what you think it's going to do. and I think what every brand and every business should strive to do better is. Understand their customers, there's a marketing cliche that's like the brands that can afford to pay the most to acquire a customer when and although that may be true to a certain extent, I think the brands that understand their customers the best don't need to pay the most and can still win, which I think is just a better equation for operating a business.
So those two things are what really comes to mind for me in terms of like, where have I had the most faults? Where have I gone the most wrong? but yeah, those are definitely some hard learnings that I've had on my journey.
James Lacey: That makes sense. We had somebody on the other day. and they shared about a similar from the customer perspective and the value that you can provide.
They had somebody that was ripping off their product. and, or many people that were trying to, and yeah. They experienced the fact that those brands would come and go pretty quickly, even if they did grab a few customers along the way, because they had just such a low price point, but the brand, the trust of the brand, because of the value they provided because they care and because et cetera, et cetera.
It's it just was, it's unbeatable at that point. Just, like you're saying, I think, people and more and more in the, age we're in this, though there can be a lot of facade online, it becomes to the point. You can't really hide as much anymore because people will talk if it's bad.
And so it's like, you said, he's just there is this level of trust and customer value provided that is unbeatable.
Adam Pivko: Along the lines of what you said, where it also gets extra frustrating is if you're that, if you're that original brand and, you've spent all that money and time and effort, like educating the audience, like educating an audience is so expensive.
And to just have that be all eaten up by competition, even if they are just cherry picking clients here and there, every single one of those, goes into the equation of, denominator of how much you're dividing your spend by and it adds up. I get it and I understand the frustrations.
Thankfully for us, we have an absolute massive moat around our business. It's really hard to replicate and build what we did. It took a lot of time to a lot of expertise. It took a crazy amount of doctors trying to imagine trying to get A nutritionist, a dietician, a geneticist, and a pharmacist and a functional wellness practitioner, like to agree on one thing, like it was crazy.
James Lacey: That sounds like a riddle.
Adam Pivko: Yeah, it's like getting 10 lawyers in a room and trying to get them to agree. it's the same thing. It's all based on just science. And, to, replicate what we've done would be very, difficult. we got, we were very fortunate with the team we built and everything.
James Lacey: Has there been any, criticism or, negative feedback along the way from, from either people like that in the medical field or customers, or I'm curious if there's been a negative response to this.
Adam Pivko: Definitely never, definitely negative responses without a doubt. And I, I don't have thick skin in that sense.
I still take negative responses quite personally and perhaps that's a fault. Perhaps it's just because I'm passionate and love what I'm working on. but I. I'm proud to say that we don't get negative feedback from doctors or experts, or, basically anybody in that realm whatsoever. In fact, everything is just this is so much better than anything that somebody could be doing themselves.
This is so much, better leaps and bounds above, and how we made it easy and precise and whatever else, but, the negative feedback that we do get, I think comes from a place of, Lack of understanding or misconceptions. And for me, that's very frustrating because, although we attach ourselves to the idea and concept of DNA, which to some people, the second I say that their brain's already off in another direction, talking about Oh my God, they're just selling my data. It's going to the police, it's going to insurance. They're going to make clones of me. whatever your misconception is, we have the answer to that.
Our answer is we're not a data company, like we're a health and wellness business that just refuses to cut corners. We're only looking at a very small subset of somebody's genetic information.
We care how your genes absorb, digest, store, metabolize, utilize different nutrients. There's not enough information that we're collecting that's even worth selling. We don't attach it to an individual person. It's all anonymized by the end of it. All of it. every single thing you want, you, want your data deleted?
Gone. I don't want to store unnecessary data. that's, we're so not a data company that like, I don't even, I don't even want your data. We need it to do our job well, but I'd rather not have it.
James Lacey: That's amazing.
Adam Pivko: So yeah, whatever misconceptions there are around DNA, Those are probably the most frustrating to me because realistically, if you think about our business, it is our unique selling proposition, that's what makes us different. We're looking at your blueprint of what makes you, and you're going to push back and saying, you don't want me to look at what makes you, So don't personalize. What are you going to do? what's your alternative? Keep guessing. Go guess, like it's frustrating in that sense.
James Lacey: Which is, I guess an important lesson. That, probably the majority of entrepreneurs have to learn along the way. you start out with especially and I can hear the passion in your voice. And that is, I think, actually what you want people. Behind companies that are passionate about the mission, they're not there and then they have to learn how to, function a business that looks at a balance sheet or whatever it is, because it has to be able to grow, et cetera.
And so looking at the challenges of, the cost to acquire a customer, educate a customer, et cetera, are real things that you have to then have, a business had on. But at the same time, and like you said, sharing the challenges and frustration of. Feedback that is understandable, but misplaced, whereas you're just like, we're just trying to help and so I, love hearing that. And so I think that's great. Yeah, that's just an awesome answer.
Adam Pivko: Yeah, like I said, it's got its pros and cons. Another one was just like the term science. we came out of the gate with the term science and got like crazy pushback over Look at what science has done to us, like everything. So instead, we're like, you know what, let's just not pick this battle. We swapped out the term science for the term technology. And it's the same thing. Our cutting edge technology. And nobody, who's going to fight with you on a Facebook ad when they're using a mobile device to access, Facebook, about technology, like nobody, nobody's going to pick that battle.
So it's just cut it off at the knees. We don't need to pick that fight. We don't care. ultimately we just don't care. We just want to help.
James Lacey: I love that. That's, yeah. Interesting. So stepping into the journey of building it. A company and helping people get healthy, especially being in leadership, being at the top of the ladder in some aspects, it can be somewhat isolating.
I think sometimes, obviously, you not many people are going to carry negative feedback like you do all of the above and then be thinking about everything day and night. Does it get lonely? Is there any kind of like hacks that you found of how to? Yeah, how to stay, healthy in, in, in your mind as well in that place of leadership.
Adam Pivko: Yeah. I'm a big fan of adding a lot of value and putting some good karma out there. and throughout my years of, in the e commerce and performance marketing world and health and wellness world, like I try to share as much of that as I can on, whether it be new startups or established businesses.
And I think, yeah. Could be doing something better or need help with something. So I'm in a lot of online communities and I really do believe in the more you put in, the more you get out kind of those places. If you're just joining them and you're reading them and you're never commenting and you're never engaging, yeah, you're still going to be alone on your couch, crying yourself to sleep at night as opposed to going to meetups, getting out there, going to conferences and generally just being helpful to other people along or, near your journey.
I feel like you'll have more opportunities to learn and grow together and that's always how I try to think of things like I don't pull some veil over my business. I really try to open it up and let people understand and offer value where they can and, and I try to do the same for others as well.
James Lacey: I love that. Yeah. I think I heard somebody say recently as well, That ability to give you can never exhaust it and it never ceases to give you joy.
and so I think, and like you said, it's there seems to be this unwritten rule that you, the more you give, the more you end up receiving. it's, it's like, you can't out give. Yeah, what you receive it's interesting.
Adam Pivko: I also think it's like a good way to just understand who you're real, not like friends, but real contacts and connections are if you, come from a place of giving and you give them something up front, if they don't come back and say, Hey, how can I help you?
Then, what are they? It's just one of those things. It's like a quick gut check for me, even if there's nothing that they can't help me with at this time, just to offer back, tells a lot about who your character is.
James Lacey: That's really interesting, especially as you're growing, especially as you're building something and you yeah, if there's not like a reciprocal relationship, I know we're closing out on time and I don't want to honor your time as well here but is there. Okay, good. We can go for another three hours. No, is there anything that you would want to pass on that you're learning at the moment? Any literally, even whether it's in business, whether it's personal, whatever it might be that kind of like thing that would come to the top of your mind and saying, I'm learning this at the moment that is providing a lot of value.
yeah,
Adam Pivko: Without a doubt. I got one. one that I'm hyper-focused on right now. For the longest time, I was trying to learn about our customers in a wide variety of ways, just so I could relate better, speak better, hit, hit on what's really ultimately important to them. but I've come to realize that it's really important to segment your customers and focus on where you want to be learning from, as opposed to learning from all your customers.
So I've been doing a really concerted effort of understanding and thinking about and working with and engaging some of our top longest standing customers that we've had for we have, a couple of customers, more than a handful of customers that have been with us for like multiple years to understand from them, what's driving them every day, what really drive, All of those different factors, I think is really, meaningful insight. And then comparing that to what we generally have thought about and assumed across our whole customer base and seeing where those differences are.
That's been a really enlightening and awesome learning experience for us. I would encourage anybody to try to make the same effort, especially founders to try to make that same effort and understand your best customers.
James Lacey: That's brilliant. It's almost like the, it's almost like hearing about a never-ending pursuit of product market fit in a way it's like you're so you're refining that so much and not, that's a very technical term to say, you're really just taking the time to understand people who, want to be helped in that you are having a successful relationship with. And yeah, I love that is anything, anything that's next for Autumn DNA, anything coming out of the works right now or, that you'd want to share about?
Adam Pivko: Yeah, we have some partnerships. We have some fundraising endeavors that are ongoing that are really exciting. but yeah, some partnerships that I don't want to disclose yet because I don't know, they could be really game changing.
I don't want to, I don't want to get too hyped up on them, but, with a business like this, because we have such a moat. We get approached with a lot of opportunities, whether it's expanded internationally or be white labeled or, partner with other people. There's a lot of opportunity with this business, even though the door on retail is relatively shut as we discussed earlier.
Yeah, all that's. We have a lot in play already, and some of them have really moved the needle for us. We love our business to business approach of, offering this as an employee benefit, is one solution that we're really excited about. And there's a couple of big players in that space that want to help us.
So yeah, partnership is generally what I'm most excited for in the coming. That's a few months.
James Lacey: That's a great idea, employee benefits. That's a great idea. I think
Adam Pivko: Yeah, we've already tested. It's already live. we already have beta clients on it. yeah, it's been nice. It's been a fun journey.
And if you think about it, it's. what, what's most important from an employee wellness benefit package is like you want presenteeism, which is more productive employees. You want reduced absenteeism, which is less sick employees. And ultimately you want something that retains employees quite well, like something that's different.
So yeah, if you're giving your employees personalized vitamins, chances are you might get somebody to stay a little longer.
James Lacey: Very true. Yeah. Oh man, this is, this has been extremely insightful for me. Just learning from you, selfishly, honestly, this is, Being really valuable just hearing some of the things you touched on, the challenges, the motivations, the inspiration.
Honestly, a lot of it has been really valuable for me. if I'm just here as somebody that's having a conversation, I think it's also going to be the same for some people that hear this. I wanted to close out with, one of our favorite questions asked being that this is the Fulfilled podcast.
Is there anything you would say about what real fulfillment is or what fulfillment is to you, maybe it's something you've learned along the journey. but yeah, what does fulfillment mean to you?
Adam Pivko: Fulfillment is delivering upon expectations that marketing and sales and the customer journey has promised, put forth, made the customer expect.
So fulfillment is bringing something that was digital, in our case, something that was digital to a physical reality in a customer's hands. if you can add some additional transparency, like tracking numbers and when to expect your expect, those expectations that you're giving a customer to be hyper-accurate, you're going to get less complaints.
It's going to be more realistic and customers are going to get it when they get it, when they expect it, and they're going to be happy. So that's what real fulfillment is. something along the lines of just delivering on the promises that you're making for marketing and sales.
James Lacey: I love that just basically being a man of your word. That's awesome. That's huge. It's not as easy to come by, it seems
Adam Pivko: I'm really curious what other people answer that question.
James Lacey: There's a handful. Honestly, it's so, varied, but a lot of it does fall in the category of, from a faith perspective, fulfillment might be somebody's spiritual journey, with, God, but then from, it could also span to like farthest other side of like fulfillment for some people is also like really just seeing what they put out providing value to others and that's it.
It's not actually that disconnected from the original but I think the majority of what I've heard before it's always focused on giving, which is really interesting. Like you, you touched on earlier, like giving, you just always end up receiving, but there's
Adam Pivko: That's funny. I said that too.
James Lacey: Yeah, exactly.
Adam Pivko: Like giving the customer or, giving somebody the expectation that you've promised. Yeah.
yeah, That's great. That's great. You're talking to the right people. You're talking to the right people. James.
James Lacey: Yeah, we want to speak to more of them. It's just I feel privileged to be able to just learn from inspiring people like yourself.
Honestly, it's something I'm very thankful for. Yeah. Adam, is there anything else that you'd like to add before I let you go and also want to make sure that people know where to find out either more about yourself, connect with you or, or maybe more importantly, connect with Autumn DNA.
Adam Pivko: Yeah, just try autumn.com. You can check us out there. we, definitely socials, whatever your preferred channel is probably producing some type of content there. But yeah, if you want to reach out to me, you're, welcome to, you can find me basically on any social platform or email me directly at adam@tryautumn.com
James Lacey: That's awesome. Thanks for having me. Thank you. Thank you for coming on. I really appreciate your time. This has been so great and I'm sure we'll catch you soon.
Adam Pivko: Sounds good.
Joseph Watson: I tell my product development department, we're not creating products. We're creating solutions.
James Lacey: In 2010, Joseph and Jen Watson adopted Daisy, a dog rescued from a dumpster to ease her separation anxiety. They came up with an innovative backpack that allowed her to stay closed while they were on the move.
This simple yet powerful idea led to the creation of the first K9 Sport Sack with thousands of bags sold each month and a portion of every purchase supporting animal rescues. Joseph's journey is all about lifting pets and making a difference. This is a story of compassion, creativity, and success.
Joseph Watson: Just keep on striving to do better and learn more. Eventually you will end up with a solution that is viable enough that helps enough people.
James Lacey: Stay tuned as we welcome the man behind K9 Sport Sack
Joseph Watson: My name is Joseph Watson and I am one of, three co-founders of K9 Sport Sack, the other one would be my, wife. She's not here today, but she's been involved in just about everything else. And then this is Daisy. We consider her kind of a co-founder. And, in about 2010, we found Daisy in a dumpster, and that's a whole the where the whole story started. We were going to school full-time. We had each of us had a full-time job, and then we had a part-time job that we worked together cleaning offices at night.
So we were in a terrible position to have a dog, like it was the worst possible time of life to have a dog. But, at the same time, we had gotten into a cycling hobby. We had borrowed a couple of bikes from my older brother. And, every day we'd come home from school or work, and we would put on our cycling gear and go for a 25 mile ride.
And we were training for a bike ride called the Lodezha. It is, It's a 208 mile bike ride that goes from Logan, Utah to Jackson Hole, Wyoming. And, every day we would hop on our bikes and Daisy would just, look through the window at us with these will be low windows in her living room.
And she'd stare out the window and the guilt just gnawed at us. And we did what, any normal person would do. And we're like, she can run alongside. and she made it, about a mile. and then after the mile, she, laid down on the weeds, with a look on her face, it was like, I'll just die right here.
You don't need to take me any further. I just come pick me up on your way back, back by. So I picked her up and I was holding her under my arm. And of course I'm, right handed and. The front brake on a bike is the left hand. And so I almost went over my handlebars about eight or 10 times. So it was a harrowing experience, but, then, we, started looking around, at different stores and online to see what kind of carriers we could find and we were actually blown away about how slim the, the options were.
We found a front carrier and we put her in the front carrier. And of course, for specifically for cycling and. These other carriers, I'm sure they have other value that maybe the K9 Sport Sack doesn't provide, but for us, they just didn't do it quite right. the front carrier bounced.
And it jostled Daisy around, which was absolutely hilarious, but, a scary deal. and then, we tried a sling, which threw my balance off. We tried a rear facing carrier, which, I guess made her motion sick. Who knew that dogs could get motion sick? And, and then we, we even put her in an enclosed carrier, like it's really nice, beefy, enclosed carrier.
And she just threw her weight from side to side, absolutely hated it. So all of these. We didn't know at the time was that we were creating kind of a list of things that we needed, like criteria that we needed for our own, like we needed it to be a backpack carrier. We needed it to be forward facing. And, it's an overlooked part of the story that, we didn't just find a dog.
We found the dog, this dog. when we drive down the road, she wants to stick her head out the window. She wants to look out the windshield. She wants to be a co pilot. She doesn't want to be luggage. And so we built this Carrier around her. It started when we got home from below the jaw and we had these little drawstring.
They give us a little drawstring swag bag with some literature in it. And the kind of bag you put your shoes in to go to the gym. And I laid it on the floor and I turned around to do something turned back around and Daisy was laying on top of that bag with her tail just wagging like crazy.
And, she was making it very clear that she thought that we had brought home another carrier for her to try on. And so I looked down and I'm like, that would be a terrible idea. And then I'm like, why not? So I stuffed her into it. And I've got pictures of that day where, I've got Daisy on my back in this, drawstring carrier.
And I actually went for about a 10 mile bike ride. and I came in and I took off my cycling jersey and had these purple marks down my, collarbones. And my wife's Oh, gross. And then she went and took a, like an old school backpack. We had laying around and cut the straps off of it. And. cut the cinch strap off of the, the, little, drawstring bag and, that worked better, but there were, the balance was off.
And so we added the arm holes and the collar enclosure, and then it was hard to get her in. So we put the zipper on the back and, it evolved into, around this, 1 dog and, we didn't really. We weren't really intending to start a business with it. We, I was going to school to be a history teacher.
Jen was doing dental hygiene. it was just we had our life path set and, and then people started stopping us along the side of the road and saying, hey, that's exactly the carrier I've been looking for. It became very clear that we had found something, that had brought us a lot of joy.
And by keeping it to ourselves, We started to feel selfish. I guess if that doesn't sound too trite, but that's, the truth of it. We started to feel like, if we kept it to ourselves much longer, we just weren't. We're going to deprive the world of something really, fun and fulfilling.
And so we borrowed some money from my father in law and we went and did a little show in Las Vegas, which is where I was going to graduate school at the time. And, we signed up late, we were over by the porta potties, where they, stick you when you signed up late. And, I wish I had, I wish I had kept this lady's information, but this one lady came over and she had a dog that was exactly Daisy size because we.
I guess it hadn't crossed our minds that, dogs come in different shapes and sizes. because, so we only have one, maybe two sizes. And, and this lady came wandering over. She's Oh, what's this? And we told her what it was. We put her dog in a K9 Sport Sack and she bought the very first K9 Sport Sack ever.
She turned around and she walked back over to where the crowds were. And, we thought, that was pretty cool. We sold one. the, reality is, your friends can tell you, you've got a great idea. You've got a great product. You've got, they, you can get all kinds of, reinforcement from people, but the reality is until a perfect stranger pulls out their wallet and pays you their hard-earned money for it.
You just don't know. So that was validation. wow, this is something else. And then she walked over into the crowd and we watched her. she walked through the crowd and people's heads started to turn and we watched her stop, turn around and point at our booth and the flood just came. We were just slammed.
And so we, the show went from 8 to 4 and by noon, we had sold out of every bag and we're like, okay, we're on to something here. This is, we've we have come up with something. That the world really wants and, over the next 5 years or so, we picked at it and, tried to, to figure out what we were doing, learned a lot of lessons the hard way and, but from that point on, it just expanded and, our customers told each other about it and, here we are in 2024. And, we have a 20, 000, 27, 000 square foot warehouse in Lehigh, Utah. we're sending, thousands of bags out every month. We're working on the next wave of stuff and it just, it's been a wild ride for sure.
James Lacey: Wow. This is, one of the coolest stories I've heard. it's not often that you hear of two people fairly set already, especially these days, fairly set already on a career path. That is disconnected from, starting a business entrepreneurship in many ways. Not so disconnected, but, but it just wasn't, yeah, in your view line by the sounds of it. And so I think hearing you share about something that is interesting Built out of passion is and out of genuine, like you said, you felt selfish almost if you didn't continue. I think that's so beautiful.
And I'm curious, what is the step or the steps from realizing that you should continue to be passionate about what you're doing? Maybe actually turn this into a product and a business, from just a drawstring that Daisy seemed to want to have a look at. what is the steps going from? I know you mentioned that you go to the trade show, you test it out and you realize, but for me, it sounds and I'm just thinking of the listeners out there.
You have an idea, but now you're actually building prototypes is did you have any understanding how to do that? How do you go from this concept? Zero? You're making things to actually now, let's say, 10 years ago, and you actually start, you open your online store or whatever that what does that process look like?
Joseph Watson: It's a painstaking process. And of course, if I knew then what I know now, it would have been a lot smoother. But, yeah. the first, prototype just evolved organically. and that is really the reason why we're still here today. I, tell my, product development department, we're not creating products, we're creating solutions and the more, the, bigger a problem, your invention or your discovery or whatever, what the bigger a problem it solves, the more marketability it's going to have, the more people are going to want it.
And we just happened to stumble into, a, solution and it dawned on us very, slowly. the first prototype came organically. and then we, had hundreds of people, if not thousands of people stop us along the side of the road. And from there, the question became, okay, now what? now what do we do? How do we, get it from this weird-looking prehistoric, prototype into something that, that is, attractive and sellable and stuff. So we actually, Jen, to her credit, she, she went down to, she went down to Joanne fabrics and she bought a couple of different types of fabric.
And she, she drew up a pattern. she knows how to sew. I can, sew something back together, but I can't create a prototype, not like she does, but she created a, clean, pretty prototype. and she ended up, making a design out of it. It was, a standardized. We didn't use like whatever professional materials they use. We just did it with notebook paper and either back of napkins type of things. But we had we she created 3 prototypes in different sizes. And then we hop onto Google and we started looking around, obviously, if you manufacture overseas, you have to end manufacture in quantities of thousands.
And even if you're paying 10 back, that's 10 or 12 or 15, 000. And of course. a couple of poor college students are not going to have, so we found a U. S. based manufacturer in, in Spokane, Washington. I think they called something like the last U. S. bag company. I think they're still around.
But we sent them one of our prototypes, and We found three companies that were in that vein, they would make us 100 bags or so. but these people sent back a, what their interpretation of our prototype was a sample, like a professional sample. And it looked really good.
It looked nothing like the K9 Sport Sack looks today, but it looked really good. and so we said, how much is it going to cost us to make, 50 of these. And then, of course you have, to figure out how to pay for it. and I went to my father in law and I said, we need to do a show.
We're going to, make about, 50 bags there, about 20 a piece, which is, relatively expensive. And, and he cut us a check for, I think 3, 000. And as he was handing, us the check, he said, no, I would be remiss in my responsibility. In my, as a father in law, if I didn't say out loud that I do not believe that there are enough people in this world that will want to carry a dog on their backs to make this a viable business, but if there's anybody who can figure it out, it's gin and he hands me the check.
I'm like, thanks for the vote of confidence, man. but we, we had to borrow the money from, we paid for the bags and we got the booth and everything. and then of course you. You get the validation, the market research, the, you realize, okay, we're onto something. and from there, the business came about, we set up a customer service department, we set up a website and of course the website flopped badly, because we had no idea how to market it.
But, we would go to these shows and we would sell out and then We would have kind of a halo effect for a couple of weeks after a show where people would take their K9 Sport Sack home and right around the neighborhood and tell the neighbors where they got it. And then sales would die out.
And we had no idea why this is working, when we're standing there in front of people. But as soon as we go home, there's no movement at all. and, every time we would have an influx of, revenue, we would also have an influx of customer feedback. this is the way it didn't fit my dog.
This is why we're returning it. And this is, it was too hot. It was too flimsy. It was too small. It was too thin. It was too. And of course you start to take that feedback over time and that becomes version two. You start going, okay, let's, make it more adjustable, make it wider, make it.
And so as the product was evolving and improving and stuff like that, we were learning how to do a little bit of marketing. We were learning how to run a website. We were learning, how important customer services, we were learning how important our customers were, our customers are our, they are our, commodity.
They, are, everything to us. and then, you just learn it over time. You make a mistake and patch the patch up your wounds and move on to the next thing. And, and then eventually, as if you just keep on striving to do better, if you refuse to be okay with what you have today, and you just keep, you do end up at a point where.
We're actually releasing a bunch of products here pretty quick that are pretty cutting edge. I'm not even sure where we're going to be able to go from there. our customers will tell us, but, we're starting to our solutions are starting to become really, wider and broader and We're You know, the customers are becoming happier and happier with our product.
We're getting less and less feedback. And while that's great on the one hand, on the other hand, it's worrisome. Like, how are we going to make this better? Yeah. and so as long as you just keep on striving to do better and learn more, eventually you will end up with a solution that is viable enough that, that helps enough people.
James Lacey: That, that was packed full of golden nuggets by the sounds of it, really why you actually turned it from just a personal solution out of necessity or desire into something that serves thousands of customers today and A lot of people, I think, especially now, with the ease of access to finding a product, starting a business or whatever that might be, people are going the other way around.
What would you say to understanding the wants or desire of consumers and that you actually have a solution? Versus just trying to find a product and then forcibly marketing it. Is there, anything you speak to people that are in the kind of middle of that decision right now?
Joseph Watson: Absolutely. People, they, know what you're all about and they, as, a As much as you'd like to think that a customer purchase or a conversion or whatever you want to call it, is a logical decision. Even if it's innate, there's still, an emotional component. They are still emotionally attached to your company. And, the one of the steps that I skipped in the early, the early days is, Jen and I, we had to become dog people. And so we had to understand our audience.
That was the first and foremost, we had to become a mirror to our audience. and then, we had to, realize that, if we focus on the customer's needs first, the money will take care of itself. we, the, we, first, probably five or six years, we thought, Hey, this could be a pretty viable side hustle, that's what we thought it would be.
Fortunately, we focused on our customers needs, we focused on the customer first and when they needed something better, we did something better, which has created a lot of customer loyalty. It's created a lot of, our customers are our best marketing tool because, they, it's when you say proof of concept, there's no better proof of concept than your neighbor.
Actually using the product and then riding by on their bicycle and saying, Hey, this is a cool thing. You have a little dog. How about you go ahead and grab one. And the best, we can market all day long. We can do Google ads. We can do SEO. We can do. But the reality is if we just have happy customers, we darn near can, can let our marketing take care of itself.
Now, there's no such thing as a product that sells itself. if there was something, this would probably be it's a visual product. And like I said, in the early days, we couldn't, we can give it away online, until we, we did get it in front of enough people. We did have to do the marketing. But. people can feel our mission.
They can feel our motivations and our motivations are not to, get rich off of this, our motivations are to sincerely share the joy that we found. what kind of horrible people would find something that, is that, that fulfills them so much and then keep it to themselves when the world could benefit so much from it.
And that's, a, a theme, a tenet that we've tried to imbue the company with everything that we do from product development all the way to fulfillment to customer service. it's, to, to prove to the customer that our motivation is to give them an experience that brings them joy.
And we've never had to worry about the revenue ever. So that's, my bit of advice, focus on the customer first. Now we have had, several times and I, I've tried to shy away from this, but, we, Within about a year and a half or two years after getting, getting into this full time and really, building K9 Sport Sack second earnest.
We have people knocking us off all over the world. and we got worried. We were really worried. We're like, Oh my goodness. we, The pricing, we can't compete with their pricing because some of them are, manufacturers that are doing it themselves. And they, knew that K9 Sport Sack had built theirs out of, community, love and fulfillment.
and we watch these knockoffs come and go all the time. you can tell that they are just trying to capitalize on what they view as an open market. It's a, we stumbled onto a dormant. Yeah. Market, that's nobody come up with the, the best solution yet. We did. And of course we've led a Renaissance of, pet carrying in a lot of different ways.
And there are a lot of different pet carriers that have, followed us that don't look anything like K9 Sport Sack, but the ones that do, they come and go all the time. because customers realize that, there's value in. Having getting a product from a company that actually really does care about their experience, not just their money
James Lacey: that's huge that quote or a quote that I'm thinking of from what you're saying is caring about the customer will always win or actually caring.
We'll, just always win. It'll, beat out any, like you said, any copycats or anything else, just because you're so motivated by serving the people that are coming to you. And I think, with an origin story like yours, it's hard to compete with that because it's so rooted in love and passion.
And it's funny, I was actually going to ask you the question of. What, inspires you or motivates you during challenging times. but really, I feel like you answered that in, in that it is sharing the joy that you've experienced. And that keeps, I'm, guessing if, I'm right in saying that, that's what keeps you going during challenging, times.
Absolutely.
Joseph Watson: Look, I, I'm human. I love my job and I love my company, but I get burned out. I, get tired. I have a to do list that never ends and it does start to weigh heavily on a guy like me who likes to finish a project. But, when I start to get burned out or when I.
I have to, confront an employee that just doesn't isn't buying into our culture or anything like that. I focus on, I'll give you an example of 1 specifically that I focus on. we have been doing this for about 2 and a half years. and we had, I don't think it was even like a full time job for me and Jen yet.
It was still, we were still at our other jobs and it's still a side hustle, but, We had a lady, write us an email and she said, my dog died last night. And we're like, Oh my gosh, did we kill your dog? And she said, I bought a K9 Sport Sack. I pulled it out of the box brand new. I put my dog in it and we went on one last hike.
We took one last hike and I brought my dog home. And she died quietly in her sleep. And I want to thank you for giving us the opportunity to do that one last hike. And when I talk about, I start to choke up. But, if I ever start to get burned out, if I ever start to, start to think about too much about, the revenue or the finances of it all, those.
Customers, the ones who, we, and we've got hundreds of them. That's just, the one that sticks in my head. We've got hundreds of thank you notes. I've got a whole, notebook of thank you notes for people that are like, thank you so much for creating a product that, allowed me to, do this one last thing if I got, or, I was sick of leaving my dog home and every day I was sitting there at work thinking about my dog and you created a way for me to take my dog to work through busy New York traffic when I ride my bike and you know those that is what keeps me going in those moments and it is more than powerful enough to keep me going for sure.
James Lacey: That's just, I have goosebumps with what you were sharing. That is truly amazing to hear. I think there's probably no higher prize than receiving and remembering the impact you've had on customers that, become that community and to keep you going, like you said, in those, tough times is, there anything that you would recommend You know, talking about moments of burnout, is there anything that you found that helps as far as day to day hacks or, just, you've been in this over 10 years, just perseverance over time, anything that you would share to encourage someone if they're experiencing that and not seeing what they can do or don't know what to hold on to?
Joseph Watson: Yeah, there are a couple of things that I've, I have found that, that helps. first and foremost, I would say, decide what your objective is. what are you going for? Can I sport sec? We chose to, grow as big as we could so that we could help as many people as possible. And that, meant getting some help.
The only way to add more hours to your own week is to buy them from someone else. And so we have surrounded ourselves with a good team of people, good team members here. they have. they've taken a lot of the workload off of me. So surrounding yourself with people, but not just with anybody with the right sort of people.
and then I am, this is something I struggle with. I don't pace myself very well at all. I really struggle with, it turns it hits 5 o'clock in the evening and I don't have, I don't have, everything on my list done, even though it would take a year to do it all. And I go home and I stew about it, but, having to learn to leave the office of the office.
When I go home, I've got 3 kids. I've got, and they're young. they're not gonna be kids forever and focusing on, that being as important as this and balancing that has become a really big deal. I work with my wife, she works right through the, this wall over here. We used to take the work home and then talk about it deep into the evening. We've made a patch, let's leave it at the office. We'll talk about it tomorrow at the office. Wow. and, that has allowed us to pace ourselves to balance our lives, to, ease the burnout.
We still get burned out. we still have moments of frustration, but. surrounding ourselves with good people, pacing ourselves and balancing home and work that has been a trifecta for what has helped us
James Lacey: that I'm here and building boundaries that's speaking to me and I think a lot of people, especially the ease of being able to take everything with us everywhere. Building boundaries and setting those limits. It's challenging, but it sounds like there's, a tremendous value, especially yeah, I have a young, daughter myself and another one on the way. And so I think about similar things of how can I be present, at work and not take things past there and be present at home.
So that's, Yeah, encouraging to hear. I have a few last questions that I'd love to ask you. and one, I know that you may have a prototype that you can show us with what's next to come, prior to maybe seeing that if we can, I would love to hear if you have a favorite quote or piece of advice that you've received, that you'd want to share.
Joseph Watson: Yeah. I think so. my, my dad, he used to say, he used to say, you learn far more from failure, when you succeed at stuff. You just take it in stride. You don't really learn from it, but you learn more, more from failure than you do from success. and, I think that has, become a mantra at K9 Sport Sack, it's only failure.
If you stop right there, failure is only failure. If you stop right there. and so we've made plenty of mistakes. Yes. Our product was powerful enough to, outweigh our ineptitude. But it's okay to fail forward. It's okay. Failure is not a bad thing. the, we, get negative feedback all the time from customers.
And at first I took it personal. Oh, I hate that. Oh man, that's really annoying. now we put it in a folder of stuff to, to get better on, we put it, this is, what we need to improve upon. and what looks like a stumbling block actually becomes a springboard. failure is not a stumbling block.
It's a springboard. And that is the biggest piece of advice I could give anybody who's starting business. When you reach a, when you hit a wall, keep going, you'll get there. you'll learn what you need to from it. Take the next step and you'll be all right. I love that.
James Lacey: I love that. That kind of ties in nicely to the last couple of things I wanted to ask.
But before I do, what is next for K9 Sport Sack? You've been working on some innovative products. I know you just said you're not even sure what you might do next, based on how innovative it's getting at the moment. Yeah, what's next?
Joseph Watson: We have stumbled upon some innovative approaches to the K9 Sport Sack and, really in the future, what we're going to do is we're trying to break out of the stripped, narrow.
forward facing backpack, dog carrier, before we do that, we are, we've taken all the feedback that we've gotten from customers in the last, last 5 or 6 years. And we have built some amazing products. We have a product. I'll give you an example. the, and I wish I had 1 here to show you, but it's called the sky pack.
basically in order for a, a pet carrier to be airline approved, you have to, the dog's head has to be entirely enclosed in the bag. So we've created a K9 Sport Sack where the, where the, sides pop out and it becomes a duffel bag. So it looks for all practical purposes, it looks like a duffel bag or for a K9 Sport Sack, then the sides pop out. But this right here, let me show you this. So this is the new model we've got called the Cloud. So it's all mesh. It has a, like a rain fly in the bottom. This, bag right here is the most cutting edge technology we have come out with yet. we're replacing about three of our existing models with this right here. But yeah, this is how it works right here.
James Lacey: Just this is a live demo. This is awesome.
Joseph Watson: Yeah, this is where it's at right now. This is bag. It's a little bit big for her. It's easier to get her in a bigger bag than smaller bag. Yeah, this is, the one right here.
James Lacey: How many, How many products has DAISY modeled?
Joseph Watson: All of them, except for the Colossus. We have a bag called the Colossus. Our customers came to us and they said, Oh, why does this bag top out at 45 pounds and then 55 pounds and we basically, just went for broke and we created a bag that, that, did it all.
and that was the, that's the Colossus. That's the only one that she doesn't fit in.
James Lacey: I love that name. This right
Joseph Watson: Here, this bag has a, pump. So it pumps up an airframe on the inside. So this is the cloud right here. It is the, replacement for almost about three models that we're consolidating into this right here.
So that's the K9 Sport Sack right there. So we have ridden Daisy and I, Oh, probably 30, 000 miles with her in a K9 Sport Sack. And this right here is the best, bag that I have ever put her in. So what's next for K9 Sport Sack? A lot. We got a lot coming out.
James Lacey: That is super exciting to hear and to see my goodness. That's just the coolest thing that we got that live demo and the Daisy sits so comfortably right there in the cloud. Oh man, I, this is. Thank you so much for making this time and sharing. I wanted to ask you one final thing that we love to ask people and I'm going to tie it in with, a connected question as well that I really wanted to hear you share, what does full fulfillment?
What is real fulfillment mean to you along the journey? What have you learned about that? And how does faith, if it does at all, play a role into kind of everyday life or the past 10 plus years of persevering through the company,
Joseph Watson: I tell my kids, I say, if you work hard, if you're honest and you're kind, you do those three things, be honest, be kind and be industrious.
Really everything else falls into place and I, I, have faith in that, people who, work hard, people who, are not afraid of a little hard work, people that are, straightforward and honest and people that are kind. Those are the people that we recruit for K9 Sport Sack and if you do those, those three things. you end up sharing joy, but getting joy, I guess true fulfillment in my mind is a symbiotic relationship. It's reciprocity. It's, I am, I, impart joy by, by sharing the joy that I have and my joy grows. Your joy grows.
And we both are more fulfilled. So it's a, everybody in the relationship gets added value and that's the fulfillment.
James Lacey: I love that. It's like generosity and sharing and you just giving to one another. Everybody wins. I love that. thank you so much, Joseph, for your time and sharing.
I know it went a little bit over, forgive me for taking too much of your time, but, thank you. Is there anything else that you want to share before you head off? And also, where can people find more about K9 Sport Sack and yourself?
Joseph Watson: We have a website, k9sportack.com, you can read our story, there on the website.
We have, kind of an about us page, ask us any question you want, and we do shows all over the world, so if you want to come try out a K9 Sport Sack, the best, part of this job is watching people's eyes light up when I put their dog on their backs, so we do a lot of shows, and if you ever want to catch up, at a, local show. We'll let you know that we're going to be there. Come see us. and we just, we love our customers and meeting them face to face is the best part of the job.
James Lacey: That's awesome. Thank you so much, Joseph, for being on the fulfill podcast, sharing all your insights and your passion for, bringing joy to people and making their lives and their pet's lives better.
Yeah, we'll catch up soon, I hope. And that's it from this episode of the Fulfilled Podcast.
Joseph Watson: Thanks, James. Appreciate it.
James Lacey: You have a vision of where you want to be, but you have to know your why you're doing this. Joining us today is David Hayford, the visionary behind TetherTug, one of the fastest growing brands in the e commerce space. Starting as a simple hobby, David transformed it into a successful business by taking an active role in every step, from the idea stage to customer satisfaction.
TetherTug thrives on innovation and creativity, both in product design and how they engage the market.
David Hayford: I think it's very important. You get with people who are not scared to tell you're missing something.
James Lacey: Stay with us for the full conversation to hear David's inspiring journey.
David Hayford: So Tether Tug is an interactive dog toy.
Let's see it back there behind me. How's that? A little better? It's actually a flexible pole, goes in the ground, so a dog can play tug of war with themselves. And the thing is, no matter how much you love their dog, they're high energy, they're young, you can't outplay them. You can take them for a three mile run, and they want to go for another three miles.
You throw the ball a hundred times, they want you to throw the ball another hundred times. And it's not for lack of love, it's that we just have too busy a life. You look at guys like me, a little older, we just don't have the energy to play. So what tether tug does is it lets a dog. Get out there, be healthy, happy and active and give them a better life.
So you can have a better relationship.
James Lacey: That's awesome. That's a win for both the dog and the pet and pet owners. Wow. Okay. How did you, what led you from having the idea or experiencing the pain perhaps and going to saying, you know what, actually I'm going to create a solution for this, or I've seen something like, what is the journey from that moment of concept to where you are
David Hayford: Interesting. It's really interesting. It's funny cause so many people when entrepreneurs, they have this vision of how they're going to change the world or how they're going to do something different. My old business partner, the guy who owns the patent actually on tether tug, we were making some wellness products in the pet space and also doing medical consulting.
He's a trauma surgeon, retired trauma surgeon. And he comes, we were doing some pet wellness stuff and it really We did that more to have something to do and he came in one day and he says, Hey, we're going to make a dog toy. My son came up with this great idea for a dog toy and we're still sitting around and we're looking at it.
And he says, we're going to put this pole on the ground. It's going to do this. I'm going to do that. And I looked at him and I swear, this is exactly how the conversation went. Mike. We're not making a dog toy. No. And he goes, no, we're going to make one. I'm like, dude, we can't sell the stuff we're doing. We can't do what we're doing.
Let's not distract ourselves. We're not making a dog toy. And because he was taller than me and he's a doctor. So he had more money than me. He said I'm going to make one and I'll either do it with you or without you. So he trauma surgeons are a unique group because they're, Smart and they're tinkerers.
And he, man, for a year, he tinkered with this. And I wanted to do this, wanted to do that. And we came out with it. And I think our first month we sold our first day, we sold 16 units. I remember that. But our first month, I think it was like 120 units altogether. Certainly not enough that we're like, okay, we're off and running.
We're like, and it was just a hobby. And then one day. It was like around Black Friday or something like that. We used to work with this company called Groupon, which is like Coop, or I'm sorry. It was Koopa, which is like Groupon, but it was for pets. And the guy calls me up and I'm like, I don't know.
The Black Friday goes, Hey, how's stock? I'm like, stock's great. We got tons. We had none. We had none. We were making them as we needed them. It was good because I have orders for you for about 125 pieces. Oh, okay we can do that and that's 100 and then our website had 125 and then Amazon had 125 and we came in Monday morning to a month's worth of production like.
Crap. So I got this doctor out there working 12 hours a day. We're making dog toys, but that was the day we went from being an idea, a hobby to being a company January, we flipped the calendar to January. I go full time into tether tug probably a year and a half later, him and I part ways and it's my wife and I, this is what we do now.
We've gone from, I don't know, doing, we're probably doing 200 units a month to now we do. 100 units a day. And we're still going. It's still, we've, we can't keep up. It's just, but it's been great. Working the dog, the pet business is great. Working with dogs is phenomenal.
James Lacey: That sounds like a dream, I think, to many.
That they get trained. They turn their dogs or their pets, not necessarily their own, but into a business. So you get to enjoy the best of both worlds, but that's, it really is okay. And how many years into this, are you, what was the, sounding that transition to where you are now, a hundred orders a day.
Back to the first day of launch, kind of 16 or first month. What's that timeline?
David Hayford: I think it's about eight and a half years now. And it's funny, James, cause I feel like we're an overnight success after eight and a half years. We've really in the last year and a half taken off and, the first.
Six and a half, whatever that was. It was a lot of dog paddling, a lot of what in the world are we doing? Why isn't this, and I've gone to some trade shows and I walk out of there and I was like, what am I doing wrong? Because. I know I'm better than that guy and people like our product way better than that guy, but that guy is at 10 million and I'm not.
So what am I doing wrong? And it's still a question. If you're an entrepreneur, you better ask yourself that every day. Now, what am I doing wrong? What can I do better? But back then it was what are we doing wrong? And I would ask anybody I could lock down tell me what I'm doing wrong.
And I got some good feedback and some of it sucked, but yeah.
James Lacey: But you asked there's that. You asked, yeah, you listen.
It's a, it's better to ask and get at least one out of 10 good answers, I think than it is to to just go up on your own way and be blinded.
David Hayford: Yeah. Yeah. Some of it was funny, cause you basically telling you, you have an ugly baby. It's actually, my baby was beautiful. It was that I was ugly.
You're like, the problem isn't your product. Your problem is you. Okay. What does that mean? Is it my hair? Is it my height? Tell me what it means. Sometimes it's your vision, my vision wasn't big enough was the big thing.
James Lacey: Wow that's interesting. What would you say to the person that is in their own kind of moment of walking out of a trade show or whatever, is the equivalent for them and saying, hang on a second, I know what I have is better than what they're doing.
And they're at a hundred X of what I'm doing. How do you. Stay the course. Or is there a shift? Like you said, you sort advice. Yeah. Is there any or is there any daily routines that you've learned? Is there any specific hack or is it simply perseverance? What would you say to that person?
David Hayford: So what? That's a great question.
Because what I learned, I've said we got into this kind of by accident. We fell into it, which yeah. I know that in and of itself is weird. But I didn't trust myself enough. I trusted what the experts in the industry said, and whatever that would be, like my marketing company, they would say, Hey, you're doing well enough, you're doing this, and that's all you can do.
When we very first started back before the coupon days, you were right after them and we would do 20, 000 a month in sales, which. Whether that's a lot or that's a little depends on what you want to do. And my marketing guy who worked in our building, MBA super sharp guy. He says, I said, why is it so slow right now?
And he says, I think we've sold it to all the dogs there are. Dude, we sold 4, 000, maybe there's 80 million dogs in the U. S., but that's what he saw. And I looked at him and I think he's smarter than me. Maybe he knows something, but that's crazy sauce, right? I, one of the things I'll preach now is you've got to make sure you get the right people on the bus and that's for anybody, anywhere they are, you've got to have the right partners.
The thing is the bus is moving. So the partner you got on the bus here. And as it moves, you might have to take that one off and put a new one on because that's as far as their skill set would take you. And as I always kept looking good, man, I just I know there's more here. I had to get that one off. I had my old marketing company told me.
Tongue in cheek. They said this. I don't want to make it sound bad. I want to say that bus drove over them, but you're delusional to think we can go a lot farther. No, I'm not. I'm not. Our row has right now is seven X. Why would you think we should advertise here when we're at seven X let's go here and maybe go to four.
But I questioned myself all the time. This is an expert. Do I believe them or not? And there's a certain time where, you know, The people who saw us just told us these incredible things. This toy has changed my dog's life. It's changed my life. People who were basically a one time purchase, like I'm on my third one because my dog used it for two and a half years and it finally wore out.
So we got another one. Name one dog toy your dog plays with for six years. There's none. And that's the thing I would tell anybody is you have to know, you have to trust your gut. And then as that bus is moving, be willing to trade seats with people, even though you like them, trust them, and they're smart, the bus may have, we may have gone past their stop.
James Lacey: That is a great analogy. I have seen that to be true as well. You just described what I think for many would be going through. Challenging times or challenges, and then like how to navigate those kind of, you're asking questions of the, from those who are supposed to be the experts in marketing and kind of still having to persevere through that.
And what would you say during those tough times or challenges? Is there anything that I think you've touched on this a little bit already, but is there anything that like really keeps you going or what is that? Yeah. What would you say about how to keep going during those times?
David Hayford: Okay. You see the white hair on my hair, on my beard here. For me, I don't have a choice. It's I'm too old to go get a job as a greeter at Walmart. I'm so far into this. I've got my houses into it. My, my 401 is into it. But I've always known what we've had. Was great.
I shouldn't always say, but once we got things rolling, I was like, this is great. I would go to a lot of this is a good tool for him. I'd go to a lot of consumer shows where I would sell directly to the audience and listen to their feedback. You should do this.
That's what you'd hear him walk by and go, man, that's a great idea. And a few people say it'd be better if it did this. But if you take your product and you go to a consumer facing show and they're like, Okay. I don't get it. You got a problem. So I've always been able to believe. And what also it keeps me going is my wife.
She's always, I don't know if any of you've seen the Sphinx is that the Sphinx is the the Valley of the Kings in Egypt. There's these big statues of the Kings and behind them as a woman holding up the King's feet. And that's how a woman's always pushing the man to go forward. And that's her. And she's had unwavering faith in me that, you're smarter than you think you are.
It's better than you think it is. And we always sang this song since we very first got married, wherever we are, wherever we go, we're going to be in it together. So she's listen, just go, I believe in you keep going. And man, that's great. That's great. And if you're ever, if you're thinking about getting into something like this and you don't have the support of your partner, I wouldn't do it.
I just wouldn't because it's going to have to be good for your relationship. It's better to save your relationship than that. Just maybe work on it until you feel like she or he is part of it.
James Lacey: That's hugely valuable advice, I think, to somebody. You even referenced having a business partner as well, and I've heard it said before that you can sometimes view a business partner like a marriage, and then you're speaking about, a literal marriage with your wife and the support that gives.
Is there, do you think there's pros and cons to having a business partner or just at least a support unit, whether it's your team or whether it's people around you, is there, how vital is that?
David Hayford: Okay. That's a great question. That's a great question because I said the guy who owns the patent, who started the company that he's no longer my partner because he couldn't see where it could go.
As a, as the trauma surgeon part, what a trauma surgeon does, you get in that car accident, you come in and you're all banged up. They just piece you back together, then turn you over to specialists. He loves the idea of creating. I like to invent, I want to get this company going. I want to get this done.
And then after that, he's I'm out. So we had a lot of problems because. As much as he was, he would say, yeah, I'd like to see it grow forever. He didn't care. He didn't care. I got him bought out with a new guy, my new guy. He's also helps. He's my supplier. He helps me keep my products flowing, but he is, he's got way, way more money than I do.
He's a little bit younger. He's probably five years younger than me, but man, he's a rock. He's just a rock. He'll tell me, you know what, Dave, I believe in you. I believe in the product. I wouldn't be here if I wasn't, and we can do this and we can do that. And the days that I want to just give it up and go to become a truck driver or something, he's no, we're okay.
And he doesn't, he's not my, doesn't micromanage me, but he's always there is as a rock to just keep guiding me one of the things. One of the things he did for me when we were just talking about the business, he, I said, so what are your goals? What are your dreams? He goes I've given my family a financial legacy.
I have money. I can do this. But what I want to do for them now is a spiritual legacy. I want them to know what they should believe in, where they should walk. And that's, that's deep. I've never heard that from anybody, but he's this is what I want for my people. And so he's been great.
He's been great. The guy's name is Kevin Gardner. He's, I couldn't have asked for anything better. I really couldn't.
James Lacey: That is really incredible. Especially, yeah, what you just touched on about spiritual legacy and it ties in really nicely. We're on the fulfilled podcast and we would like to touch on what is fulfillment and also to often ask, The type of question how faith has impacted your journey or what has faith had to do with your journey speaking about, as he mentioned, he's achieved a certain level of financial legacy that he can give his family and now spiritual is more, is there and is more important to be focused on what would you say for yourself as well?
How important is faith during the journey? It's
David Hayford: not at all. It's no big deal. You're wasting your time. No, it's listen, they say the last thing you ever want to pray for is patience because then God will give it to you, but it doesn't come, like bizarre. You take a journey like this and, you ask God to walk with you and reveal things.
That doesn't mean that it's easy. And. I probably went through my first five years of this doing a lot of cursory prayers, if you will, God, just, guide us, take care of us. Help me pay the bills. And this is an important point. A lot of people want to get in and have their own business because they think it's cool because they watch Mark Cuban on shark tank, or they see some guy on tick tock.
He's let me show you how to change the world. No I actually know Grant Cardone and I knew him when he was nothing, he's something big now, but I knew him when he was struggling and it was hard. And, again, an overnight success after 30 years. It's gonna be hard and a couple years ago, I basically had a nervous breakdown.
I was like, man, this is, I don't know. And my wife stood by me and said, all right, what do we got to do? And I don't know. I think today we're going to have to pay for our shipping on our own personal credit card. Okay, get over it. Let's do it. It's done. Now we're going to do that. So I think after that, I became a lot more cognizant of what I pray for.
Okay. What I consider success you do this cause you need a paycheck to live and things like that, but it's beyond that. It's so where my faith comes in now is I'll give it to you in a simple answer, James. It's always going to be okay. It's always going to be okay. Every day we wake up with our own stresses and you know what, the next day you're still there and it's always okay.
It may not be what you wanted, But it's always okay, I'm like, ah, I don't know how I'm going to do this. Next week it's fine, you're still there. What should
James Lacey: I do? Yeah that speaking of me and so I can Guarantee that is going to deeply impact someone, just the idea that those words can transfer to so many people, but just one person, going through one of those days where it is they're having a meltdown and that can just speak words of life and peace to someone is just incredible.
And yeah, I very much receiving that for myself. Is is there any. I think you, you basically touched on this a little bit not directly, but dealing with maybe negative feedback, like you're, marketing team or even maybe mistakes made again, along the journey of navigating how to do things, right?
Is there a main mistake that you remember that you had to learn from and pivot and in connection with that negative feedback that you've had to learn how to receive and how to move forward from?
David Hayford: The negative feedback is tough, man. That's My wife's done our customer service a couple of times and she's a real empathetic person and she's just literally will break down in tears.
She's I can't believe people are so mean. I can't believe they're so mean. And it's like that great sage, Taylor Kelsey, or some people call her Taylor Swift. She says, haters are going to hate man. That's just it. And there's just as there's bullying. Individually back and forth on Facebook, man, people get behind a keyboard and they want to just tell us that we're terrible and we're stupid and we're ugly.
And, our mom's dress is funny. It's brutal. I actually got an email last night. I read it before I went to bed and the guy said, David, what the beep? You guys need to get your head outta your beep. You said my toy was gonna ship and what the beep b I'm like, wow. And I read it again this morning.
I'm like, okay. I think he was being a little funny. You get somebody who's gonna hate, I just refund their order. I don't care if you get product or not, man. I just, I can't, my team can't have that. I can't have that. And as far as learning from mistakes,
there's so many. The biggest ones though, James. are when my team comes to me and says, you should fix this. When my team comes to me like, Hey, we're having a lot of people complain about this. You should fix it. And I listened to them. I'm like, eh, you don't know what you're talking about. They come back another two weeks.
You should fix this. And then I fix it. I'm like, oh geez. I'm glad I thought of that. That was a really good idea, but I, that's four or five times. And it's a joke in the company. Like I know you just trust me now but once I get my mind around it a little more, I'm okay, but it's, I tell you what, listening to your team, when they say you should fix this needs to be different.
Cause they're the eyes and ears are the ones we're putting in boxes. They're the ones who are handling it all the time. And they're my sister does our customer service now. And she's and she can talk to me this way. Don't be stupid. You need to fix this. All right. And sometimes it's because you're tired, you're overwhelmed, but it's like, all right, I'll take care of it.
James Lacey: It's funny. There's the consistent theme. It feels like of people the value of team partners, wife, just the not going alone. And actually one of the things I wanted to ask you was leadership. Can become a lonely place as well, because not everybody understands the pressures and the decisions that have to be made.
What would you say to, to dealing with that? Have you experienced that? Is there any? Anything you'd say to that?
David Hayford: Yeah. Yeah. It's a, so you guys can, you can tell from my story we're pretty small. I've got my wife, my sister, another contract person, one full timer, and then two part timers.
So it's seven people, but it's 20 hours a day, so I don't have the staff where you can come in and have this big staff meeting and let's brainstorm and things like that. And I live in a small community. My talent's 4, 000 people. I've joined a couple of peer groups. It's really tough because you got to find people who are like you, which means you're an e com company and you're at that level.
I even created one for some other pet companies in our area. It's hard. What I've forced myself to do is I joined like the chamber of commerce and I go to their events just so I get outside and have a conversation with people. And if you listen to them, they'll say, Hey, I really like that. Have you thought of in general?
After they said, I tune out, but I listen like that's a good idea. And then I'll say it to somebody and then they'll tell me you should really do that. You should really do that. And then six months later we do. I think it's very important that you get with people who are smarter than you are, right?
I think it's important to get with people who will are not scared to tell you're missing something. Kevin Gardner is really good at saying, I think you missed this one. I think you ought to do this. And he's so simple about it. He, it's not him being pompous. He's no, I wouldn't do that now.
And this is why okay. I listened to it, but it's, you have to make it, you got to get outside your walls, man. Because otherwise it's just this, you're just seeing trees and you, and before you know it, it's just you alone with one tree. You've got to get outside.
James Lacey: Almost like the difference between tunnel vision and then bird's eye view kind of thing.
You suddenly see so much more that was there, but okay, yeah. And then. Going around, getting outside of that bubble allows you to see that. That's really insightful.
David Hayford: You said it perfectly. Good job.
James Lacey: I'm trying to make it sound good. If, okay. I, there's just a last couple questions that I'd love to ask you and just see what you think.
And then, we can wrap it up here and maybe let you say any final thoughts that you have, but we've touched on, yeah, team and what it is to pursue all kinds of persevere challenges, et cetera. Just wondering, is there a favorite quote or piece of advice that you have that you would want to share?
David Hayford: It's funny. I'm like, I'm really big on quotes. I have. It's a little journals of them all over of things that really impacted me. But I think the thing I would share it, cause I, you mentioned this earlier is make sure the right people are on the bus and remember that the bus is moving cause it's going to change.
And a lot of people will start a business with a buddy, with a brother, put on the bus who you want, but be willing to make changes. And maybe talk about it on the front end because that's, I wish I was more confident in myself early on to say, okay, you're the wrong guy on the bus. Let's get somebody better.
And it doesn't mean you have to spend more money. It just means you have to go find the right people. And that's part of getting outside, going to a chamber. I talk to people about my business. I gotta find, I've got a really good marketing company now that's pet centric and that's, it's changed my life.
So look at the bus, see who's on it. And remember the bus is moving.
James Lacey: That's great. And I will I'll close, I think with one of my favorite questions to ask anybody. And that is, what does real fulfillment mean to you? What does it look like to you?
David Hayford: I'm gonna give you, I'm gonna give you two answers.
For me right now is peace. Is in all avenues of my life. That I'm doing the right things as a father, as a husband, and as a business owner. That I wake up in the morning and go, it's okay. It's always okay, but it's okay that I would be able to have peace, which means we're all going in the right direction.
That's a quest for me, spiritual peace that I take my time today to commune with God, that I meditate the way I wanted to. And I think for maybe some listeners though, if you're going to do this or you're in the middle of doing it, you've got to find your, the, why you're doing it. And I know that's a cliche phrase, but you can't do it just for the money.
What does the money mean? And if you say it's because I want to buy stuff, it won't, you will never be fulfilled because there's always a dude with more stuff, but you've got to say, I want to do this because I want this. I had a, an intern work for me. He says, I want to have my own business so I can create generational wealth.
Okay. So you want to make enough money. So your parents are going to be okay. And your sister's going to be okay. It's yes. That'll work for you. You have a vision of where you want to be, but you have to know your why you're doing this and it's not stuff. It's not the nicest car, the biggest house.
It's gotta be what is it I want to do for society. What I want to do for me. Because there's always more. There's always somebody else, man.
James Lacey: That's awesome. I couldn't agree more. That is honestly just such a such an awesome answer from both sides. Thank you. What more could anybody want than peace?
And then on the other side to that. Hard to come by these days. Exactly. I don't think there's. That's one of my, one of my favorite scriptures, I think, is like Psalm 1611, and it says in your presence is the fullness of joy, at your right hand is pleasure forevermore. And then I think prior to that, it says, you make known to me the path of life.
And I remember thinking that's everything right there. Just, just, I'll take all of that. But David that is yeah, just so much advice and wisdom that, that you've given. I really appreciate your time. Where can people find out more about the tether tug and yourself?
Go shop your products. Where's best to stay connected with you or just with Tether tug.
David Hayford: Tether tug is simply tether tug.com. So it's like tether ball, T-E-T-H-E-R-T-U g.com. And I'm David at TetherTuck. Anybody who has any questions, anybody who's on a journey, you just want to hang a little bit.
I'm happy to talk to anybody. That's awesome. Thank you so much, David, for your time. And yeah, that's it for the Fulfilled podcast today.
Thank you so much, James. It's been fun.
Kenny Morgan: Every entrepreneur faces challenges, but it's how you navigate those challenges that defines your success. Riley Stricklin, Co-founder and former CEO of Lume Cube has spent a decade turning innovative ideas into million-dollar successes. Now, as he steps into the world of AI, Riley's journey continues to inspire.
Riley Stricklin: If you can get to know yourself and listen to that intuition we've all got some sort of gut aspect that if there's a decision, should I or shouldn't I like you can certainly rationale and use the mind, but ultimately make that decision with your gut and your intuition of what feels right. It will guide you the right way.
Kenny Morgan: Stay with us. Riley's insights might be just what you need to hear today. Hey friends, welcome back to another episode of Fulfilled in Five. Today's guest is Riley Stricklin He is an entrepreneur He's previously served as the Co-founder and CEO of Lume Cube. I think that was for about 10 years He's had some products that have well surpassed million-dollar months He's even had products featured in the Oval Office, which I saw all the way to the president's desk, which is pretty cool.
Not many people can say that. Had stuff featured on today's show and now serves as a board member, shareholder, and advisor. He's left to pursue some new business ideas. I read specifically around like AI wants to travel with his wife, which sounds like perfect timing. Cause he's got, his first kiddo coming here pretty soon.
Call San Diego home, but I guess one question just a fun question. I know travel was in your sights. Have you been able to do that?
Riley Stricklin: Yeah. Yeah. We spent the last four months or from February through June doing a lot of travels and our favorite one of which was we spent about a month in Europe.
So going through Spain and France, which was just unbelievable. So that's awesome. Yeah.
Kenny Morgan: Did you catch any of the Olympics while you're there? Yeah.
Riley Stricklin: We didn't know we left just before, but we saw the kind of set up and I don't know all of the excitement. It was definitely, a lot of energy in that space around leading up to it, which was fun.
Kenny Morgan: That's awesome, man. Just if you could briefly just tell us a little bit about your journey and just where like how all that brought you to where you're at today.
Riley Stricklin: So 30, 000 foot, 2014 two buddies and I started a Kickstarter campaign for what at the time was just a light for a GoPro and iPhone.
And was set 50 grand as a goal. Wasn't really sure if it was going to have a fit did two 50 and 30 days, hit that goal in three days, which was epic. Then this was at the time when iPhones were just crushing photo and video and GoPro had just IPO. So really was able to ride a lot of those coattails.
And that just turned into, we were doing a couple other consulting things on the side, but it was like, Hey, holy moly. We're doing 10 grand, 20 grand a month on these other projects that just did 250 grand in a month. Let's recalibrate and focus on that. So brought that to market really kicked off in early 2016 as a GoPro light for photo, video, iPhones and did a couple million bucks in the first year.
Had a lot of success and just scaled from there. A lot of different evolutions of the business made, got an Apple stores best buys across the country. Really focused on the GoPro market, the iPhone accessory market, and when drones were big, that became a big part of our business attachments to drones.
And then we're sitting there a couple million bucks a year pre-COVID in 2019 and launched. What at the time was a huge flop at CES 2019, which was a light for Zoom calls. January 2019 people did not get it. We brought in 20, 000 units. We sold about 2000 had 18, 000 units going into 2020, which was just like, all right, get these things off the books.
Three months later, COVID happened in that that year we scaled 550 percent in the business, those 18, 000 units that were sitting for a year sold in 22 days, it gave the business a really amazing opportunity to grow. And so got into the eight figure range and allowed us to build the team, reinvest in a lot of products, open new markets.
And so just really capitalize both on, on that home office lighting, which is a huge component of the business today, but really where we benefited most was obviously content just became a big thing. So yes, the short form Tik-Tok, but a lot of people transitioned into being creators, YouTubers, things like that.
And no matter what camera you're using, your content's going to suck if you don't have great lighting. And so we were positioned as the leader in lighting there. So it was a really amazing opportunity. I think we did a lot of things well, but you can't. Help, but state that there's a lot of macro impact that put us at the right place at the right time.
And job of any entrepreneur is to be a little bit opportunistic and see those opportunities. And so ultimately scale that business. It's still a nice eight figure year business. Got a team here in San Diego and Florida. For for me over the years as my interest transitioned, we've got a great senior team there is running the business.
And so found an opportunity for myself to pursue some new interests. And so in January, at the end of January here in 2024, stepped down as CEO still on the board, still under advisor, but very proud of what we've done with the business and I can tell you, they've got a lot of cool stuff in the pipeline coming down the road.
Great business. And I've had, had an opportunity to explore some new paths, which has been really fun.
Kenny Morgan: That's awesome, man. It's almost like, Prophetic how on point you guys were before their COVID hit. So that's just really cool to see.
Riley Stricklin: I wish I could say, I claim to have that vision, but it was the right place, right time.
And we, certainly got lucky. And I think in any, great story, there's a little bit of luck involved.
Kenny Morgan: That's so true. So true. I've always fascinated by routines of people that have found some success, so tell me a little bit maybe what your routine was when you were with Lume Cube, but even, I know it's a different, set of focus when you step off to do something new, like where you had a lot of distractions before, but now you have almost a wide-open pathway to do whatever you want.
Riley Stricklin: So for me over the years, where I found looking back on it, I don't even think I appreciated at the time how much noise and responsibility there is running a business if I ever wanted to solve a problem nature's kind of my energy zone. So wife and I, a quick weekend getaway, go hiking live here in San Diego.
Traveling is where I would find myself thinking and opening my mind differently. But on the daily routine, that's something I've honed a lot in these last few months. So that was a big part of reestablishing clean slate moving forward. Spending a lot more time reading and consuming positive content, me limiting time on social media has been really massive.
And I use an app called Root you can set timers and it's, really great physical health and wellness has been, massive. I think we'd feel good physically. There's a huge transition to mental aspects. Just getting your heart rate up a couple times a week, whether that's gym, jogging, going for a surf, probably the biggest aspect of recent has been sauna four days a week just to, really cleanse the body.
Morning gym routine, get up, up at five, go to a workout, get a nice cup of coffee. And by, by eight o'clock, you're sitting there ready to go and have accomplishments out of your belt has been really massive for me.
Kenny Morgan: You're like a friend that I would hang well with because I, some of my most creative times have been out outdoors.
I've been to Yosemite a few times actually, and now it's just big pivotal seasons in my life,
Riley Stricklin: It's the best, it really is. You're in a good spot for that. Anytime I'm trying to crack a problem that I just can't seem to solve. Find a flight, find a, find somewhere to go and just kinda. Your mind just thinks differently. There's something about it. That's almost a stinctual. It's you put humans in nature and it goes back to the early days and it's awesome.
Kenny Morgan: So true. We talked about this kind of earlier. Just, talk about sometimes with any great, story, great business, there's a little bit, a lot.
It sounds like not only with a Lume Cube being the head of the game, zoom lighting, you guys also, I think found a rhythm of. Pivoting to when GoPro was popular and then it wasn't so popular you had some good moments where you shifted. So just talk about what inspires you to keep pushing forward even during the tough times.
Riley Stricklin: Yeah, it's I think that if I would say, was there one key superpower that we had at Loom Cube was our ability to pivot. I've seen many entrepreneurs be challenged because your role is the visionary, and so you can be married to a vision that for us ‘Hey, we're going to be the GoPro of lights’.
And at some point if that isn't working out or if GoPro isn't, quite the aspect, like you got to explore other avenues. And I would say that the key to scale for us was opening up new markets and going into spaces that. Originally would have been like we're not that company, but can we be in the home office and compliment the Logitech products and not just go, can we be, now we have a huge division that goes into artist studios who are using light for tattoo artists esthetician, that's a seven-figure division for us.
Things that early days wouldn't, be there. So just as an entrepreneur and as a leader, being very. Being that visionary and selling that to the team and really getting everybody involved, but also just to yourself being a little bit malleable on that vision and accepting that, Hey, this vision is a work in progress.
It's not a remnant stone thing more like written in the sand that, Hey, that can a year from now, the more we know that vision might change a little bit and there's not any. to saying, Hey, the vision I originally had didn't really work out or that thesis didn't play out. And so we've adjusted that to this.
And I think that can be hard for a lot of entrepreneurs is that they're bullish. And I certainly was for a while where it's no, I'm going to make this come true. This vision and yeah, being open to learn. We don't know what we don't know was a key skill set as the business changed.
Accepting that and sharing with the team that, Hey, this is this year's plan in the annual kickoff meeting, but it might change as we learn a few months from now, that division that we want to invest a bunch in, maybe we want to roll that back. Maybe there's something new that comes up and that's okay. And that's just what growth is all about.
Kenny Morgan: One thing that stood out there was we don't know what we don't know. And a group of. That is definitely in that category. I would say it would be college grads that don't know really what to expect when I come out of college. But you like wrote an open letter to college grads. That's something I really appreciate.
I am a professor here in Chattanooga. And so it was cool to see that, but you just you get some really good advice to that group. There's still something down to maybe one or two big pieces of wisdom for that group and really any young entrepreneur,
Riley Stricklin: Ask a lot of questions, be curious. I think curiosity is the most powerful human trait.
Social media glamorizes a lot of and romanticizes the entrepreneurial journey and it's hard. And so for me, a quote that I live by is just comparison is the thief of joy. There isn't. A fast track. You can't skip rungs on the ladder to get to the top kind of thing. You're going to have to, build that team, build that business one brick at a time.
And you're going to see a lot of people who seemingly are might be your age going a lot faster than you accomplishing a lot more don't get deflated by that and don't get distracted. So comparison is the thief of joy. I'm very proud of where I am at 35, but there's a ton of people in my network that are close friends of mine who have blown 10X past me.
And if I focus on that one perspective, I can call myself a failure and why haven't I accomplished more and another perspective I'm living beyond my wildest dreams at 35. So I think that perspective is really key. And when you're young, it's hard. And you want to get there, you want to get there fast.
Kenny Morgan: I've always loved that quote. So I really appreciate you sharing that. I've run a creative agency for many years and it's a, it's hard. It's a lot harder than people tell you it's going to be. Leadership can be a very lonely place at times. So how are you able to lead well, but also stay grounded and rooted and connected to the outside world during all the heaviness of business ownership?
Riley Stricklin: Finding a peer group in 2018, I joined a group called EO, the Entrepreneur’s Organization, finding community. That changed my life massively doesn't have to mean we were in the direct to consumer space doesn't mean it's has to be other direct to consumer founders. It's just other people building teams, going on these challenges, choosing to live this path of life.
That would be a little bit of a path less traveled. So finding community, I think is, going to be essential to anybody looking to take that entrepreneurial route.
Kenny Morgan: Yeah, that's awesome. Tell me I know, I think it was in January, you transitioned out of your primary role with Lume Cube. Read that you're stepping into some new things, some new ideas.
Not specifically what you're doing, but what would you say you're learning in this season where you're, looking for the next big thing.
Riley Stricklin: Learning a lot about myself. I can tell you that it's been one of the more introspective periods of my life. So a lot of thinking, a lot of writing figuring out both reflections as well as just inward looking, where are my skill sets, what am I great at?
And also being really honest with myself where. Where am I not that great? What mistakes might I have made and where could I compliment myself? I think it's good to be a little bit of a jack of all trades, but really find where your focus is. Some people call it, your personal hedgehog, Jim Collins kind of thing, like, where do my interests align?
And I looked at a number of businesses and both acquiring, starting, partnering. I can save, I give you a list of 20 that are all great separate figure businesses doesn't mean they're the right business for me. That's right. The business model is there. And so figuring out what is going to really scratch your itch when you're waking up every day, getting you excited to solve these problems, because as we were talking earlier, it will be harder, it will take longer and it will be more expensive than you think it's going to take.
So on those hard days, like if you don't have true passion at least for the problem you're solving, then business model, all that stuff can be shaken out, but the core problem that you're solving and when you're waking up. Do I want to spend the next 10 hours of my day focused on solving this problem?
And so finding out and that's different for everybody that you know there's a lot of different business models and again being part of those founder communities have opened my eyes to like Holy smokes, man. You're doing you got a 10 million dollar business doing what? You realize that there are lot of ways to be successful.
So that, and then for me, where my high interest has gone is just really being on the front edge of this wave with AI. So I've gone back to school, taking a ton of courses, playing with the tools, meeting with as many people as I can really just to understand where it's going, because it is game-changing.
And for somebody with my mindset, that kind of entrepreneurial opportunistic, I get my mind blown every day. Yeah. It is the worst it's ever going to be today. Like it really does open your mind to what's possible. So that's really where I spent a lot of time working with businesses and consulting around how AI can implement and be impactful in their organization.
So it's been really fun for me.
Kenny Morgan: Yeah. I think I just saw maybe in the last week that Apple was going to cut custom emojis using AI. Did you see that? You can pretty much just tell it, tell what kind of emoji you want. It'll just make it for you.
Riley Stricklin: It's incredible that very like small level, just that thesis of what it's going to do and the amount of customization it's going to have.
And there's a lot of fun stuff that is personal in the home how you can use it as an individual, but where having built and led a business. The aspect of where it can be impactful in a business sense is just, so I certainly encourage everybody to just get in there, take a few tools, play around with them.
There's a dozen, dozens, hundreds 29 courses that just give you the foundational understanding and it will it'll shock you. So it really gives you a different perspective on what's possible. It's good at a few things today. I think there's a lot that it's not yet good at, but just give it time.
Kenny Morgan: That's awesome. Something that I love that you said it was trying to figure out a lot of places that you could plug in, but it's really coming down to is this the problem that I want to solve? And I wondered is that aligned with also trying to find our identity or what our true purpose is in life?
What it's been for you to maybe get closer to what's your identity or your true calling is. I know it's a big question, but there's a lot of people, probably everybody that listens to this podcast will have those thoughts at some point of what am I really supposed to do? And I wonder if solving problems is really a closer way to find out what the answer is for each person.
Riley Stricklin: Absolutely. It is totally unique. It's just like a lot of the health aspects out there. Like it is not a one-size-fits-all. And what is a great business for somebody else and they're thriving you might. Love it, hate it. So many different things. So for me, I couldn't be more of a, supporter and fan of I call it doing the work and creating space for that.
But in 2020, I found an incredible therapist that I worked with for several years and I've had coaches and I, those depending on where I'm looking. So found a new coach that I opened up and worked the last four months with in this period. And just on specific things that I've wanted to dive in emotionally, personally, answer questions for myself.
When I reach call it. Find internal limitations, fears like, Hey let's, explore that. And so creating a space to do that it can be as simple as using one of those online portals. Honestly, every coach I've ever had, I've never done an in person session in four years, so you don't have to go and sit on the couch and have this kind of negative connotation. So it has, I can tell you if I didn't do a lot of that personal work. I wouldn't be married to the wonderful woman I'm married to about to have a kid with. I wouldn't have had the success that I've had at Lume Cube and been able to handle a lot of that stress.
And just even in these last six months going through that process of really getting to know myself and what makes me tick and listening to that kind of intuition, your gut and your intuition is more powerful than your mind. And if you can get in tune with that, when you come at those crossroads with two, three, four different options, those who have powerful minds can easily logically rationale what is, what route makes the most sense, but historically, when I've made decisions with my gut based on what feels right and my mind based on what calculates based on a spreadsheet or numbers, I've always been misled by my mind.
And my gut has always treated me well. And so creating some space that could be a three-minute morning meditation that could be a once-a-month call with a coach, a business coach, life coach, therapist, whatever it is. To just create that space to ask those questions. You can certainly rationale and use the mind, but ultimately make that decision with your gut and your intuition of what feels right and it will guide you the right way.
And that's the interesting thing that when you talk to a partner, a friend, anything, what's right for them or what seems right for them, that kind of individualistic aspect, they could be totally right. But it doesn't mean it's right for you. And so that's been big. Am I making this decision because I think it's right or because other people are telling me it's the right decision or because my ego is at play and it seems cool if I do this, where even though deep down, I don't know if I really want to do that.
That's been why are you making the decisions you're making and make them for yourself? So that's been really powerful for me.
Kenny Morgan: That's so good. I think entrepreneurs. Are also very creative in their own way. There are some creative entrepreneurs. I was one of those. In a single day, just really focus on a one or two tasks and get it done.
It's for me, it's I'll have 20 ideas in one day about many different things. But it it could be great to have those ideas. But if you can't like move forward, it can be a real struggle. So like, how do you, have you struggled with that before? And how have you been able to reign it in?
Riley Stricklin: Oh, big time, man. I'm that guy who's got 37 tabs open. He's got sticky notes everywhere. So it's been, A life's challenge to reign that in. I live and die these days by my calendar. And so time blocking different things and just knowing that, okay this afternoon I've got from four to five, I've got to get that done and putting it in my calendar to hold myself accountable.
And then, attempting a lot of different ways. Again, it's different for everybody. What really, gives you that structure? The accountability has been big for me just on the calendar, but then a quote that I have literally have it above my door as I walk in and out of my office is never mistake activity for achievement.
So it is very easy to say on Friday, man, that was a busy week, but really boiling down to, Were you just busy? Cause it's very easy to be busy or what did you actually achieve? So that I've got this here, everybody's got their own versions, but productivity planner Monday, what are written ranking those things that you need to get done?
If I got two things done this week, only two, what to are qualified as achievement because you could easily go into a week and have 15 things done. And, but really just that statement that you're. Your email inbox is an open to do list that anybody in the world can throw stuff on.
Kenny Morgan: That's right.
Riley Stricklin: So be very wary of that because it's very easy to say I've got a ton of emails and spend all week just responding, doing this and that for other people, get this, get that. And you really are like, holy smokes, the things I wanted to get done, I didn't even get done. So really being aware of that and it's marking out, Hey, I'm not going to even open email till 10 AM.
And I'm going to get up and do these important things has been really effective for me. Transparently, I'm still struggling with that. It's still a daily battle of all these ideas and opportunities and people who want to chat with me and I want to do these things and okay, wait, I've got these things I need to get done.
These three big things like, yeah, to get them done.
Kenny Morgan: Yeah,
Riley Stricklin: It's a deal.
Kenny Morgan: That's good, man. I'm about ready to put that quote above my door too. That's how good it is. So thank you for sharing that.
Riley Stricklin: I used to preach that to the team and everybody says they're busy and it's wait let's, like analyze.
I totally agree. You're busy.
Kenny Morgan: Yeah.
Riley Stricklin: Where's the achievement?
Kenny Morgan: Yeah. So
Riley Stricklin: Activity versus achievement are two very different things.
Kenny Morgan: That's so good. One big question, and then we'll close things out, but, a big one, but we talk a lot about fulfillment on this podcast, it can be professional, it can be personal, but when you think about fulfillment in life, what would you say what comes to mind for you?
Riley Stricklin: For me, it's impact. I really am a passion-driven person. I want to, solve problems. I want to make an impact in the last few months, really clarifying what that means has been big for me. There's the grandiose impact that I think every entrepreneur dreams of I want to solve the plastic in the ocean problem.
I want to solve plastic pollution. Access to water. Those are like, how do you make an impact at a global scale? And so that is certainly things that I've chased those dragons in terms of, okay what major world impact can I have for me, just boiling it down to, okay, how can I make an impact on my wife and my, child positively?
How can you make an impact in my, Social Community. How can I make an impact on my employees? And so that really was validated when I left. I was very fortunate to have some incredible outreach for my community and employees over the years. We employed over 100 people here in San Diego. of just hearing about the impact that I had on them through my leadership style working with them, helping them.
Those texts or emails that I got were so much more emotionally fulfilling than any seven-figure PO looking for Best Buy or flip deal closing with a big creator. And so that was a good kind of, Barometer for me that, okay, this is your North star. If you can make an impact on people every day, you're going to go home.
You're going to sleep really well. You're going to feel fulfilled. And and I think that starts the closest circle, your family, then your friends, then your, business colleagues, and really focusing on, am I taking energy from them? Am I leveraging them or am I giving am I, making an impact?
Am I am I giving back as much as I'm receiving from them? And then just being aware of that is, is really powerful.
Kenny Morgan: That's so good. For those that have been just really seeing the fruit from this conversation as I have, what's the best way for people to just stay connected to you in the next season of life.
Riley Stricklin: LinkedIn will be best. I'm one of the things I've been challenged with and that has been most difficult. Intimidating and fearful is posting on LinkedIn consistently and being a little bit more vulnerable publicly. So I want to step into that fear and you'll probably see me be a little bit more active in the coming weeks and months on LinkedIn and sharing a little bit more about my journey.
And so while it scares the heck out of me, I'm certainly excited to, again, it all comes back to if that's a if I have to step into that fear and be a little nervous and vulnerable, but the, Core objective is to make a bigger impact then let's go for it. So that's
Kenny Morgan:Aawesome, man. I've, been following some of your past posts and it's been amazing to see just your openness.
And I think that goes in such a long way. So keep, it up.
Riley Stricklin: I appreciate that, man. No, I'll do my best.
Kenny Morgan: Yeah and man, I just want to say one more time, just thank you for being on the podcast. Just really appreciate your time.
Riley Stricklin: You got it, man. Absolutely. Thanks for having me.
Justin Singletary: This is Justin Singletary from Fulfillment. com. Welcome to another episode of the Fulfilled Podcast. We're back with another great episode. Today, I sit down with the founder and CEO of Living Fuel, KC Craichy. I love that name, by the way.
KC Craichy: Thank you.
Justin Singletary: I'm not going to be forgetting it. So KC, I'm really excited to have you on.
You were introduced by a mutual friend, James, and he's really been talking a big game about you and your product and a little bit about your story. But I wanted to bring you on because our audience is really eager to hear about successful e-commerce brands and how they became a success. More importantly, really, where they came from, what type of story led them to the success today?
So I want to ask you, what do you want people to know about Living Fuel Super Meals? Cause you're the founder of that company, correct?
KC Craichy: Yes.
Justin Singletary: Awesome.
KC Craichy: So we make the highest end nutrition that exists. So it's the only thing that exists. You could live on for breakfast, lunch, and dinner and not need any other food.
You know that, that, and water. It's a, it's all you need.
Justin Singletary: That's all you need.
KC Craichy: All you need. So, so that's the thing that we don't tell people, Hey, buy our stuff and don't buy any other food. Yeah. But if you do want to maximize your health and you want to take the influence of what you've been putting in your body away and use Living Fuel. We have something called the fuel fast where people will, you know, do fuel for a one meal a day for two days and then two meals a day for two days and then three meals a day for however long they want to go.
You know, it's, it's, it's probably the most extreme nutrition that their body's ever been encountered and the highest end, the most, the most extraordinary forms of nutrients, the whole bit where it can radically impact your health in a very short period of time. Not to mention weight optimization, but the feedback we get from our customers over the 23 years we've been in business is that, you know, improvement in digestion, elimination, hair, skin, nails, and energy and weight optimization. So,
Justin Singletary: Wow, that's exciting. How did you come up with this formula? How did you figure out how to have something to to sell that it is really it seems like a complete system?
KC Craichy: Yeah, it wasn't so so I was married many years ago and my wife came down with panic attacks and clinical depression, suicidal thoughts and doctors were really screwed up with prescription medications and psychotherapy. And she was, she was making her a mess A lot of people watching right now have experienced that for themselves or a family member trying to get the magic bullet and take a couple pills and get rid of these, these situations.
But it was really making her worse. So at one point I had to make a point, I was going to dive into the literature and I wasn't coming out without an answer. And so over a 10 year period of research and trial and error, my company was born, my best selling books were born and, and she hadn't had a drug in 25 years.
So, that was a, you know, just a radical change really through nutrition. And I thought we could get there, but nutrition was one of the things that I discovered in that, in that journey. And my books are based on 7 areas, hydration, nutrition, exercise, stress, sleep, environmental hazards, and meditation and prayer.
So this all matters. It all matters in a profound level. And so if you, if you just don't believe it, then just don't sleep for the next few nights and see how well your life is going across the board. You know, so all of them have very, very strong impacts on your health and most people right now are literally deficient in 4 of the 7.
So if you, if you go to all 7 and you score yourself on a 1 to 10 and anything you have less than a 7, you know, that's an area where you should focus because that will have a potentially radical impact on improving your health.
Justin Singletary: Wow. So it sounds like balance. You've got to have the balance.
KC Craichy: What a concept. What a concept.
Justin Singletary: So things have to be in order. Yeah. What a concept. And I love that you mentioned, prayer and meditation. I'm assuming meditation on the word?
KC Craichy: Of course, but you know, meditation is, is, designed by God, you know, and the people who use it to meditate on foo foo stuff, that's, that's a counterfeit.
That's all it is, you know? So meditation is a very powerful and effective tool. As long as you're, I mean, even if you're focusing on your breaths, that's a good thing. As long as what you're doing is founded on the source of all life, which is Jesus Christ himself.
Justin Singletary: So, these books that you've written, can you, if somebody wants to learn more about these techniques and these things that, that you've found to, to help their lives become, I guess, more fulfilled, what are the names of these books?
KC Craichy: Well, the one I would recommend is The Super Health Diet, The Last Diet You'll Ever Need, which pretty much has all of it in there. You know, The Super Health Diet, The Last Diet You'll Ever Need.
Justin Singletary: Awesome. So I want to ask you, since you've, you've got, it seems like a lot of education on balance, what is your daily routine look like?
What what's balancing your life look like? If you can just walk us through from when you wake up and you, when you go to sleep.
KC Craichy: Well, the first, first piece is, spending some time with the Lord and his word and you know, that's, you know, maybe have a cup of tea or a cup of coffee. A lot at that time, a lot of, a lot of people can relate to that.
And then, you know, then reading something educational. Even, even beyond the word, you know, something educational in business or in nutrition or in health or whatever it is that I'm trying to, to know more about. And I think you need to, you need to be, if you're going to get involved in something, you need to be expert and it takes. Right now, these days, the speed of information is faster than ever in history.
So you can literally get very solid science based books and books on tape and videos and so on, where you can increase your, your knowledge. So radically that you can actually bring some expertise to somebody else. You know, so, so that, that to me, I always recommend people will become, I mean, a lot of times now I actually even train doctors in various things on, on super health nutrition and that's our super, super food nutrition.
And that is coming from an area where I've been doing this now for 25 years. And so just learning on a daily basis from the resources that are available and many studies and many books and all that sort of thing. You know, you can, you can absorb this information into your life and become your own doctor.
And that's what I do recommend. But I, I, I will teach you some things I've learned and it'll be a great shortcut for you. But ultimately I think people should learn themselves because what's more important than, than being in balance in the cross, the areas we're talking about now.
Justin Singletary: I completely agree. And I, and you know, when you're out of balance in one of those areas, you feel it, potentially, but it sometimes you can't identify how to solve the problem.
KC Craichy: Right.
Justin Singletary: So yeah, that's good. Let me ask you. I I I read something about the the phrase "plus it". Can you tell me more of maybe the important of importance of plus it in your products? And in your customer experience? When I was reading the rep with the website, I saw the phrase plus it". Like, is that something that you had in your About Us page as far as plussing up the product or plussing up the, the customer experience?
KC Craichy: Yeah. This is plus. So just, just the products that we have that are plus are basically everything that we, we, we, you think you know about it plus some things you don't know about. You know, so I don't know a particular phrase you're talking about on the, on the site, but that, that the ones that are on the product, that will be, this name of a product and it has a plus that just means it goes beyond it.
Justin Singletary: Gotcha. How long have you had these products? How long have you been selling them?
KC Craichy: 23 years.
Justin Singletary: Wow. So people have been taking potentially, did you have some clients that have been taking them that long?
KC Craichy: Yes, we do.
Justin Singletary: Wow.
KC Craichy: Plenty.
Justin Singletary: So plenty of those. So you've gotta have some great testimonials on something like this to be able to
KC Craichy: Tremendous.
Justin Singletary: Get busy. Absolutely. So what's, what's the next, I guess the next phase of this company, of, of this superfood, type of company? Are you gonna stay the course? Do you have any, some, any, any exciting news of something coming up with ?
KC Craichy: We're always developing new products or, or making products better, and that's, that's really. See, our products are leading edge. Then if you find out there in the marketplace. They always say that, copying is the, is the ultimate form of flattery, right? I never have felt flattered when people copy my stuff.
Okay. But apparently that's, that's what people said. So there's a lot of products out there that say a lot of things that our products do, but the products that say it don't do it. And that's really a sad thing. So what people don't realize is that so many things we got to focus on our lives. You hear about, there's so many things that are confusing.
Like, you should, you should fast and you should, you know, be keto and you should do, you know, people, people don't know how to incorporate all of that in their life and then which vitamins you need and which forms of vitamins you need and all that sort of thing. It's really tricky. But one of the things that even the doctors that, that I give talks to sometimes they, they don't get. Is that most people have no idea that they're deficient and the series I'm teaching is called Nutrify or Die, okay? And so what you don't realize is there's a number of things that are absolutely essential for your life. Essential vitamins, essential minerals, essential amino acids, essential fatty acids, the list goes on.
So if you are deficient or in any of those, ultimately death is what's the result. And, and so I hate to sound morbid, but the truth is that my people perish for lack of knowledge. And so if you don't know and you don't focus on things like potassium. So I always say, so what, what's a great source of potassium?
Most people have an answer for that. What would you say?
Justin Singletary: Bananas.
KC Craichy: Banana. Everyone, everyone says bananas. So I say, have you had your 15. 6 bananas today? You know, and if you have, you probably bordering on a sugar coma, you know what I'm saying? So, so that wouldn't be the way to get your potassium. So the best way to get potassium is, you know, 10 servings of leafy vegetables, leafy greens in a day.
Justin Singletary: Yeah.
KC Craichy: Something like that. You know, but Living Fuel, for instance, my company, our products are the highest source of food potassium there is.
Justin Singletary: Amazing.
KC Craichy: You know, second would be like avocado and third would be the greens and, and, and that sort of thing. So banana is not even nearly on the list. It's only 350 milligrams and you need 5, 000 milligrams of potassium in a day.
That means you have to focus on getting enough potassium and the potassium sodium, sodium potassium pump is the reason your heart beats and the reason that your energetic systems even work. So people don't realize that they're walking around very deficient in potassium, magnesium to that list. And when people have heart palpitations, things along those lines, most of the time, the deficiency and those really important electrolyte minerals are the reason, or at least at the root.
Justin Singletary: That's good. Have you ever done a study? I'm sure you have, but on parasites, on, on parasites, actually taking the, the, nutrition that you should be getting.
KC Craichy: Yeah. So, so parasites are something that people don't realize it. Matter of fact, a lot of research is now suggesting that cancer and parasites are connected and that, that you treat cancer like a parasite and you actually get more, more results than if you treat it like they eventually treat it, treat cancer.
So there's a lot of ways to treat parasites, but eating sugar is a terrible way. It's a great way to grow them in your body. That's what people don't realize is that this is one of the things we've got to pay attention to. But there's so many ways to get parasites and very few ways to learn to get rid of them.
So there are some protocols. My wife is a commission on medicine, I'm sorry, an integrated medicine practitioner. So she does a lot of that, but, but it is really an important area. That's why you think things like ivermectin. Those sort of things are actually tremendous antiparasitics.
Justin Singletary: That's great. So my wife this morning sure, she served me a shot glass of wheat grass. She had taken the wheat that we have cause we, we, actually mill our own grain and she put the wheat into a jar and, and, and then she put it into a big, I guess black tray. And eight days later, you know, it's, it's six inches tall.
And and it's it's it's just wild how it works out that in eight days It seems like that's when the wheat grass is the most nutritious and she cut it down.
KC Craichy: That's called the the jointing phase. In other words wheat grass has is basically wheat. But you don't you're not allergic to wheat grass, whereas you might be allergic to wheat.
It's really fascinating nutrition. So and it's really fascinating how God designed all that stuff.
Justin Singletary: It's amazing. Just trying to get as much chlorophyll as possible in her body.
KC Craichy: The chlorophyll basically is like the blood of a plant. So that's where us highly magne, magnesium is the primary thing in that.
And so it's really important, but there's also other minerals that you get from that.
Justin Singletary: That's awesome. So you've been around with these products for 20 years. If, is there any advice that you would give somebody that's trying to create a brand, an e-commerce brand, that's, not just something that they just fly by night and you're trying to make some money on, but something that would be lasting something that, there'll be around 20 years from now. Is there any advice you would give them?
KC Craichy: Yeah, I, I certainly can. When, when my eldest son graduated high school, he said, "Pop, I want to be in business." He was working in my customer service division and that sort of thing, learning, learning businesses. What can I do myself? I said, create, find a problem you're dealing with and solve it in a way that will solve other people's problems too.
And so, so what he did, he said, well, like what I said, well, you got acne on your face and acne on your back. What are you going to do about that? So what can be done, done about that? I said, well, I have numerous research studies and books that will show you, the, the, the physiology of that and how to deal with it.
And you can come up with a solution. And so he literally took all the books out of my library and will bury them to his room and, and consumed all of them. Then he ended up writing a book, became a best selling author on a book called, uh, Winning the War on Acne. I think it was called Face It: Winning the War on Acne.
And then he created an acne product and sold the acne product and that sort of thing. So, yeah, so find something that, that solves something in your, your family or your life. And then, then other people are dealing with the same kind of stuff, you know, so that's a great way to get started, you know, and, and distribution, and I know you're into fulfillment and such.
So. So I, I generally try to tell people, there are a lot of people that are way better at some parts of your business than you are. And so fulfill is one of them. You know, there's, there's, there are people who know how to do fulfillment and warehousing, fulfillment, shipping, pick and pack, all those sort of things that you can hire for your business that are way better than you could ever be at that business.
Cause that's been their focus. So I used to teach outsourcing a lot. I now just do it. And so I suggest people find the pieces of their business that are really done well by, by other companies and, and try to piece them in a particularly when you're starting your
company.
Justin Singletary: That's really good advice. I I've always known, don't go to a dentist for a haircut, you know, you need to find who's best at that and then outsource that absolutely on the same page. And just on the note of Fulfillment.com was born from a problem as well. I was selling products online. Couldn't find a good fulfillment solution. So, the same thing. It seems like these good companies, a lot of them have been born because there was a problem that was solved in those founders lives. So it seems like that that's exactly what happened with, with your company as well.
KC Craichy: Necessity is the mother of invention.
Justin Singletary: You got it. You got it. Well, as far as who's been maybe the, the biggest role model for you, is there somebody that you look to? I mean, at this point, it seems like you are, you are somebody that, that somebody would look to and get advice from, is there somebody in your life that you're turned to whenever you're trying to solve problems?
KC Craichy: You know, I've had a number of mentors in a
number of different areas of my life, and I do recommend you. You find somebody who's good at what you want to be, you know, and, and, and ask him to mentor you. And, and one of the things I recommend to people is when you, when you ask someone to mentor you, don't ask them for anything other than to be mentored.
Justin Singletary: Yeah.
KC Craichy: So, so a lot of times when I, when I've mentored people over the years, I said, listen, I'm not calling you. You got to make a, arrangements to speak to me, call me, tell me your calendar, that sort of thing. And you'd be surprised how many people that asked for mentorship, get the yes response and don't follow up on it because they're intimidated.
It's ridiculous. So find somebody that they can bring some value to your life and bring value to their life.
Justin Singletary: There you go.
KC Craichy: Don't ask them for stuff. Ask them to mentor you and, and, and accept what they have to tell you and, and, and make it a party.
And then you can go out and dominate.
Justin Singletary: You got it. Add value to their life.
Absolutely. So as far as, I know there's, there's so much I want to talk about as far as the word goes. And, but I want to ask you, how has faith really guided your journey in your business?
KC Craichy: That's a really good question because, you know, a lot of people don't think that that should be in your business.
And, and I got to tell you that, you know, the word of God is true and, you know, they talk about, you know, that so many people have a story about the word and scriptures that actually have impacted them in really incredible ways. And so, wisdom comes from above and making godly decisions. You mean look at Solomon.
I mean, Solomon was a wise man in the history of the world until he wasn't, you know, and so, so the word of God has so much in it that is literally important to your business. It's important to your life. It's important to your interactions. But if you remember that your business is relationships, you know, so no one has gone, I mean, people are in relationship with you through your business, they trust you, you deliver a certain level of excellence, a certain level of product.
It's very important. And, and being excellent, I think is really important, you know? So, so people say that, you know, they, they, they. Let's talk about, like, now comes faith, low faith, hope and love and the greatest of these is love, you know. We all talk about faith, and faith moves mountains and that, you know, love is, is you know, God is love, you know and
Justin Singletary: Yeah.
KC Craichy: Those are really important concepts. So, we, if you look in the middle and say that word hope. We use that word so much, like hope so maybe, so it's not the way it's designed. That word is actually a key to those three. A Psalms tells us that faith is undergirded by love, okay, and and we talk about faith moves mountains, but how does it move mountains?
Well, that word hope is the same word as vision. Positive vision for the future. So we say my people perish, without a vision my people perish. It's saying without hope, my people perish with hopelessness and my people perish. You got to realize that in order to have a business, in order to have a business, you have to implement faith. But until you see it, you know, someone runs a business is called a visionary. You see, you have to have a vision, means you need to see where you're going, see the future and then attach the currency of faith to that vision in order to walk into that reality. And that is a there's a that is a concept that It is so valuable if people will grab onto that. You, you, you really, it literally can be the key to your business, your next business, or even your current business.
The Lord says, call upon me and I will answer and show you great and mighty things you do not know. So if you don't have your whole vision yet, then implement that part: Lord, show me. That once he shows you, and then believing is seeing, not seeing is believing. So when you can actually see, and see where you're going in your business, where you're going in your plan.
Then you have to sell your vision to, first of all, your wife, because y'all two or more gathered together in agreement regarding anything, they shall ask that the Lord is in the midst to bring it to pass. So that's one piece, but as a visionary, you then have to sell the next person that joins your business on your vision.
And then the next person, the next person, the next person. If you see that you have hired somebody in your business that doesn't see it, doesn't believe it. Then that person should not be in your business because that's like a cancer upon your business. So come together in agreement and seeing the future together And then because in agreement has the currency of faith to the vision and walk into
Justin Singletary: That's good. So I think you quoted jeremiah 33: 3.
KC Craichy: Yes.
Justin Singletary: And also, you were talking about Solomon. I was also thinking about Solomon where he says the, the the conclusion of the matter human is to fear him and obey his commandments. And that's where it's like
KC Craichy: That, that, that, yeah. So, so Ecclesiastes 12. Yeah.
Justin Singletary: Yep.
KC Craichy: People read Ecclesiastes and they miss that one little version.
Justin Singletary: They missed it.
KC Craichy: You a said it, fear God and do what he said.
Justin Singletary: That's it.
KC Craichy: I mean, it's pretty simple, folks.
Justin Singletary: It it is.
KC Craichy: It's really important.
Justin Singletary: And Solomon was the wisest. I guess, considered one of the wisest men until he started messing around with the women.
KC Craichy: That's right. Well, God says those women are gonna take you down.
That's, he goes, oh, no, I can handle it. I'm pretty wise.
Justin Singletary: Oh no.
KC Craichy: Yeah, right. So,
Justin Singletary: No, no, no. That's a powerful force. So as far as in leadership in your business, you touched on some things when, do you think it's wise to hire people of the same faith or do you see that as a discipleship kind of opportunity where somebody is leaning that direction?
They've got all the skill sets. So, so how do you handle those sort of things with hiring and keep?
KC Craichy: Well, I don't know. I'm not really a big fan of missionary dating. You know, if you're going to bring them in, you know, hire the people who already see things the way you see them. And, and pray with them and, and believe with them and disciple them, but not, your business should not, in my view, be a, you know, an opportunity to try to bring people to Christ.
I mean, yes, definitely do that, but that's not, to me, it's easier if you bring team people from the same team on.
Justin Singletary: That's good. That's good. And my business is a little difficult because, you know, we've got hundreds, you know, we've got a lot of employees, so, you know, when it comes to hiring people, we're looking for the skill set, but it's almost like when they're here, it's a good way, we've, we've got like a Bible study that, that happens, on Thursdays, and it's a good way to be able to bring people in. But I'm thinking if I was, if I was a company where I had less employees, like when we started, everybody's got to be aligned, like we have to be aligned.
KC Craichy: But in your case, do you just have to walk it out? You have to walk the walk and talk the talk, you know, cause they're watching.
Justin Singletary: Everybody watching.
We're all witnesses, right? We're either good witnesses or bad witnesses.
KC Craichy: That's right. So as long as you're living it, you know, you are being an evangelist.
Justin Singletary: That's good. That's good. So as far as your products, how many SKUs do you guys have? How many products do you have now?
KC Craichy: But we have less than 10 SKUs.
Justin Singletary: 10 SKUs.
KC Craichy: Well, by the way, somebody joining, starting a business? Keep the SKUs down, man. Keep the SKUs down.
Justin Singletary: What the best advice right now. People come to me and they're like, I got 300 SKUs.
I'm like, okay, well, they're doing 10, let's say 90 percent on 10 SKUs or less. 90 percent of their business.
KC Craichy: I would guarantee that's the case.
Justin Singletary: Great advice.
KC Craichy: Why are you selling the other few hundred? You're not selling them, you're just warehousing them.
Justin Singletary: It's an emotional attachment, I feel like it is. So the, the, the, the good advice right there is, is reduce your SKUs.
And to anybody listening here, I mean, I know you, you, people like to develop more products and they want a bigger brand and more products, but they're usually selling the bulk of whatever, whatever they launched on. Whatever was the product that the, that really the customers loved. Let's continue to improve that product.
KC Craichy: Amen, brother. I couldn't agree with you more.
Justin Singletary: Well, as far as the next steps for you guys, are you doing anything outside of e-commerce? Is that really, is that, that your sole, sole attention right now?
KC Craichy: Well, we do education and we do, we do products throug- e commerce. So we're, we're, we're taking it to new levels on the, on the education side, but we haven't released that yet so
Justin Singletary: Awesome. What about marketing wise? Do you have any tips for marketing? Are you using anything new that's working for you guys?
KC Craichy: Well, you know, we are looking at some new things because this cell phone pinging towers and the information available, all those things is pretty extraordinary. But he's staying with the dancing with the one that brung you.
First of all, we don't, we don't advertise so much. In fact, even when I do, you know, like a TikTok and, and Instagram and those kinds of things, it's all tips, you know, trying to help people's life be better without spending any money with me. So So the way, the way we try to do is we try to be a blessing to everybody.
And a lot of ways, you know, especially sewing and reading that kind of ends up coming back to us in a positive way.
Justin Singletary: So your customer acquisition strategy really revolves around more word of mouth. Getting it right out of the gate so they tell others?
KC Craichy: That's right. And that's the way it's been for, for all 23 years that we've been doing it.
Justin Singletary: That's nice. You don't have to spend much money on advertising, like you've already developed a great product and now they're going to, your, your customers are going to be advocates for you. That's the best way.
KC Craichy: Yes, sir.
Justin Singletary: That's awesome.
KC Craichy: Praise the lord for that.
Justin Singletary: Yeah. He is good. Well, as far as, I just want to ask, I've got across from me, my marketing director, Nick, and he's been listening.
Nick, you got any questions right now for KC?
Nick: I think it's just phenomenal. We really appreciate the input.
Justin Singletary: He says he, we really appreciate the input. Go ahead, Nick.
Nick: Yeah, I think this is great just to be able to provide great feedback to the e-commerce audience. There's lots of other e-commerce brands here listening to this and I think many folks are going to benefit this and try to tune their business.
Justin Singletary: Man, he's just saying thank you. It's pretty awesome that you're helping other brands by your advice. And you're drawing everything into the most important part is back to Him, you know, that's the most important part of all this so
KC Craichy: Glorify Him in all you do.
Justin Singletary: That's right and he, He will light your path. Well, is there any other you think any other brands that you're, that you're watching that you're thinking they're doing the right thing as well? Is there anybody else that you're really excited about out there e-commerce wise?
KC Craichy: You know. There's a lot of people trying to change the model of a multi level marketing.
Justin Singletary: Yep.
KC Craichy: And I haven't seen it done right yet, but I think that they're going to hit because the overall model, we basically have something similar to that model in that people tell people how great it is and they buy it without any financial incentive to do that, you know what I'm saying? But the whole model of being paid to tell somebody to buy, you know, and it never has worked very well in nutrition.
They'll work for a little while and then go away. But somebody is going to get that right where they can get the incentives right to where if you can just be a member and buy something at a price, you couldn't buy some from, you know, otherwise, or some other kind of benefits, then I think that's going to work at some point.
So, so I keep watching that, but I really am not a fan yet.
Justin Singletary: Wow. Well, I think you're right. It is going to hit for somebody if they got came, come up with the right formula. So Living Fuel Super Meals, I'm really excited that this company is out there. I really want to try the products myself.
KC Craichy: Awesome.
Justin Singletary: Because it, it sounds like it's like the, the the manna. You know, this is it. This is all you need.
KC Craichy: You know, it's funny because we've prayed from the beginning. We've prayed that the, that the Living Fuel is like the anointed cloths of Paul. You know, where they would take aprons and cloths and anoint them and send them to people.
They'd be healed and delivered and set free.
Justin Singletary: Yep.
KC Craichy: We believe that's going on. That's what we're praying and we believe it. And by faith that that is happening.
Justin Singletary: I really do think some deliverance happens through through the foods that we eat. And then some some of the opposite happens through some of the non-foods that we call foods that we eat as well.
KC Craichy: Amen to that.
Justin Singletary: So as far as fulfillment, what would you say if somebody would ask you, you know, what does fulfillment mean to you? How would you respond to that?
KC Craichy: Well, whether I'm doing it myself or whether I have a contractor, doing it for me , it's the customer calls in the same day the stuff ships and it's just, just seamless.
Ah, you know, and to me, to me, it's like, I don't have to worry about the warehouse. I'll get my inventory reports. But if an order comes in on my website, it's been on a hit the same day. Some, it's going to ship the same day and people only get their stuff, you know, so.
Justin Singletary: Man, they need to fast.
KC Craichy: It's not something you want to focus on. You just want to make sure that it's not there.
Justin Singletary: No, what about your life wise? What is fulfillment in your life? What does that mean to you? Like you're, you're in your deathbed looking back and you're like, Oh man, I'm really, really excited that, that I, I lived life this way. What does that sort of fulfillment look like to you as well?
KC Craichy: Well, if the Lord has said, well done, good and faithful servant, then I'm fulfilled. I want to hear that from the Lord, but I want people to recognize that it was done well, you know.
Justin Singletary: That's right.
KC Craichy: In the name of Jesus.
Justin Singletary: That's good. That's good I'm so excited. There's not a lot of businesses out there that can include their face.
I'm really excited. We, we try to do that and that's why I was asking you if there's anybody else out there that you see that that's including, that is putting Him at the center of it? I want to be a part of that business. I want to follow that business I want to just pay attention to what's going on, and more importantly, I want to support that business. So I do want to
KC Craichy: Well, I would, I would say yes. Eric Zielinski and his wife Sabrina, I don't know if you've heard of them or not, but they're, they're the gurus in essential oils.
Justin Singletary: Okay.
KC Craichy: They do the education books, the bestselling books. She's basically Martha Stewart without the, without the jail time.
You know, she's literally like the most extraordinary person as far as being able to, to cook and make things beautiful and that sort of thing. So, they're out of Atlanta and they're doing great things.
Justin Singletary: Awesome. Okay, well reach out, they'll reach out. Is there anything else that you want to add in here that you want people to know about your brand, that you want them to know about you?
KC Craichy: Well, thank you and I just want to be a blessing, you know, blessed to be a blessing and, and so in a reaping it comes back and so.
Justin Singletary: That's right.
KC Craichy: That's what I really want to do for people and, and if they're, if they're struggling with anything in their health, you know, you know, and they want to call, they want to or email or whatever, you know, we generally will try to get them to the right people or give them the right advice, that sort of thing.
Because, you know, the body has all, everybody's body has certain needs and most people are sick and tired of being sick and tired and conventional medicine is not helping them at all. The whole COVID fiasco has caused people to get you know, shots that they didn't need or want and not realizing that even years later they have consequences from the toxins in their body and they can still be detox and all sorts of things.
There's so many things that I just want to tell people, there's hope no matter where you're at, whether you've been diagnosed with cancer or you're still struggling from the COVID shot. You know, there is hope and, and hope is Jesus. No matter what your problem is, Jesus is the answer. I, I don't want to be so too simplistic, but, but ultimately it's in the word and, and the word is powerful and, and, and sharp.
You know, he's, He's alive and, and He says that he came that you have life and life more abundantly. So I pray that you live the abundant life of the Lord Jesus Christ in the name of Jesus.
Justin Singletary: Hallelujah. What's your favorite book in scripture?
KC Craichy: You know, I like Ephesians a lot.
Justin Singletary: Ephesians a lot. That's awesome.
That's beautiful. What is the most important thing that you want people to know about your brand? About this product brand that's been around for 20 years. Living Fuel Super Meals. What's the most important thing that you could say about your business?
KC Craichy: No matter how, no matter what you've tried. No matter what you're taking, if you're not taking Living Fuel, you're not having the best you can do for your body, period.
I don't care who or what, or what price level —it just simply doesn't exist. Living Fuel is the elite in nutrition.
Justin Singletary: That is strong. That's wonderful. KC, thank you so much for your time today, sir.
KC Craichy: Awesome. Well, God bless you guys.
Justin Singletary: Bless you. Thank you, sir. Appreciate it, KC. Bye.
Kenny Morgan: In a world where adversity often dictates our limits, some individuals redefine the boundaries of possibility. One such pioneer is Jack, whose journey with Duradry turns personal battles into wins for all of us. Driven by Jack's fight against hyperhidrosis, Duradry now empowers millions to embrace life confidently.
Jack Benzaquen: Happiness comes from fulfillment. Fulfillment comes from building something worth building. Not only a business, but also a family, also, a community. Give of yourself towards a higher good that creates fulfillment. Lasting fulfillment, fulfillment, which creates lasting happiness.
Kenny Morgan: This is one episode you won't want to miss.
Well, Jack, I just want to say thank you so much for being on the podcast today. We've, I feel like we've already had like a private episode before he jumps on here. It's so good. And I think it's, to me, a reminder of there's, there's still a lot of great people on this earth. And, I can tell you're one of those people, but you've got, 20 years of experience in DPC and CPG.
I got some more details before we kind of kickstarted, but you're from Venezuela, but you've been here in the U.S for 11 years. I've seen that you are a serial entrepreneur. You're an investor and currently, you're the founder and CEO of a beautiful brand. We'll get into that more but Duradry that you founded in 2014.
But man, I just want to say thank you so much for just being on with me today.
Jack Benzaquen: Thank you for having me. Thank you for the compliments. Not sure if, if, if they're well earned, but thank you regardless.
Kenny Morgan: For sure. Well, I, we got into a little bit, but I, even before the Duradry conversation, I, I really love hearing how people, you know, kind of got their start and you can go back as far as you want.
And it sounds like you've got a really interesting story even just coming to the U.S but I'd love just to hear more about your personal story and how it brought to brought you where you're at today.
Jack Benzaquen: Sure, sure. So as you said, I'm from Venezuela, born and raised, in a, in a, you know, beautiful community, big family, middle class, have always have, have always had that hunger for making money.
You know, don't, don't, don't ask me why, but it started working when I was very, very young, maybe at 15 years old, making websites for other people, of course. Started a few businesses with friends and by myself that didn't go anywhere, but, but, you know, definitely, definitely, you know, you, you gain a lot of experience, especially when you start very young.
That would be my first recommendation for everyone. Start young because the, the curve, you know, if, if it's an exponential curve, the, the sooner you start the, the faster you're gonna, like when you're 25, you're gonna get to the exponential part of the curve, right?
Kenny Morgan: Yeah.
Jack Benzaquen: Which is more or less what I think happened to me, although Venezuela got trapped into, into political, into political fight between the left and the right, the left won, you know, destroy the country and I had to leave 11 years ago, came to the U.S. By the way, when I was in Venezuela, I started my first CPG company with very little money that I had from making websites and I grew it to, you know, a few million in top line revenue, but I had to leave and start from scratch in the U.S. No network, no, no understanding of the market. No, basically not much, right. So I started from really scratch. Like I didn't have an ID. I didn't have a social security. So like even to transact, to transact credit cards on the website, I couldn't do it because I didn't have a social security. Which, which takes me to what I was telling you before, which is that the real privilege that people in the U.S have is, is being born in the U.S, right?
So if you, for some reason, you feel that you don't have opportunities or you're being discriminated against, or, you know, the family that, that you got in the, in the, in the random. You know, world of, of, of possibilities is not the best, you know, know that the actual privilege is being born in the U.S . You have it so much better than anyone in the world.
So, you know, stop complaining and start doing. Just adding a little bit of, of, of commentary there because, you know, when I tell my story, I, it really takes me back to how difficult my path has been. Of course, you know, I'm not, you know, by far, I'm not the, the, like, I didn't have it as some people like, let's say crossing the border have it, but you know, definitely so much easier when you are American born, right?
Kenny Morgan: Yeah. I couldn't agree more.
I'm grateful to be in this country. So, so Duradry, it's a brand that you founded and you've managed today. It's focused on anti sweat and odor control, which you had mentioned that it's a, it's a personal struggle that you had with, I think it's hyperhidrosis, am I saying that correctly?
Jack Benzaquen: Correct.
Kenny Morgan: Which is just, you're sweating, you may not even exercise or do anything, but you just, you're sweating a good bit. So, tell us a little bit more about the inception, how you got into that. And then also, does it feel a little bit different when it connects back to a personal thing that you have in your own life?
Jack Benzaquen: 100%, and that's also something that I would recommend everybody do. If you want to start a business, start from problems that you understand yourself. That you live, right? Because you're going to have so much insight. Even if you think, hey, I can't learn everything there is to learn about, I don't know, you know, manufacturing vitamin gummies, right?
It's so much different when you, when you suffer through it, right? And when I say suffer, I don't mean like actually like, you know, suffer like, like bad pain, but suffer in the sense of you've identified the problem very clearly. I understand that you can almost like read the mind of your, of your target market. Right? And that's super valuable for part of development, for marketing, for everything. Right? But the way I started, and this is, this is, you know, almost, almost funny, right? So, I had this CPG company that I started by selling pregnancy test kits, and then I added other products including, you know, shaving gel and cotton swabs and hand sanitizer and body creams, et cetera, et cetera.
And then I had this problem and I, and I asked a few of American brands that make products for excessive underarm sweating to give me the exclusive rights to distribute the products in Venezuela. But none of them paid attention, just they disregarded. So I said, you know what, I'm going to do my thing.
So I did the research on the ingredients and I found a quantum manufacturer and a chemist. And that's where Duradry, so then you might see gel version one was born, was actually born in Venezuela. And then, you know, with time it arrived into the U.S, but that's, that's how it started just by basically trying to, to just figuring out what it wanted, regardless of the conditions.
Which is, Hey, you're in Latin America, you don't know much about ingredients. These people are not giving you the time of day. So do it yourself. And now, ironically, I'm competing against them, right? Yeah.
Kenny Morgan: That always gives you a little more momentum, right?
Jack Benzaquen: Well, it definitely, definitely fires me up, right?
There are many ways, or there are many types of, of let's say people. If you divide people into two categories, there's people that if you tell them, Hey, you know, you buy me, you might be a little bit chubby. Some people might get depressed and some people will say, Oh yeah, I'm going to show you.
Jack Benzaquen: Right? So, I'm more on the, on the camp of, I'm going to show you. Right? So when they told me, Hey, Well, basically they didn't tell me anything because they didn't pay attention to me.
Kenny Morgan: Yeah.
Jack Benzaquen: Just disregard. The fire was like, you know, I'm going to show you, right?
Kenny Morgan: Yeah. I mean, I can look at my own life. There's been two, two times I can remember where someone just doubted me. One was like a, Eighth grade teacher who said I plagiarized in a children's book that I wrote and I, I didn't. And I was like, one day I'm going to be an author and I'm going to mail you a copy of the book.
Jack Benzaquen: Yes. And you're going to be a teacher for the rest of your life.
Kenny Morgan: Yeah. Yeah. And I kind of, I'm kind of grateful for it because it kind of spurred, you know, an opportunity to do something that I'm really passionate about. So I love that.
Jack Benzaquen: Yeah. You know, between you and I, we can make up, we can create a quote. Doubters are the fuel of entrepreneurs basically.
Kenny Morgan: Yeah. Totally believe that.
Jack Benzaquen: Right? Because if you're like, if, if. Also, if you're trying to push something new, you're usually going to have more people saying no or dissuading you not to do it. Some people just cheering for you. Right?.
Kenny Morgan: Yeah.
Jack Benzaquen: So, if you are on team A, which is what I was telling you before, that when someone criticizes you or doubts you, you get sad and depressed and disencouraged.
You wouldn't do anything, right? So the only way to be an entrepreneur is to use doubters as fuel.
Kenny Morgan: Totally. Totally. Well, one I've seen a, seen a few, a good handful, but one of my favorite quotes of yours that I've found was, you said you need to spend 10 percent on your product and 90 percent on your marketing, not the other way around.
And he said a great product without good marketing won't get you anywhere. And I've, I've literally been saying that for years. Like I, I talk about that famous, Kevin Costner movie, build a dreams. And, the, this ghost in a baseball field says, if you build it, they will come. And I'm like, that's halfway true.
Like you build it yet you might build something, but if you don't tell people it exists. But one thing I want to say about you, I'm a, I'm a creative guy. I come back, same building websites, brands. But the first thing that I thought when I saw Duradry, I was like, this is a beautiful brand. And so just tell me a little bit about like, why that's been important to you and, and, why it matters in the marketplace?
Jack Benzaquen: Yeah. But just, just one second to, to go back to what you were saying. So, that's what I didn't come up with, you know, the 10 percent on product and 90 percent of marketing is just something that it's out there. I don't know who said it, but, but I've actually like now I would say that. Well, I wouldn't say that I'm flipping those percentages, but I'm definitely increasing the amount of, of effort and focus that I'm putting on product.
Especially in today's world, because everything became so transparent buying online, that the product became more important than it usually ,that that, that it used to be. Right? Because just let's think for, from, for a second, right. From first principles, you have, you know, back in the day, maybe 30 years ago, you have products on the shelf, you go to, you know, target, let's say, and you see a bunch of brands and you're going to grab, you know, the one that you recognize from ads on TV.
Or, or the one that looks, you know, the coolest or whatnot. Right? But it didn't mean that you were going to choose the best. And honestly, as long as those products keep selling, either because of ads or because of packaging, the manufacturer or the brand didn't actually get the correct feedback as to what could be proven the part of what was wrong. Right?
Kenny Morgan: Yeah.
Jack Benzaquen: So marketing definitely took a bigger percentage. But nowadays, everything is so transparent.
You have Amazon reviews that even though they're still being manipulated, let's say that they are 80 percent true and definitely directionally correct. So, that's forcing those brands to go back into the product and making sure that it's actually an exceptional product.
And if you want to take this a step further, acquiring customers online, at least in direct to consumer, I'm not in retail site that's a different story, but at least direct to consumer and Amazon.
Kenny Morgan: Right.
Jack Benzaquen: Online acquisition cost, keeps going up, right? So it's very difficult nowadays to be first order profitable.
That means that you need to rely on LTV. And to realize a good LTV number, you need to have a good product that people are willing to, you know, repeat again and again.
Of course that's on, on CPG consumables, right? That doesn't apply necessarily to, to durable goods, but that's a different story.
Kenny Morgan: Right.
Jack Benzaquen: And can you repeat your question? Because I went
Kenny Morgan: Well, mostly it was just admiring the beautiful brand that you've built and just, you know, why do you think that matters in the marketplace today?
Jack Benzaquen: Oh, dude, like that matters so much. I don't know if it's because of a new consumer or because of, of the, you know, Instagram, TikTok generation.
But definitely you want something that looks beautiful in your countertop, in your bathroom and that goes with your lifestyle, right? Like something that connects with how cool you are, how different you are or whatnot. Right? Like definitely we are, we're past the times of, of ultra generic brands from the big CPG companies, Procter & Gamble, Unilever at all, right? Like this is it, just buy or, or like, just take it or leave it. And it was very, you know, one size fits all, let's say. Now I think we're going a little bit more granular, but, but, you know, going back to the, to your, to your question, there's so much competition. You need to be different. You need to be aesthetics is definitely another way or another, another one of the few factors that consumers analyze before buying a brand, even if it's not conscious, even if it's just unconscious. You know, you have prize, you have, you know, product ratings, you have the product descriptions, you have, you know, all the, all the assets around it. And then one of them is definitely, aesthetics.
Kenny Morgan: Yeah, totally agree. Well, you've got a, you've got a beautiful one. So keep up the great work.
Jack Benzaquen: Thanks.
Kenny Morgan: So, I read a little bit about or I'd heard, and this is probably to be expected, but, you know, moving from Venezuela to the U.S. Like your network was basically zero and you had to rely on a lot of people, you know, giving you chances and stuff.
But I, I wanted to talk a little bit about, you know, what it was like to, to build a network and then also why you think relationships, professional and personal matter when it comes to, you know, launching and putting yourself out there.
Jack Benzaquen: Yeah. So, so, you know, first of all, we, we do business with people, not, not with companies, not with, not with machines, right? So, the personal connection, even within a professional setting is really important, right? And going back to building the network, I actually think it's rather easy today because of the internet. and if you want to algorithm that you could, that you could deploy, let's say to get connected in your industries, just find a few podcasts or a few newsletters from people in your industry.
And you will know, because they have, you know, the most followers, the most views, the most everything, right? Then follow those people, those hosts or those, you know, writers of those newsletters, follow them on LinkedIn and Twitter. And then also follow the hosts, the hosts, not the guests they have in the podcast, right?
Or the companies they mentioned on their newsletters. And then you're going to, slowly by slowly, the graph on Twitter and LinkedIn is going to reveal itself. You're going to start seeing who's commenting on who and who's reposting what, and just, you know, start following those people. Then, start, you know, interact with those people commenting on their posts.
Definitely go to trade shows and you're also going to understand which are the important thresholds. The important trade shows to go to by reading these people on their, on their feet, right? Like who's going to grow or who's going to this other thing. And then you're going to start being invited to founder's dinners.
You know, before you know it, you're going to know, you're going to meet a bunch of people, right? It's a very small industry. Once you, once you're, once you see the inside, right?
Kenny Morgan: Yeah. Totally. So, I think this is a good continuation. But I know when you start building your network, launching a business, your schedule gets pretty busy. I also know that like me, you are a dad. And so I'm always really curious how people balance, work life and the personal life. So, talk about that and then maybe what your routine looks like a little bit.
Jack Benzaquen: What do you say at the end, the team?
Kenny Morgan: Your, your routine.
Jack Benzaquen: Oh, my routine. So, you're going to think you're going to like, some people think that I'm crazy, right? A, I work from home.
Kenny Morgan: Yep.
Jack Benzaquen: And yes, the kids, you know, arrive from, from school or camp, let's say at 3:30, 4:00, it's just a disaster. They interrupt me and if my wife needs not something, she'll interrupt me as well.
So I have a lot of interruptions, but you know, I couldn't care less. That's the way I have balance, you know, with my family, because, you know, if not, I would work 24/7, right? So I do try to work a lot, because, you know, what you didn't do today, you're going to have to do tomorrow, right?
So you're actually falling behind if you, if you don't work a lot. Also, you know, I bootstrapped or I'm bootstrapping this company. So, I have to counteract how much money my competitors have by putting in more work myself, right? And of course my team. So going back to where I started, I'm working from home. That gives me more time with the family. Even if I have 10 minutes between calls, I can, you know, go give my girls a kiss, just ask them how the day was, whatnot. And then I come upstairs again and be on another call.
I try to wake up early, but if I wake up a little bit later, I couldn't care less. You know, that's one of the reasons I want to be an entrepreneur. I, I, I'm in charge of my time, right? And of course, you know, you compensate, like if you wake, if you woke up a little bit later, maybe, you know, you stay a little bit longer, you know, the day, you have short lunches.
You, you don't have a commute when you're working from home. Right? So I can keep going but I think you got the idea. Everything is, is together, you know, in, you know. I don't know the word in English, but very well, integrated, right?
Kenny Morgan: Yeah.
Jack Benzaquen: I work on Sundays, let's say half a day, a little bit. The only day that I'm not working is from Friday night to Saturday night.
Kenny Morgan: That's so good. I just, this was on the list. Wasn't sure I was, I was going to ask it, but you just seem, like someone who's always like learning and growing. So, tell me, in this season of life, what do you feel like you're learning?
Jack Benzaquen: Business related or, or whatever?
Kenny Morgan: Either one, either one. If it, if everything in your life's integrated, I think you'll probably impact both. So yeah, it could be either one.
Jack Benzaquen: Yeah, on the business front, I've been forced to start learning more how to build a team and delegate. I'm also being forced to learn how to create content, maybe video, maybe writing.
It's definitely one of the biggest free opportunities of leverage that all of us have, right? Because it's virtually free. And leverage only to build your company, but to build a network, to, you know, meet people that could help you along the way to, even like to exit, right? Like for everything. And on the personal side, Kenny, , I'm Jewish.
So after October the 7th, I got much closer to my spiritual side. You can see, or at least I see, see what's going on in the Middle East and in the world at large as some sort of like evil forces. Or at the bare minimum people with moral, with a moral compass that's compromised or, or is relativistic, right? So that, that, you know, has brought me back to kind of like get, get in touch a little bit more with, with my spiritual side.
Kenny Morgan: Yeah. Yeah, that's awesome. Thank you for sharing that. What, I think this is a good next question to ask now, because I think we're kind of in that that setting. But this podcast is called, we will kind of have to once called Fulfilled and once called Fulfilled and Five, but we, we really, we talk a lot about the fulfillment space, e-commerce, but also just like, what does it mean to be fulfilled in this life? And everybody has a different answer. So for you, what does being fulfilled look like?
Jack Benzaquen: Fulfill. Okay. So, so not fulfill of a package, fulfilled, me fulfilled inside.
Kenny Morgan: That's right.
Jack Benzaquen: So that, that's a, that's a good question. Great question. So some people think the, the objective is to be happy and they think that to be happy, they need to seek, joy and pleasure. Like how delicious to be on vacation, how delicious to be in this fancy restaurant. . I'm, I'm by the pool and I'm doing, you know, this, you know, fancy thing or whatnot.
And I, and I think that happiness comes from fulfillment. So going to, going back to, to your question, what's fulfillment? So, I actually take it to, you know, in a, in a slightly different direction. And it is like happiness. Definitely. It's, it's. It's a goal, but happiness comes from fulfillment and from fulfillment comes from building something worth building. And not only a business, but also a family, also a community.
So when you give of yourself towards a higher good, let's say, that creates fulfillment, lasting fulfillment. Which I mean, fulfillment, which creates lasting happiness.
Kenny Morgan: That's so good. That, that's like the million dollar answer out there. So good. So, so good. All right. I got, I got two, two more, but I think these are a little lighter.
Jack Benzaquen: Yeah.
Kenny Morgan: You've already given us a ton of advice already, but, if you could, it didn't have to be one, but just, what's some advice for others that are in the space? It could be, you know, startups or even seasoned people. What's, what's that go to wisdom that you would share for those listening to today?
Jack Benzaquen: There's so much, but if, if we're thinking a little bit more holistically and, and industry agnostic. I would say, do not run your company based on what gurus, marketing gurus are telling you, or, or VCs are telling you, okay? Because if you fail, they're not going to be there for you. They wouldn't care.
They won't care. So you have to think about your business problems for, from first principles and understand the risk reward ratio yourself, because your future depends on it, right? You can't outsource your thinking to what the gurus or the VCs are telling you, right? And just to give you, you know, a small example.
So maybe 2021, if you were trying to raise money, VCs will tell you, Hey, if you are profitable, you're doing it wrong. You need to push for growth. Even if you're losing money, because now the rules of the game are growth and we're funding growth, right? And a bunch of people did so. And then, when it came to 2022, 2023, and you went to raise, no one was there to give you money.
Why? Because the interest rates, , were raised and you know, that's a different story, but the money was not there. So you, the entrepreneur, the, you know, you were giving your life for the business and all your energy, all your time, sacrificing time with your family and you know, all that it implies, you were left holding the bag.
The bag, meaning that you have a business that's not viable. Why? Because you paid attention to, you know, a schmuck VC two years ago that just told you to follow the sheet, which is, Hey, this is a, what you need to do, but then, it ruined you, right? It just ran out of money and that's it. You're gone. So don't, don't do things based on what other people are telling you.
Don't be a sheep. Just think from first principles.
Kenny Morgan: Yeah. Dig into that a little bit more. Cause I'm, I'm like, you're, you're touching on, some realities that I, I live with my family. So it's real, but, we talk about not, not just doing everybody else's doing, how would, how would you get into knowing, Hey, what am I supposed to do?
Like, what would be your wisdom on that?
Jack Benzaquen: What are you supposed to do in life?
Kenny Morgan: Well, I think even on the business front you talked about, like, don't, don't necessarily just jump ship or jump in on board with the marketing gurus. Don't, don't just be someone that kind of walks aimlessly into the, into the, the future.
So if you don't do that, what would be your wisdom for the opposite of that?
Jack Benzaquen: Yes. So, so I think that the framework should be making asymmetric bets. Meaning, hey, I'm going to make the product red, okay? And maybe some people won't like it, but the bet is that it's going to be so strong on the shelf, and it's going to be, it's going to have so much contrast against white on, on, online that the awareness or the, or the, whatever you want to call it. There's more to gain there than on the people that are not going to like it. Right? Just to give you an example, just asymmetric bets.
Kenny Morgan: Yeah.
Jack Benzaquen: Another thing is never bet everything on one idea, no matter how much you trust that idea. Right? Because more often than not, we're wrong. I would say that, that probably like 1 out of, out of 10 things that I do are worth my while and actually make us make progress.
The other, the other 9 just pulls us back or just makes the progress super slow.
Kenny Morgan: Yeah.
Jack Benzaquen: So you have to try a bunch of things and if you want to try a bunch of things, you need to make each bet small enough so that you won't go bankrupt. Right?
Kenny Morgan: Yeah. Yeah.
Jack Benzaquen: Because if you survive long enough and you're putting in the work, you're going to get somewhere.
Maybe you don't get to, you know, a billion dollar outcome, but, you know, maybe you get to 10, to a 20 to a 30 and that's, you know, life changing money, right? Like you don't need to get to a billion to be successful.
Kenny Morgan: Yeah.
Jack Benzaquen: Right? So I think, you know, I went, I was thinking out loud, but it, you know, there are a few things there that, that I think make sense together.
Kenny Morgan: That's so good. I always jokingly said, but it's partially true. I say like 90 percent of the time I got horrible ideas, but maybe, maybe 10 percent of the time I'm brilliant. So you validated that for me today.
Jack Benzaquen: No, but, but think about it. Like, and honestly, everyone that actually puts in the work will know this and we'll feel it close to their heart because that's the truth.
You make a lot of effort and then, you know, most of the things that you do, do not pan out.
Kenny Morgan: Yeah.
Jack Benzaquen: A tiny bit.
Kenny Morgan: Yeah.
Jack Benzaquen: And some of those tiny bits are just out of luck, if you want me to be honest.
Kenny Morgan: So that's true. So true. All right. One, last, just kind of regular question. Cause I can tell you're, you're like me where you're always just kind of evolving and growing and thinking of new things, but what would you say is next for you?
What are you most excited about?
Jack Benzaquen: I do not know necessarily what's next because, all in into Duradry. I do think that there's something here and I need to explore it all the way. And I'm, I'm giving it, you know, 90, more than 90 percent of my time. Something that I'm exploring now is creating content. So, yeah, honestly, you know, in real life, I'm, I'm super introverted, but, but, you know, I, I'm being forced to, to become extroverted on camera, right?
To be able to create some content. It's just that it's such a big leverage, such a big lever, that it would be foolish not to at least try it. Yeah. At least, you know, dip your toe into the water to see if you find something more than what it's just a plain sight because it's such a big lever.
Kenny Morgan: Well, you're, you're doing it really well. So you've let your kindness and charisma come through quite well. So I would just say, keep up, keep up the great work on that.
Jack Benzaquen: Thank you. Thank you brother.
Kenny Morgan: So, well, for those, I mean, I, again, from the minute we jumped on, this is just really easy to talk to you. I've held a kindred spirit for sure. But for others that listen, they're like, Hey, I like Jack.
I'd like to follow along with him and also Duradry. What's, what's the best way to point them where they can stay connected to you?
Jack Benzaquen: Go to Twitter, jackybh. That's my handle.
Kenny Morgan: Awesome. And then obviously Duradry.com, which again, you land there, you're going to be like blown away by the brand and website and the products he's created. So
Jack Benzaquen: Thank you. Still a lot of work to do. It's funny, but, but the one that's working on, on the thing can see all the, all the, all the issues, right? That we need to address. But thank you for the compliment.
Kenny Morgan: Yeah. I remember I tell this sometimes, but you know, we owned a company for a while that helped others create custom websites and beautiful websites.
So we were really proud of, but initially when we started out, we didn't have a budget to even do it for ourselves, you know, and so I had to use a template site. People would like compliment us on our template site. I'm just like, don't tell me that. Usually the, you know, the general public's a little bit more forgiving on, on how we treat ourselves, but it's, it's, it's really beautiful and you've done something really special. So
Jack Benzaquen: Thank you. I really appreciate it.
Kenny Morgan: But, yeah, I mean, I just want to just say thank you once again for, for being on. It's definitely been an encouragement to me and I know other people, so I appreciate you and, and, I'm grateful for this conversation.
Jack Benzaquen: Thank you. Thank you for doing this for everybody, including myself.
Kenny Morgan: Appreciate you, man.
We've all experienced life's roadblocks we've all had those moments when the future looked void of anything good Our Guest today reminds us that not only can you persevere through those Seasons but learn to see the good in everyday life again from perceived failure to the fourth fastest growing consumer product in America in that you have look at the experiences that you have what lights you up and then how do you take all of that and then bring God into it and expand the kingdom in some way he's lived it and you can too all right my friends welcome back to another episode of fulfilled it's truly an honor having one of my dear friends on with us today and Zach Wendall in addition to being one of the nicest guys on the planet and I really mean that Zach is an entrepreneur a speaker he's an author really has a heart for just helping others see the good in their everyday lives but more than anything there's a few people that I see really being a light for this generation and Zach is is up there in my books but brother I just want to say thank you so much for being with us today man thank you so much for having me on I swear your introductions I'm G to bring you everywhere from here on out uh just hire you to hang out with me just so that uh you can boost my ego and and uh and tell people about me yeah if that means we can travel together I'm in done deal so I know a lot about your story just one being a brother and just um knowing you reading your books too but um you got quite a story I know that you many years ago kind of went through a season where you were just kind of searching for answers and then you made this this journey to Australia so for people who don't know you don't know your story tell me a little bit about that and then just the transformation that took place like like on your way there and then after you kind of came back totally so I grew up in the church and I grew up seeing Miracle after Miracle uh my mom is a four-time cancer survivor and so just uh witnessing that and seeing God's goodness through it all for 15 18 years um really made an impact on who I am and and the way that I view the world um but then when I hit college and moved away I started falling away from my faith more and making my own uh decisions on things that might not be the best and I just started questioning a lot of things and when I was 24 I I hit a pretty low spot and I was like God I I know you're good and I know you're real but like prove to me that you're real like even more so now because I was struggling just with a lot of other Christians that I was surrounded by and just kind of with with who I was and what I wanted to believe and so I ended up moving out to Australia um to study in this program for nine months where it was like 12 hours a day six days a week so if we were studying Genesis for instance we would read Genesis five times in one week and that's like a 4-Hour read and then we would write our own commentary on it and so by the end of this program I had like 20 30 40 pages of notes and commentary on every single book of the Bible and my life was completely transformed I fell in love with scripture I fell in love with just the word and getting more people into it and I knew that a lot of people's lives would be transformed if they spent time studying the Bible but a lot of people that I knew aren't able to just get up and move across the world and so I started or I wrote this book called The Bible study and it basically holds your hand as you read through the entire Bible and uh it ended up doing really really well and growing into a pretty big product uh from there we created an uh e-commerce business publishing house uh that had a bunch of different products under it different books that I wrote and whatnot and we were just acquired about a year ago you had a transformative experience in Australia like you said you basically wrote your own commentary yeah and then you're like you probably had this idea like wow this could be really impactful for people you mentioned that like not everybody can come to Australia but we can probably create something that helps them in their walk so what was it like taking like having an idea but actually bringing it to life because I know that's a journey of itself totally I think my story has two different ways of approaching my story when people ask so we have the spiritual side of it but then we also have the entrepreneurial side of it so I started my first business when I was nine years old uh making shark tooth necklaces and selling them on the beach in Naples Florida and like crushing it as a nine-year-old and then like moving on I I had developed clothing lines and I co-owned a recording studio and I had written books and so I was doing all of that prior to Australia and so it was kind of just ingrained in me that if I saw a problem or a need for something I would find a solution to fulfill that that need and so uh it was just kind of a natural thing uh when I got back from Australia I was really praying about it figuring out what I should do if I should move back out there if I should teach or or whatnot and I God gave me a full-on vision for this book called The Bible study I like saw the logo the layout and I immediately knew like the plan of attack on how to approach it and so I spent the next nine months taking all my notes distilling them down uh writing them into what became the Bible study then I spent three months designing it and so by January of 2017 it was like ready to go but it was a file on my computer because I never published a book before successfully i' never like printed thousands of copies or anything and so I kind of just sat on it for a little bit and I started telling people about it and then people just started giving me money like here's $5,000 build a website here's 2500 bucks print some promotional copies like here's 200 here's 500 and I was like man I really might be on to something here and so we launched a kick starter campaign in June of 2017 and we ended up doing $24,000 in pre-orders in 30 days and I was like oh man we're going to print for sure and so I ordered a thousand copies I hadn't even thought about like working in shipping costs for all of the books that I just sold and so immediately I was losing money when we first came out with it and it was like you know those are just the things that you run into and figure out as you as you're starting a business and so uh launched that book officially and it didn't do really well right away and I was like man we just had this successful campaign why like what's the disconnect here and I felt like God was saying that my heart was in the wrong place with it and so I had this like come to Jesus moment essentially where I was like all right what do I actually feel called to do um what is my purpose in life and how can I how can I rethink and rework what I'm currently working on and when I made that switch when I made that realization that's when everything began to kind of take off and I ended up building out a team and over the course of four years um we grew substantially and we hit uh 63rd fastest growing business in America and number uh four fastest growing consumer product in America uh like in a non-Christian uh section like bro that blows my mind I can't even believe it like and yes we put in the work but I think God is the one that really uh pours on the water and makes the seed grow so it's it's our job to to sew the seed and it's his job to make it grow yeah that's crazy I had it down the 63rd fastest growing business in America you already mentioned fourth fastest growing consumer product and then third fastest in in Minnesota which just crazy numbers so yeah what tell me a little bit digging a little bit more so you kind of one of my questions was like what are some of the challenges you face and how did you push through but sounds like you like had this great idea you felt like it came from the Lord then you just launched it and like probably like crickets but how did you really dig in to to find out like what's really your calling because I think people whether they realize it or not we're constantly trying to figure out like what's our identity what are we what are we here for for yeah tell me a little bit about how you reach that and then just the fruit that came from yeah like finally stepping into your calling I think it's a combination of things and I think in the Christian space a lot of people get it wrong because they just say oh I'm just waiting on God to tell me what I'm supposed to do and then they sit on the couch and they're lazy and instead of actually going out and pursuing things that they're passionate about or that they feel like they can make an impact with and I think often times God is just saying I've given you the tools like get up and just do it and and so I think there's definitely that so look at uh what you're passionate about look at spiritual gifts that you have look at uh the experiences that you have what lights you up and then how do you take all of that and then bring God into it and expand the kingdom in some way and it doesn't have to mean that you're doing a Christian business or anything you could be selling toothbrush es but you could be selling the toothbrushes with Excellence you could have be having conversations with your co-workers there's ways to work in the Christian aspect of it uh it doesn't have to be you don't have to be a Christian toothbrush salesman you can just be a really good toothbrush salesman and I think that's also where a lot of people get it wrong they're like oh well I'm gonna be a plumber but I'm gonna be a Christian plumber and it's like no no no no just be a really good plumber and like you don't have to like push your faith on people people I think just by the way that you live your life uh they're going to be able to see that something's different with you and then allow them to ask questions about it and so when it comes to figuring out like yeah what your purpose what your calling is is like look at what you what lights you up look at how you can impact the world around you for Jesus and look at look at what God has already placed in your life because that's what's going to really uh build the kingdom but if I just made this whole podcast up just to like get a Consulting session with you that answer is like okay that's you know we talked earlier on a personal level of like you know I'm thinking about the next chapter in my life too but that that that's such a great encouragement for us of just like you know what are the things that you feel like really light you up I love that yeah yeah and if you're doing a toothbrush company I I go back to the first Home Alone where he's asking is this approved by the American Dental Association yeah just make sure that that's that's part of it right I love it yeah so uh a lot of the audience I think that is listening in are you know e-commerce owners so they're probably at various stages there's some that are like maybe not even launched yet some that are like a couple years in and some that are probably season doing really well but what would be your advice to share you know you've had a very God blessed very successful uh company that you built from scratch and and then kind of launched it tell me what some advice would be for those people I think knowing that everything takes much longer than you expect it to like I expected major success right away and that's and we all do because we see people on social media that are like oh they're an overnight success and it's like man if my business doesn't pop off after six months then maybe I'm supposed to be doing something different maybe God isn't behind it and I don't think that's the case at all I think there's like something really special in the um um in one step at a time doing something every single day and growing slow because that's going to have a much stronger Foundation than just a super rise to fame overnight um that's of often not sustainable and so focusing on that compound uh interest really of like okay I'm going to do a little bit every single day and I know that I'm working towards something really special and so sticking with it even through all of the hard times I mean there were there's been many many times dozens of times over the last 15 years where I've like wanted to give up or stop working on something and as an entrepreneur it's our tendency to want to jump to the next thing because it's like we're always wanting to be creative and I I think that that's a blessing and a curse because it often sets us back and we we don't continue uh on with something even though we should and so um I would say I would say that's uh one of the biggest things that I've been thinking about lately yeah that's so good I mean you could just right maybe that's your next book of just being a finisher yeah makes well I know that's that's probably one of the biggest struggles I face as a creative and a and a um entrepreneur is have a really great IDE get idea get really fired up and then you know you you deal with the struggle and it's really hard to to be a finish 100% And I think I dealt with that a lot last year where it was like man I just want to be creating new products I don't want to do all of the like day-to-day work and that's where it comes to hiring the right employees and so if you're just starting out in e-commerce hire people that are going to take off like whatever is taking up most of your time that's taking you away from new stuff like hire out those areas we had hired out five people over the years and our uh our last hire was a COO to run the entire organization um on my behalf essentially which allowed me to be creative and focus on the things that I really wanted to focus on but he also put our Reigns on me and pulled me back when I was going too far out too far left too far right and was able to remain focused on the task at hand and that was building the brand Sunday and so uh and then but now like we were acquired so so now it's I'm starting fresh so if you're just thinking through e-commerce ideas I feel you I'm in that mode right now where it's like you have all of these different ideas and quite frankly a lot of them could be really great ideas but until you actually just pick one and focus on it and spend all of your time and attention on one thing for an extended period of time you aren't going to be able to vet it out to see if it's actually going to work and be a success for you and so uh yeah I I get it tell me this really wasn't on my my list of questions but uh I'd like to hear just what the acquisition process was like because I think a lot of people obviously they're really passionate about something but they also like either have other ideas that they're working on and that's I feel like nobody really covers that maybe it's like a taboo conversation but yeah you know there's probably a lot of people listening there that have thought about that have no clue what it's like tell me just what your experience has been with it yeah I think it's so important to pick the right partners and so I had been working with uh Baker publishing as a distributor for the the previous year so uh they had sales channels that I didn't have access to so as an e-commerce business we built direct to Consumer for everything so it literally like pretty much one for one was like 90% of our sales and we didn't even do like any bulk orders and so we we were like man there's so many sales channels that we don't have access to so we need to pick the right team for that and so we chose the baker Bethany House team uh for helping distribute the book A year prior and built a great relationship with them and we really saw that that if we work together we could take this thing to a whole another level and so when it came down to it it was like who uh if if I wanted to jump into something different I wanted to open up uh to some new options and business was running smoothly at that point and so it was like man if if they uh purchased our assets so we did a asset purchase agreement so they uh they purchased um our assets as well as our IP for most of our products and then essentially um they take all of the products into the W their warehouse handle all the Fulfillment and then now I just create new products for them uh once or twice a year that will still be under name the brand Sunday um but I also have the flexibility to go out and do my own thing and uh but still like really great relationship with them there and so some people when you go through an acquisition uh it'll be a full acquisition where it's literally like buying your staplers and everything else like all inclusive and in that case most of the time all your staff will stay on you'll stay on as CEO for a few years um depending on what the contract ends up being uh but in my case it wasn't so you got to keep your stapler yes my stapler was mine it was probably like a special gift that someone bought you too there's pros and cons to to both sides both ways of doing everything I think so much of business is based on like what works best for you um what do you feel like can leave the greatest impact and that's really what it's about when you're an entrepreneur is how can I leave an impact on the world and as a Christian entrepreneur it's how can I leave an impact uh in regards to the kingdom and uh better the people around me yeah well and you definitely do that that's a great segue so I think you're human so I know you have bad days and I know you get frustrated like the rest of us but as I mentioned kind of early on you you're definitely one of those people that really light up the room that you're in the podcast that you're on the stage that you're speaking on the books the pages that you're filling up you cannot turn on any kind of like social media platform TV and just be overwhelmed with the bad news that's that's before us every single day there's Wars sure there's inflation and then for these business owners you know they're dealing with the same not only the external news but also just the things that you would face as running a business so tell tell us and tell uh the audience um how can we continue to see the good in our lives I think the biggest thing is if you focus on the bad the bad is going to grow in your life if you focus on the good the good is going to grow and so maybe that means you you do an audit on what you're consuming I'm a huge advocate for that is like man if every time that I log on social media I'm I leave feeling worse because of either the people's posts that I saw the news that I saw well you have the ability to unfollow people that's like the cool thing about us having choices you know and I feel like it's such a weird thing that most people just don't and they're like oh if I'm like I follow them so I'm going to just continue following them even if it makes me feel bad after looking at their posts why like set yourself up for Success from the beginning of the day to the end if there's things in your life that pull you away from God or make you upset or ruin your day then it should be your job or your goal to get rid of those and replace them with something that is more positive in your life and I understand that that's easier said than done for a lot of people's situations but I think if we start with the small stuff it really compounds into the bigger stuff as well and so if if in the morning uh you you get upset about one small thing I think it just grows and your mindset is going to be focused on the the small stuff throughout the day but if you start yourself out with uh in a very successful way then you're going to be good the rest of the day and so yeah realizing that a lot of bad things do happen in the world and not like neglecting that by any means but just coming to the understanding that yeah a lot of things in life are tough but what am I doing and how how is God using me to make things better and if you focus on that and and know that that's where your purpose is I think that's where you're going to feel really fulfilled in life perfect I was just about to talk about fulfillment so a big part of this podcast is is really you we do talk about e-commerce and fulfillment and all those things but it's really this this Mission and this heartbeat to help others um gravitate towards a life that is truly fulfilled so big big question but what is being fulfilled look like for you personally I feel like being used by God and knowing that you're leaving a positive Legacy behind so I've been thinking a lot about Legacy lately I never had before but I think it's really cool that you can leave something behind to your kids or or to the Next Generation and if you leave a positive impact on the world I think you can sleep better at night than uh than somebody that's just trying to take from the world and I think that God blesses us substantially in order to give more to others so if we if we're blessed we should be a blessing to others so if we can make the world a better place I think there's so much fulfillment in that and uh yeah I'm I'm a big advocate of figuring out what your purpose is how you can impact the world positively for uh for Jesus and from there your life is going to feel great so good so good love it man all right so if you we're kind of getting close to wrapping it up so a couple of fun questions I think so you've launched a wildly successful company you've authored some of the most life-giving books we've kind of been talking about around that message but see the good it's such a good book I love just how like I think you did a great job of just like I know Zach uh your personality in real life but I feel like it translates really well to the book so if people don't have that they should definitely pick that up but you're helping people grow in their Walk With Jesus um but I also know you can't help with coming up with new ideas so what is what's at this point what's the next chapter looking like for you personally 100% so I'm I'm pushing this course right now that I think would be an absolute Game Changer as I was starting out it's called learn the Bible in five weeks and it basically goes through the entire Bible from a big picture perspective over the course of five weeks like an hour a week uh split into like three to four videos so it's really easy uh to consume and if you have that your foundation is set up for any in the future so um uh really believeing that's going to impact a lot of lives right now and then in 2024 we're doing actually this might come out in 2024 but uh I'm I'm going to be walking people through reading the entire Bible um on like through social media so we're starting uh in January and February so we're starting January 6th we're going through I have a new Bible study coming out called New Testament Made Easy and it's a 60-day study through the New Testament so we're starting with that and then we're going to read the entire Old Testament over the course of the next uh nine months and then we're finishing December we're going to recap uh reading through Matthew for the whole month because I think if you really want to understand who Jesus is and what he said you have to um you have to understand the Old Testament and what he uh grew up uh being taught and so um that's that's my plan right now is is the course and then read through the entire Bible next year in a in a big uh hopefully with a with a big group of people yeah I love that yeah I'm just going to believe that the the people come the right ones come yes so thank you uh another fun question so U I know that I own a lot of domains I can't help it yeah yeah how many how many domains do you think that you own that's a man I think I only own like three right now but last night last night I was like oh I need to buy this domain really quick and so I need to do that this morning yeah it's funny because maybe I'm just the one with the problem I'll tell my wife about something and she's just like babe like you're never gonna use [Music] [Laughter] that that's so funny a $10 a $10 purchase is is not too bad yeah yeah and then you're set up you you locked it in it's security that's right at at least own it for a year yeah so all right another thing is social media I think is is still very intimidating for most business business owners one they probably don't have the time but I think you you've done a really good job of just managing it but I think where where I think you've done a phenomenal job is you just it always feels like it's you and it's your personality and it's very authentic and real which we know the the landscape of social media can often feel the opposite of that yeah so for for business owners that are just like that's another Another World all together what would be just some like advice on on the social media front man I think it's the most important thing that you could focus on we built our entire business through social media and today my entire business is built off of social media it's uh free access to the people that actually want your content which is like incredible you can't get free anywhere and so I think uh being able to provide value to your audience in a real and authentic way and not try to sell that's what makes people succeed quickly on social media uh but as an e-commerce business or or or any any business for that matter we're always focused on how can I promote a product how can I show people my product but like yo I'm not going to follow a toothbrush company and and like a picture of their new toothbrush but if a dentist was on saying how uh a certain toothbrush actually uh was better for your teeth or like here's three ways to take better care of your mouth that I might be interested in versus like I don't care if this toothbrush is taken in front of like a green screen like it's not that cool and and often as businesses we're always just trying to share what we're doing instead of really looking at the needs of the consumer and providing them value uh without asking for anything in return and I think we can definitely go through like Sprints of posts where we're posting uh and trying to sell but it shouldn't be our all the time thing it needs to be value value value at least every four post uh before you ever talk about your actual product that's such good wisdom too and I've I've I've been a business owner for about eight eight or nine years now and that was always my thing too like I don't I'm not I don't want to sell I think it's the best way to sell is not to sell at all yeah 100% totally and uh I remember there were some times too like I would I'm naturally I'm like a non-confrontational person and so I I'm always just trying to give people like the way a way out so I would have this like great pitch and then at the end was like but hey like if I'm not the right fit I'll introduce you to a team that like it would be the right fit and yeah yeah and I was like people used to give me a hard time but I was like I think that more often than not that was the reason why I got the job 100% they were just they were just like he's just he's not trying to sell me's just trying to help me out so totally and like we're all here for the same purpose to like make the world better for Jesus and so if we can focus on that it doesn't matter like that your product is doing better than others um I think it's so cool when like churches will will be like hey we have a Christmas service but here are 10 other churches in the city that we think are doing really great things as well so if we aren't right for you go check one of them out and it's really having that perspective of like man I just want you to grow I don't I don't care if necessarily if you're take if you're buying from me but you're actually growing yourself yeah man that's awesome that's some great great wisdom all right just two more um we haven't talked about this but I know that you're also a foodie yeah um and we are in the midst of the holiday season so what what's your go-to meal or dessert oh man my go-to meal or dessert so I make this I'm I'm cooking it on Wednesday so we have a small group coming over to our house on Wednesday at this new church that I'm part of and I'm cooking my favorite meal right now to cook I feel like it changes frequently but this is what I'm doing Tuesday night I'm beginning to make a cheesecake based off of uh of a cheesecake from New York that I think is incredible with this sponge crust and then I'm doing a French pureed potato with a flank steak uh asparagus wrapped in Pudo with a cowboy butter on top and I think it's gonna I think it's GNA be a a crowd pleaser but I'll I'll let you know on Thursday dang I hope people aren't listening to this around lunchtime kill them it's not even lunchtime and I could eat that right now I know man it sounds so good well you can tell you're passionate about that for sure I love it it's yeah I feel like food experiences really light me up so whether that's me cooking for friends and family or uh bringing somebody to a new restaurant and just watching their face light up when when they try something that I think is incredible that makes me happier than uh almost anything else yeah well it's so I honestly wasn't planning on talking about this but I uh there's an old you know old saying it's like a way to a man's heart as his stomach but yeah I I was always just so um you know observing of how many times like before Jesus or the disciples like shared the gospel that there was a a mill involved you know it's like always it's just yeah it's just so cool how that is and I think that's in and of itself an opportunity for Ministry and relationship too 100 per. yes I couldn't agree more so I uh I love I love you so much as a brother as a friend um and I I have no doubt that people like listening to this podcast are going to feel a connection feel that you really care so have I have no doubt that people are going to want to buy the book or just stay in touch with you in general so what's the best way for people to to stay in touch with Zack Wendall uh mainly Instagram and Tik Tok uh otherwise Zack wall.com got everything there uh if you DM me the word book on Instagram you'll get access to everything you'll uh find out where to buy it and I threw in some bonuses as well so start with that well brother man thank you so much for being on with us today and and for everybody listening thank for being a part of another episode on fulfilled and we just hope you have a blessed day thank you man it's an honor.
hey friends we're back with another episode of the fulfilled podcast this time we welcome Casey Schultes the founder and front man of he would love first here how a simple answer to a famous question would birth a movement with today's generation stick around this is one episode you won't want to miss all right man before we get too uh too much into the details I know that you guys are expecting your first so tell me at this moment What's going through your head oh man very excited very nervous scared just um I think I'm I'm really close to my sister and brother-in-law and they have you know a I think almost two-year-old and we've got to be really close to them and so just seeing like how amazing having a child is like I don't I don't know if there's anything better so I'm super excited and you know a little backstory as well is we um actually went through a miscarriage um beginning of last year and so I think you know when you first find out that your wife's pregnant it's like what does this mean and I you can't even like wrap your mind around it and then I think that going through that type of loss was like I don't know it gave you a whole different perspective on like what it means when you know there's a little person growing in in your wife's womb and just craziness of of life so I'm so excited we're so thankful and pregnancy is hard not for me but for my my wife you know and so um it's been a long journey but like obviously especially like I said when you go through you know a miscarriage um you're so thankful for the all the Pains of pregnancy because it means that you know you're it's it's it's happening so super excited Super thankful and just yeah so excited what's the countdown we've got March 8th is the due date um gotta figure out a name okay baby boy so we had like three girl names ready ready to roll and then we I was a boy and we're just like I got nothing so we got we got to figure that out a lot of pressure I have issues you know ordering my coffee making a decision on that so picking a name is GNA be tricky well you just think about in the future when he orders his cup of coffee from Starbucks or whever what's gonna be the name on to see that's what I gotta think about those things that's right maybe just do some mockups and just see what what look right so exactly I I've I had the pleasure of knowing you for a little while uh I'm I'm I love your story I'm a big story guy and just to hear how you know God took you down this path probably unexpected path that you were kind of set out to do but for for those that haven't heard your story you are a founder of he would love first to tell me go go back to the beginning and just tell me um how that happened and where that took shape yeah crazy crazy it's almost seven eight years now um yeah I I played soccer Georgia State I had a lot of um friends from overseas obviously um a lot of soccer players come from you know different countries and stuff to play and so I remember a specific time in school you know as a Christian on a on a sports team in locker rooms and stuff you're always trying to work in conversations about the gospel and how do you do that and things like that um but I remember one specific week there were like some hate preachers on campus that were you know yelling at my teammates in between class and stuff and in the locker room they're all talking about it and what they were saying and just terrible things um and then that same week uh I was wearing a wwjd bracelet and one of the guys asked um what is my wwjd bracelet stand for and I grew up in the Bible Bell everyone knows what wwjd is so I was like caught off guard like stand for what would Jesus do you know and I could see his mind kind of churning like is that is that it you know like I don't know what you do you know and I thought he was gonna ask me what would what would Jesus do you know like keep going and uh so in my head I was like how do I just kind of lead in into the gospel like what Jesus did while we were still Sinners you know he loved us when we couldn't love him um he bridged that Gap sin separated us you know so I'm just trying to Quick you know what am I going to say he didn't ask the question but I kind of left like seems like I grew up my whole life hearing you know what would Jesus do or seeing that that bracelet or question whatever but it hasn't necessarily had anything um hasn't really been used to like maybe start a conversation about the people or with the people that don't necessarily know what Jesus did and what the cross is and what the cross means and while we were still sinners Christ died for us um because of his great love for us you know and so um we were like maybe we could start conversations with the people around us just with that simple you know reality and so we had a couple bracelets made and like started passing them out um teammates classmates things like that and we were actually able to like really start conversations you know like Point people back to the Cross um and it was super cool like all of a sudden we were getting these conversations that we would try and you know get into um were coming like more naturally and so we're like let's maybe we should get more bracelets you know and so we we ran with that a little bit and it just kind of kept you know progressing and so we kind of realized we had something to run with and so that's you know kind of turned it into make clothes you know so it's obviously on the mission to kind of start conversations through clothing and bracelets and things like that um to point people back to the cross and um so conversation and use what was a famous bracelet movement for you know in the of use that huge platform that's already there to just point people back to the cross and U talk about you know what he did while while we were Sinners so well that story never get crazy uh yeah it's been it's been a journey you know so but it's been fun so this is an assumption but I'm I'm guessing you're so you're play soccer at Georgia State right and I'm guessing at that point you had limited knowledge on the manufacturing process and then seven or eight years ago I mean now you could whatever you want you could go find it online on uh find a manufactur it's it's a a lot easier now to go and and Source the things that you need but tell me what was that like when you're like hey I have this idea to make this BRAC tell me yeah what was that like for you and how how hard was it to accomplish what you were looking for yeah um yeah and it's what's kind of cool about the stories too is like I was never or like I wasn't really like this is a good business idea and like let's go see what our margins are and what's our go to market strategy and things like that like I said it was like this would be really cool I don't know if anyone's ever used the bracelets like this you know what would it look like how much would it cost um and so yeah just started searching online funny story honestly I looked for 15 minutes excuse me and um couldn't find anyone and I was like cool whatever like this fun idea and um my mom my mom kept looking and find found a manufacturer that could customize these bracelets and so she found she's like hey let's talk to these people and I was like all right I guess I will do it so it would have been done 15 minutes in if my mom hadn't kept looking but yeah just kind of looked online you know just Googling like crazy for 15 minutes till my mom did it but um yeah no idea about any manufacturing and what that looks like um just Dr Goo searching around thank God for the moms right they don't give up on us exactly so well um this is random did are you have you switched manufacturers since that day um yeah well I think we have I think that it came to a point where we had to say like hey we need a little bit something different and they were like you know I mean maybe six months in they're like we know another manufacturer that does similar but can you know do what you're looking for but since then yeah we've been with the same manufacturer for the longest time sozy it's pretty crazy like I've been yeah with them for a while so I've been in the creative space that's been kind of my career path as you know graphic designer eventually become creative director and then owning a creative agency at one point um and it it's it J changes the the older that you get but you know when I see my work out in the public it's still is kind of like oh I think it's sweeter for me now as a dad I'm like hey Daddy got to work on that you know like there's we rebranded a big uh logistics company we'll be you know six hours away and I'll see that logo that I you know worked on painstakingly like driving down the interstate so it's really cool but um I I see your bracelets everywhere now like I I'm still I'm not just doing this for the podcast I rock mine here um but like going through like Chick-fil-A I'll see somebody rocking it and I think about you all the time tell me what is it like uh personally but even like spiritually um what is it like seeing seeing your stuff in the wild yeah I mean it's still it still has that like surreal feeling because I mean as you know like I was there when we were licking envelopes and like had no idea writing everyone's address and trying to figure out what it looks like to ship things and just from the very beginning um and so seeing it now I just like I still have that picture of the first the beginning and so it's still just like unreal you know like proof that like God has his hand in it because it's not like you pick some guys that are some marketing or business gurus like literally we had no idea so proof that we it wasn't like some skill or knowledge that we had we just kind of were available so just available for what guy wanted to do right yeah yeah so but yeah super super surreal still when I see it so um any big names that you know of rocker gear um I think Tim TBO wore it for a while we were pumped about that I'm a Georgia fan but I'm still AO fan but um I think I think Justin Bieber had the bracet on for a little bit we have a picture of that yeah um Lauren dagel I know she wore it for a little bit maybe still wears I don't know yeah but we've seen a couple a couple pop up you're like wow that's crazy pretty cool huh they came across it yeah so that's awesome so uh more on the business side as a e-commerce um founder business owner what would you say you know seven eight years in what's been the the most challenging part of running the business and what's been the most rewarding the most challenging part I would say I mean I guess just kind of like I said like we had we had no idea it's not like we were like okay here's what we have to do and then and just go do it all it was like you're figuring out what you have to do as you're doing it you know like I growing up you know I played soccer and I you know focused on school and so it was like I have to show up at this time and I have to run these Sprints I have to do this drill or I have to study this and it's all in front of you um and you you still have to apply yourself you know to Crazy levels and work really really hard but then if you just took out like you have to figure out what you have to do and now like figure it out and do it at a high level it was just like you know we lived in one of the guys like his parents let us like stay in their basement and like fulfill everything out of their house and so we're just like living in this basement paying minimal rent trying to figure out you know like what do we do how do we what's the next step just talking to people um and so I think just kind of working that out just being like we don't know what we're doing we don't even know what this next step is but we're gonna we're just going to figure it out um so that kind of unknown of like this could very easily fail like we have no idea that this is a sure thing that's going to work out um might need to get a job next month who knows you know um so just those times of like man we don't we don't know what we're doing um and Keeping the Faith and like believing in like I believe in this I want to do it I'm going to apply myself work really hard and having that faith that you know it'll it'll work out and just learning every day so and then most rewarding I mean I think the fact that I mean it was four of us that started it all you know really good friends and then another friend of ours runs our social media and we knew her in in college and she we literally in college we're like we don't we're not really good at social media do you want to run it and so now she has a social media agency she's like continued in that so just growing it um as a friend group and a family and learning like I said going through that whole process of you know when when you're working with people and you don't know if you're getting paid and you know how what we're gonna be doing next month you know you got to have a good Bond if you have disagreements you got to figure out how to get over those disagreements quickly and so like we've learned how to fail together you know like we've learned how to have disagreements together and know what um what hill to die on and when to say like okay you can you you decide on this I'll decide on this and so now we can have disagreements on whatever it is but it's not a falling out you know we've already had too many times too many ups and downs together to to let some little disagreement be bigger than it should be so just growing with with people and seeing God take it um just use our availability to to run with it that's probably the most rewarding is um just that whole process with friends and family that's awesome there's two things that I kind of really took from that I love that you mentioned the girl that you went to college with you guys went to college with how you saw um kind of a gifting in her and how like it kind of goes back to that you know 15 minutes in you couldn't find a manufacturer but if it wasn't from your mom seeing like this Vision in you and it may not be here same way with this this young lady too like if you hadn't asked her that would she have this I mean maybe God would have brought her there anyway but it's cool just the progression of like hey I see this and this person can they help and now they're not only like doing a good work for you but they're also like fulfilling that thing that God put in them like early on so I love that and then love the just realization especially with your buddies like you know you hear like never going into business with your friends because it doesn't end well yeah but the fact that you guys have have sent hey is this really worth you know destroying what we have and what we've worked for so I love that and that's a uh I think a good segue so if you could speak back to casy seven years ago so I'm really thinking about people that are starting a new e-commerce business uh maybe they're about to start just start or maybe a few years in what what wisdom what's what were some nuggets that you would share with them today yeah um I mean be available you're gonna have to learn a lot you know you have to every I mean still today it's like you have to have the mentality of like I could learn something today that will make a huge impact you know on what we're doing what we're trying to do in every uh facet of business and stuff like that so if you think like oh I'm not ready I need to learn more before I can start you know stepping into things like you're you're never going to be ready you know I mean you'll probably be more ready than I was but um yeah you're gonna you're not going to feel ready you just have to start like taking steps and learning and making mistakes and learning from mistakes um yeah and then I guess as far as like team wise like they say don't go into business with your friends I think I mean people ask me now like if you could do it again like how would you have done it and and is it do you would you go into business with your friends and I mean it's easy now I guess because we went through those hard times and now we're at the the other side of it it's like yeah of course you know but I mean I really do like if we had failed we would failed together we would we succeeded we succeeded together and and we were in business with people it's like you know I I wouldn't change it you know I would I went to battle I wanted them to succeed as much as I wanted myself to succeed I wanted you know all my guys to to be able to do it full-time and be successful as much as I did you know and their families I'm close to their families and so you know picking people that like you want to fight for and you're okay with failing with you know like having times where like this is really hard they're going to have my back I'm gonna have theirs and that you know compliment you there things that you know one of my business partners Jared that he has skills that if I was in charge of our warehouse like it would be a disaster you know and maybe he would say vice versa if he was in charge of more product stuff it might not be as well you know whatever but we all have skills that kind of like complement each other um and so I think picking a team like that that you know it doesn't have to be your friend and it doesn't I don't think it doesn't have to not be your friend just go find someone random but having people it's like they compliment you and we're on the same Mission you know we believe the same things um and you know we love the Lord and that's we're brothers you know so um those are probably two big things like you got to be willing to apply yourself maybe like you've never applied yourself before and learn every single day and for me you know having a support group and a support system around you that you know you can Bounce from bounce back from failures and succeed with um and kind of you know keep you levelheaded and stuff like that so that's great wisdom I remember my wife and I went into business together and then we you know the there's a multiplication thing you have one kid then when you had we blinked and we had fours and my wife was a little more limited and then yeah I was really like looking for a partner at that point and a few of my friends that I would approach about partnership I think they were hesitant because they didn't want me to give away something unnecessarily and one asked like why why do you want me to come on and I said I just need somebody to like fight and grind with because it's it's a lot and doing that alone is a lot so hearing you speak to just having someone that has your back that can go through the ups and downs together that's that's huge so that's great wisdom so uh so he would love first what's uh what's the future look like for you guys yeah I mean again like I said we're still learning still trying to figure out you know tons of stuff every day in the direction things like that I think the last two years has been like you know we're growing we're figuring out you know where we're at and what we're really trying to do and and nail down our strategy and a bunch of stuff that we feel like you know we've grown quickly and now we're just like okay let's figure figure out how we can you know have our model that's not you know necessarily has to grow at a certain rate um and you know who can we partner with who can we um Ministries that we can do you know more work with and then how can we expand and add some um you know other other brands alongside what we're doing you know we've gotten to a point we've been able to delegate a lot of roles to our warehouse managers and Warehouse team that just crush it um help us a ton so we're kind of like you know we've been doing this for seven years um are there kind of like sister brands that are similar but you know different um that we can we can step into and kind of grow um and then there are other people that we can help as well they're you know on the same Mission as us that we can kind of um give some of the you know Insight that we've learned if if there's like us seven years ago there's so many things that are just seem simple but you know we've just learned through trial and error that we could pass on to people who are in it right now so kind of Step stepping into you know maybe that coaching or not even coaching but just you know trying to help you know people in the same position that we were in that's another yeah great piece of wisdom there so that's awesome so we're getting closer to the end we have a big question that we like to ask everybody this is called the fulfilled podcast so what does uh being fulfilled look like for you I think um man that's a big question isn't it um I think being because what's hard about it is like sometimes you can feel not fulfilled because you want to grow and you want to learn and you have that mental you know all your life you're like today's the day I'm G to get better and all these things and also having that balance of like contentment like like I can look at where we are now and be like you know we could be doing this so much better and this so much better um but at the same time I can look back and be like gosh a year two years six years ago this would have been I wouldn't have been able to even imagine like how well this is going so having that perspective like contentment like Lord You've like provided for me in a way that I could I didn't even dream of um and balancing that like I'm I'm available and when it's time to step I want to step and I'm I'm I'm ready to work and you know put my nose down and but also having the balance of like if I never do anything else again and I have to give up and I just do something new with you and that's what you have for me I'm content with like how you've provided for me um I think that's a balance of you know fulfillment that I've had obviously just being able to do all that with family and and in community um but yeah sometimes it gets too lopsided you're like I'm ready to grind I'm ready to work I'm G to start five new things and the Lord will be like just slow down and realize how I've taken care of you but then if you get too content you know on the side of like he has something that he wants you to step into and you're not you know available kind of like the parable of the talents you know sometimes there's times that you're called to step and if if you're too lazy or whatever you want to call it then you might be missing out on you know something God has for you so I think having people in your life that um can speak into that and be like I think you know you you have the capacity to step into this or you need to pull back and you know spend more time you know with your family or whatever it may be um yeah that balance of just being like Lord search me know me tell me when to step and when to slow down um and just contentment and availability so that's so good and I resonate especially as a business owner entrepreneur I feel like I have five new ideas every day and as I've gotten older there's some Seasons where God's just like every door that I try he just shuts it down and thankfully he does before I get too far then yeah other Seasons it's just like he's just it's just like you can't move fast fast enough to you know exact exactly yeah to be that so and just I mean whether you're slowing down or speeding up like feeling like you're doing it with him and and you know being obedient like that's you know you could start something and fail but if you feel like you've done it with him and obedient um then you're GNA be fulfilled because that's the main thing so um you know for those that want to kind of keep up with he would love first and what you guys are doing what's what's the best way to do that um our Instagram is just at Hew would love first website is he first.com um and then my Instagram is Casey schultes 14 um so yeah those are the main the main ways awesome man well I know again as being in business you know how limited your time is um so I know you especially with the holidays you got a lot going on so just want to say thank you for being with us today opening up your heart and just sharing some goodness with us today dude thank you I always love talking to you so thanks for having me.
Trust me you don't want to miss this whether you're starting out or scaling up buckle up for a ride filled with wisdom Innovation and a dash of humor let's dive into the fulfilled podcast where we explore the world of e-commerce and Beyond welcome today to the fulfilled podcast today I'm excited to introduce Matthew moano which is he's a CEO and founder of connective CRM but also checkout Champs and today I want to focus a little bit more on checkout Champs because there's a lot of lot of talk on the street about what's going on with checkout Champs and I want to also introduce because he's a husband a father and a new new grandfather is that what we were talking about before tell me about this this grandbaby grandfather the second time remember when your wife gave birth to your little daughter yep I think my son gave birth like two days later to our first granddaughter but we just had our first grandson on on November 30th oh that's beautiful I was telling you I was like he doesn't look like a grandfather but Matt awesome man that those are going to be some uh uh some really I guess spoiled grandkids um your grandkids they're going to be well trained let me just tell you that's right they're going to know how to shoot for sure that's right but I also want to introduce that that you you have been a loyal friend for a long time you're somebody I can turn to in in in times of you know um times where where're we're trying to figure out what's the next best thing that that we should focus on um and personally and and business-wise so I want people to know that there there's somebody that I've depend you're somebody I've depended on in the past and you've G given great advice um so that that's meant a lot to me and you're also you're an innovator you're an innovator of sass technology you're an innovator in the field you're an innovator in e-commerce and I'm always interested to find out what you're working on next because that's something the industry is going to feel so I I just want to thank you for coming on today and um I want to ask you I'm G to ask you a couple questions because I know our listeners want to know more about you because most of them have heard of your technology um and they might not always know the man behind the scenes but Matthew I want to kick it off and just ask in check out Champs how do you guys make your money well our money is made it's very much performance-based if our clients obviously we have a we have a base monthly subscription fee which covers the cost of the technology but uh transactionally as we help our clients scale we get a small a little small piece of of that that volume like very tiny small piece y um and so their success very much relates to Our Success so we're we have a vested interest in really helping them build the best fastest highest converting checkouts and upsells and Order bumps and subscription billing models that the industry has ever seen so it's really our success is tied to their success that's right and I ask that because people sometimes wonder it's like well how is this person making money from me and a lot of times if it's tied to Performance then there's a cooperation there right that's right well you know you look at big big publicly traded companies and I hate to throw out names like just look at big Commerce I'm not telling you anything that you know out of school here you can just look at their numbers they have never ever been profitable you know so how does a multi-billion dollar publicly traded company that does essentially the same thing we do operate with with no profit there has to be profit so you can continue to hire and and build new technologies and things of that nature and we've just we've kind of figured out the right way to do it that's right so there's a big advantage to not having that red tape not having to to really answer to um I guess people that that aren't in the day-to-day but maybe not car care about the clients as much as as we might so I'm I'm speaking from the fulfillment.com side is is I love the fact that um we're not publicly traded I I love the fact that we're founder Le right now well let me let me also mention I know you gave me a great lead in here let me also mention to those that are watching Justin is Awesome Justin I met in San Francisco probably 12 13 years ago standing up in like a hallway and we just kind of bumped into each other said look there's there's opportunity here to to win business and win together and and I think you're probably going to ask these questions later on but I think that's a big part of the business you find people that are aligned with you you know not just on the business side but also on the personal side and and there are ways to win where it's not just you but everyone collectively Rises to the top that's right that's what I felt when we it wasn't it wasn't just us going out in trying to make money it was us trying we're trying to build something that gave back something that um we could show add enormous value to somebody we're we're transacting with so absolutely man when we met it was just like okay there's something here let's pursue this this is great and of course we had both had a military background so that helps as well sometimes we we talk the same lingo when others are like Alpha brao Delta Char what but let me ask you so in your Tech yeah what's that Dar one Dar two D that's right that's right like what so um I just like that commonality you know with with people as far as military wise and and we missed the camaraderie that we had so when we run into somebody else you know that had that as well um it's just we're we're on the same page as far as the the way we think think about a lot of ways so yeah I mean I i' I've enjoyed our relationship ever since and my my goal here today is um I want people to know the real checkout champ the real match I want people to understand there's some things I know we put advertisements out there sometimes but when people actually see who's behind the scenes who's developing who's allowing Those ads to go out who's behind the technology is that somebody I'm going to trust is that somebody that I want to do business with because this is all this is all discretionary income we're giving out to the different service providers based on what they're telling us and what we're hearing in the marketplace and I know that that I hear not just directly from what I hear on on just people talking at trade shows and those sort of things but we've got a bunch of e-commerce clients that that talk they talk about different Technologies and I know that that connective has been tried and true it's been a technology that has lasted the times and when Matt told me about checkout Champs and he and he explored and showed me actually behind the scenes in checkout champ um I wanted to I wanted to Showcase that I wanted to show others that what what really they could be um uh connected to to be able to push their business to the next level so let me ask you what else do you guys I know you get that you've explained how you actually make money what do you guys give away for free what do we gave away for free well in most cases we'll give the first month away for free because when people talk about the fees they're like well you know it's probably expensive a lot of these guys are you know they're small businesses many cases they're just starting off you know even if they're running a 50,000 $100,000 $250,000 a month company you know adding that one additional layer of expense it does affect the bottom line so you know I I know what our product can do so I'll say come on in I'm I'll wave your first month we're going to have you up and running in a couple of days and you'll see for yourself your conversion rates are going to double or triple you're going to make more money your upsells are going to go through the roof and you're never going to question dollar one that you'll ever pay me test drive right take it for a test drive got it man so now developing checkout Champs though why was it really created I know you you've got connect you've got a successful CRM but why checkout champ now you know that's interesting it actually ties back to one of your clients that we it was a mutual client and he said hey I'm I'm using a couple these these e-commerce platforms and they really just don't have all the features that connective does and I said what would you want it to do and this is probably going back five or six years Justin yeah um it was another funnel building platform I know you know what it is I'm not going to say it out loud uh but I said you know I bet you we can build something like that we have the team so we actually started hiring more people it took a couple years about two and a half years to build it but what we found is it doesn't just build the sales funnel it is a full repace replacement to most e-commerce you know these big CMS platforms that you've heard of it replaces the checkout entirely and the entire experience post cart so if you're going to a store let's say you go to I don't know a hunting or outdoor store you're putting you know gloves and hunting pants and hats and stuff in the cart once you click proceed to checkout it it does a complete handoff from that cart to the checkout page which you now have 100 100% control and customization of it's single step you can use any Merchant processor you want because we have Integrations over 200 gateways from around the world any currency and you can control the the pre- purchase order bump the postp purchase one click up cells and all the way to the thank you page so you're controlling that entire consumer and you know that customer experience so in the days of like the AMZ Juggernaut right where there's loss of control you're giving back these internet retailers more control of Their audience more control of how they check out those sort of things that's correct that's awesome and then you're showing the data to be able to so they can actually make adjustments in Scale based on all the different split testing that you provide that they're they're capable in that system is that right yeah absolutely it's split testing you hit the nail on the head there which a lot of companies don't split test but the companies that do they're usually just doing ab split testing but if you have a bunch of variants that you want to test to see which one's the winner going from going doing ab ab ab all the way down the line online it takes forever to get to that that final decision we built four-way split testing in our platform I don't know of any other platform that has it so you can do ABCD so you do four variants and you have a control and three variants you arrive at the conclusion much faster how competitive do you think the market places right now with with just uh internet retailers competing against themselves for for people I mean is this something where if you want to take it to the next level and you're really competing at that at that higher level with other internet retailers in the same space is this going to give you an advantage yeah well you think about the the product categories you know it could be kitchen wear could be Outdoor Equipment it could be survival gear nutritional supplements skin care whatever those categories are you know there's there's a limited number not a limited number of buyers but you know when you're looking at traffic what type of traffic can you generate for a certain product I have people that call me all the time just say hey I want to get into Ecom what product should I look at I don't know go look and see what the top selling products are on Amazon there's so there's thousands and thousands of them but you go and find a product category you're probably going to have a c a competitor in that category how do you beat that competitor well you have to have some type of competitive advantage that's right wow that's good so I'm going to jump a little bit and I want to ask you for our listeners what could be because we know they're competing with other people in that category in that space um what could be maybe some advice that you would give them um that maybe be able to take their business where they're doing well maybe they're doing a couple orders a day but how do you get to that 100 order a day 200 a thousand order of a day what's what's maybe the biggest lever that you would give them because you're seeing all kinds of different e-commerce retailers what advice would you give them well I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm going to talk about two things here the first thing I would tell you is you do not have to be the cheapest product cheapest does not always mean you're going to win yeah when I went to Market with some of the products that I've sold and Technology products I was never the cheapest you don't have to be the cheapest to win you just have to have a great brand and and a quality product if you have those two things then it goes to the second thing I was going to say people will come into this and they'll say oh well if I just do you know SEO or or paperclick through Google I'm gonna I'm going to drive new customers it doesn't do you have to have Facebook Google Tik Tok Snapchat you have to be doing email SMS you have to be you have to have a multi-prong marketing approach and you have to have every single one of them dialed in there are so many companies that I see Justin that maybe they're doing email great but they're not doing SMS or they're doing SMS but they're not doing great email follow-up sequences and I say that because we have companies that we work with that specialize in email and SMS and like look these guys when they start they set sign up with us we can generate them an extra 100,000 200 $500,000 a month depending on how much traffic they're coming in because they're just leaving all that money on the table and who would be somebody that for instance I know at fulfillment.com there's a there's a certain Avatar that we love to do business with and when we do business with them they love to do business with us who would be for checkout champ who would be that perfect client that be a m a mutual beneficial relationship there the type of client or you want a specific C the type of client just a type of client so if they're watching this they're like oh that's me and and that might be a good fit for me um I would say anyone who has a we're very good with nutritional supplement companies we have some of the biggest nutritional supplement companies in the world and they love our platform because our subscription billing platform is unlike anything else out there yeah it is powerful it's flexible and it has all the backend membership pieces that allow your customers to go to be able to manage their their memberships without ever having to pick up phone call so um I would say in the product of of nutritional supplement and health and beauty yep those are ideal for us but we also have a lot of clients that come to us that they could be apparel companies and apparel companies how do you set up a a a subscription well you could do a subscription box where you're sending out something that is hey we know you like this style we have your sizes let's let us send you a subscription box every month of different types of clothes and if you don't like it send it back that's one way to do it or the second way to do it if you don't have a product that you think is a natural subscription you can always do a VIP membership hey pay $9 a month and you're going to get discounts that no one else gets every time you come back to shop so you're saying it's like expanding the way you sell to a customer being more convenient for them so rather than you going in and buy you know spending $100 on a shirt if you're a member maybe come in maybe at 70 bucks yep yep so you're seeing the value by being a member I heard you're working on something called intelligent upsells um can you explain that and why that's a game changer yeah yes when you look when you look at the demographics of the of the customers that are visiting an Ecom store they're all different right different ages different Sexes different I don't economic socioeconomic right levels with it you know they may have more money to spend less money to spend it doesn't matter when you go to this site it's going to be and it could be my interest are different than yours when I'm going to this Ecom store so what the UPS the intelligent upsell product is going to do it's going to look at the items that you put into your C and based on what the system believes would be your customer profile it's going to deliver the most likely products that you would pick in your upsell flow that's awesome so it's j single has bought these products before Yep this is the product he's most likely going to say yes to is upsell one this is the product he's most likely going to say to upsell two and three and four all the way through you know however many upsells you have so that's something similar I think Amazon does right now but you're going to be able to do that with people not having to use Amazon on their own on their own pages on their own checkouts right that's correct that's awesome okay um thanks for explaining that so problem yeah so I want to also talk about um maybe some of the challenges you've had in with checkout Champs or you can even go far back as as connective and what was that moment because I know and when we create a business like what was it 12 years ago when did you create connect about 12 years ago yeah it was well 2010 a little little more than yeah and I know is creating a new business there comes a moment to where you're kind of I don't want to call it getting in the black but you become profitable you become this is actually people are paying for this uh for this value that I'm providing and this is a viable business model I'm we're actually helping and so when was that moment do you think that you you crossed over um into this is actually going to work this is something that that the that the industry loves when we started you know we had a couple of clients here and there and it was you know everyone was kind of working from home you know I built this company on my kitchen table there was was just me and one programmer you know now we have I know 45 47 programmers and a whole group a team of people but um once we hit 100 clients and they were sticking I was said you know this is it I think I think this is going to be a long-term product and then next thing we did we GRE to 205 500 and you know a th clients and became the you know I think the largest CRM and direct consumer on the DDC side of the business that there that was the moment when we hit a hundred clients I was I said yeah we have we really have something here get you know someone sells two or three accounts they like whoa It's Time to that's right I know there's a there's a moment that you're like this is real this is happening I mean the struggle is going to continue um but there is it's almost like a you you've peaked up right you've hit the top of the mountain you know this is going to work um but that's the point that I know in my business like I got to stay hungry still I still have to go out and see how do I provide more value to that 100 like you're saying how do I how do I start listening to them even deeper on what their needs maybe not what they are right now but what they they're gonna be tomorrow how do we get ahead of it you want to hear an interesting statistic yeah we now service over 117,000 storefronts on the platform oh my goodness that's a lot that's a lot i' I heard a long time ago that 71% of Statistics are made up think that's true that would be great 71% uh I hope I fall into that 29 but no but we just looked at we actually weit we just hit another interesting Benchmark on uh on Black Friday yeah we did over a million sales on checkout champ in one day net new sales through the platform one day wow so obviously people are seeing that that that's it's adding value and and these aren't just yeah these companies are do you see that these companies once they include checkout champ what's the common like what's the response from them is it over a couple of months they're like wow what happens what's the you know just with any business you're GNA get some people that come along and you know they they can't or they won't take the time to learn it but once someone digs in and they figure out how the platform works and we'll teach them yeah I know once you sign up you get a dedicated account manager who's going to teach you everything you need to know about this platform and how to use it to its its highest potential the people that take them the time to learn it and that's a great that's probably the vast majority you know you're going to have attrition anything but the people that they love it they'll never leave because you could do so much with it you know you get these these big Ecom stores Justin that have you know 50 products 5,000 product 50,000 whatever that it is our system is not just a checkout they're our clients are taking their top selling products I'm sorry I'm Italian I talk with my hands they're taking their top selling products and they're creating single product landing pages single product Landing you know where your your Ecom store is converting at what two or 3% a single product landing page to a targeted customer is going to convert at at 25 to 36% wow yeah so we have clients that'll have you know 200 websites running on one checkout champ that's amazing that's that's amazing and you can't that's hard to communicate that through if you decide hey I'm going to market for checkout Champs you know what I mean so that's why wanted to bring you on here is to demonstrate some of that value that doesn't really get talked about um unless somebody's asking you these sort of questions right well I'm G tell you the coolest statement that I've heard it was from a nutritional supplement company he said Matt I don't care if I'm paying you 40 or $50,000 a month to use this platform I'm making over $100,000 a day in additional income because of your oneclick upsells oo strong that's powerful yeah yeah so I'm going to switch gears on you and I I know people are going to check out check out Champs on their own um what's the easiest way they just go to checkout champs.com and and put their information in yeah singular checkout champ.com check out champ checkout champ.com yep and click the button talk to my people you know they'd love to talk to you whether you're a new store or you're you're a store that's you know doing millions of dollars a month we can help any one of you that's awesome so Switching gears now what do you think would be I I'm looking for something with your expertise something you see in the future like a marketing Trend something that people need to be paying attention to something that an Advertiser they're doing good but they need to be paying attention to this because it's coming marketing wise is there any anything that that you're seeing on the marketing side I think with the uh the new the latest iOS update it's going to be very difficult to to run Facebook ads just make sure you have a a thirdparty platform to do all of your your ad attribution for you because you're not going to be able to get that data I don't think and we use it we use Facebook too and I'm worried that we're not going to see our data in Facebook we may need a thirdparty pixel to do tracking a good one is everflow a lot of our clients will use everflow I'm not here to push everflow but they're a good one there's a handful of them to look at um I also think that these companies that are in the US selling product at a moderate level of success they need to look at Europe and I say that because Europe is usually always four to five years behind American Trends I think Europe is is an untapped market for a lot of these Brands and if they could figure out how to do cross border multicurrency I you know I they could triple the size of their company well that that's great advice and that actually leads into if if they want to cross border we've got facilities in Europe so um it we make it real easy on that side so you're right if they're doing something well in the US um I love the fact that you're pointing out that that they're a little bit behind us so it should work in Europe um you just go we've got to make it easy for them and a lot of times the hardest part is it's either payment processing and it's and it's the actual physical goods and and we can both make that easy for them look ladies and gentlemen Jus can help you with all of your product facilities and fulfillment overseas our platform does um Dynamic currency conversion based on the spot rate of any of any currency we have over 200 Banks from around the world so you don't have to use that that one that's embedded into your platform in most cases you're saving money if you're using a different if you're using a different product a system calculates that tax it it'll do everything for you and provides you the platform to scale in other markets that's good let me ask you a personal question if you could go to your younger self and Shake Yourself by the shoulders and say hey pay attention to this and starting this business what is there anything you would change or anything that you would tell your younger self to do or not do yeah and I hate to say it because some of our old friends are going to see it I probably would have avoided the the higher risk dtoc market and gone straight after Ecom back in 2010 that's good that's good I'm on the same page I would have gone straight after the brands the brands yeah let's just go after somebody that wants to create a legitimate brand and offer value so yeah I'm there man because that's I feel like that's exactly what we've strived to do so even just connecting with those people those relationships grow so let me ask you this also um where do you spend your time when you're not working on checkout champ you really want me to tell you oh yeah I want you to tell everybody H um so as you know I like to shoot yep I like long range shooting I love to hunt I love to fish I love to hike I just want to be outdoors uh it's always with my family that's right you know I drag my poor wife with me everywhere but thank God go she loves to do it um you know we just like to be outside doing stuff you we'll sit at the sit outside and in the summertime and I'll grab my fishing rod grab my boys we'll go I have a a pond on my property we'll go fishing you know we just want to be outdoors doing something so that's me I'm not want I don't want to you know we you're very humble man yeah there's a lot that you could have said there so the things that we thought were important you know back then I mean it's it's if I could shake my younger self um that's exactly that's the direction that that i' I'd like to to talk in right now is is I want to know a little bit behind the scenes is what do fulfillment really mean to you now like what does it mean if if if you were like if you had to paint a perfect picture of your life and you're like this is I'm fulfilled or if you are right now what do what does that mean when I ask you that question what does fulfillment mean to you oh well I don't have to be friends with everybody you know I it's it's nice to have relationships but but creating a core group of people that are loyal to me and I'm loyal to them um and I'm talking outside of family I think that's important right guys that would that would walk over broken glass through the the fires of hell for me because they know I would do for them those are the type of people I want around me yeah not these guys that are just sticking around because they think they're going to get something off of me one day right yeah I don't need that no one needs that in their life um just meaningful relationships people I enjoy being with people you know yeah people who make me fulfilled you know I that's right nothing makes me happier than seeing my family sitting around the table putting together a puzzle so the relationships the memories that sort of stuff is the stuff that makes you feel that you're doing what you need to be doing absolutely I mean that's your legacy you know what are people going to say about you not just the Next Generation but three generations from now I want people to say oh my gosh your great great-grandfather was the greatest man in the world yeah you know he did this this this right that's your legacy I wanted people to see the man behind the curtain you've done so much in the e-commerce space you've helped so many people um achieve their dreams whether it be one small tip or just kind of taking their hand because you believed in them so I want to thank you for for the contribution that that that you've made um in my life and and others that are are watching this and that you're still on it you're still pushing the envelope you're still being innovated you're still trying to figure out how do you add value to to e-commerce well let me just say that that I am blessed that you're my buddy thank you brother I really thank you for your time I know you've added value to people um today on what you're what the the advice you're giv is there anything else that you can give the audience on something that's coming down the pike that they need to be aware of so they can still continue to keep that competitive Advantage you know I would say don't buy into everything you know there's all these Guru courses and there's all these apps that's that promise you it's going to do so do your research you know talk to people who know I you could come and talk to us I don't care if you buy from us or not you don't have to be a client of ours you could be a you be a friend you could be a buddy um just talk to people who know they'll give you the best advice don't just don't be a follower yeah you don't have to follow every every Trend and every person that's doing oh this guy's doing this so I have to do that too be Innovative do something on your own that's going to effectuate change you don't be afraid to test something new go out there you know do something different that could shake things up that's my philosophy has always been disrupt everything disrupted yeah right this disrupt everything you never know what's going to happen you're blazing your own trail it seemed like you've been blazing your own trail for a long time well Matt well thank you so much for coming on the fulfilled podcast and I hope to have you on again soon and um guys go and check out checkout champ.com and uh see if what Matt's saying is true take him for a test test drive see if this technology is going to be able to take your business from good to great thank you guys when I do and when I do I want you to do an interview with me and tell the world how awesome we are that's how that's how we do things here thank you so much for being a part of the fulfilled family I hope you enjoy all of the clips and episodes coming your way join us on this journey towards a life that is truly fulfilled 7:34 NOW PLAYING Bitcoin can certainly 'replace or be alongside' gold as a store of value, says Anthony Scaramucci CNBC Television 23K views 4 hours ago New
In a world where Innovation meets compassion join us as we welcome the Visionary behind Sun ovens trip Crites we're not just selling ovens we're changing lives we'll uncover The Untold Stories the challenges the triumphs that Sun Oven faced in their journey to truly change the way we cook it's not just about the product it's really about making a difference this isn't just a podcast it's a journey of impact inspiration where every meal made serves as a Beacon of Hope tuning in to the fulfilled podcast I have with us today trip KES he's the owner of sun ens but trip I want you to go into how did this business even come about well I guess about five or six years ago I was uh working down in Africa and we were out in the rural community setting up uh decentralized solar power uh internet Wi-Fi infrastructures and uh digital education and at that point we really saw the problems that people face on a daily basis out in these rural communities and we were already involved in trying to provide solutions for that when I was introduced uh in 2019 to Sun ofen and uh once I was introduced to Sun ofen they already had a uh 35y year uh track record and an established footprint on a global scale and so I could easily see how Sun Oven could be integrated with the uh passion that we had to solving problems out in rural communities and helping people uh to you know cook with have you had any experience with e-commerce in the past yes we've uh we've done e-commerce in the past and uh you know now being and that was another thing that really uh I was excited about with regards to Sun ofen was that it was an e-commerce company and there were even some more hurdles that we had to face uh once we acquired the company and being able to um really streamline everything so that we could scale at the time that we um acquired Sun Oven the uh ovens were being made in outside of Chicago Illinois in a place called Elburn and we had all kinds of issues with regards to uh the supply chain and getting enough of the product in also the Staffing and then you know of course when we everybody went through Co it became a real nightmare as far as Staffing and you know the supply chain and so you know thankfully we had already looked at that uh situation and addressed it earlier and decided that we need to actually move into more of a uh contract manufacturing standpoint to where we could just uh have our ovens made and then we bought a finished good and that way we didn't have the everyday concerns about the you know employment the Staffing and also uh bringing in all of the supplies that we use to actually build the sun ovens so that was already underway before uh you know the covid situation was full on so uh that allowed us the ability to scale meaning that you know we can now take orders for thousands of ovens and not really be concerned about being um you know handicapped with uh you know what we could uh produce uh on a weekly or monthly basis wow so it was important for you to make that shift and Outsource so you could focus on things that you wanted to do in your business or things you think you were best at is is that correct that's 100% correct yes and so by doing that we uh really uh were able to tap into the economies of scale and really harness um what you just said the expertise of a manufacturing uh partner where we could focus on what we do and that is the e-commerce side the marketing side and then providing the customer service and quality control and then helping to uh expand the brand uh so that more IND minies other than Preppers and homesteaders were familiar with what we had tell us the benefits of having a sun ofen I just want the audience to know know a little bit more about this product absolutely so Sun Oven if you think about it it's almost think about it in terms of a solar crock pot so what we have is a oven that has reflectors it opens up and it basically harnesses the power of the sun to heat up the inner chamber and the inner chamber uh then you can use or it functions just like a regular oven anything you cook in your regular oven you can cook inside of the Sun Oven so it has a glass that opens up you put your meal or whatever you want to cook inside of the inner chamber shut the glass and point it in the direction of the Sun and within uh 30 to 40 minutes it's already heated up to 300 325 degrees and then it just depends on how fast you want to cook your meal uh you can set it out in the sun leave it all day and nothing ever Burns or scorches or dries out in the sun oven because it really locks in the uh the Heat and the ambient temperature inside the oven prevents it from ever scorching or burning so literally you can just put your food in set it out and cook it all day and it uh retains the juicy uh you know moist uh texture so that's pretty pretty simple we've been making it the same way for 35 years when you're describing that I'm thinking of applications and I'm thinking because I I have a little farm um and and I'm away from many people but I'm thinking if this would be a critical item to have and then I'm taking it a step further and I'm thinking okay well if I wanted to cook my food on a fire well I'm kind of inviting everybody else to I'm cooking food and if you had a Sun Oven like this it seemed like a maybe a more covert way to to cook food I'm thinking of those sort of things as you're talking yeah you're 100% correct basically by starting a fire to cook you're just ringing a dinner bell everybody around is going to know hey I got something to cooking come on over for dinner but with a Sun Oven you just open it up and the sun the sun basically comes down and all you need all you need is enough sun to where you can see your Shadow and you can cook with a Sun Oven but not only can you cook with a Sun Oven but you can dehydrate as well and there's a lot of other uses other than just uh cooking so you know it's definitely something that uh in an off- grid situation people would definitely want to consider having what what do you see as far as advertising that's worked for you guys in that particular product well advertising is a uh is a real um uh delicate dance so we're big in the analytics side of it and so we want to basically uh collect every bit of data that we possibly can from any advertising marketing dollar that we spend so our particular um e-commerce is on the Shopify platform and the reason for that is because Shopify really just gives us the ability to uh for the analytics to go in and track every single keyword uh every you know every ad campaign that we do we can get real time information uh on how effective that particular ad spend is uh is doing for us and so you know from us for us continually uh analyzing uh that side of things and making sure that we're spending uh the dollars in the right place is is Paramount to uh to being effective so that's one way I can elaborate on a lot more just let me know well I'm curious because AI is of course a Hot Topic these days are you guys implementing AI in any of your marketing strategies yet not yet no we're uh we're in conversations about that but uh AI right now is not part of a marketing mix do you feel that a lot of the the people that have bought your sun ovens become Advocates is is that another way that you guys actually see that sales are coming in from people that have already purchased oh yeah and we uh we're and we have a lot of influencers out there as well so again we have the benefit of uh of having been in business for 35 years we've got um we're in 126 different countries all over the globe uh and we also have over 200,000 people that are on our mailing list and things like that so a lot of our people uh are are uh you know we've created a culture around uh the Sun Oven and so they love the Sun Oven the main thing I hear when we're out at events is the thing I love most about the sun ofen they say is that it actually works so they use it it works they tell people about it it's a quality product and you know people have been using them for 35 years but the influencer side if you want me to go into that is a big part of what we do as well for our for our organic uh side you know is basically you know the email list we have about 200,000 people like I said and we're constantly keeping uh the Sun Oven and other products in front of them and let me say this to you and the audience out there whenever I acquired the company in 2019 basically all we were doing was uh selling the the Sun Oven and we had a few other accessories like a uh uh like a a turkey rack and some things like that but you know the first question I asked was why is it that we've been in business for 35 years and we got hundreds of thousands of customers all over the planet and we don't have a cookbook with recipes in it that are actually designed to be cooked inside of the Sun ofen and so we started looking at what are other value added uh products that we could actually come up with to put into the hands of our of our customer base you know that of course would generate more sales but also help people be more effective with using the Sun ofen so a lot of times uh you know in business us as entrepreneurs and even on the e-commerce side we don't think about what else do we have or could we have that would enhance or provide more value to the core product they were actually selling so that was something that we did uh and it was very effective and we also introduced covers I mean we're like we got hundreds of thousands of people that own Sun ovens why would they not want to have a cover for their oven they could protect it and even you know extend the life of it and so it was really a no-brainer even we have a new product and I I can't say much about that right now but I'll just throw the teaser out that's going to basically uh turn the the Sun Oven into a uh I mean a Powerhouse and so it's something that can be easily integrated into an existing Sun Oven and you get much more benefit out of it so those are the things we started thinking about as a company that we could pass on value added products to our customer base let me talk more about maybe you behind the scenes I know there's um there's something that you guys have that's villager Sun Oven can you talk a little bit about that what you do with that and where you go the people that you help yeah would love to so a lot of our customer base they know us for the smaller ovens which are the All-American Sun ovens the ones we've been talking about and they really a lot of people don't know we have the big villager Sun Oven and the big villager Sun Oven is uh it looks like a small satellite fell out of the sky I mean it's a big item it's on the back of a uh trailer and um we put those in in rural communities and we can feed 1,200 people a day with that villager son of him we build Bakery Concepts around that so that you know people in uh rural communities can bake bread and then they can feed uh like at a school or an orphanage they can feed the the the people there and then the excess they can sell into the community to generate additional Revenue so it's really a sustainable business model that's built around the Villager son of it and so we've been doing that for uh years as well we we just sent uh two to Mala uh a few months ago and they set those up as uh two bakeries in different communities and already what it's done is create jobs for the uh for the women in the community and then it started to generate the income and there we partnered with a company out of uh Sweden a Solar Company that actually purchased those two big villag ovens and sent them down there so that's already started to uh to to transform the communities we also had uh some requests Outsourcing and Scaling from another country in Africa where you know the deforestation is a big issue they called us and they said hey look we need to get a hold of some of these villager ovens because our main cash crop is uh coffee and the wood that people have been cutting down for years and years has run out and now they're literally starting to cut down the coffee trees which are the cash crop just in order to cook a meal and so that can be devastating to the economy when you start using a c crop just to cook a meal that a villag or Sun Oven uh could be used for we've also had some requests and we're working now with um some people in morania uh that want to do a hundred of them up there to start putting in places to deal with some of the uh situations that you stationed there as well as in Morocco you know if they' had those for the earthquake and things they started to recognize for emergency and preparedness you know reasons that it can really um help to solve a lot of problems in an emergency is there a way for people to get involved to help you with those initiatives right there because that seems like a no-brainer uh for communities that don't have electricity or if there's something that happens um that's a way to be able to cook food um that's pretty amazing yeah you can go to villagers of.com and you can see a little a little bit about what we do there and if you want to get involved you can actually just send us an email let us know what your thoughts are what you're passionate about what area and uh I'll tell you in next year this is going to be I'll go ahead and share this with you and the audience so you know I'm excited about it we're going to be um uh com we're going to be partnering with a lot of uh missions organizations that are you know uh sending missionaries into areas and the missionaries you know traditionally go into an area they don't have the the revenue stream to continue to stay there and they're always coming back you know for months at a time to gain more support so they can go back and do you know the work so what we're doing now is starting to partner with a lot of missions organizations and sending us son of a villager son ofen into those areas ahead of the missionary so that they can literally use the Villager son ofen not only as a door opener but also as a revenue generating uh uh mechanism and so they can stay on the mission field they can solve really physical problems by providing you know bread for the community to eat gives them a real platform to you know preach the gospel and so we're starting to roll that out in uh a pretty a pretty aggressive uh way uh in 24 let me ask you this so what what is I mean for you um what is fulfillment and I asked this to all our guests what does fulfillment mean to you I mean what's the most important thing in your life well the most important thing in my life I'm going to be honest with you about it is to uh follow and be obedient uh to the plan of God for my life everybody's got a plan you know God has a plan for everybody's life and it's up to us to really uh dig in and find out what is it God that you specifically want me to do what is your calling what is your your your purpose for my life and then at that point is harnessing the ability and talents and anointings if you will that you have in order to move in that direction so the most important thing to me is one obeying what it is God told me to to to to do and then number two and I think this is where a lot of people miss it and and I try to stay focused on this is not trying to have it all figured out just really it's the fishing chips program literally taking what it is that God put in your hand and in our case it's the son of it and really saying okay God we've got this son ofen that you to entrust us with to make us stewards over and how do we take this thing that you put in our hand and give it to you so that you can bless it and multiply it to accomplish what your plan is so the real fulfillment for us comes from obeying God taking what we have putting it in his hands and watching him multiply it uh and do and change a lot of lives that's what makes us fulfilled it's not just buying a son of and when you buy a son of and you're supporting this initiative that trip is is speaking of so I'm really grateful that you came on today just to talk a little bit about Sun ovens what type of price point I I mean I I would I would spend a whole bunch for something like this but what type of price point are you at with these ovens well we we retail on our website at sun.com for $449 that's what we sell the uh the All-American Sun Oven for and then the big villager oven uh that takes over a 100 man hours to build and uh we we sell those the big ovens for $28,000 wow so those are in line with someone that would come to us and say hey we want to do a project we want to accomplish a certain mission in an area how can we utilize the Villager to accomplish that so the price Point's much higher on the Villager but our retail price on the smaller ovens are $4.49 yeah that that's amazing well I I I love I love your passion uh trip you know I know we're we're we're really trying to of course create a podcast that inspires people um it seems like you guys have a passion for what you do and and it's important people that like you said that are carrying the gospel for us so I'm excited to be able to talk to you um is there anything else you want to tell the audience today about your product or about you guys that I've missed I think we've covered quite a bit I mean I just want to say it's a real honor to have been on the podcast today and and I really trust and uh hope that something that we've said inspires or encourages uh other people other entrepreneurs out there and if I can ever be a help to anyone in any way to accomplish what God's called you to do uh I'm just an email away thank you so much for being a part of the fulfilled family I hope you enjoy all of the clips and episodes coming your way join us on this journey towards a life that is truly fulfilled
You may be wondering what does a Winnebago country music and confetti have in common well we're about to find out on the latest episode of fulfilled today we'll be sitting down with the founder of emergency confetti Gracie moer what would it look like to know that this is right for us you know and just like really being like if you're if you're ahead of us if you're going before us in this if this is something that you're calling me to then I'll be very excited about it but if not please show me I'm Kenny Morgan creative director at fulfillment.com and this is one episode you won't want to miss Gracie I just wanted to thank you so much for being on the fulfilled podcast with us today oh my goodness thank you for the kind words that was so so sweet and I'm so honored to be here it's been seven years ago which flying by but my wife and I Met You in Dallas Texas you and Steve were on uh one of the hometowns and campgrounds tours I think at that point you're still in the 68 Winne Bago oh goodness but you guys were doing this this is a tour where you would like literally go to people's backyards it was a very intimate setting I think I read that you were doing like 40 shows in 50 days you guys were just genuinely kind I remember not only with me but my wife and and just seeing you guys interact with other people you guys just made time for people and so where does that come from I have to say the Lord I mean I think it's just it's totally a gift from him and it's the Lord and then it's also gratitude so whenever we started this tour we were Newly Weds and we were so poor and I had started a company we were um hiring women who were coming off the street and teaching them how to make jewelry so they could have a job and so I started that like literally two weeks after we got married so and then Steve you know had a couple things that were like in the works for him that all fell through so I mean we like we got married I quit my full-time job to do this jewelry company and then we're like what did we do like how are we going to live and so um the lord gave Steve this vision of this tour he's like what if you you know he he pitched it to me like what if we you know bought a camper and like traveled across the country and you know maybe people would hire us to do a private show and I'm like okay let's try it you know like I'm an indr S so I'm like Adventure spontaneity um which Steve is actually not super that way but this tour I think really like brought that out of him so I was like 100% I'm in let's do it yeah so you know I think for us it was really gratitude for like I can't believe people would have us to their homes we're so thankful for this provision and for a chance to connect and then once we started doing it I think Steve just realized how much passion he found in it and just the way that he could connect with his audience and the way we could make genuine relationships was so special we kind of felt like we had stumbled upon this honey hole of like how is no one why is no one doing this like this is so cool so that's really I think where it comes from is you know obviously there's days where you're you're feeling a little bit off on the road and you're like I don't necessarily feel like you know being on or you know going into a scenario where you're like you know having to be very social and that's where the Lord really carries you through but most days like 95% of the time it's like it truly is just so fun so wonderful and just we're so grateful for the chance to do it typically when people start having kids it's kind of like okay one parent's gonna have to kind of hang back the other person's gonna have to go do the other thing but you guys just at least from outside looking in seem to have done a really good job of saying hey we're a family um and we're gonna we're gonna do things together talk about that a little bit yeah I mean I think we just from the EO been like you know we started off ever since we've been married like we both had dreams you know so we've both been pursuing them our whole marriage so I think it's just been that has helped it become a little more natural it's not like it's been the Steve show for you know five years and then I decided to try to do something but even more than that I mean he is truly the most supportive person I've ever met in my entire life and it's been cool because we've both had Seasons where our work's been busier than the other or you know like where it's like okay you need more support in this role or I need more support you know so it's gone back and forth and I just feel like we both are so excited for each other and each other's biggest cheerleader and it's just been that way from day one like we've never done it another way so we don't really know anything different I honestly like it'll be interesting to not have tour together you know because that's been our like combined joint effort so I'm curious to see what it's like you know now that I'm doing something and he'll be you know traveling but we won't be together so but even like two nights ago he's up with me till 10:30 at night packing boxes and taking them to UPS for me so I'm like We'll always you know be working together in behind the scenes roles so tell me what's the what's the brief breakdown on on your story okay my story wrapped up yeah so said from Memphis moved around a lot um landed in Nashville when I was 13 and so I've been in Nashville for oh gosh over 20 years which is wild so um yeah I I studied fashion merchandising and marketing so I I never thought itd actually work in those fields but I actually have I had a like I spoke on earlier the jewelry company I started um and I ran that for two years and then I sold it to a company in in um Nashville called AEL or they were called Li fashionable now they're called AEL so they've taken that and just like run with it and they've hired so many more women which is amazing so did that and then after that launched a clothing company where we were hand making t-shirts um our biggest customer was Eric Church so he wore them on the cover of billboard and rolling stone it was crazy we're like what is happening um so that was super fun and um I guess I never really knew I was an entrepreneur until I just was I guess and so I remember when Steve and I met we were like up late one night talking on the couch and he's like you know what do you dream about and I'm like I don't have dreams and he has all these dreams you know he's chasing them and I I truly feel like meeting him was such an amazing part of God bringing that out of me like I think I had them but I just didn't really know how to process them or how to like make them reality and so anyway it's just fun to look back and be like Steve's like oh you said you had no dreams here you are like fourth company you know like um just always like always dreaming I have to almost pump The Brak sometimes um so anyway so I did the jewelry company I did thread Co and then I still have a marketing company where we do marketing for small businesses we actually were just watching Home Videos at Thanksgiving but I always was like writing songs funny enough or like writing plays or making my brother you know act something out with me so I think I always had it in me um and my dad has run his own businesses as long as I can remember you know so it was definitely there and then I think there was a Ser like a a period where I just felt like I think I kind of was just trying to like not rock the boat and I just felt a little bit like not shy but just I don't know I wasn't really like tapping into that so but I remember as a child yeah feeling very like I loved being creative I loved dancing and Performing and all those things and so even now I feel like I'm like going back for that little girl and being like okay I'm coming for you like we're like getting back to that you know how have you managed to like have that run the business but also be a present mother which is very clear that you you are um so loving towards your family oh thank you I mean truly it's it's like I we were talking about earlier Steve and I just having that co-parenting supportive approach we have a pretty good system of like tag in tag out tag in you know I start working at 8 um Steve doesn't have to write till 10: so he takes the kids to school so we just have a system and then I try to be done by the time they're you know I pick them up so then we can play or you know run errands or whatever so it truly is just a little bit of it's a little bit of planning and a lot of just having conversations and figuring out how we can sport each other you know but it's a balance I mean I don't feel like we always do it well but we we always try y I'm sure you know how that feels it's an adventure it's an adventure yeah okay this is a fun question um because I'm Cur I'm always curious because I I I have a lot but how many domains do you think you own oh that is a fun question I think I own like 10 okay how many do you own I maybe less now I probably have like 40 you 40 that's awesome that's a great question yeah yeah my wife just rolls her eyes when I tell her I bought another domain are they for ideas you have that are kind of like cooking or is it what are they for it's funny they you say cook CU like one one is uh it's just it's probably more of a bad dad joke but I came up with this idea for a pizza company I'm I'm not a cook and then so I'll never do this but it was a pizza brand that was called in godwe crust love that um so I got I have that domain never use it oh my gosh yeah yeah Steve and I we like this is like six years ago we're like we started we got on a kick of making avocado toast again are we chefs absolutely not and we're like we could call it tosto and it' be all these like Gourmet so we got the Instagram handle you know that has never been used and it's just like why did we think we would ever have an avocado crust or toast truck or whatever we thought but we were very much on a kick for like two months but I didn't buy that domain maybe I should just in case it ever comes back around if we could just like package the idea up and sell that maybe we'd be on to something CU do you start thinking about like The Branding behind it what it could look like and then it's like you're Off to the Races I mean yeah it's it's it's a it's a a problem yeah is being a creative and I know you're a creative too like I'll think of the name and I'll automatically go ahead and lock in like all the social media accounts and I'll just I'll never use them I'll start sketching some stuff out and but you know what be awesome Steve and I are like it'd be awesome to find a place to sell those ideas you know what I mean it's like we package up okay here's the domain here's the Instagram I'm sure there is something like that but yeah just to be like hey here's like a fully developed idea who wants to run it you know because like obviously you can't run every idea that pops in your mind but yeah some people just want to run stuff and they probably have the cash flow so where could we sell our ideas that's our next project I guess that's our next project like a think tank brand launch.com something that yeah buy a brand.com let's get it that's right yeah we'll get you packaged up and you make it happen Okay okay I'm gonna look for that we get off The Zo that's right we're already coming up with another concept I love it classic speaking of concept emergency confetti so tell people what it is and then talk about where this idea came from okay so emergency confetti is a line of gift items that are all centered around helping celebrate good news and the idea came from a wine night I was having at a girlfriend's house and she told me this story she heard of this little boy in his mom's car and he's like hey Mom should I throw this confetti in my pocket and his mom's like no don't throw that but why do you have it and he was like it's my emergency confetti I case I carry it everywhere in case there's good news and I just was like oh my goodness that is the coolest idea like emergency confetti it just feels so easy to be prepared for bad but what if we were prepared for good you know and just believing that good news is on the horizon and for me you know of course like we're saying I'm kind of envisioning in my head okay it could look like this and you know all the ways that you could like use it and I think I didn't even really realize at the time but I think that also the reason the concept resonated so deeply with me was I had just come out of a a a probably fivey year stent where I was really struggling with a lot of anxiety and just like which again anxiety is agreeing with what if this went bad what if this what if this thing happens you know and so a huge part of my healing Journey with the Lord was like him saying but what if it went well like in envisioning those good things and like retraining my brain to be like I'm going to think what's the best thing that could happen right now what's the absolute best thing that could happen you know and that has transformed my life and so I think that's why also the emergency confetti resonated with me on like a soul level more than just like oh that'd be cool and fun you know and it's both like it's both things for me um so that's a little bit of where it came from and then you know it was one of those ideas that we Steve and I were like that'd be cool you know and we just kind of tucked it in our brand arsenal of things that we're not going to do but that'd be cool and then it just kind of kept coming back up it was that idea that just kept chasing me it just kept showing back up and showing back up so finally one day Steve and I were sitting on our porch and I'm like okay emergency confetti like that's actually a legit idea like let me look and see if the domain's available you know let me see if the Instagram's available so I start my hunt of like realizing can we do this you know yeah and it actually was kind of crazy because the domain was not available and the Instagram was not available and so I start like but they weren't taken like it was like the website was like parked but you know like the the thing popped up it's like this website's parked but it was not being used and so I'm like I'm very stubborn I guess in that way where I'm like well if it's not being used there's got to be a way to find it you know yeah and so as we were kind of brainstorming do we actually want to do this you know because we had two kids under two it's like and I have a job and Steve has a job so we were just trying to be really intentional with like are we supposed to do this like very prayerfully is this for us right now because if it's not we don't want to do it you know I don't want to just take something else on because my life is already very full you know and so kind of just started praying through okay just little things like not that you couldn't have emergency-c confetti.com but it's way better to have emergency confetti.com you know you're such like my soul sister I'm the same way yeah because if you tellone then they're gonna write emergency Dash confetti I'm like no no it's just h i it's just too confusing I'm like I wanted the straight up domain name you know and the Instagram so anyway just kind of started to pray through like okay Lord like what would it look like to know that this is right for us you know and just like really being like if you're if you're ahead of us if you're going before us in this if this is something that you're calling me to then I'll be very excited about it but if not please show me you know because I just I just don't want to take on something like this you know and how are we gonna pay for it and all those things so long story short ended up getting the domain it was like found a broker who found the person who owned it who sold it to me and then on Instagram I again I got emergency Dash confetti or or was that what it was I think that's what it was and I'm like oh this is so lame but so I was like on them I was kept searching for the Emergency confetti Instagram and it was private so I'm like I can't even see who she follows I'm like I'm like I'm searching Facebook like code words to see anybody who's posted about it I'm trying to figure out who owns this thing you know and Instagram ends up suggesting to me the girl's mom like it was the most random thing so anyway I end up figuring out the girl who owns this Instagram account and she had had a Blog in 2018 called emergency confetti so was not using it she had actually let the website go and I guess somebody picks it up you know and um so I end up finding her and messaging her and she messaged me back in like 10 minutes and just gives it to me just like hey I'll just transfer it over to you you can just have it and I was like I can you know so um so just little confirmations of like you know um we ended up yeah just figuring out all the ways to make it happen and then what was cool is you know Steve like obviously I want him to feel excited about it too because we're we took a home equity line to like fund this you know and it's it's we're we're all on this so Steve and I are really big on making sure like it's it's Works in wholeness for our whole family you know and so as we're praying about it we're like we kept say kept Steve said he kept saying okay Lord I'm laying it down I'm laying it down and he said one day he was ining his quiet time and God's like well pick it up pick it up and so that's been really helpful because in the hard times it's not like I just chose this and then it's like okay well I dragged our whole family into this big undertaking I you know Steve's like I was with I'm I'm with you you know and I felt confirmation too and so that's just been a really a really cool thing and there's so so much good in that it's so you I feel like it um everything you're saying is like things that I've gone through too especially like the uh the domain hunting and and then private messaging people on Instagram I have not been super successful with that okay I I I do the same thing but just to hear like those those glimpses of where God shows up and just says hey this is this is exactly where I want you to go um so I just love hear that that's and I think you have to really I know for me like I love Jesus and I I'm constantly coming up with ideas but I think what really stood out to me there was like Hey we're gonna really like pray and make sure that if this is what God wants us to do that he's very clear about it um and that you guys were doing it together as a couple that was huge well like we talked about earlier it's like life is so full it is such a balancing act of kids and being present as a wife as a mom as all these things as a friend so I'm like I just I'm I feel like we're at the point where it's like you have to just be kind of selective about what you're bringing on especially in that big of a capacity so for us we're like we just have to know this is like okay Lord is this what you're calling me to because if you are then great and if not let's just hand this idea off to somebody else you know let it pass through for someone I don't know so I uh know that you had some background in and like fashion and tex style things like that and then you have a marketing background too but that's those two components don't necessarily translate to okay I have this idea for emergency confetti but then I have to figure out how to manufacture it so what is what was that oh my gosh well like you were saying earlier or I don't know who were saying we loved Google I call myself a Google preneur because I'm like you can Google anything you can figure anything out on Google I I will go down on that Hill like any so I'm literally like Googling like what types of confetti are out there and then I found one that was small I'm like okay great that would fit in your pocket it needs to be like you know something you can transport and then you know um trying to figure out manufacturers there's a site called Alibaba which like helps you kind of link to like International suppliers and um so it really was just like Googling a ton of stuff and just like trial and error but it really was um I I love product development so I think just with the past of coat and Miriam I I know like what I want it to be like so I've done a little bit of manufacturing but that was all handmade which was also another reason why after I ended thread Co I was like I don't want to do another product based business I love it but I was handmaking everything so it's like when a big order comes in you like cheer and then you cry because you have to make it all you know so with this product I was like okay I want this to be something I can scale I just want to do it different this time you know I I enjoyed those for what they were and it just didn't feel sustainable for me for where I'm at like we said being a mom and just with my schedule so I just was like okay this has to be something that like I can scale I can manufacture you know that I'm not doing so I just Googled everything and it kind of ended up coming together I love your uh usage of Google um incredible Google anything so one one other thing before we move on to uh just some more things um your your brand aesthetic is so on point it's so good um and I'm a I'm a critical eye but it's so good I know you have not only background in in marketing but you do have a creative eye and creative abilities too so did you like do your own brand did you partner up with somebody I have some thoughts I have a secret weapon her name is Becca wz she is wonderful I don't know if you've heard of Matt wartz he's a singer he's like a singer songwriter it's his sister and she did my Miriam logo thread Co and emergency confetti and we just sink really well like I feel like we have a very seamless workflow and she's absolutely brilliant so whenever I came to her for this like the stuff she sent back I was just like geeking out I'm like after she sent the brand pack I'm like well now it has to happen like it's just like her branding is just too good we have to make this product exist so she is my secret weapon love that it's so cool too I think one thing I want to encourage like people in the e-commerce space or business ownership space I know me I my wife and I owned a creative agency we like that's what we did but there were times when it came to like our own stuff that I actually hired that out because I was like I'll if I work on it I'll never finish it and I'll never be happy and just to bring in other ideas and other mindset like you might have one thing in your head but someone else having another idea might actually like give you breakthrough you didn't know you need it or like give you a different outlook on it so I yeah I'm with you on that and then we're going to have a lot of business owners e-commerce um you know people tell me what you would say has been the biggest challenge with emergency confetti and then the biggest reward I mean I think for me I just I'm not as much a numbers person and so just figuring out cash flow and figuring out how to scale at a sustainable but also slightly aggressive pace so my goal for emergency confetti the whole time like wholesale is the name of the game for me I think it's our obviously our website is a great tool but I think with confetti it's something you find in a store it's a little bit more of a spontaneous purchase where you're like oh I do have a friend who has a birthday I should buy them this birthday celebration kit you know it's um so wholesale is definitely my game plan for emergency confetti and the whole time I've been wanting to sign with a Sales Group which is basically where you have a it's called like a rep group and so you have a team of salespeople that are all you know in this agency and then they'll take it out to stores for you so I've been hitting up stores by myself since we launched in January you know some success a lot of no responses you know and as I've talked to these sales groups the biggest feedback I was getting is we love your product we love your branding you need more products you need you need to have a fuller line like right now you're a product you need a brand and I'm like challenge accepted okay I will have more products you know so all year I feel like I've had my foot on the gas of like I need a full line sheet I need to have you know this full offering so that stores you know will have more options and then a sales group might consider me and so it actually was crazy because I got an offer from a sales group we launched in January I think I got the offer in March or April and I was like so excited I'm like oh my gosh this is crazy um and but there was this one sales group that I was like obsessed with and I just felt like if I could sign with them that would be like my absolute dream and um so I was about to sign with this other Sales Group and I did not feel peace about it like I just I was like crying and I'm like why am I crying like you just got an offer this is what you want and I just did not feel peace about it I felt the Holy Spirit nudge me that it was this other group and I'm like but they're not not answering me why how could it be this group like I have not heard back from them I've emailed them they're like non-responsive and so I turned down the deal just like okay if I don't feel peace it's not right and so for another six months did not have a sales group but have been working very very hard to get the product line ready and long story short made I mean 25 new products I feel like over this year made a catalog I can see what the other brands do that I respect and then I'm like okay I need that okay I need that so I was like they all have legit cataloges I'm going to look very legit if I can make a catalog so again pouring more money into it trying to be like is this the right thing I feel like it is um so I made a catalog I sent it to my dream Sales Group and two hours later they're like let's set up a zoom like and so I signed with them um and I signed with another Sales Group as a and so January 1 we'll have 37 States covered for sales territories so it's very exciting but it's also been like the biggest stressor this year of not of like growing at a pace that feels slightly unnatural but in the hopes that next year it really will set me up to have a big you know sales base will that like set you up for like boutiques and even like big box brands too like a Target exactly yes so like basic when you have these teams I'll have 32 sales reps so they'll be taking it to all their stores all their connections so it's just a lot easier to get into a store when they meet with them you know once a month and it's you know so um so I think that will be really great we just got our first big box order two weeks ago so we're like we're getting there you know but it will set us up to yeah like have those potentials and then we'll have showrooms in Atlanta and Dallas year round at those markets and then we'll pop up in Vegas so I think it'll just give us a lot of exposure and a lot of new connections and I'm excited to have a sales team I I I can do sales but it's not my favorite part so I'm excited people who like that's their thing you know and like just activate them to go do what they're great at and then I can kind of focus on the things I enjoy a little more yeah I remember in doing some research that one of your first jobs like post College was in sales yeah yeah it was was all right but it was not fine yeah like I can do it but it's not like I'm not like you know coming home on cloud n because of sales you know um I'm grateful to learn to do it and I feel like you have to hear yes and you have to hear no to really like grow and get some grit but now I will be happy to let somebody do that so so yeah that was the biggest challenge and then I mean I think the biggest reward was like having a goal and a dream and really going all in and then when it happened it was like euphoric I'm like I cannot believe this is like I mean not that anything ever goes to plan necessarily but just like this was kind of the this was I guess it was the plan and I'm like it's actually feels like it's kind of happening and that was like I mean that was very satisfying after all the risk it was like okay I feel like this is paying off well once again just hear heing you talk about uh kind of following like the voice of the Lord I think we I had kind of shared about closing our agency we had right before we closed we actually had an offer for someone to like buy into us and it was a great offer for the first couple hours you're like this is amazing and then that night when I went to like go to sleep I same same kind of situation that you had it was just like God was like no wow this is not it and so I just love you know it's it's hard I mean it's it's hard you should do it you know yeah but I I just you know I think we've both probably lived enough life to know that when we kind of go beyond that and still do the thing that we're maybe called not to do it it doesn't end very well and and so I just love talking about hey you know God you just trust what God's doing he's really gonna open up some amazing doors yeah yes and just believing that it's going to be better you know something on paper seems better but that's I'm like okay your ways are higher your thoughts are higher you know and so just submitting to that and being like okay I'm not gonna take the you know someone who wants to invest or I'm not gonna sign this deal and I believe that's my best case scenario scary but like yeah just trying to trust uh this is something that we really like to focus on as we kind of wrap up um start time with our guest but really just want to hear from you um what does it look like to be fulfilled what's look like to be fulfilled you know for me I think just getting to partner with the Lord on building a a business is so fulfilling like just getting to be his friend in that like I that I just it feels so like it makes me just feel so in line with my purpose and like why I'm here and um so I just I really enjoy that and getting to I mean getting to build a brand and chase a dream is like such a blessing and I'm so grateful for it and I just feel like in running a company I feel so much dependence on the Lord and because of that like he shows up and meets those needs and like just honestly blows my mind on a daily basis and that like that is so fulfilling to me like to have needs and then watch the Lord meet them like it's just kind of the coolest thing to me I feel so grateful for that and um yeah getting to run a business that like in so in line with a lot of my passions and um it's I don't know that feels very very fulfilling for me okay so for those um that have just fallen in love love with you which is not a surprise and just want to kind of stay up with emergency confetti what's the best way for them to do that so yeah you can follow emergency confetti as we've talked about it's at emergency confetti no dash that's right uh thank you Lord and uh and my Instagram is at Gracie mler so that's where we post most of the updates and then the web website is again the brand is just so good so yeah I'm just I'm a big fan and I just uh I know uh being business own owner uh mother and just life it's so busy but the fact that you would make time to be on this um podcast today just means a whole lot to me so I just want to say thank you of course thanks for having me this was so fun thank you so much for being a part of the fulfilled family we hope you enjoy all of the clips and episodes coming your way and until then join us on this e-commerce Journey towards a life that is truly fulfilled
Imagine walking away from a successful career in pursuit of something else at the age of 33 and then finding out that this leap of faith has led you to your true calling well that's exactly what our guest today has lived out from musical Acclaim to the founding of the number one most requested hair extension method in the industry please join us in welcoming McKenzie turly the creator of invisible bead extensions and Goldilocks thank you was so excited to be here I'm so grateful uh just for your time and excited to get into your story but I've covered a little bit of your story in the intro um but I'd love for you just to tell people um a little bit about your journey and how you've navigated this stretch um you know from the music industry initially now to a life of business ownership oh man I mean how much time do we have I'll give you in a nutshell it's been it's been a whirlwind really I could have never thought even just you know know 10 years ago that this would be where my life would take me um but when you you know when you kind of are intent on being led and you kind of listen and allow yourself to have that intuition on where you should go it's crazy what life will open up to you so yeah I went from being a professional musician and kind of having this like strange call if you will to to do something different and um I do feel like the two played into each other I I've always loved the idea of you know being creative and before I was using my creativity through music through you know singing performance writing arranging things like that and then you know I was able to use that in just a different way with a different medium and hair became you know that medium for me to express my creativity so although it seems like it was just a complete 180 and it kind of was there were a lot of similarities that I feel like like you know allowed it to be a place where I felt comfortable even though it was so new and I will say I did find some old music and you have an amazing voice not just saying that but you're very talented on on that side of things but I I toured for a little bit I was on the Vans Warp Tour for summer most people may not even remember that but um I know that go like the the the touring industry is can be a bit brutal um it can be a little bit like being refined by the fire but like you were saying um I do think that the industry can help prepare you for you know your career path beyond that so just talk a little bit more specifically about you know maybe what you learned from your journey in the music industry and how it's kind of helped prepare you for what you're in now you know I think part of being a entrepreneur and I guess a successful one at that is you have to learn to show up even when you maybe don't feel like it right I feel like that's what separates Ates the true successful business owners from maybe the rest is we learn to show up consistently regardless of our emotions and so that's something that I feel like I learned through being a performer is you know a lot of times you don't want to be on stage a lot of times you know you're you're tired you're worn out you got a bum audience you know whatever it might be but you learn to show up and deliver because you don't have a choice so I think that's one of the huge things that I've taken with me into you know being a successful entrepreneur is that concept right there I love that and yes the the bum audiences sometimes can make it hard to perform but I think that's man the bum audience still exists the business world yeah because they're still out there they're just not in front of you you know either clapping or booing but they're on the internet you know sharing their opinions and so it's the exact same thing learning how to deal with that you know the feedback whether it's good or bad and not letting it slow you down when it is something that's negative is is huge so what I love about a lot of your story but you know I saw some other podcasts read some stories too but you you know you transitioned from the music industry over to a New Passion um you were again a sought-after um hair stylist and you kind of ran into a problem with some of the current um extension methods and I saw that they were very painful um damaging to the hair difficult to hide but what I love is you know not really having a ton of experience you just did research um you just kind of figured it out because you I felt like you genuinely wanted to come up with a solution for the people that you were serving and so my question is you you mentioned it earlier like being led but where do you think this like push to you know you you face a robot with this push to like go beyond that to create something that now is is really like one of the best products on the market you know I've always been driven by the why in life like really strongly heavily even from you know when I was a little girl I always needed and wanted to know why things were happening what the insides looked like I would you know I would break open rocks for hours and hours because I needed to know what was inside like even from a little girl when I was eight years old and so I do feel like that is something that is car with me again all the way through to creating invisible bead extensions is I you know I studied all of these methods I was certified I was educated in but nobody could tell me why I was doing specific things well why am I making the section size the side why if there is damage what would be the cause for it to happen and so for me you know driven by that need to really understand why I was doing something it wasn't enough to just go to a a 4-Hour class and then walk out with the certificate it I was like wait I I don't know what I'm doing I don't know why I'm doing what I'm doing and so for me that was kind of the driving force behind it is again like I never I never set out to create anything that I would teach anyone and so I do feel like that authenticity of me just trying to figure out why I was doing something for myself and then for my clients translated really well to those who kind of were watching my journey because they realized I was creating something not just to sell it you know not just to like put myself up here and say look what I did it was more of just hey I'm I'm genuinely trying to figure something out that works for the guests in my chair and let me show you how I did it I love that well you talked about I love the story about breaking Rocks open as a young girl just trying to figure out what's inside this wasn't one of my questions but can now that you you are in this industry and and you seem like you're just constantly innovating new things because that's just who you are can you you ever like look back at when you were a young girl and even see more like confirmation back then that this was kind of the path way that you would be on today does that make sense oh totally makes sense and you know I you kind of get stuck with these labels throughout your life that you that you stick with and for me I was the I was the singer and so I never leaned in a whole lot to this part of myself because I was always just I was labeled as the singer the performer that's what I did that's you know maybe what I was known for in my small community or what not but as I have kind of shed those those labels and really been able to like lean into who I am I realize this is who I've always been I'm just channeling her in a different way now that's so good yeah I think those moments are like even me I'm a I'm more of on the creative industry side but there were things when I was a you know a young boy that I'm just like wow if I had if I had just it was like a preview of what's to come I just had no clue that it was coming so I love that about you yeah so you know this EP this uh this podcast is called fulfilled and we're gonna kind of cover a lot of things about that but I actually found this awesome quote where you say hair extension not only transforms the way you look but also the way that you feel about yourself um being able to provide this service to other women and watching as they leave your chair feeling empowered and more confident they than they did before is so fulfilling there's nothing like it so um I think this kind of encapsulates you know what that means but um how do you feel like your business is making uh a good impact on the people that that you serve oh you know I think from an outside perspective you could look at the beauty industry and just see it at like a real surface value right you think hair extensions it's it's fake this fake that I get those comments all the time in fact literally this morning I opened up my Instagram and there was a woman who was sounding off about you know how I had built something based off this concept of being fake and you know I didn't get into it with her I would love to have a conversation with her and what I would tell her is that you know until you have something happen where you lose your sense of like self-confidence as a woman and you you regain that that feeling of of having that confidence is incredible but what's even better is being able to give that to somebody else and that's you know these hair stylists that are that are doing these incredible Transformations Behind the Chair like at a surface level it's just about you know adding inches to their guest hair it's so much more than that these women walk out of the salon with you know a whole new Swagger they are ready to to take on the day and it it's like a Pay It Forward effect I mean when you're happy when you feel good about yourself you act you show up differently and so you know for us to be able to provide that and give that to to another woman I feel like is just like the greatest gift that you can give to someone else I often think about the times when I just got my haircut I know it's a different industry alog together but I always like tell the um the lady cutting my hair I was like I should I need to pay you like double this amount like I feel like you should be a certified counselor because one I'm just like dumping all of my daily problems on you and and I leave like feeling good like physically because I'm you know I got a new haircut but I also just feel like yeah you know I just release something so I I I totally agree that people see as a very superficial industry but I think it's completely the opposite of that yeah I mean we are dealing with women who have lost their hair because of chemo they are dealing with health issues with you know disorders that way and so it is so much more than just hey I want to become a mermaid today most of the time it is not that most of the time you are trying to restore you know a woman's you know the thickness or whatever because she has been through it and for us it is the crown that we never take off and so it means a lot so one thing that I resonate with you a lot is I can I can just tell that you are a true creative and being a creative myself like I it's hard for me sometimes to stay locked in on a single task um my wife gives me a hard time because I probably own like a hundred domains because I'm always thinking of the next best idea oh my gosh that we do the same thing yeah I was one of our questions was gonna be like to ask you like how many domains do you think that you that you own um I yeah there quite a few quite a few for that exact same reason right there it's like oh man you think of something and you're like someone's gonna really want this name someday and I'm gonna own it yeah and five years later it's still just sitting there kind of collecting dust in your GoDaddy account yeah but I have a question I think a lot of us like entrepreneurs do come from a creative background and so my question for you is how do you find that balance of giving space for creativity because I think as a creative you have to have that but also being able to see something through to completion you know this has been difficult for me because of that strong strong drive to create and I mean that's what got me here in the first place but there have been times throughout the past four years where I've realized that my creativity was really being stifled because I was like having to go over into the management and like the organization of the business and for me I don't I don't Thrive there at all that's where I start to feel claustrophobic and I start to feel like my creativity is just like flatlined because that was something that doesn't like call to me and so the creation of building teams where you bring in people that excel at those specific things so that it frees you up to continue being the creative that got everybody there in the first place so that's a huge thing that I've realized over the past four years is you know as a strong creative be really aware when you start to feel that drawing back and usually it's because you are you're having to do things that don't necessarily speak to that strength that you have and so as soon as I started bringing in people who could you know handle the management handle you know certain aspects and I was freed up again emotionally and mentally to be able to create that's when all of a sudden like the engine goes again yeah I imagine you probably just felt like wow I missed this it's feel so good to be back in this spot again yeah and it's it's hard as an entrepreneur you know we forget what got us to where we you know wanted to be in the first place and it was that creative entrepreneurial spirit all of a sudden you get drowned in running a company and you're like this is not what I thought this was going to look like I thought I was just going to be able to you know dream and create and build forever but it's not always you know rainbows and butterflies and so to bring in people and build teams that can um you know that can kind of help you do that is really the move yeah no that's huge and that's it's it's a journey I know for me I struggle with that like how do how do I even get to that point and it's it's not even just like the financial resources to be able to hire out but to me was like how do I even I don't even know how to delegate or how to to to send some of these things onto the next person so I love that you've been able to kind of get to that place because I think not only you're in a better spot but the recipients of your products are in a better position because they're getting your best yeah it definitely took me a while I mean that is not the head space that I lived in the first I would say yeah between like the first two years I was trying to do everything thing and just you know I was burnt out yeah I've been there too so another thing uh you're married and I also feel like you're my soul sister because I also am a father of four too um okay and you are a mother of four y so tell me uh I know there's a lot of probably parents that are listening um or ones that have you know a good bit of kids so are there any specific practices that have helped you stay focused uh on being able to to thrive in your professional setting but also like be present in the Prof in the personal side of things too oh this is this is a tricky one when you you know are so busy and you're in the trenches I think one of the things for me that has been helpful for both my kids and I is I involve them in the business so they when I first started this on Sundays they were my packing crew I mean I had my little four-year-old was packing extension beads and little plastic jars every Sunday we would line the kitchen table and I'd be like okay we have to have you know we have got 25 stylists this week we have to pack their their starter kits for and so my kids have been you know throughout this journey with me really right kind of by my side even still my my daughters went in and helped me pack orders after Black Friday just you know a couple weeks ago yeah and so they're very aware and involved and they I think you know that's very helpful because your kids actually can can understand what you're going through if you let them and so they know a lot they know the struggles um a lot of the hardships that I have faced have been through you know dealing with with haters on social media and so I'm very open with my teenagers about social media and I feel like you know I I can teach them a lot we can kind of go through a lot of things together because I'm experiencing it and so that's one of the things I would recommend is just involving your kids no matter how young or small I mean now my oldest is 18 and we started when my youngest was just four and she's nine now so they all know what's up what Mom does and what she deals with I kind of felt the same when my he's my oldest my oldest is 10 but some of the things that would come out of his mou mouth I remember one time we were playing with with some toys and he he said that he designed this toy for good and I was like what did you just say like you just you designed this for good and you know that that ended up being like one of the tag lines for our company so I've also found like just surrounding yourself with your family it's it's very lifegiving too oh yeah absolutely nothing's more gratifying I mean my my daughter for fun she will start businesses you know my 13-year-old she'll like have an idea and then she'll she'll get on canva and create you know some advertising and I'm like oh what have I done like my poor kids for fun they're starting businesses but you know I don't think that's a bad thing they've learned to be independent they've learned how to think on their own and I feel like that's one of the best gifts that we can give to our children is that gift of you know Forward Thinking and Independence no I think it's an Incredible Gift so one thing I also see is U I think this has really been from the start I think it's because you're so you're truly passionate about what you do but you have not only created um Innovative products but you also do a really good job of just like putting content out there that's like hey here's the problems that you face here's how to use uh certain um products um and I know this even this industry too like it's probably continuing to innovate just like you innovated back you know few years ago so tell me how do you stay up with the changing Trends in your industry oh yeah the hair man the hair extension industry the beauty industry in general is always shape-shifting so it it is you know tricky I'm going to tell you though I I want to be the trend Setter I want to be the one who's ahead of the curve and so although I do pay attention you know to Trends and stuff like that I don't pay too much attention if that makes sense because I feel like if you are following Trends you are already steps behind because someone's already said that and so I think if you're only focusing that way and building your business and trying to grow you're always just copying somebody else's move and to me that's never felt exciting to just do what someone else has already done and so I like to just I like to just try to listen more to The Stylist I listen to the industry and then I choose how we are going to respond with my companies and you know sometimes we we begin and we start the trend and other times it's like oh well that didn't hit like we thought it was going to but that's you know that's part of that's part of running companies is trying to figure out what works what doesn't yeah no it's so true yeah the ones sometimes the ones that you're like this is going to be a home run they fall flat and then the ones they like it's it's okay it's like the home run right yep yep exactly if you you had to like narrow it down to like some key lessons that you've learned along the way that have contributed to your success what would be some of those lessons oh you know I I would think one of the things that I've learned that has been you know really helpful for me is just to not be afraid to fail I that's something that I can say I'm super grateful that I am in that mindset and I I do feel like that's attributed greatly to my success is I just I'm not afraid to mess up I think what's the worst that could possibly happen you know oh people are going to talk about you guess what they do anyway people are going to judge you they are anyway you know so what for me I live in the head space of not what if I fail but what if I don't try that's what keeps me up at night that's what fuels me is what if I don't give this a chance to me there's a much greater cost of not starting versus maybe you know making a few wrong steps along the way and I think that's something that successful entrepreneurs have in common is they're not afraid to to fail to make mistakes that just shows that you know they're blazing Trails they're trying to do something different unique and that's usually when those results are worth it yeah yeah there's I feel like there's one of my favorite podcast is how I built built this and it just seems like the same story it's it's like most of the entrepreneurs who we now look at as like the heroes in the space they were like I feel like a night away from just throwing the towel but they just kept on failing and then they found found that like pocket of gold and then here they are now so yeah absolutely okay so another thing again I'm just singing your praises today but I do feel like you and your team do a really good job on the social media front um and I know this is this is like a beast it's never ending like you said it has its you know you have your it's a creative outlet but then you also have um the voices that are that are non-stop as well but I know a lot of people listening in some may not even be in the social game some may be kind of like a tow in but what's what's your advice for just how to do it how to do it well and what's the potential like Roi for something like this I think the success that we've had with our social media platforms is a fact that I've always looked at it as my home so this is kind of with with my personal social media I am always like if somebody comes to the door and and comes up to your door number one you have a choice whether you want to answer it or not so if you got haters that are coming you know coming and knocking you do not have to let them in you do not have to respond they do not have to be there their negative comments don't you know they they don't have to live there you have a right to do whatever you want with that but also if somebody comes and is you know introducing themselves to you whether it's through DMs comments or even a follow it I always like to respond back and be like hey how are you you know happy to have you here appreciate you being here what's up you know so if you remember that social media is a way to communicate it's a place to engage it's a place to connect and I think the brands that are able to do that do really well the brands that forget about that and they start going my gosh my landscapers are here can you hear that noise person here too so we're in the same boat they're literally blowing leaves right outside my window right now yeah I can't hear it and I you can't hear it I hope she doesn't hear like the bathtub running in the back okay I'm like bro I'm literally doing a podcast um this is real life right okay real life um so yeah I do feel like the social media accounts that just start to use it as a um as a lookbook or a billboard I feel like those are the ones that lose connection with their followers and so on all of our accounts we've really tried to stay connected to our followers and it's just as simple as a response back to a comment or a say hello if you get a follow that's what I think can really Drive growth and a loyal following yeah well I I will say you know I've I'm I'm a guy from you know rural Tennessee but I've been really blessed to I told you we've we've had some really amazing guests on the podcast before so I just I feel you know just really fortunate but even you know with you like my wife loves your products I have other people that I know that I I've told them hey I'm gonna have um a McKenzie on they're like I love I love her stuff and uh but I remember just reaching out and I'm like you know yes I do have I do have some people under my belt that are you know of a certain name but you know you um you got back to me and you were super kind and even if you had said no like I you know it still would have been so gracious so I I can attest that you you do the things that you say you do and then it's let us have this conversation today ah well you came in so kind and So Graceful not everybody enters my DMs in quite such a fashion so when it does I am like hey another nice person what's up that's right yeah we gota we gotta hang tough together so right so kind of a big question but it really is the kind of the center point of of this podcast so we do cover things about e-commerce Trends and fulfillment but we're really trying to kind of go past that and say well what is what does it mean to live a life that's truly fulfilled and for everybody it looks a little different so it's a big question but when you reflect on your own life professionally and personally what is what does it mean to you to be fulfilled oh such a loaded question um I think first you know what comes to my mind is I I feel the most fulfilled when I am when I'm helping people and I'm so fortunate that you know for what I do in this career it's it's truly changing lives not only the stylists who you know learn the method and use the products but also you know they are able to pay it forward to their clients so for me that fulfillment comes from from just knowing that I'm I'm doing something good in the world I'm helping others to be able to you know be solid financially to have freedom in their careers all the things that we want but are you know often hard to obtain I I just feel super grateful that we've been able to create a program a product that has done this for thousands of you know of women I just I I feel super fulfilled that way and I you know I love to work I love to stay busy fulfillment for me Isn't kicking back my feet and like chilling that's not I'm I'm always like I I want something to do I want to have a task I want to help somebody I want to have you know something like that going so maybe I'll change my mind when I hit my you know 70s or something I don't know but for now film is is staying busy and staying productive and finding you know continuing to find ways where I can help um give back yeah that's such a good answer I love that and you uh always look for those moments when someone's kind of sitting on the edge of their chair like it's just you just you find that pocket and you're like they are really passionate about that like you that's exactly what you did when I asked that question and you found your groove and you're like I just want to keep keep doing the things that are going to make an impact on other people so yeah that all right few more questions but one again this wasn't on my my list of questions but I just keep going back to this image of of you breaking open a rock to see what's in there and then I think about you know you you know not in a bad way but you got labeled you were very talented and you got pushed in not pushed in you got you were in the music industry for a while um and then you were like it's time for something new um is there something that you haven't done yet that you're like I want to do that before I hit my 70s have you thought about that um you know I do feel like a cat like I've got nine lives and I am just like always kind of I always have this fire like this this fire of what is next like what else could I try um but I'm so locked in with what I'm doing now that I you know I think I think something I've always wanted to do is like create some kind of Foundation or charity where I can really turn my efforts and focus on on helping you know in it even different way um so that's something that I do have my my mindset on and I feel like that you know that would unlock a whole new level of becoming fulfilled um you know if I could if I could find a a way to do something like that so watch watch for that maybe here in the next the next year or two that sounds great we we'll get the second in when that goes live yeah yeah well kind of a good segue too and and that's uh I think it's perfectly align with the next question was you I since I've been following you and following um the businesses it seems like every week you guys are just pushing out something new so tell me like what's for those like my wife and others listening that are are big F fans of you and and the brands um what's what's coming down the pipeline if you can share anything with us oh my my gosh um let me think let me kind of separate I mean for Goldilocks we I've got some products that I am so excited about that we have been working on for over a year that we are going to be launching um kind of probably the first quarter of next year okay um so always with Goldilocks we are innovating and creating you know new hair products that way and there there is a system that we've created that I'm super excited about it's like a restorative system for hair that will blow everybody's Minds new technology new science behind it that the industry hasn't seen um so that's coming for for Goldilocks a lot of growth there and for invisible bead extensions we just are continuing to to create the best education that we can we are redoing our master's program so we have a continued education program program for those who become certified and want to go on and learn kind of more intensely some of the finer you know Arts of hair extensions coloring cutting the business aspect of it and we are bringing in a brand new round of Educators refilm all of that that's going to be going out next year so we're I I mean it's always unfortunately I feel like I'm always living like six months to a year ahead because I'm always like you know you have to kind of be forecasting and planning for growth and it takes a long time I mean what you see on social media and on the internet has taken you know sometimes up over a year to create on the back end yeah so you know it's it's a crazy process and the wheels are always turning and everything's always going and then it's like you see it out here but there's there's been a lot of planning on the back end which you know is exciting and I think when you are you know when you are a Creator or entrepreneur you own your own business you understand what I'm saying it's it's like the the celebration happens on the internet but the work has happened for so many you know countless hours beforehand yeah yeah well I've been seeing some of the some you guys have been doing some like video production stuff and I loved I got to see just a little snippet of your personality you guys shared some of like the bloopers and like behind the scenes stuff but it just looked like you're having a lot of fun and I love that yeah I we try to have a good time I mean other wise there's so much you know I again I've got to stay in that creative mindset and if I'm not having fun then my creativity like goes again to a zero so yeah as soon as the camera starts rolling I'm gonna be messing up saying the wrong things and yeah it's it's all captured on film so sometimes it surfaces and we have a good laugh yeah well you're brave so I usually like to be behind the camera or be on the one side of the camera not the the one with the lens so right I like that part too but I I have gotten to the point where I feel a little bit more comfortable being in front I mean the very first videos that we filmed I think it took me a good 45 minutes just to give a 15-second intro I could not say my name I didn't know how to hold my body I felt so awkward and you know I've grown into that yeah yeah I think that's that's one of the sweetest things too as a business owner or even just across all spectrums of life being able to you know you mentioned like learning just to be okay with failure because it's just an opportunity for growth but you can actually look back and and say wow like I've it's not even like you're you're downplaying what you've done in the past but it's like that was what it was in that time but just look how much I've grown since then and I think you're just nailing that I appreciate that so much it's it's been a ride that's for sure well it has been um an amazing time with you again you have uh from the day that I reached out to you um um to today you've just been incredibly kind and um you are every bit of what you say you are and so I just am really grateful for your time but um for those that um that know of you or your companies or maybe they haven't and they're just now coming into your story what's the best way for them to kind of stay in touch with you um I mean my personal Instagram is hair. extension. Queen and we also have the invisible bead extensions Instagram and website and also Goldilocks dcom for my product line and get Goldilocks is our Instagram handle there so yeah come say hi crawl into my DMs again you come in happy I will love to connect and and I love you know I love that part of my story yeah it's so true well McKenzie thank you so much again for being on with us today it really means a lot absolutely thank you
Fellow entrepreneurs this is Justin Singletary from fulfillment.com we're back with another great episode of fulfilled in this next segment I sit down with the founder and CEO of build grow scale Matthew Stafford so for all those looking to step up their e-commerce game this is where you need to be guys welcome to the fulfilled podcast I want to introduce today a man named Matt Stafford he's a a dear friend um he's been a mentor to so many people but he's the founder and CEO of a company called Bill grow scale and the company does exactly what his name says um so I want to talk to him a little bit about about Bill grow scale but I want to get behind the curtains on who who Matthew is as a person um so you know who you're doing business with so thank you for coming on Matthew thank you so much and and can you tell me a little bit more about Bill grow scale what do you guys do there yeah essentially what we do is we help uh store owners or website owners um optimize the C customer Journey on their website uh basically uh make it a lot more understandable easy you know works really well so that they get more sales from the same amount of traffic so increase their profitability create more custom optimization so focusing on on their websites you know that asset they put so much time and effort into um you help them as far as not not just the what what do you call Revenue optimization I heard that term used yeah a lot of people um call it conversion rate optimization and for me I just I figured that's kind of a vanity metric so I can get your conversion rate to go up by lowering your price or running sales and in the end uh really the reason why all of us do business is make more money and so the the real goal is not how much your top line is but how much you take home and so we you know coin the ter Revenue optimization because we're trying to optimize your site to actually give you good profitable Revenue because then at that point you can buy more traffic than your competitors can and grow your business at the rate that you want to and so for me that was always the uh that was the kicker not just the vanity metric of oh my conversion rate went up because we can get your conversion rate to go up and you don't make any more money that's good so it's almost like you're you're improving the relationship between the the consumer and the seller but I want to talk about relationships that you have with your tribe because I attended a trade show which is not really the right term for it uh preco but I I went out we went out to Reno and um just really saw what you guys um how you guys gathered but it it's a tribe it's like a following of people that really believe in what you guys are doing and and you were giving out Awards tell me about some of the awards that you guys were giving out yeah so we have um we have an award where a seven figure and then a eight figure we have both uh because when they hit that million doll Mark we consider that's you know that's a huge milestone for a lot of people in their business and so we've given uh over I want to say 130 137 uh million dollar Awards and then we've given like 23 or 24 of the $10 million Awards and there's lots of you know lots of people that have ended up you know doing that multiple times and so earlier on when you and I were discussing that if you look at our stats over the last eight years or so um we've had about just under a thousand members and we know about 18 to 20% of them uh have all hit that million dollar or above Mark so if you look at that compared to the average e-commerce store owner you know about 3,000 Shopify stores are opened every day and they say that um out of 200,000 about three of them make a sale doesn't mean mean they're successful they just make a sale and so when you look at uh what the percentage rates of success would be in e-commerce compared to our thousand members and over 20% of them hitting that million dollar Mark lots of them you know lower than that uh it's astronomically better when you have someone that's in the business doing uh e-commerce every single day at a high level to to Mentor you and teach you that's awesome how do you guys you guys are making others a lot of money how do you guys make your money um yeah so there's two different ways uh one we either partner with the store and it's got to be a decent sized store because we put about five different people on it in order to optimize that customer Journey we have a friend on dev a back on dev the rro a Google analytics um scientist and a bug Checker and so we take care of everything on their website split test um improve it they take care of everything else we don't run traffic we don't do any of that all we do is make their website work better and make more sales and then uh the people that obviously don't have that size store they can join our community which is like a 397 a month and then they get to be with other people who are in the trenches doing the same thing they are uh where we teach them what we do every day so what we teach them is live what we're going through not something that we did years ago so you've built a community of people that are trying to just grow their their their their businesses to Brands right you're you're people that are really serious about about this space not somebody that's just in it for the money somebody that's actually trying to control their audience somebody's really trying to um really take it to the next level yeah I felt that when I was there yeah I I would say and for me um you know we've got to work with some of the really big companies like Discovery uh Channel we worked with scientific America uh fantasy football with the SPN and I actually those guys are kind of a pain in the butt um I actually much rather work with the smaller companies who are building up to that and when you make a difference for them on their site um you can feel it you can know that it makes a difference it's not just another number for you know a report and so that has always fueled me to not get stagnant or to like rest on what I'm doing because I know that like for these people it's their dream you know either to get rid of their job or to you know provide a different life for their kids and uh so for me yeah I take it very serious and I really enjoy it well we feel that you do and and I want to ask you what kind of change are you seeing well let's just say this the stuff that worked yesterday do you see in your community that people are pushing the envelope and continuing to share those sort of things do you see that that the marketing techniques and the way that people are advertising the way that people are displaying things on their site are those things changing are those evolving and how fast do they change yeah they are changing a lot and and and I really think there's probably some more changes coming early in the next year that are going to make it even harder uh just with audiences and attribution to track and so being able to buy media and know what's working and what's not working is getting harder and harder and we don't buy media but obviously that affects our clients um because they do and and that's such a big part of driving traffic to their site so if they don't know what part of their money is being spent well and what isn't a lot of it's wasted and so for sure we're working very hard even on our end on you know I'm playing with a lot of stuff at the AI trying to make the stores better for the the people and also try to uh create like these gpts that will help them build more traffic you know essentially they got little worker bees helping them on their store 247 so yeah it is it is definitely harder the competition's a lot better than it used to be and so uh it just what we teach matters more not less so I'm I'm trying to compare this like to retail how much does Best Buy spend on the experience when you go in the store where the placement are is for for the different products whether their eye level whether their knee level um that experience they spend a lot of money on ads but they also spend a lot of money on presentation when you get in the store I see that as almost like U the storefront the e Commerce site how much do we how much time should we really spend on optimizing I think that's that's your main focus and I don't think we spend enough time on our websites we don't see that it's important because we're almost like emotionally attached to what we think it should look like is that true yeah it's very true and um again the store owner is typically looking at their store as how do I make more sales which is understandable that's that's the entire reason why they do it but they don't realize that that actually costs them sales because people don't like to be sold they like to be like leted Along on a journey and so I I've always said that your website is your conversation with your client um and so if your website isn't good at communication you're not going to have a very good relationship with them and they're not going to keep coming back and buying and so what we see is as we clean up that journey and they like and trust you and they can find what they're looking for they remember all the other sites they went to that were bad and so when they have a good experience you'll see your repeat customer rate go up a lot like to the point where like we know the metrics of where you can spend more money and things like that so yeah 100% I think it matters a lot and uh people have a good experience on a lot of sites now so if you don't have one it you used to be able to get away with it because people didn't know where to find stuff now you have plenty of competition that's doing a good job so if you're not um you're G to you're just GNA they're going to eat your lunch what are you working on that you want to tell people about that you're working on maybe you're launching soon something that's coming down the pipe it's definitely in the AI and uh I would say probably that'd be a better question ask me in about 30 days just because uh as fast as things are changing uh I think that the tools that we're going to be able to create and then provide to our members are going to make a big difference uh we find most of the members that we have you know their team is like 10 people or less and so now um you can use AI to actually like supercharge each of your employees which will give you the ability to do a much better job with your site and e-commerce really is it it's evolving and growing and uh it's becoming uh it's becoming a business that has multiple areas that require um specific expertise like I don't know how to buy ads anymore I used to I spent millions of dollars on Facebook back in the day was great at it I wouldn't even know how to log in there they need someone that's really good at ads um they need someone that optimizes that Journey they need really good customer service because if you don't have good customer service um you know fulfillment you guys know that uh there's a definite difference between how some companies fulfill and others and that's a lot of the experience that the customer gets and that's what they remember like if their first experience when they get the package is terrible um you know i' I've been on the end of that like where the boxes smashed and a bunch of other stuff you're just like man I thought I bought quality but it doesn't feel like that that's what you remember and so um yeah each one of those areas really has to be top notot you can't get away with kind of being okay anymore that's right what I really love about what you guys do is you provide a community to where you can people are bouncing ideas off of each other there's really real relationships that to friendships that are formed inside the community and they're you're all working toward the same goal trying to figure out you know what what is going to help that consumer experience um so I I really enjoy that you guys have created that that Community together and it's it I think it goes beyond just e-commerce I think it just goes beyond business especially when I got to be physically in front of people and see the love that they had for there's a lot of you guys actually put together a lot of people um that developed friendships long friendships yep I tell people that uh you know we put out so much information for free and it is our best stuff like we don't like hide what our best stuff is uh the information isn't the isn't the game Cher anymore um what we say the game Cher is the community uh the community so information is a commodity now the community you can't replicate that um by getting more information but to have a bunch of other people with a United goal like they all have a dream to have a successful e-commerce store and for whatever whatever their definition of success is for some it's you know they want to give their kids a better life or for some they want to you know quit their job and be able to run this business full-time and so all of those different people helping each other hit their goals and US providing information that makes that a little bit easier uh yeah it does it really does form uh lifelong friendships for sure well I'm going to ask you the big question in a second and this is the first uh podcast where where I'm going to answer it uh for myself as well and because I heard it a long time ago somebody asked me and says what is success to you like what is fulfillment and and I've heard somebody say this a long time ago and it's stuck so it's not mine usually nothing is mine I usually hear something I grab on to it and love it but um he said it's it's knowing what the father's doing and doing it with him and to me I was just blown away I'm like what is more important in my life than than having a cause that's beyond myself um so I want to ask you what is what makes you feel fulfilled what is assess to you um yeah so i' I've uh actually explored that a lot over the last couple years as we've been refining because e-commerce is changing our business has went through some ups and downs and it's changing in and uh my question that I asked was all right if if I'm going to like continue doing this uh what is something that I'm gonna love to do and it really did go back down to I don't remember if it was this conversation or one that you and I had before uh I actually really enjoy working with people and helping them hit their goals like that's just for me uh being a problem solver they have they have this issue and they're struggling with it they message me and I'm like hey let's jump on a call and we kind of talk it out and they go do it and then they give you that feedback uh for me that's super fulfilling um I like to solve problems that's just how my brain works how do we take all these different pieces and put them together and so I I really enjoy doing that and to me that feels very successful uh not every one of those people pays me tons of money uh but overall like when you put that good out constantly it always takes care of itself yeah I you're knowing you for such a long I I feel like you take complex problems and you make them simple and you simplify things um and I think that's what's needed in e-commerce there's so many directions to go um it's like okay so what is everybody doing right now that that that's working and then who can I trust that I can lean on when the next problem happens yeah well thank you I appreciate that absolutely well Matt I just want to thank you for for being such an inspiration and helping people in e-commerce there's a lot of people that like you said are fulfilling their own dreams um because you're helping them solve those problems those those things that that they can instead of trip on they're stepping over so I thank you for all the work you've done for the the e-commerce uh field and um I want to continue this friendship and I want to ask you you know one one last question what is something that if you could tell yourself and you can grab Yourself by the shoulders when you were first starting out in business just in business alone and you can tell yourself something hey make sure you do this or you don't do this to help some of our listeners out that are starting out what would you what would you have told yourself ah man I think uh EV every single person has that same story that they tell themselves that they're not good enough uh and for whatever reason that is where they feel inside like everybody else has it figured out but they don't that uh you don't have to have it figured out like you are good enough is if you just show up every single day and just keep going most people quit uh when they're right at the edge of being successful and that's the that's the probably the saddest thing that I see you know that they're on the right path and then they give up and so just that if they would believe them if they would believe in themselves as much as everybody else believes in them and has that story that they know they're good enough that you know I think so many more people would make a a Mark that would encourage others that's wonderful we're fed so many lies that to to actually know the truth that we we we can actually do these things we can accomplish these things man I'd love to just expound on that I I think of it like this is where there's a seed that's planted and it's growing the seeds it's growing it's growing and growing and people stop before they ever see it come through the surface is they quit and they didn't they didn't see it yet so if we could just keep persevering like you're saying through the hard times but but it's a lot easier when you have people that you can go to like a community you can go to people you can lean on people that will motivate you um and that's why I see you man if if I know if I need to get motivated or I need to call somebody you're in my R ofex because I know you're you're not it's not gonna be lies it's going to be truth on top of the lies so thanks for inspiring listeners I appreciate yeah I I appreciate that too um the other thing that I would tell people uh because I've spent a lot of time obviously you and I have been friends for quite a while uh helping and mentoring men uh in the last couple years and what I've noticed is most men think their feelings instead of feel their feelings and so what happens is that story we have this unconscious story that again goes back to I'm not good enough because or because of that a lot of the things that we're doing are working but we don't see it because we can't feel it we're trying to to figure it out in our head instead of have faith or trust in you know in the process two my favorite words that's awesome man thank you so much uh and I I just want to tell our listeners please reach out to to Matthew Stafford go to Bill gross scale.com and um honest take them for a test drive I don't know if you if you guys have an opportunity like you said you can they can get in the community for a monthly fee and just see is that a place that they see that there's value being added to their life and I can tell you we have a 90day trial where they can try it for 90 days and then if they want to they can you know extend the membership monthly after that that's great man thank you so much well thanks guys for tuning in to another episode of fulfilled and uh please visit Matt Stafford if you want to build and grow and scale your e-commerce business thanks guys thank you Matt thank you so much for being a part of the fulfilled family I hope you enjoy all of the clips and episodes coming your way join us on this e-commerce Journey towards a life that is is truly fulfilled
Justin (05:13.856)
All right, guys, we're at another episode of Fulfilled. And today I'm excited to announce Mr. Jed Morley. He is actually the owner of a company called Platinum Payments. And I've known Jed for a while, and I'm really excited to really hear about what he's doing right now. And for you just to meet who Jed is behind the scenes. But Jed, thank you for coming on so much.
Jed Morley (05:34.378)
Hey Justin, it's always a pleasure to be with you and I've loved our association over the years, you and your wife and your family. Just been awesome to watch what you've done with fulfillment.com, so thank you.
Justin (05:44.88)
Awesome. Well, I mean just kick it on before we get into the business your family is Inspirational to many people. Can you tell me a little bit more about your family?
Jed Morley (05:52.97)
Yeah, so I'm number eight of 13 kids. And so when you think about that, it blows people's mind when I talk about like, hey, we talk numbers. So there's 227 people in my immediate family. And that's because every month for 30, sorry, every week for 35 years, so we're now over 3,200 newsletters. My dad has written our family history and he starts like, hey, here's what's happening in the world.
kind of what's going on at economics and whatever. Here's all the birthdays, anniversaries, and all that kind of stuff. And then here's kind of some faith-based things that I think you should focus on. And he sends it out to all of us. And so we have this enormous family, really close-knit group of people because family is the focus.
Justin (06:37.824)
Wow, and before we even get into e-commerce, what do you think has been the attribute or the value or something maybe that has tied you guys together? What has maybe helped you guys keep that family together? Is there something in particular?
Jed Morley (06:51.146)
Yeah, it's the family value, right? We have a mission statement and we have a family plan. We have a 100 year family plan. We own farms together and all kinds of things as you plan and prepare. So I think if you focus, whatever you focus on you can measure, you're gonna have more success. And that's really what it is. I have a spiritual balance sheet that we work on every month as a family and we talk about what are the things that we do. So there's a lot of things that when you focus on and you can measure, you can see success. And I think the same goes with your family.
Justin (07:18.712)
Well, that's great. I've heard where your focus goes, energy flows. So that's great, man. So, okay, onto platinum payments. So I'm just curious, if you could name, who does platinum payments, who do they serve? Who's like your favorite client to add value to? What types of people should be contacting you?
Jed Morley (07:22.439)
Exactly, exactly.
Jed Morley (07:38.354)
You know, I've always said that we are the OGs in the direct response so if you look at this and say if you've got a Launch of any kind so some kind of a product and a newsletter a book whatever we are experts at understanding how you can take an ecommerce brand and really blow it up but by looking at the risk associated with the launch model and How do I create the most value? Looking at all of the metrics so looking at that and saying hey guess what?
I have to convert, how do I convert, still have some risk and chargebacks, but really understand what are the metrics that I'm looking at, from the billing cycle to the onboarding, the ease of customer experience and use. And so that's probably the biggest thing is we've done this for so long. We've got 50 different banks that we work with. We've got an unbelievable platform. And so really just knowing that you have someone that's been here in the trenches that gets this space better than anyone else, that's kind of what we've.
been really good at for a long time is that direct response e-commerce launch model.
Justin (08:40.547)
Wow, so it's a lot different than just signing on with the merchant processor by clicking a button. You're saying they've got somebody in their corner that they can turn to on all kinds of different subjects. What are some things that you think that would be important for them to have somebody in their corner? What situations do you think they could run into? It's like, man, I'm glad I didn't just click the button and have a merchant processor. I'm glad I signed up with Platinum Payments.
Jed Morley (09:04.478)
I think the biggest thing is, you know, it's easy to get with the big nameless faceless companies, right? They make that onboarding super simple. So you click, but you have no relationship. And so when do you actually talk to that person? And the irony is when you need them most, they're not there. So everybody can provide the same service. It's like, hey, can I take a payment? Yes. But what do I do to know what happens when a chargeback happens or a refund or, you know, a bad author, I have a form that is not
set up correctly. So now the fraudsters are hammering me and I'm getting hit with all these fees. So we deal with all of this stuff and so we educate our people on what you should do or how you can do it because we've seen everything and we're really available to walk you through that as kind of a payment partner.
Justin (09:48.388)
Wow, that's awesome. And people like doing business with people they like. And that's why you're on today, man. I love you so much. And I know that your family is just, you've got such a large family. I know you're a faith-based man, you're a God-fearing man. And so to know that that's behind Platinum Payments is I think it was important for me to make sure that I show the viewers up front. Let me ask you this. What are you guys maybe working on? What are you guys pushing the envelope on as far as technology in Platinum Payments?
Jed Morley (10:18.082)
So that's a great question and thanks for asking that one because it's been really fun over the last few years to build some amazing tech and to be a partner in this. So I can tell you confidently, we have the best payment platform in the world. And I mean that from start to finish and this is why, because we're directly integrated to banks where I can say, okay, for an e-commerce platform to say, you wanna run ACH, I can put you directly to the bank where.
Now ACH is tied directly into your merchant account. So you can do both with real time accounting in FreshBooks, Xero, QuickBooks, whatever. So you have a daily account balance. It's tied right into your credit card processing and into your QuickBooks. So you've got one view to see it all. I can do text to pay invoicing, whatever you want. And it's a true surcharge. So if you said, hey, guess what? I've got a small book I wanna sell. Add that.
service fee on top of the book or have them do ACH. So the profitability comes back to the merchant in massive amounts, but the same thing is, you get all of the goodies that you say, okay, how can I serve my customers by giving them the most flexible payment terms? And it really works great. So for continuity, it works amazing. If it's a monthly subscription, it works awesome. And if it's just truly selling a product, and again, it's the right kind of products that you're gonna add a service base fee on kind of thing. And so we have all of that.
not to mention our fraud analytics are unbelievable. I mean, we have 4000 different bits that we get from the bank that literally when you go to re you know, rebuild and a lot of guys subscribe to like recurly and all that stuff. Well, what they do is they just keep hitting the same thing without going back to the root of the problem saying, hey, their recurring billing is failing for this one thing, I fixed that I didn't just get 30 bad recharges, I fixed it. And so we get a
much, much higher percentage of conversion than our competitors.
Justin (12:10.692)
That's awesome. As far as looking into the future and you're seeing the trends that are happening, merchant processing, is there anything that you want to tell the internet retailers that you see coming in the future? Something that you think people should be prepared for? Is there anything that pops to your mind, maybe a tip for somebody on things to watch out for that's coming?
Jed Morley (12:33.878)
Yeah, for sure. So obviously the FedNow thing started in 2020 and they really implemented it just this year, right, in June, and it goes into full effect November of 2025, right, where they'll track every single thing. And I think, as a faith-based person, I don't really want the government to know every single person that I buy from, use, whatever. But that's really what the FedNow is. It's a blanket system that goes over everything where they'll see who I'm buying from, my credit score, my...
carbon footprint, all of those things, right? So what can you do that's different? I think you have to have true redundancy and the redundancy today, right, is how can I have a bank account here and a bank account here or a merchant account here where you have redundancy and then you're saying, okay, which one can I trust? Which one can I use? And it's gonna be kind of the small regional banks that you wanna work with because the big ones have all bought into this system. And again, right now everything's in the Visa rails and all that kind of stuff. So we're working, you know,
quite a bit right now in the blockchain. We've got our platform is agnostic. We're working on some amazing tech with a wallet that no one has that's gonna push some availability out for e-commerce and some amazing stuff we're working on that I can just tell you I've never been more excited. And if you want Justin, we could give everybody a quick link, either a QR code or a dropdown that would be, here's some of the products that we're showing and working off.
so that people could see exactly what we're doing. But all kinds of things. But again, knowing that the federal government is really focused right now on control of the banking platform and all of our communication, the focus to me right now is to create redundancy that gives you guys the ability to process no matter what. So when an SVB or the next regional goes down, you've got good solid solutions behind you.
Justin (14:26.276)
Good. So people sometimes wonder and it's like, how do you as a merchant processor, how do you guys make your money? How do you explain that to somebody? How is it that you provide a value, but how do you get compensated on this?
Jed Morley (14:37.782)
Yeah, so of that 3%, we'll just use it super simple, round it up, you know, of the same, that Stripe, you know, anybody else that charges, we make a fraction of a percent. So just like a home mortgage, you know, where you go out and you say, hey, I have my basis points and I've got my costs to go and borrow that money. And then there's a little spread that the mortgage lender makes. We make a little fraction of a percent on every monthly transaction. And that's really it. And then,
For us, the advantage that we have, right, is because we've got such a massive portfolio and all the relationships, we have a lot of power to come back and say, hey, I need to be able to take care of these merchants because I've got a personal direct relationship and it's because I've got a big block of buying power, if that makes sense, it allows me to work with a little better rates or better terms and, you know, that kind of thing. Because when you look at this, the things that you look at is, do I have a reserve? What happens if my merchant account gets shut down or they put me on a hold?
Who do I call? All of those things become massive issues when they pop up. And so one of my favorite and worst calls are, hey buddy, I've known you forever. I'm with such and such and they're holding my money. What do I do? And I said, hey guys, I would rather, like before it becomes an issue, set up the accounts, walk it through. We do a free audit. Literally, you send us your statements and it's not to look at it and say, hey, how can I price you? It's really.
What are the ways that you're taking money that I can show you the safest, quickest way to one, get settlement. And, um, and again, here's the risk factors. This is the thing that most people don't understand. When you go to set up a merchant account, the only factors that we have to set it up is I can hold a reserve, I can charge you a certain fee, or it's when they fund you.
Right? So it's like next day, two day funding. The funding cycle is also a risk parameter. So what we have is because we've got Intel and we're direct with the bank. If you're set up through our bank, I can literally do seven second funding. Well, we don't tell that to everyone because again, most people don't qualify unless they really are a straight up good merchant. We got all stuff. So it really kind of looks at a lot of those things. And that's really what we focus on is, is all of those risk factors explaining to you
Jed Morley (16:52.778)
If you have good credit, good business history, you control end-to-end solution from fulfillment or they're using you guys, somebody that's vetted really good, there's just a lot of those risk factors that we look at that we help you understand how you can get better terms and rates.
Justin (17:09.796)
That's awesome. Now I know you're around a lot of shakers and movers and I'm just curious, if you could pick somebody in the e-commerce space that you admire, somebody for their work ethic or their business, just something that you admire about them, who would you pick? Somebody that maybe that we could have on this podcast next, who would be somebody you respect in the e-commerce space?
Jed Morley (17:35.682)
So I think you probably know Matthew Stafford, right? Bill Grosscale. And I love him because you look at what they've built is a great brand that they've worked really hard at taking and saying, listen, to the average, you know, like guy building his store. Instead of just dumping more money, and this is the, it kind of goes against the common stuff. It's like, hey, I'm gonna go dump a bunch of money to buy more leads. Why don't we just fix our conversion process, right? So that we can actually convert more.
Justin (17:38.977)
Hmm.
Jed Morley (18:04.55)
make more money. And then when we buy more leads, we convert higher our profitability is better. So I just love that model because I don't see that as often as you know, most guys come in and they're just burning churn, get you know, up and going. And so I really like working with Matthew because he's got a great system and a great team.
Justin (18:21.632)
Man, he's got a great team. So yeah, we're gonna go after Matthew. We wanna see if we can get him on here as well. Great guy. So just off the, I'm just curious, what are some of the things you do when you're not working, when you're not doing e-commerce, or not helping people set up mids and just facilitating that? What are some things, some hobbies, some things that you find of interest?
Jed Morley (18:43.438)
So, you know, I don't know if people see it or not, but you know, I got my boots behind me. And so people are like, are you in a western store? Well, the funny thing is, is for me, you know, obviously we talked about family. That's a big part of it, right? I've got five kids and now five and a half grandkids, which is an absolute blast. And so, but you know, you look at this, I have a horse ranch. And so I team rope and I ranch sort and I do a lot of that stuff. I take a lot of friends out in the mountains and we ride. And so we're up in God's country and you're literally...
up there by yourself, away from your phones, and you have the best conversations, you know, you're talking about the things you're doing. And so those campfire settings where you kind of get to bury your soul and say, hey man, what am I working on? Or what's going, what's working good for you? That kind of stuff. So I love that because it really recharges me and it gets me one-on-one with, you know, people.
Justin (19:29.988)
That's awesome. Now, if I were to ask you, what is fulfillment, like true fulfillment mean to you? I mean, you're fulfilled. Maybe even, let's just say you're on your deathbed and you're looking back at your life. You're like, I'm glad that I did that. I was a part of that. I accomplished that. Or I paid attention to that. What do you think true fulfillment means to you?
Jed Morley (19:50.21)
Man, that is such a good question and I love it, the way you worded that, because you know, you think about what is gonna, like today, there's so many people that wanna be influencers, right? And I'm like, okay, that's cool, but really I wanna impact people. I wanna have an impact in someone's life. And so I think I've told you this story back, you know, Justin, a long time ago, but it started when I was in my, you know, late 20s. I had my first kids, we had a few kids and.
We went down to Mexico for a Christmas. And again, I'll be honest, we didn't have a lot of money. It was like where I was doing real estate full time. We took a snowmobile trailer down. We slept on a floor and I speak Spanish, you know, and I was, we had a lot of fun. There were three families. We sent all this money down. And again, it wasn't a ton of money, but to us it felt like it. And we went into this place and we assembled boxes to feed families. And we ended up with 883 boxes to feed a family of four for a month. And...
because of the way I speak Spanish, we lined up the kids, gave them all these presents and stuff. After doing that for a few weeks, my little girl came up to me and she doesn't speak Spanish, she doesn't know the kids, but we're in this little home and I'll never forget, it was like a 12 by 12 room, and she comes up, pulls my sleeve and says, "'Dad, can I give her my shoes?' And I said, "'You wanna give her your shoes?' And she said, "'Yeah.'" And so she knelt down and took off her own shoes and gave her this little girl.
And I'll never forget what that meant to me because I'm like, man, you know, this little kid realizes we got a garage full of stuff. We got dirt bikes at home and all this stuff. But just that little act of like, hey, that matters more. And so from then we've always, every Christmas, every year we go and do something and do these projects because I want my kids to know that like, hey, what really matters the most is to serve someone else. And so Plat Pay has Plat Gives. And so we donate a percentage of what we make to.
orphanages into all kinds of products and you know and things and so we have so many fun things and stories to tell but Yeah, that was probably the first one so I could look back and say doing that with my kids has meant more than anything else I've done
Justin (21:53.788)
Oh man, that's amazing. Thank you. I realized long ago that it's all his and you can't out give him. He's just waiting. He's like, I've given this to you. What are you gonna do with it? So we're just servants of that. So that's an awesome story. So let me ask you this. I know you're a believer. I've had great conversations with you about it. I wanna ask you frankly, like who is the Messiah? Who is the son of the living God? Who is he to you?
Jed Morley (21:59.042)
100%. Yes, yes.
Jed Morley (22:23.074)
Oh, you know that I want to be like him so much. So he's my friend. And it's really the goal I have is to say, look, I'm nothing by myself, but with him, I'm everything. I can do all things, you know? And I look at that and I think, okay, so how then if I'm really insignificant, but I want to have this relationship with my savior Jesus Christ. So everything I do is like, okay.
I want to see people the way he sees them. And I hope that when they see me, that they see him in me, because if that's the case, then I'm at least 1% better, and I'm trying every day to become a little bit better. And you know, I'll share this story, Justin. You know how much I love you in case, right? And I think you guys are awesome. Well, one of the things that's cool is this morning, as I got out and said my prayers, and I said, hey, I really wanna know what should I do today? And you sent me a text, and I saw you're fulfilled,
This is exactly the thing. And so again, if we can share the word with anyone, that's the most important thing that I can do today.
Justin (23:28.76)
Man, I know that's gonna touch so many. Because we've got a platform now that we can talk about business, but we can also talk about real fulfillment. Like what does it mean to truly be fulfilled? And I'm hearing the same story in a lot of cases that it's to have him inside of us, right? And like you said, for us to reflect his light. So I'm super excited that you're able to share that. Is there a time in your life that you saw that there was a shift to where...
Jed Morley (23:47.308)
Mm-hmm.
Justin (23:57.548)
you know, you felt his love or something to where you decide, I don't know if you grew up loving, you know, Jesus, or if it's something where it clicked with you one day, is there any sort of testimony that you want to share?
Jed Morley (24:10.27)
Yeah, so the funny thing is, is I grew up, you know, with a really strong Christian family, you know, and I, and I grew up that way, because again, faith based, you know, number eight of 13 every single morning, and I'll say this, this is the, this is the gold, okay, guys, if you if you want to solve the life hacks, it's seriously simple. Make a plan, be consistent and measure it. That's it.
Because again, whatever that is, you don't have to fight. Am I gonna go get in shape? Am I gonna work out? If you make the decision, go do it. If you're gonna do this, go be that. So what we did as a family, and this is simple, every single morning at six o'clock, we got up and read scriptures, every morning. And we would sing, pray, and read every morning. So my dad was like, hey, you gotta put the armor of God on before you go out. So if the kids are going to school, you gotta have some stuff. And again, I'll be honest, guys, I...
never got up when they were singing. I hate singing in the morning. So I wait till the singing was done. And then I get into kind of half of sleep, be there for the reading, and then go on, right. But it formed those habits of like hearing the stories of and knowing who they are. And it was important to me, you know, so when I had to make those decisions on my own, it was really important, you know, they became like an important part. But I got to sell share this one thing. I told my mom, I said, you know, I don't believe I'm a teenager, I'm screwing around and having a like,
just messing around. And it has happened three different times. One time, I'm playing sports, I love football, and you kind of think you're a big deal and stuff. And so I waited for one of these big games and I was at a party with all my friends. And I can see this today as vivid as it was yesterday. And we're sitting in this room and we're smoking cloves and drinking beer and doing their stupid crap. And I'm sitting there, that tells you how old I am based on the stuff I just said.
But we're sitting there and I'm sitting next to some girls on this couch and I had an out-of-body experience. It was literally this I Felt myself leave and look around the room and what it was I had this personal interview Tomorrow morning you're gonna wake up all the fun's over Everything that you were looking for it's done. You're gonna look yourself in the mirror and then what? What's important to you? And I really thought I had this happen to me three different times and then I realized
Jed Morley (26:27.642)
God's trying to reach me and say, hey bud, you know what? The things that you put value on don't have any value. They will come and go. It's wealth, it's success, it's whatever. And I learned that and I realized at that point, man, I really do need to just try and serve him and worship him. And so when I listened, it really changed my life and that helped me go to do my two-year mission and all kinds of things that I've done. It's just been really fun. But yeah, that was probably the most personal thing for me.
Justin (26:57.224)
Yeah, so I'm hearing like first meeting of the day, right? To have it with him. It seemed like that's what your family was really in, and I say enforcing, hey, we're gonna meet with him first. We're gonna do those things. And I tell you, it just seems like when you're evaluating, where do I want, where's my life at now where I want it to be? And you're truly evaluating it for the things that are important. I'm thinking of the verse, seek the kingdom first and all these things will be added to you. Well, what things? Probably the things that he knows that are good.
Jed Morley (27:01.)
Mm-hmm.
Justin (27:25.856)
Not the things that we think that we put value on. So man, what a great story. Thank you so much. I'm also thinking, I used to not sing at all. Like I'm the guy behind my back, an old ranger guy. There's no singing that's coming out of me. As I leaned in and as he showed his love for me more and more and more, my hands just started going up. You know what I mean? And he loved me more and more and more. And then my hands are up and I'm praising and I'm hallelujah. I couldn't hold it in when he really just allowed me to get close to him.
Jed Morley (27:26.082)
Mm-hmm.
Justin (27:56.064)
And that's just because it's seeking, you know, it's just seek him seek him seek him and never give so anyways I love your testimony. I love the things you're saying I love the family because I really think you can gauge a lot from somebody by their fruits or by what's what are they doing? In their family, how is their family? Impacted like that. Is there a little girl that goes and gives her shoes based on you know, the environment that she's in So thank you for sharing all that today. Is there anything else that?
Jed Morley (28:12.686)
I'm gonna go.
Justin (28:21.036)
these internet retails, any other words of wisdom you want to give them, so maybe they can either go to the next level in e-commerce or something they need to be focused on that's personal, anything that's maybe the Holy Spirit's triggering in you right now.
Jed Morley (28:34.335)
Yeah, so I would highly recommend and this is the key for all of us. Serve the people so they really feel valued. You got to hear your customers, right? Whatever they are. So one of the things I got to tell you and this is unique to what we do at Platinum and it's been super fun is I own several different companies. We do a lot of things that are fun. And I think one of the things that I started my own kind of competitor and e-commerce is one of them, right? So it's called E-Pipe. And we build.
funnels and a platform in minutes, not days, not, you know. So I love Russell Brunson, he's one of my favorite guys. You look at that, but they've made it so complicated, so we simplified all that. And what I've done is we make it to where you have a video marketing page and you can put any button and you click any link and I have all the stats and analytics and tracking. So listen to your people, what they want, because when I would go to all these big groups, we're talking to them and they're saying, hey, I got all this time and money into this stuff and it takes me so long and I've got all these teams. I'm like, yeah, but.
80% of the market just needs a simple lead capture and a simple form and a simple follow-up, you know? And so we built something that makes it easy. So we have a lot of groups that use our systems and it's fun, we built that. The last thing I would share with you, Justin, and I've lived this myself. So for those of them that watch this, you know, I've built a Valiant CEO magazine. If you go online, I challenge anybody to do this. It's actually awesome. So go in there and look at Valiant CEO.
I've interviewed over 5,000 CEOs. What I think is brilliant is you go in, take the search bar, type in anything you want, and I've got endless content. I interviewed 780 CEOs last month alone. When you look at this, we're talking billionaires, Glenn Stern and the EXP president. I mean, I'm excited because next month Kathy Ireland's magazine's coming out. If you don't know who she is, she's sold over $3 billion on Home Shopping Network. She has multiple brands in, you know,
the e-commerce world. And so when you look at this, I get to talk to the people that are crushing it at all levels. But you know what Kathy and I talked about 60% of the time? God. It was awesome. And so when you look at this, you say, okay, if I'm successful, what's the substance behind me? You know, and so we have a quote in our home, no success can compensate for failure in the home. So I look at that and I go, hey, you know what? It doesn't matter how much money or how much influence or how many people, if I'm screwing up at my own house.
Justin (30:39.725)
Yes.
Jed Morley (30:58.614)
keeping track and I think that's really the goal. So focus on that you can control that matters the most and then the rest of the stuff will come.
Justin (31:07.384)
So good so many nuggets there. I just like can I you mind if I bless you real quick? I pray us out of here. Thank you so much Father we thank you so much for mr. Jed and his family We ask for blessings on his family and then you continue to give him words of wisdom so he can guide people Closer to Jesus and we ask these things in Jesus name in Yeshua's name. We pray amen Hello Thank you brother, we'll talk soon
Jed Morley (31:12.71)
Oh, please do, man. That'd be awesome.
Jed Morley (31:26.662)
Amen. Thank you so much, bud. Sure appreciate it.
Okay, awesome, thanks, see ya.
Justin (31:32.96)
Thanks. Alright guys, thank you for another episode of Fulfilled. Catch us next time. Maybe it'll be Matthew Stafford from Bill Gross Scale. Take care.
[Music] Hello and welcome to Fulfillment dot com's educational vlog. My name is Adam Pifko and I'm the Vice President of Strategic Partnerships at DFO Global Performance Commerce. We're one of the world's leading performance marketing companies, delivering superior ecommerce software marketing and brands to the world. I want to focus this vlog on how to build and scale your brand while maintaining a high level of marketing compliance it can be done and it's easier than many people believe it to be. It requires a marathon mindset not just short-lived money. The ability to reduce your exposure to risk via false and misleading claims and the ability to view your content from your customer's perspective. The not so secret secret is, if you care about your customers and if you make one of your goals to improve the lives around you, you'll find the results you're looking for. Revenue is critical but we'll explore a bit here today it shouldn't come at the cost of negligent compliance. In simple terms, marketing compliance is the rules and regulations that protect consumers from being lied to or misled or having their privacy violated. It also governs how consumer data can be used. There are a few things that harm businesses more than compliance violations, fines and other monetary penalties while they may be steep are the least of your worries here it's the brand equity and damage that's scarring in an information rich world like ours it can happen at lightning speed what's really lost in this scenario is trust the goodwill you've built with your customers your potential customers, your employees, your business partners, your stakeholders , all of it evaporates instantly it ties up cash flow, funding, sales, hiring and it's a difficult situation to recover from. So let's spend a moment on content itself content refers to the actual collateral and tactics used in marketing namely ads images descriptions testing and scientific claims urgency widgets testimonials terms and conditions privacy statements and your website as a whole often if something in this realm looks or feels funny you should ask yourself: can i substantiate this claim, this future, this feature, this comment or this review depending on what your answer is you should be prepared to go back to the drawing board and ask yourself again at the end of the day if you've made a great product done the research and applied critical thinking to your marketing there is no need to lie to your consumers they'll convert good advertising pushes boundaries but does so responsibly the most common mistake we make in the performance marketing industry are typically related to deceptive advertising or inert inauthentic product information these may include scarcity claims you've seen those countdown timers and limited time tickers these are fine to use if they're real and authentic free shipping promises these require that customers are informed of any shipping cost in advance of making purchases and that there are no hidden or disguised fees product origin and quality if something is not stainless steel you can't market it as such in the same realm if it's manufactured in italy your marketing can't say it was made in the united states inauthentic founder or inventor claims again just stick with what you can substantiate if you can prove it and it's real great it should be good for marketing testimonials and endorsements this is a huge one and you see it misused a lot this is one many companies just don't take seriously enough marketing that gets portrayed is often not typical experience of a user testimonials should be comments from real people not that hard if you just want to be compliant so let's talk about scaling and scaling while maintaining compliance believe it or not it's possible in order to make a lots of sales brands need brands and products need to be seen by lots of people this is where ad platforms come into play and regarding compliance dfo's chief commercial officer said it best so let me just read it traffic and ad platforms like Google and Facebook have built their own compliance technology and hired armies of staff to enforce their standards legislation and law making still play a role but they can't keep up due to the volume and speed at which e-commerce moves this is the reason why it's so important for brands and companies to police themselves in this area it's easy to get caught up in the e-commerce whirlwind especially when using affiliates to scale speaking of affiliates they're a great way to help drive volume to your product portfolio and something we use for our own efforts as well at dfo there are a number of steps brands can take to ensure compliance with these independent media buyers like establishing your kyc or know your custom know your clients know your customers guidelines for all new partner relationships keep in mind those brand equity issues we talked about earlier ensure brand guidelines are crystal clear and disseminated immediately upon establishing a new relationship and lastly ensure your company's internal compliance team is set up to monitor not only your own marketing but that of your partners this includes all marketing assets like ads pre-sales interstitials checkout pages and more we can even take it a step further when scaling globally when doing so keep these points in mind compliance needs to be deeply embraced both vertically and horizontally across your organization if project managers sales people customer service and everybody understands what's appropriate as well as the writers and creatives you'll be better off and anyone should be able to or be enabled to spot and catch compliance issues ensure your company and teams are up to date with the latest regulations and standards laws and practices change very quickly and what is mandated by countries that are not the United States often require jumping over a few hurdles or extra steps. Let's quickly recap the most important things to remember: marketing compliance is crucial and often has longer lasting equity effects than just fines and penalties. Since content is king make sure it's compliant, avoid common mistakes by ensuring everything you're showing and saying can be substantiated. Understanding how ad platforms work and ensure media buying partners have clear brand guidelines that's huge there are great untapped markets outside of the United States but they require know-how and understanding of domestic regulatory laws and requirements in order to be successful. That's it DFO is not only an affiliate network and a performance marketing agency but we are an advertiser of our own products and brands too. This puts us in a unique position to talk shop, share insights, and be helpful team that you can discuss your challenges with or bounce ideas off of. I'm personally happy to talk to just about anybody up or down the ecommerce value chain so please don't hesitate to reach out to me on your preferred medium. Thanks for listening hope this benefits you, your organization and the industry as a whole. Compliance is not that hard so gear up for the fight and you'll be and you'll do just fine. Thanks, have a great one. Bye! [Music]
[Music] Hello there and welcome to Fulfillment.com ecommerce education vlog. My name is AJ Yeager with Praxismetrics.com and I'm going to be your host today. So over the next five minutes I want to go over what is I believe is to be the number one mistake that 90 percent of e-commerce brands are making when they're tracking their revenue online. I've worked with a lot of brands uh in the world over 150 different brands in e-commerce and their data so I'm coming from a lot of experience here and this continues to come up like 99% of the time. So marketing without data is like driving with your eyes closed I hope you agree with me on that we can't steer the ship if we don't know our numbers so today I'm going to go over three things. One is the actual biggest mistake when it comes to tracking e-commerce data . Number two is exactly what utms are and how they can take your marketing data to the next level and how to build a utm link in the most effective way so you can utilize them in your business. So one of the biggest mistakes is assuming that everything is tracking in your business. Okay what I mean is that all these different applications you're using um are are not tracking exactly what you may need and I mean that by out-of-the-box software limitations. Some of the apps like Shopify what you may be using are yes tracking certain things automatically but there are other softwares out there that are not tracking the fields that you need ultimately to answer your business questions the technology is just not set up properly. SOPs may not have been followed by your team when setting these up and getting all the extra custom values filled out and also some of these platforms are lacking uids which are unique identifiers. Email's a big one, address, phone number you know exact name we need something to make sure we tell the whole story of the data and many of these don't don't tie it together and they don't work together. Google analytics I mean I know many of you probably use it, some of you may hate it, some of you may love it but it is one of the best free tools out there. It does not come set up the right way, putting code on your website does not handle everything you need most people think it's set it and forget it meaning they they set it, they install it and they're like oh good i don't have to deal with it. I feel like they never have to log in there now. I don't recommend logging in there because it's not actually a really good dashboard unless you are trained to use it it does not work the way that you want to especially for business owners and marketing teams it's too complicated. Now this is all about ROI I want to make sure that you can get ROI out of this training and what you're going to, what I'm going to teach you. Now the number one mistake is not properly using organized utms for all of your marketing efforts online. Okay we've got to be able to prove ROI from all the different channels we're using and that is super important and this is very very um detailed and I think many companies get lazy and or don't follow a certain structure. UTMs stand for urchin tracking mechan or module uh I won't go into the history but it's a very simple term, it's a free link that you can create all it is is a parameter it is a encoded suffix that you append and add to your url and it can be quite long and made up of various various parameters but basically it's providing very specific information about where that link is coming from and by stringing these parameters together you're able to track online marketing campaigns with a tremendous amount of detail and granularity. So uh this is it may seem simple uh you might have heard about these before but it is literally one of the most powerful ways to track your marketing sales and any activity you're doing online and I highly recommend you listen to this so here's an example my buddy justin goff is doing a promotion for us he sent out an email to his list and if they click there or where the other red arrow is it would be the link was actually this one now it's long it's ugly but here's what it means it tells us six different things one the url two the source three the medium for the campaign name five the content and then last not least the term now i'm going to break these down for you real quick url is very simple that's where you're driving them to usually going to be your e-commerce domain campaign source this is where the clicks are coming from is it a search engine is it another specific site is it from maybe even a newsletter that was sent out for you this could be a lot of different things campaign medium is how the link was presented to them uh search end results pay-per-click ad email affiliate link whatever that may be this is a very important part social media you there's a lot of different um ways that you can add in medium but uh it's really different for each business campaign name here let me move my my video up here campaign name is the marketing campaign that the link belongs to traditionally this is done in succession of campaigns like a black friday sale campaign content is the specific part of a marketing campaign that got them to take action this is very optional you don't have to use it but it's good for testing sometimes ad copy a b split test between emails or other things campaign term the keyword used in paper click advertisements that generate the click and the substance subsequent visitor or what specific words were clicked in an email this is again optional you can make this whatever you want to i'll show you how i did it next is uh so so basically ours was the one above is is was justin goff so we know who it was he was an affiliate the campaign that he was specifically sending out that week and again that was justin goff email that way we just made sure but this is very simple because we know the affiliate and we know what relationship it is and how he sent it out now there are different ones he sent and the campaign term we changed later to include email one email two email three email four et cetera so um the website url is simply the website we're tracking right the campaign source examples for you for to use in the future are google facebook twitter the affiliate or affiliate name being adroll etc you can you can change that however you want to so these are examples for source here's some examples for medium cpc you know cost per click email um social post affiliate referral and you're going to come up with your own structure i don't have time to go through all that today but this is just some quick examples campaign summer sales social and then the date up the specific name of the product or a promo code uh also content email subject lines controller variation content a content b for term multiple links inside of an email different actual number of links you can put link number one link number two actual keywords or other further things that you could use to describe what you're doing that marketing activity so when you should not use utms let me move my face again this is not using what you should not do never put a utm tag or a campaign variable on an internal link you're not doing this on your website this is all external outside driving to you do not use utms when creating internal links on your own internal website i just said that if you start using utms to link to various parts of your website you can artificially multiply session counts this means that you're going to double up or triple up the traffic coming through google analytics and you do not want to corrupt any of your data we do not want bad data so to wrap up and give you a few action steps the only way you can know the true roi of your online marketing activities is by using utms on every single specific online activity you're doing it doesn't cost anything it doesn't matter uh just it's just a matter of taking the time to do it so there is a cost internally to pay somebody to do this but it is so worth it and you're going to have to make mistakes along the way and figure out a system that works for your company there is a way to go ahead and use these you can use track funnels.com or you can just go create these inside of google's tool by itself sit down with your team and map out your hierarchy have a whiteboarding session to get very clear on each of those six different uh parameters how you're going to use it in the future with your marketing channels determine a way to stay organized keep it in a spreadsheet or use something like trackfunnels.com that we created for free or choose one campaign i want you to just choose one campaign right now and begin immediately okay utms can take your marketing to a whole new level all the channels analytics tools out there work with utms for the most part 95 90 of them will pass utms through um and you can use utms to have better data in your all of your marketing campaigns and you can use this data to track return on investment for anything and everything you're doing i hope you enjoyed today's video if you have any questions go ahead and let me know and i'll go ahead and answer anything in the comments thank you so much you
[Music] Welcome to the FDC education blog. I'm Vinnie Fisher the CEO of Fully Accountable and I want to talk to you today about you the business leader the top executive in the company and your financial fluency. See I am a leader in a business and I resonate with titles like CEO, founder and I was really and I am really good at actually growing enterprises from six to seven to eight figures. One of problems I always had and half the battle against is giving a lot of the dollars back. I naturally with lean towards growing more gross revenue a marketer and a salesperson it's where I live probably I lacked just enough financial fluency to understand the elements of the business to keep more I learned one day it's not about how much you bring at the top it's how much you keep at the bottom. While that might sound very basic to you I want to help you with three tips to really improve your financial fluency as the leader of the business. One what I would like to talk to you about is this mindset, the mindset of running your business what it took what it actually takes for you to go from six figures to seven figures or two totally different mindsets they were from seven to eight. The gun-slinging things you do to get into seven figures are necessary but those are also the things that are not going to help you when amateur operation and grow into an eight-figure business with better cash flow profit margin and net asset value. And so first and foremost your mind has to change, there are six operational elements then departments to a company. One of them is your back-office and when you always have an attitude of growing the top-line and not winning on the bottom line the first issue for me then will be for you is starting with your mindset. My number two tip is there is mature operations in every company I wrote a book about this call the CEOs mindset and it's yours if you want just write us to a we care and fully accountable and we'll send you a copy of the book but I care about mindset so much I made it the first chapter in the title of the book but additionally I talked about an operational mindset to a 7 and 8-figure leader, how you can run a back office and run it like a profit Center so that you can actually win margin will have more cash flow and actually build your net worth in your business. And finally my third tip sits around this idea of looking to maturity and how you are taking that profit center to build your networks. One of the problems we have as leaders is we start with this mindset of us, everything that flows through to us, where we save taxes maximize cash, that comes to us and we don't really defend the margin of the company. If we look to investing in our back office and have the financial fluency to understand what key indicators to watch what production of expertise you want in those areas you'll start to clearly see where you will have a problem in the profit of your company so for example I had a health supplement company before while we were at the ending stage of building fully accountable and I found out that I was making eight percent profit margin when in reality I should have been making twenty percent. Well with this idea I started to say oh my gosh I'm losing twelve percent monthly! So quickly I started having a profit center mindset. I'll promise you that if you do that you will build your cash you will have more margin and you'll build up your net asset value faster than ever. Reality is it takes these three things to build your financial fluency and I started thinking about how to invest in a back office so that I'm manages from my 1040 backwards because the real savings starts with your business and having the mature act aspect of running it that way will immediately lead to doubling your profit margin. Financial fluency is the key to leader truly building your network so those three tips and the gifts along go with you I'm Vinnie Fischer from Fully Accountable. Hope that option [Music]
[Music] Hi welcome to FDC education vlog my name is Damon Wright, I'm the head of the advertising an e-commerce practice group at the law firm of Gordon Ries. You want to build a company that's gonna be around for a long time that you also can enjoy. You can enjoy your success, you can sleep better at night, your employees can feel better because they know their jobs are secure. So to that end it's important to protect yourself from forces that can be disruptive to your business so I want to talk about some simple, easy things you can do to accomplish that. First let me talk about the Federal Trade Commission and how to prevent getting in trouble with the Federal Trade Commission. The FTC is enforcing a law very aggressively called rasca, ROSC, a it applies to businesses that sell products and services on a subscription billing model so it could be subscription boxes, it could be flowers, it could be health and beauty dietary supplements, informational products. The FTC goes after companies that violate rasca with a vengeance. They will have receivers, appointed temporary restraining orders entered freeze assets it's not much fun. It's much more fun as a lawyer to help companies avoid all that in the first place and it's really easy to do. rasca requires three things. So imagine your checkout page first thing is on the checkout page you need to have clear and conspicuous disclosure of the billing terms and cancellation terms. How much are people going to pay each month? And then the second is you need to make sure the consumer is agreeing to those terms, they've elected to subscribe as opposed to buying the astrayed sale. So if you're selling a product via straight sale or there's a subscribe and save option the consumer can check one box where they can check another box they've thereby agreed that they want to subscribe. And the third thing Russell requires that there be is that there'd be an easy way to cancel. That people can send an email to cancel or they can call a toll-free number. If they're calling in, they don't have to wait I'll hold for a long time. So if you comply with rosca if you don't have deceptive advertising like fake testimonials and of course if you keep consumer complaints low it's very likely you'll never hear from the FTC. Let me talk about another force that could really be bad for your business and that is consumer class-action lawyers and serial plaintiffs. There are folks that spend their waking hours surfing the internet trying to find companies that are selling products that don't have some magic language on their site because those are companies that are really vulnerable. You don't wanna be one of those. The magic language really easy again on your checkout page I agree to terms of sale hyperlink and the terms of sale of course are a contract by checking the box the consumers agreeing to the contract and in that contract in the terms of sale two key provisions class action waiver language and mandatory arbitration language. This means that the consumers are knowing that if they want to see you they can't do it in court, they can't bring a class action it has to be a single claimant arbitration. If you had this on your website it's very likely that you will never face a class action or if you do you'll quickly be able to get the case kicked in favor of a single person arbitration. In five minutes of fixing this site here your site to add this you can literally have saved yourself millions of dollars so I can't emphasize enough how important that is. Last thing that could be really disruptive to your business is when you have a dispute with another business. Maybe it's a service provider or maybe either some type of revenue sharing agreement you have. You need to have clarity in your contracts . You know Pennywise pound-foolish made sense 200 years ago it's still true today make sure your contracts are tight and make sure you're protected focus on these types of provisions representations and warranties. You want the other side to make representations and warranties to you, for instance they will comply with advertising law and other applicable law limitations of liability you want to make sure that your liability is limited the other side not so much you want to be able to get full relief from them if you have to sue them and then indemnity patient if they do something that causes you harm you get sued because of social media that you have the ability to go to them and say you have to pay my damages again. Having a sharp clear contract will prevent confusion disruption and disputes down the road and you know actually save you a lot of money in attorneys fees so with that you'll be on your way to having a stronger brand, becoming more valuable, having a place that your company's employees again feel secure working that and again enjoying your success and sleeping better at night. It's a pleasure to talk with you Thank you very much take [Music] you
[Music] Welcome to FDC's ecom educational vlog. My name is John Maddox I'm the marketing director here at Engine Commerce. If you're like me you consume a mountain of content on the latest strategies, tips and tactics that you can use in 2018 to grow and scale your store. There's a lot of really sexy things that are tossed around influencer marketing Facebook Ads Google arbitrage all of these things but what I want to share with you today are two really unsexy pillars of e-commerce marketing that are staples that the largest brands in the world use to continue to scale and grow their revenues year every year. Those two tactics are abandoned cart flows as well as basic behavioral cascades. A recent study by Omni sense shows that targeted abandoned cart emails are opened 20% more than any other type of email, not only that but they convert at 5% making them the best type of email you can send within your cascade. Let's say that you had a thousand abandoned carts a day, now sending these automated flows if you were able to bring back 5% of those abandoned carts at an average order value of about $80 that equals out to a $4,000 increase per day in revenue. To get you started I want to share with you one of our most successful cart abandonment flows and what that looks like broken out into days. Now the first day that they abandon that cart you're gonna wait two to four hours and then you're gonna send them an email reminding them of what they left with beautiful imagery and persuasive copy asking them to come back and you've saved that cart just for them. A day later you might add in other products, other curated sets things of that nature to increase the average order value as well as show the different styles and how it would look on them if they purchased it that day. On day three we want to help them really pull out that credit card by offering either free shipping or a percentage off if they go ahead and purchase it in the next 24 hours and then if they haven't purchased from there we're gonna put them on that behavioral email cascade based on the creative and based on the products that they looked at and we're going to nurture them throughout that sequence and then rotate them into our daily newsletter. If you're looking for more sequences you're looking for some inspiration on this I highly encourage you to look at your favorite brands whatever they be. Barkbox is a great example, go through their email lists abandoned cart and see how they retarget you over the next week, take that, model it for your own store and implement those changes. [Music]
[Music] Hi welcome to the FDC ecomm education online. I'm Joe Burton CEO and founder of our lay marketplace and today we're going to talk about the top three reason you're hoping to be buying native marketing. First and foremost what is native marketing? lead up marketing you probably see it every single day of your life is content built right into news articles and pages on major news sites that's meant to look and feel like it's part of the actual news site when I'll have to ally it's actually an advertisement. Normally is a small headline with a graphic and image or a video that directly leads to a third party web page major companies doing this today are companies like tabbouleh. I'll brain you know I would jam and a handful of others so but top three reason is this is beneficial for your business. Reason number one it allows you to directly tell the story that you want to consumers to understand about your product or service and here's what I mean by that let's say you've got a certain health product of item and it's got a certain aspect and a helps out in your daily life that gives you more energy or it helps with anti-aging fatigue or it helps with you know hair loss or something along those lines you can write a content piece that you would actually control the content for that tells that story exactly how you want it to be told. that's extremely powerful for obviously potential customers here's the example I always used for new clients Anderson windows is a big window retailer in the u.s. they can run a simple banner ad on a page and says Andersen windows you know click here for more details right but probably get some leads that way and that's phenomenal however they can write a content piece about like Anderson Windows can use the cause of eating your own like 15% and also raise develop your home by 25% and here's the reasons why then they can take that article directly link it to their lead form and drive a much more targeted user that way and it's hugely powerful and hugely beneficial and so you can't do with search or Facebook and their kind of marketing out there. Reason number two that this is probably the coolest thing about it you can actually customize exactly where you want your ads to show up so you can hand pick sites that meet your target demographics and only serve your ads on sites that meet those target demographics so if you know your audience skews 50 plus you can handpick sites and audiences that show up on sites there are 50 plus maybe that's a long time maybe that's not enough Sun com maybe that's the smaller sites that you know you know where it's gonna fit for you and get hugely powerful and a great marketing tactic you can use to make sure you're spending your dollars is about official as possible. Reason number three it's a great alternative to Facebook and Google owned any marketing plan probably has Facebook and Google and in some capacity at this point in time however you can't rely solely on Facebook and Google for every dollar you want to spend online Facebook and Google are constantly changing their rules and regulations if they're constantly updating their policies and if you're putting all of your eggs in one basket at some point in time it's going to be an issue for them. I can almost guarantee it's going to happen so maybe there was a great way to diversify your portfolio a little bit and offer massive scale that you simply cannot get install their news channels it's greatly beneficial for clients looking for even small campaigns but also in a large scale so that's the top three reasons I think you coming to you by native marketing. Any questions or comments feel free to reach out to our marketplace. Thanks! [Music]
[Music] Welcome to FDC's Ecomm education block my name is Chad Bacchanal and I'm the Director of an alert set why might CRM today I want to share with you som thoughts on a topic that is often controversial in our industry. It's one of those topics that I know some of you will agree with me on and some of you will discourage rarely do I find a consensus agreement on this topic but the hope is that when the video is over you'll have a stronger understanding of the subject. What is this controversial subject? How to calculate customer lock on value. I'll cover three methods including the one that we found to be the most accurate and recommend for our clients. Why is this controversial? Well first there are many ways to calculate CLTV and the results you get can vary dramatically with each method. Second no business is the same, this obviously complicates things when we're trying to use a single measurement to evaluate businesses with widely variant attributes. With that let's jump into the topic: there are three different popular methods for calculating CLTV. Method one is the method we use to calculate CLTV outline and is widely used by businesses that have high customer turnover or churn. This method leverages gross revenue and cogs to determine gross profit and divides that by the unique customers. A unique customer is most often identified by a unique email address. For example if I have 1 million dollars in gross revenue and [ __ ] of $40,000 returning a gross profit of nine hundred and sixty thousand dollars. I have eight thousand unique customers and therefore the CLTV is a hundred and twenty dollars. It's a pretty straightforward calculation but can be criticized for simplicity. Method two has been around a long time and it's used quite a bit with several industries but it's not widely accepted by the subscription industry because of its reliance on churn ratio. Churn ratio is a useful measurement but the common argument is that churn ratio has no place in the CLTV calculation because it adds in variability to a measurement and ultimately muddies up the CLTV calculation. This method uses the returning average order or our AO / the turn ratio. For example let's say your RAO is $80 and your truth is 40%, this method is going to calculate your CLTV to be $200. So this method is also very straightforward but like method 1 it also is often criticized for being too simplistic. Method 3 is very popular it is widely used across many different industries but it's really meant for companies that are cross them throughout the customer lifecycle. Let's run through this calculation once again we start with our AO multiply gross margin with an $80 our AO and a gross margin to 40% we get a net REO of $48 then we consider a 40% churn in a discount rate of 0% this method leverages growth rate to arrive at the same $120 of method wah so then we are comparing apples to apples as much as possible across all three methods. Growth rate refers to the customers growth rate during the lifetime as a customer. If you're growing a customer's value over time this is an important number inside of the CLTV calculation the criticism of this method is that it is too complex and it leverages growth rate which is speculative it can water down the CL TV calculation. Now that we've reviewed all three methods let's talk about why we use method 1 at Lime Light and why we think this is the right approach for advertisers and subscription businesses. Method 1 is straightforward and while it can be criticized for its simplicity it gets praised for hosts customer lifetime analysis, accuracy mean that when we analyze customers after that they have cancelled the calculation often proves to be more accurate we have analysed our entire global transaction database millions of as actions over more than 10 years and we still have found method one to be the most accurate method for calculating CLTV. My goal and my life's goal is to stay on top of the industry and provide advertisers and e-commerce merchants the best analytics and revenue maximization tools for their businesses. My priority is to stay up-to-date on the best metrics and calculations specifically for CLTV. I'm always looking for various CL TV calculations and analyzing and considering their merit for Limelight's clients so don't be surprised if in the future we offer multiple methods to calculate CL TV keeping a handle on all the data and metrics of your business is complex. Leveraging is sophisticated and intelligent but relevant analytics is how you can not only compete but scale. If you watch this video to this point you've been bitten by the bug and are most likely a data junkie like me. This curiosity is are you all what do you think will happen if you can't get a quick handle on where your business is at at a moment's notice. I've been there and it's scary it's a very scary thought that's where a solid analytics package comes in. Whether you are using the solution that we developed at limelight or you have your own homegrown bi solution stay curious and continue to fight the good fight my goal and Limelight's goal is to equip our clients with the best features integrations and revenue maximization tools and of course analytics to not only stay on top of the industry but to help you succeed that's why we continue to work hard to build a flexible and reliable CRM solution so you have all of the information you need to make the right decisions for your business. I'm Chad Bucknam, Director of Analytics at one I wish you the best of luck growing your business and achieving your dreams [Music]
[Music] Hey welcome to fulfillment dot coms online educational vlog my name is Jay Mack I'm the president of Six Division. We are a marketing automation company that helps entrepreneurs and their teams get more out of their market automation to create more predictable revenue in their business. I want to talk to you today about the top three mistakes that entrepreneurs make with marketing automation. The first one is the word marketing. The second one is the word automation, and the third one is blimp lamentation which I'll talk to you more about in a moment. So what's the problem with marketing, when it comes to marketing automation most people assume that market animation is solely for marketing and they think of things like funnels and marketing campaigns and ad spend and lead acquisition and marketing automation is much much more than that marketing automation is a different way to think about ultimately your client journey which I'll talk more about in a minute. The second thing is the word automation so a lot of people assume that because automation is in the word marketing automation they think that it's set it and forget it and that it is building a machine that is gonna run itself in perpetuity without any maintenance and so forth and a lot of times that can take the human element out of it as well and the benefit of marketing automation is to automate the mundane things it's to automate the experience that you want your clients to have so that they have a consistent experience and they've got the experience that you actually have design essentially you're creating the best day your sales rep or the best day that's your marketer or the best day that you can create for your clients you're repeating that over and over and over again so when you automate those mundane things it leaves space in margin for you to create very personal experiences for your clients so rather than automating everything you can actually automate somebody to remind some of your company to do something personal like a handwritten note or send a t-shirt or whatever that is. So automation is what creates space for personalization that's actually more meaningful and it'll be able to leave a lasting impression for your clients and so forth and the third thing is this word we called blimp lamentation which is the blend of blueprinting and implementing at the same time imagine a team of contractors trying to build a home and everybody showed up at once with no blueprint and the concrete guys are trying to lay concrete and the plumbers are trying to do the plumbing and the drywalled and framer guys are trying to do their thing and so forth you would end up with a mess in an unstable house and something that wouldn't be very good and most people start their market automation by getting into a tool get into their campaign builder of whatever that is and they start trying to design while they're actually implementing and they end up with a mess. They end up with a lack of visibility and lack of reporting they end up with unstable campaigns that create an unpredictable and often under lightful customer or lead experience for people so we want to plan first and then blueprint so the solution to all this is having a clear plan creating a strategic plan of what you're trying to do so you know where you're going secondly its to get really clear on what the journey of your leads prospects and clients are by mapping that out before you start to blue in blueprint and then implement and to do that this is I think the the secret sauce pro tip here is to do that from the perspective of your clients marketing automation is about creating a journey and journeys are ultimate about experience which is getting them to know the things they need to know to believe what they need to believe to take the action that you want them to take and so you create that language and you create that journey to be as effortless and seamless as possible so that they have a great experience to do what you need them to do and tell their friends and keep coming back for more. So hope that's helpful if we can ever help you at Six Division please reach out to us and let us know how we can help you with your marketing automation in your company, to grow your sales, to save you time, and amaze your clients. Good luck! [Music]
[Music] It's Tanner Larsen, I am the CEO of Build Gross Scale and this video is the first in a vlog series of videos that I'll be doing for all you awesome peeps over at fulfillment dot com. Now I've got a ton of cool training and education and you know tips and tricks and all kinds of stuff to share with you guys but this video is going to be kind of an intro, a quick who are we, why should we listen to you and maybe if you should listen to me kind of thing. First okay so while bragging about how awesome we are and how cool we are over at BGS and how just amazing we are. I promise to also share some pretty cool tips and tricks along the way that will make this video valuable for you and make sure you get something cool out of it. All right? Now again, my name is Tanner Larsen I'm the CEO of Build Gross Scale and I've been doing direct response style, ecommerce stores, funnels things like that since early 2001. Ok? I'm basically a dinosaur in the world of online marketing and e-commerce. There's you know very few people out there that are but have been doing it longer than I have and this kind of stuff and that makes me an old man right? But at the same time I also learned a few things I learned all the crazy stuff not to do I did everything wrong but along the way I also learned a few things that worked really really well alright and I also wrote a book. I wrote the e-commerce evolved, this has basically become the Bible of e-commerce books out there. I wrote this in 2016 and it still is as true now as it was then. We've also learned some really cool stuff since then but this book is awesome. So if you need a way to put yourself to sleep at night, I highly recommend you read it or get it becasue it'll definitely put you to sleep and then if it doesn't you can always you know use it as a doorstop or something to whack you on the side of the head and to really knock yourself out. Alright now with that book okay that kind of set the stage for what we do at Build Gross Scale. Now what do we do exactly all right well we do this thing called data-driven ecommerce. Okay now that doesn't really mean much. We're a data-driven optimization company that really doesn't mean much okay but what we do is we focus on taking stores that are good and making them great. We can start with stores that are a little bit less but are real you know special zone is taken a good store and scaling them to be great . Okay now the way we do that is by making data backed decisions okay so we analyze and interpret all the data that these stores have most of these stores don't even realize they have this data or how to use it they may collect it but they don't know what to do with it. Right well that's where we come in we make sure they're collecting it the right way that the data is accurate and then we make all kinds of data back decisions using that data okay now to do this it's not just me it's not just my partner Matt we actually have 12 full-time revenue optimization experts that we're all internally trained by us that do nothing but analyze data all day long make interpretations run split tests on all these different sites okay we also have 18 full-time developers a combination of front-end back in you know GA and all these other different kinds of developers that we have in programmers that but combined with our staff their entire job is to work across a network of 12 sites running split tests and crazy tests like page layouts and functionality user testing all this different stuff all to basically help us dial into these stores and which we have basically a network of over two dozen eight-figure almost one almost nine figure stores that are all you know leveraging our team to manage their data figure out the optimizations using that data interpret the data and then create wins and stuff along the way now as a result of that you know we have roughly a thousand man-hours a week okay a thousand man-hours a week of nothing but revenue optimization data interpretation to make data back decisions the amount of data that we collect off of our stores in one week is more accurate and usable data than a normal store will probably ever accumulated in a lifetime and even if they did accumulate it most of them wouldn't know what to do with it all right now the result of this is that we've kind of become men by we I mean Bill Gross scale has become the 800-pound gorilla in the e-commerce optimization space and we work with some of the biggest clients in the world including Guffey ranker Men's Health, Discovery Channel, Scientific American, Wild Turkey whiskey and more. Okay a lot of these bigger brands we look with the smaller brands too but the big guys come to us as well because we're really the only ones who are any good at this okay and really the only ones doing it right now the secret sauce that we have that bgs so special and all of our ro spend all the time doing is a process that we developed called revenue optimization now when I say revenue optimization what people actually hear and what they think about is conversion rate optimization all right now conversion rate optimization while similar tends to really focus on like the name says the conversion rate okay and now conversion rates they're important but it's not a real truly telling metric and when you focus on CRO and the conversion rate becomes the all-important metric that you're trying to optimize for you get this kind of tunnel vision and you don't see anything outside of this tunnel. Okay but it's everything out here that's where the magic happens. Okay this is where all the really important stuff happens in a business it's outside of that tunnel vision so revenue optimization is a systematic process for optimizing the entire customer journey. Okay they land on the site, they browse the site, they make the sale and then they continue on into the back end. Okay right we optimize the entire process from start to finish, end to end okay and it's all about: presenting the right information to the user at the right time and only the right information okay because too often people focus on what they think is delivering all the information or the right information but it's actually the wrong information and they presented at the wrong time which creates roadblocks. Which creates disconnects and anytime there's a disconnect or a roadblock in a site or the buying journey you create exit points where people bounce or leave and you know just disappear from your site so our job as revenue optimization experts is to smooth that road out so it's a nice smooth racetrack and allows your business to pick up speed and grow crazy fast right. So why is revenue optimization magic? I thought I told you how. It's our process we coined the term all that stuff but why does it really matter? Okay well the best way I can describe it is to talk about something completely unrelated. Okay so this author Gary Keller he wrote a book called The One Thing. He's one of my favorite authors I'd specifically love this book the one thing now the book really is just about the simple truth behind extraordinary results okay and how everything in life really falls under there's these principles okay and it boils the book itself in he and Gary specifically boils this book down to what's the one thing that you can do such that by doing it everything else in your life or around that result becomes easier okay so what's the one thing you can focus on that makes everything else easier now in fitness and health people go to the gym they work out they diet they or they try to die they do fad diets they buy pills they do all this thing but they really focus on even they focus on new workout clothes or the newest workout routine and cardio interval training all these things right but when it comes to health and fitness the one thing that makes everything else better and creates that chain reaction of Awesomeness is diet but nobody wants to focus on diet because diet is hard now an e-commerce revenue optimization is the one thing everything your traffic your sales your retention supply chains growth and scale all of it becomes easier when you focus on just revenue optimization people go oh I got a traffic problem I just need more traffic no you have a revenue optimization problem because you can't afford to buy all the traffic that's already out there okay traffic is not your problem the problems on your site okay what happens after the click so an example all right we see thousands and thousands and thousands of brands and different ecommerce stores every single year on all kinds of platforms they're not all Shopify just all over the place now everyone like I said thinks they have a traffic problem if I could just get more traffic if I could just get my ads perform better everything would be better okay but the reality of that is you're probably already better at traffic generation then you need to be because you're working with a broken behind process that may is not optimized and if you're able to get that to work with the traffic you're already doing you're way better at traffic than you truly need to be there is an infinite amount of traffic out there but trying to hyper optimize or over optimize almost like micro manage your traffic is what you're trying to do okay and that's not helping alright because the problem isn't getting the click you can get the click the problem is converting that click into a sale that's where your problem is your problem is in the buyers journey what happens after the click once they land on your site to the time they leave your site that's where you're failing okay the real issue is that what needs to be focused on is not traffic if you focus on everything that happens after the click first traffic becomes easy it's a non-issue you can buy all the traffic that you want if you focus on after my optimizing what happens after the click first let me give you a visual to drive this home ok this is I always do better with visuals so think of your e-commerce business as a bucket okay so in this metal bucket right here now think of the traffic that that comes into your bucket as water so we're filling up our we got our bucket here we're filling up our bucket with water coming out of the hose right so all the traffic that you're saying your site's coming out of this hose into the bucket now the water that stays inside the bucket those are your sales the water that falls out that's your lost sales okay now in a perfect world we turn on the hose keep opening it up and the bucket fills up we just keep pouring more water into it and hopefully we can just keep getting a bigger bucket right it's not how the world works right it's not reality in the real world the way reality works is that your bucket your business is full of holes it's like Swiss cheese all right holes of things are that like bounce rate browse abandoned scarred abandonment issues browser segments underperforming pages tech stack issues lack of clarity and about a dozen other issues okay every single leak reduces the amount of water that stays in your bucket right you got a bucket and you poke all these holes in it okay you're still pouring traffic into it but as you're pouring traffic into it all this water it lost sales is pouring out of the bucket and the sales the one that stays in the bucket keeps dropping. Okay, so what most people do instead of fixing the bucket and sealing all the leaks, they don't do that right you don't do that what you do instead of fixing it is you try to turn up the flow. Okay let's switch from a garden hose to a fire hose let's turn up the traffic thinking that it will fill up the bucket faster then your bucket can leak okay and you just get more sales that'll solve it I'll just get more traffic well the problem is that's not how it works it's the opposite that occurs okay just like in the real world when you have a hole in something or erosion happens things like that right the more force more pressure the more water you put into the bucket the holes just get bigger the more traffic you get to your store the bigger the leaks get and the more money you ultimately lose whereas with revenue optimization you actually will stop those leaks you fix those leaks so that your bucket now they're never gonna be a perfect bucket but the idea is to patch it as much as much as possible and seal it up so that you keep more sales and lose less right so if you focus we're on revenue optimization well that stops the leak so you focus on patching those leaks so more sales say in the bucket right beat that dead horse enough right okay now the magic of doing this is without spending any more money on traffic than you already do your and your ads burn stays the same but you will make exponentially more money simply by focusing on revenue optimization and patching the leaks that means more money from the exact same traffic you're already paying for okay no increase in ad spend now most of our clients honestly they double or triple their revenue within 90 days of switching their focus from this tunnel vision or this I got to get more traffic focus to just revenue optimization so double or triple their revenue within 90 days from just switching into the focus making the one thing they focus on revenue optimization and that's all without massively scaling their ad spend. All right now to wrap this up I don't want to keep make this video any longer than it needs to be right. The secret behind being able to scale a business is maximizing revenue so that you have the cash on hand to scale now we've all heard the same right, he who could spend the most to acquire a customer wins right if you can outspend your competitor doesn't mean you have to but the ability to means you can go out there and buy more traffic that other people can't afford because your site your store is optimized. All right it's a hundred percent true this is not true no fluff but the way to do that two way to be able to actually afford that more expensive traffic is by using revenue optimization to first stop your business from losing and bleeding money. Alright so I encourage you take a step back start looking for areas in your business where you're currently leaking instead of looking for ways to keep bumping up ad spend. Fix the leaks first the ad spend will take care of itself I promise you that. Now guys I've got a lot more training promised and prepared for you guys we've got a whole bunch of videos I'm gonna make for you, Justin and I've been talking we know what we're gonna map out for you guys but this was just a real quick intro to get things going. The new videos for you guys are gonna help you implement revenue optimization in your business but for now let's wrap this intro up I hope you enjoyed this little video my name is Tanner Larsen I really enjoyed talking to you today and I'll see you in the next video! [Music]
[Music] Welcome to FDCs econ vlog my name is Chris Hibbs and I'm one of the Head Accountants at Easier Account. I'm here to share with you my experience on accounting of bookkeeping in the e-commerce industry to help you learn more so that you can earn more. Some of the most common deductions for e-commerce business are banking and merchant fees, home office, subscription cost, shipping costs, a good soul expose, the list goes on and on. Using a cloud-based accounting software makes it easier to track these expenses so that you can maximize your deductions at your end people who start an e-commerce business usually don't love accounting but have the desire to make additional income or to replace their full-time job. The number one problem that I have seen in e-commerce companies is that they don't know where their books are at on a monthly basis using a cloud-based accounting software is a great way to allow you to know how your business is doing throughout the year and streamline your account one of the most user-friendly softwares that we have found as a company called 0x e ro there are others such as wave or QuickBooks Online also GoDaddy as bookkeeping software available all of these are solutions to keep you in a great position to be able to file taxes on time and claim all the deductions that you can all of these solutions can most major bank accounts credit card companies and PayPal. One of the reasons that 0 is our preference is because it allows you to connect to your accounting solution with the other systems you are currently using such as your CRM, inventory, point-of-sale, shopping cart, invoices, billing and so much more. Monthly bookkeeping is more important than you may think because it allows you to know your numbers. Being able to make an informed decision is paramount to running a business. Jeff Bezos certainly doesn't run Amazon without having a good grasp of where the financials are. If you want to achieve success knowing your numbers is the first step bottom line to be able to reach your goals and to pay the least amount of taxes you have to know where you currently are, track progress, identify problems and make adjustments so that you can adapt and plan throughout the year. We wish you the best of luck on all your ventures. This is Chris Hibbs signing off staggering [Music]
[Music] Hello and welcome to FDC's ecommerce education vlog my name is Justin Christensen the co-founder and president of Convergent Fanatics and the number one best-selling author of Conversion Fanatic: How to double your customer sales and profits with a be testing. And today we are going to discuss the benefits of conversion rate optimization so in my 15 year career in digital marketing the only thing that I have really found to help companies get and keep a competitive advantage is conversion optimization and the only thing that I see in the marketplace is everybody screams that you need to just get more eyeballs. You need to get more traffic you know traffic is a sexier topic than getting more out of your traffic through optimization. Now the benefits of optimization are more than just improving your conversion rate. You can some of the byproducts of that are reduction in your cost per acquisition, making traffic and your paid advertising spend more effective you can get increases in average order value you're gonna lead to happier customers, less refunds, less chargebacks, and better engagement overall on your site. Now what we look for in conversion optimization is really how your visitors interact with your brand and your marketing message so we're gonna go in and measure what elements on every step of the process hold the most weight, you know? What button colors, what headlines, what layout, what images, what structure number of steps in the checkout process, the number of cross sell items, how you cross sell items ,abandoned cart issues, all of these things can be addressed with optimization instead of just pouring more ad dollars on it. Imagine if you were spending twenty thousand dollars a month on advertising or and you got say a 1 percent conversion rate. But what happens if you increase that to a 1.1 percent conversion rate on the same exact advertising dollars but your cost per acquisition goes down by 10 percent and your average order value goes up by 15 percent . How much more benefit to your business will that have? How much bigger of an impact will it have for your business? You know you can spend more to acquire customers you can spend more on traffic it becomes easier to scale your marketing campaigns versus just pouring more ad dollars on it. You know a good example of this was a company that grew very well recently and we took their conversion rate initially from 2% to 3% but then they turned on 70% more traffic and it reduced their conversion rate back down to about 2.1 percent but they had 70 percent more traffic converting at a higher rate than what they were initially and that resulted in helping the company grow over 300% in revenue over the course of the year and compounding conversions takes effect in that way. Perry Marshall the great author of you know many great books including the definitive guide to Google AdWords and the 80/20 rule of marketing, he states that optimization is the only true way to get exponential growth and we've seen it by helping over 80 companies over the last four years improve their marketing results so if you have an e-commerce company and an e-commerce store and you want to exponentially increase your results, you need to ploy the need to deploy effective conversion rate optimisation practices. Don't let a day go by that you're not actively testing something to learn and we're not just testing random things here either we're actually going out to be strategic and we're trying to find out the answer to the question, why? Why are we testing those certain things instead of oh yeah a green button converts better than an orange button, but why is that does it have better contrast to the remaining color of the pages? Does it help lead the visitors down that path of least resistance to the end goal that you want achieved? Does it lead to better engagement? And you want to figure out what those bottlenecks are and then test every possible combination and element to better understand your visitors as a result your traffic is going to become more effective your customers are going to spend more with you they're gonna be happier they're gonna convert at a higher rate you're gonna make more money and it'll lead to exponential growth in your business so don't let a day go by that you're not actively testing and figuring out and answering that question why it's the only way to get and keep a competitive advantage in today's noisy digital world so again this is Justin Christensen the co-founder and president of Conversion Fanatics and you are watching FDCs ecommerce education vlog we'll talk to you again on another video. Hope you enjoyed it, thanks! [Music]
[Music] Welcome to FDC's ecom education vlog. My name is Mike Fleming and I am the founder of Michael J Fleming & Associates. We also are known as sales tax and more and what I'd like to share with you today are some sales tax basics and why the most recent Supreme Court case this South Dakota verse Wayfair that was decided on Thursday June 21st. Why it has such an impact not only on the sales tax world but for e-commerce sellers as well I'm going to use a term called Nexus you may have heard of this before and when we use this term we simply mean some sort of link or connection with the state and it's the linker connection that has to be present before state can require you to collected sales tax or pay its income taxes and for the last 50 years when we're talking about sales tax there's got to be some sort of physical component to this linker connection so we've disagreed as to what exactly a physical component is but you know people have been protected sellers have been protected that a state just can't go out and say okay you know you need to collect our sales tax because of this. There's had to be that physical component of this linker connection now this case overturned national Bella's Hess which is a 1967 case that introduced the concept of physical presence and then quill in 1992 reaffirmed the need for physical presence you know this court didn't overturn just overturn those two cases I mean they eviscerated the whole concept of physical presence they said that the court should have never introduced it. It's an artificial construct it's it's a it actually creates problems rather than solves problems so the court erred when introducing it now what this opens up the way for is what we call an economic Nexus in other word you can have a link with a state now just by making sales into it you know and that is an absolute nightmare you could now have a responsibility to potentially collect tax in all 45 states that charge a sales tax plus Washington DC the state of South Dakota which was you know going after wayfarer and utilizing this economic Nexus they had a threshold of a hundred thousand dollars or two hundred trees actions now a hundred thousand dollars of sales in South Dakota that's a lot of money but 200 transactions that that could be a very small amount of money let's say you're selling $5 items that's only a thousand dollars so you know this can. You can see how this could get very disturbing now some people out there are saying you know the Supreme Court is going to step in unfortunately we don't have time to go into all the reasons why I don't believe this is going to happen it may happen but I just think the deck is stacked against ecommerce sellers and we will not get any movement from Congress or at least any movement that's going to appreciably help ecommerce sellers. We can you know for the Amazon sellers that can wait for Amazon but that's not going to happen overnight I think that that's a three to five year process for again a number of different reasons we can go into when we have more time. At this point there really aren't any good solutions so I think we have to start resigning ourselves that sales tax is going to be a bigger part of our lives and that we need to start planning and putting it into our budgets and into our business models one of the first things that you want to do right now is evaluate your sales by state. Second thing you want to do is start counting the number of transactions that you have and then the third thing is look at those states out there that already have thresholds in place. By the way there's only about 23 states that we need to look at right now pretty much all the states are going to start implementing this but it's going to take them you know some of them maybe 30 days but some of them may be a good 12 - 14 months. So this is going to be constantly evolving over time it's nothing to panic about there are ways forward we got to use common sense when we're looking at this in the case I mentioned earlier if you're 200 transactions only equals a thousand dollars you know who cares what the state says if it doesn't make good business sense than why do it. We have to use common sense when we're doing this. However I think the states are going to be very aggressive enforcing not only this but all the other types of neck is Nexus that are still out there and if your sales are material in any state your exposure is material then I suggest you take some action and start protecting yourself. Thanks very much I appreciate your time and look forward to sharing again soon. [Music]
[Music] What I'd like to share with you today, what fulfillment dot com asked me to come and share with you today are two revolutionary things that can change your business instantaneously and put more money in your bottom line and that's what I want to do with you I want to make you more money so we have a rebate program that we're gonna facilitate with you and we also have an issuing platform that you can take advantage of okay now I'm gonna go ahead and explain these through my stick figure drawings and hopefully you can follow along if not just watch this video again and again and again and just get my face and plant it into your brain. So you know what goes where to go back and take advantage of these programs. Number one the merchant you you have a store, now this is an e-commerce store that you guys are selling whatever it is that you're selling there there's there's an interchange cost that's associated with taking credit cards and everyone has to use a credit card because that's the only way that you can take payments online so you go ahead and generate a cost this goes to the pay certify gateway and because of the fact that we're so large and we aggravate these volumes what we actually do is we have a virtual card platform that allows us to give a rebate back to you as the merchant now this is a very exclusive program this program you have to be doing at least thirty million dollars a month in order to qualify. Now you probably don't do you thirty million dollars a month but because the fact that you deal with pay certified we're able to aggregate all of our volume and give at least give you guys the ability to participate in this program. Now what we do is we generate a virtual card that generates an interchange value of about 2.7 percent now you paid about two percent on the front end okay goes to the pay certified gateway we automatically issue this this virtual card which the consumer doesn't know about the generate it's a virtual card and we paid the third-party suppliers and we pay the third-party supplier. This interchange is generated now because you paid two percent on the front end what we're gonna do because you're such a good client we're gonna give you a portion of this rebate there's two point seven percent back to cover that initial cost so if your first if your front line cost is two percent and we're giving you two percent back we just eliminated 100 percent of your costs even if we're giving you one and a half or 1.7%. If your frontline cost is two-and-a-half to three percent we're still taking a big chunk of that problem that monetary problem at the end of the month away from you and we're adding padding massive amounts of money to your bottom line it's a very very cool program nobody else has it you only find it here at Pace certified and you can get it as soon as you click into our funnel. The other platform is our issuing platform now this is revolutionary as well we built this for the travel space but this is also built for e-commerce stores so anyone that's selling a product online like you can take advantage of this particular solution. So this guy right here is me when I wake up in the morning and what I do when I wake up in the morning is I go buy Starbucks and let's just say I'm buying Starbucks online okay or whatever it is I'm hiding online and buying it online I'm making this purchase now when I make this purchase I'd go through the gate a certified gateway which is connected while all these shopping carts out there yours included what we do is we we instantly offer a reward subsidy okay so because I'm a shopping consumer online and I'm spending of $500 or $1,000 or whatever that number is I can instantly generate generate a reward subsidy. Now we have back in channel partners that allow us to instantly pool kyc an offer and a make an offer to a consumer so at the checkout page and this doesn't affect consumer checkout or the experience of the consumers so they can take advantage of the offer or they don't have to take advantage of the offer but if your consumer and you're building up a checkout page of $1,000 okay and I'm offering you two hundred two hundred dollars off that purchase most consumers will take advantage of that now the advantage to you is because you're still getting your full thousand dollars. That subsidy is covering that discount that we're giving to them and why would they do that? Because they want that consumer as a customer to continue to spend money so we offer this discount at the purchase and when we offer this discount the purchase and convert that customer to a to now a customer of the the issuer we're generating affiliate Commission. That affiliate Commission is in split up between pay certify and you so not only are we adding value on the front end by giving your consumers a discount we're also giving them incentives to come back to your store and continue to spend money and you make a piece of that spend that the consumer does you also make a piece of that funding affiliate commissions. So if you're doing thousands of transactions a day we'll be converting about 25% of those into discounts which in which results in about twenty-five to forty dollars to you and per consumer so you can do the math and if you can you can look at your own statistics and see how much money you're actually generating as an ecommerce store then you can decide if this program is a fit for you but what I can tell you is that if you're looking to pad additional revenue and you want consumers to continue to shop at your location and spend more money day after day, month after month this is a solution that's going to put this into high gear for you and put more money in your pocket guaranteed. [Music]
[Music] Everybody welcome to FDC's Ecomm education vlog. My name is Dan Stewart and I'm the founder Happy Grasshopper. We write and deliver emails every single day of the week and I've got three tips for you they're gonna make all of your emails better. First and this is super super important make absolutely sure that you know your purpose for sending the email there's a big difference between a first touch and a message that's going to someone that's weeks deep in your sales call. So be very clear about who's reading the message and why and know what your number one outcome for that messages and you'll get a much better result. Second you've got to know your audience understand their pain why is it that they've reached out to you in the first place? Why is it that they've raised their hand and out of all the places they could go in the internet they're looking at you? If you can speak to that conversation that they're already having you're gonna win with your email so know your audience and finally and this is super important keep your message short. You want to make sure that every single message you send is easy to read on a mobile phone. That's where most emails are consumed today, so keep your message brief. Boil it down to one specific point, be absolutely clear what your goal is and by that I mean what is your most desired action on their part what is the thing you want them to do. Structure emails to where it will achieve that thing and nothing else and you'll get a much better response from myristic so enjoy the vlog. [Music]
[Music] Years ago I was asked to represent a line of cleaning products on a national network and it was the first time anybody had seen these cleaning products before. They they've never experimented with them, it didn't have a big following, it wasn't a brand anybody recognized but the products really worked well. However I told the vendor I was working with this package is not going to sell and he said to me, why it's a great product it, works well. I said yes you're right we have great demonstrations, we have good testimonials, but it's not gonna sell regardless of how good it works and he said why? I said because it's too complicated when we came out on the air at the beginning of our presentation and we were trying to tell people what they were going to get when they ordered it it was a cleaning product that came in a bottle of concentrate and could be diluted into three different mixtures one for light duty medium duty or heavy duty each one would make a different number of bottles it also came with a sponge it came with a microfiber cloth it came with two different sprayers one that would spray inverted 300 180 degrees one that would foam when you sprayed it it also came in four different flavors you could choose like Abba lavender scented or the Apple scented or all these different things. Oh my gosh there's no customer on the planet that's going to do the mental calisthenics to try and figure out which one they want to buy! Nobody would! They will tune out, they will walk away rather than do the mental work. You need to make your offer very easy to understand the moment it becomes complicated you've lost just about everybody because they don't want to work hard they want it to be easy. Now what he was offering might have made sense if he was doing a big event and it was going to be shown all day long and he had a very well-established brand and he really didn't need to educate people on who he was or what the product was about it all just made sense he had an enormous following I mean if selling vacuum cleaners and he is Dyson it can be about as complicated as he needs it to be it doesn't really matter it's Dyson, right? Well it was a problem with this new brand and if you're trying to draw in new customers if you're trying to draw in people who are gonna use your product or service for the first time but your offers are not really easy to understand you're shooting yourself in the foot. Make your offer extremely easy for your customer to interpret make it so that they can choose the one they want in ten seconds flat here I have a cleaner it comes in this bottle you can choose this one or this one pick the one you want BAM done. We would have sold a million of them. We didn't sell a million of them as a matter of fact no matter how many warnings I gave that particular manufacturer before we went on air with his product it didn't matter he wouldn't change the offer and the offer went through the floor but guess what it was brought back later with a very simple offer and it's skyrocketed. I have to get myself a little pat on the back for that one. Make sure your offer is simple it'll mean a huge escalation in your sales. [Music]
[Music] Follow the FDC's ecom education blog. My name is Katherine I'm an office administrator here at Avensis. Partnering with the right call center is critical because it's likely the only physical real-time contact your customers will have with your brand. Unfortunately you don't have the time or resources to run your online business and build out a high functioning call center. That is why so many successful online and traditional businesses partner with boutique domestic BPOs to engage their customers. Follow these eight steps when partnering with the call center to achieve consistent high-quality user experience that will differentiate your business. Step one: create a culture of trust. For your feedback to be successful your customer service Account Manager and your internal auditing team must be on the same page before beginning examine your company's core values as well as the bodies of the team you're using to communicate on behalf of your brand to the whole world. How do they influence your culture and guide behavior? Our team members focused on other successes as well as their own is your Account Manager rewarded for helping your business grow professionally in a recent study by Paul Jay Zack a Harvard researcher, he discovered that compared to people at low trust companies, people at high trust companies report seventy-four percent less stress and 40% less burnout. High quality support starts with high quality employees. So creating a culture of trust is key to any outsource to customer service model. Step two: defined quality. Including your new team and conversation that that defined quality creates a shared understanding. Use real life call examples to generate discussion. For example, if everyone agrees that empathy and listening are important, how to call responses , demonstrate empathy and listening if the customer shares an experience or an emotion, does the team member responding to the customer reflect that emotion? Does the team member create a rapport with the customer? Step 3: create rubrics and determine benchmarks. Create rubrics and weigh the criteria according to your values. If you have decided in steps one and two that professionalism is important add this to your rubric determine if it is more important than correctness or empathy for example rubrics work best when there are no more than four to five criteria some of the best rubrics we see include correctness is the response correct completeness did the team member answer the customers questions empathy the team member or personalized their response it acknowledged the customers feelings and professionalism. Did the team member demonstrate good email etiquette? Find a range of customer responses that you can use as benchmarks, as a group evaluate the responses based on the rubric you created this benchmarking exercise generates a second discussion of quality and gives team members practice using the rubric. Step four: make your team reflect on their own customer responses. Research in the fields of business and education has demonstrated the importance of reflection and learning in your article why you should make time for self reflection even if you hate doing it Jennifer Porter asserts that reflection allows us to pause, sort through all of our experiences and observations and create. Meaning which then becomes learning. Researchers found that call centres demonstrated that employees who spent 15 minutes the end of each day reflecting about lessons learned performed 23 percent better after 10 days than those who did not reflect making time for reflection in the peer review process prepares team members to learn. Step 5: make sure your account manager trains your team on how to provide feedback. Make sure your account manager knows what good effective feedback looks like sharing specific examples. Good feedback should focus on what their team member did what the effect was and what steps they could take next feedback should be specific and in the case of criticism it should include suggestions for improvement here's a couple of examples when you told the customer that they were having an issue they immediately became defensive. Next time consider placing the blame on the device rather than the customer which diffuses the situation when you share your personal experience with the customer you reduce the tension. Great work. Step 6: begin your review and share feedback you or your own Quality Assurance team should be proactive in defining quality and giving your contact center the opportunity to reflect on their own responses. By doing this we avoid surprises in the feedback process team members know how their calls will be evaluated beforehand. Once your review process is done it's best to make sure your team is afforded a second opportunity for reflection that captures what they learned during the peer review process. How did the call centers self-assessment compare to your assessment? Use this reflection to guide goal setting as well as training for Optimax a prototype optics manufacturer with revenues of 30 million dollars the answer is team based performance reviews. They avoid potential pitfalls by giving the reviewers clear guidelines and by contrasting the employees self review with peer reviews so they can compare self perception with team perception that also helps the reviewers to stay objective in the process they act as coaches relaying information step 7 provide training based on the results of their review it may seem like common sense but I can't tell you how many contact centers drop the ball on this. Use your feedback to train and retrain your call center team tying their training to your review process demonstrates the relevancy of the quality assurance process collecting data enables you to offer training opportunities to a whole team if for example we see patterns that indicate that more training is needed on the etiquette alternatively individual team members can pursue training to strengthen specific areas based on feedback from their peers. Tracking this data over time demonstrates growth for both teams and individuals. In conclusion remember to repeat steps four through seven as often as possible you're creating your own well loyal customer service machine you'll find that by doing this that you're consulting your rubrics and your benchmark standards that you already created less and less off well MPs ratings might be great rubrics it doesn't really answer the ultimate question that you as an entrepreneur need to answer is your customer service up to your business's standards by partnering with the right customer contact term by holding them accountable in the right way you're gonna keep these bells ringing and your customers happy all the time. Thank you so much for joining Aventis today at FDC University we're really happy to have you and share some of our knowledge with you. [Music]
[Music] Hey welcome to FDC's ecom education vlog. My name is Tom Suckman and I'm the Business Development Manager here at Clickbank. Today I'm gonna share with you the top three questions I get when I'm helping new clients and new entrepreneurs get spun up on Clickbank in the direct response space so that I can help you learn more so you can earn more. So first question I get almost all the time even if I'm out on the road or from you or come across from this is like hey is my product a good fit for Clickbank? Is my product a good fit for affiliate marketing? Is it a you know is it gonna convert well with your affiliates? And my answers also is almost always yes like yeah it's a via the products great right there's very few people out there who really make bad products, if you believe in something and you believe it can help people it's gonna be a good product. Like I have no doubt the issue is is that it's not about the product it's about the pain points your product is solving for the customer and how you're marketing that product. Okay it could be a shed like I don't care like it's like a diesel shed and direct-response you can't get a good copywriter, what are those pain points for it? Okay so it's about the copywriting it's about the front-end sales page that's gonna drive that cold traffic to a conversion. The next one is usually, what commission do I need to pay an affiliate? That's a great question like it sits I wouldn't know to answer that you know three years ago before I kind of got on board here at Clickbank. So what commission do you need to pay? It's also the wrong question. Okay because it's a big variable that changes a lot. What I at my short answer to this is get comfortable paying up to a hundred percent of your margin. The reason for that is competition, quote unquote, is different for any niche and even some you know sub niches are different so that guy might be paying forty five bucks but your product might be so unique and address such a different pain point that this affiliates gonna email for both of you and it's not gonna compete with one another in his pipelin, okay? But but if you are a weight loss offer going up against a weight loss offer both are talking to keto and very specific in similar ways then yeah you might need to bump your commission up ten more percent to get your average cart value or to get the average cart value to the affiliate higher so the Phillies wanting mail for you more versus this guy over here, right? So it's variable but be comfortable going up to hundred percent. Next thing and final question is kind of like do you know any affiliates? Will test my offer? Hey, you have put all this money into copywriting and put all this money into or you know Ries time and energy into copywriting or whatever it might be and building out this funnel. Do you know any affiliates who can mail for me? Who can test it? Yeah I know a lot of affiliates like any big network or anyone working in a big network or who's in the space for wellzyn. I know some big affiliates to test it I don't want an intro a big affiliate or even a new affiliate to an offer that hasn't been tested already though, right? When you give someone a referral to an offer you should know and if it's your offer you should have a very high degree of confidence that if they've got a decent audience for it and they can be the judge of that right but if they have a good audience for it it's going to convert because you've done your part you've done your testing. Okay so it's I don't want to burn any bridges for myself and I don't want to I certainly don't wanna burn any bridges for you and making connection to an unproven offer that's not gonna convert well and then that affiliates gonna go off and he's never gonna promote you again or that would suck so how do you get affiliates the test and how do you get traffic to test if you don't have a traffic source already Network get out there go to traffic and conversion and go to affiliates summits go to all these industry events once I click Bank hosts and other platforms host meet affiliates meet vendors and offer owners with similar lists to yours or similar audiences to yours right and help them first so they'll help you later okay there's gonna be knowledge you have that you can impart or do something that you can do for them that's gonna unlock something and they'll be happy to send for you and happy to test traffic for you so those are the questions I get most commonly but I would love to hear from you and what questions you have so leave a comment below let me know what questions you have about affiliate marketing it can be as beginner or as advanced as you wanted to be I'll go cut my teeth on them yeah it's been great, it's been real, it's been real great. I'm Thomas, stay green. [Music]
Reading the book, you got an amazing quote that I think fits so if you take everything you're talking about now, it's just a theory, if I gave it to someone, their business would fail, but you immediately continue with all these specific things, and I I think the first thing I learned from the book was to understand that I was at the beginning of my journey, I was a technician who had an entrepreneurial fit, and I was not an entrepreneur, so explain to these guys what you mean by this list of each business owner and those, who is our technical manager and entrepreneur - these are three personalities, but when you realize that most people going into business are not really entrepreneurs, they don't have a dream, they don't have a vision, they don't have a goal, I don't have a mission, they want to get a job, they want to be self-employed, so they want to get rid of the boss so get rid of the boss and create your own, everyone knows what I'm talking about, because you believe you know how to do the job, meaning your photographer, so I can get rid of the boss and become a photographer, open my own establishment and take pictures, and you know how to accept photos, so it's obvious that you are a photographer, you open your doors, but what you didn't realize is that you are a photographer, a technician suffering from an entrepreneurial fit, but you have no idea that there are all these other functions of this photographic business called manager, marketing, sales, money the problem of most small businesses is that the founder of the business - a technician suffering from an entrepreneurial fit, and that's why most small businesses fail for that very reason, so we need to develop manager skills, and we need to develop odd skills, if my business is not here to do something for someone else that is important to someone else, then this is the wrong business.
[Music] Welcome to FDC's ecom education blog. I'm Nikki Peraltas Senior Account Manager here at Aventis. Today I'm going to go over three hints that every merchant needs to know in order to optimize their relationship with their customer contact center. This will help you learn more so you can earn more those three hints are scripting and deployment, technology integration and taking the partnership seriously. First to talk about scripting and appointment let's get with Scotland. Hey how are you? Good, how are you? Good, so why don't you tell me a little bit about the importance of scripting for our e-commerce clients. Yeah so it's really important three C's customized, consistency and compliance. So when we talk about customization it's really important that it's based on the product, it's based on a client and specifically, you're able to make adjustments for a conversation so it's not about just reading it, it's about being able to use transitional phrases, it's about being able to customize everything based on what the product does, what it looks like everything you're able to do there. So when we talk about consistency we want to make sure that all of the agents regardless of the location they're in are telling the customer exactly the same information. You don't want all different information being made up or anything going out there that's not the message that you want for your brand in fact that when we talk about compliance you don't want rogue agents out there talking about all different things you want terms and conditions in the script so that everyone's saying exactly the same thing. Wow that was some really good stuff let's go with Brain Pharaoh and talk about technological integration hey ray miss pross hi sorry I'm doing very well thank you, have a seat. We were just talking to Scott about the importance of scripting for our e-commerce entrepreneurs that's some good stuff definitely and we wanted to give the importance of technological integration. Well that's excellent that's excellent that we came to buy today's ecommerce entrepreneurs need that call center is integrated as possible with all their vendors that includes CRMs, fulfillment centers, even manufacturers to KPIs you have to look at when you're integrating with the call center is integration in optimization. 1. Can your agents integrate with your existing platform? 2. Can they improve upon the status quo? If your agents are worried about anything else like trying to learn a new piece of technology but your business has already been using you're already behind the eight ball you need to make sure your contact center works in partnership with all your other major vendors and can do that in concert whether it's verifying addresses for the fulfillment provider or going in and programming these SKUs in their CRM your contact center should be there for you to help you every step of the way. Wow those are some really informative points thanks. Right would you stop my enjoining me in the conference room so we can talk about our third and final point which is taking the partnership seriously absolutely for our third point and our most important point I wanted to talk to you guys about taking the partnership seriously. What do you think from our experience is most critical between a client and its call center? I think calibration is probably one of the most important pieces because you want your contact center to be an extension of your brand. Scott's 100% right and Nikki you do bring up a great point that that is the most important thing finding the synergy between client and call center. Ken that call center can that contact center being extension of your brand do they know in your business model can they integrate with all your vendors and actually be that ambassador that extra extension of who you are was actually on the front lines fighting with the customers the people providing you with that revenue that's the most important point to look for when you're looking for a contact center remember everyone companies that have figured out how to delight their customers but their service are winning in the marketplace so keep empowering keep challenging and keep innovating because when you're green you grow and when you're ripe you rock. This is Nikki Peralta signing off. Stay green! [Music]
[Music] [Music] So it's really really important here is like so many people right now running traffic fall under this little cool growing leaf that I've so beautifully illustrated here everyone's focus is I got a product I'm gonna drive my ads to my product page and I'm just gonna keep hitting people buy my product buy my product go here by this and that's the bubble that they they live in right just driving traffic to product page. Hopefully they buy and they don't going to retarget out of them until they either say it's unhelpful my fruit my brother and score goes on to to or until they buy. The problem is that already had a problem before what happened with Facebook and last we can have it is getting more and more expensive to run. Facebook traffic it's an auction-based platform and as all of you know we take an economics class in college or high school; supply and demand right supply on facebook on the ad side has remained pretty constant fix rule hasn't grown that much. Newsfeed inventory has been saturated for a while now Facebook's basically like hey can't serve any more ads without ruining user experience we're capping it demands kept going up demand keeps going up and up and up that's why the holidays you see ad cost spike and so ad costs have gone up. CPAs are gone, ops got more expensive and so driving people to a product page,it's just it's too expensive to work. That coupled the fact that if you don't have a brand, if you're not Apple or Coke or Nike or Pepsi,Under Armor, people don't know your brand they don't know who you are then although you're selling and they're buying a solution to a problem at that point unless your Nike or Apple when it comes with oh wait in line to buy your new iPhone which I do every time luckily I got a business right now so I don't do any lines anymore but I used to. People are don't care about your Aliexpress product they don't care about that print-on-demand t-shirt people are buying solutions to problems, right? I think we all get a little too focused on the platform like Facebook is an app platform you can do dynamic product ads and you can pixel and you can do manual bidding all the stuff at the end of the day Facebook's a medium it's a way for brands and businesses to get a message to people and to nurture and sell those people right so whether it's direct mail TV billboards which Billie Jean still runs billboard you use the billboards works right Facebook there's a way to do that. So you need to be able to actually agitate problems you need to actually educate consumers they need to know that they're looking for your solution and that your product is just a solution they don't carry a product at the point because the problems been agitated so effectively that they see your product, hey that's the solution this guy's been nurturing you with content he's gonna hit me videos with articles and at the point now where I'm actively looking for a solution and there's our product. [Music] Thank you
[Music] Welcome to FDCs ecom education blog. My name's Oliver Kenyon and I'm the co-founder a landing page guys calm and today I want to share with you our top five tips on how to build high converting landing pages. Let's get straight into it okay so you're joining me on my screen and I'm going to break down the five most important that we feel most important conversion tips to increase your conversion rates on your landing pages this is five of many over here the landing page guys but these are the five that we feel you can get some quick wins with and and you will see some results very quickly we'll jump straight into it. Number one is page speed I'm going to read this stat one second increase in load speed is a two percent up the lift in conversions so what that means is for every second your website loads quicker or landing page blows quicker you'll see a - it's actually we've tested this two to seven percent up lifting conversion which is crazy really really quick way of upping your conversions how do you do it head to GT metrics common input your landing page URL it's going to spit out how quickly your page loads and then going to break down how you can increase those speeds it's that simple. Number two responsiveness now responsiveness is nothing new obviously mobile and tablet has been around for a long time now however we're not just talking about making your landing page adapted to mobile and tablet resolutions we're also talking about making adapted to all screen resolutions so making sure that it looks good on all different sized screens whether that's an iMac 11 inch or 21 inch screen any size monitor make sure that your page is adaptive to to those screens the other thing here is we're not just talking about responsiveness we're talking about actually optimizing your mobile version so if you've got a mobile version of your website that or landing page make sure it's actually optimized for the mobile experience. You can do this by kind of breaking down hiding elements and making sure the user experience on the mobile and tablet is as good if not better than your desktop don't just make it don't just make it responsive make it optimized responsive for mobile and tablet. Number three cross browser compatibility and this is one we see a loss of our clients to get make sure that your landing page is cross-browser compatible make sure it looks good on all of the all of the browsers in front of you on this picture. 71% of users still use so I use Chrome and that's probably a little higher now but the rest use these other browsers so make sure that your page loads good on all of these browsers test it yourself download all these browsers. But another thing you can do is Google browser shots use that tool it's a really good tool you again like GT metrics put in your landing page URL and it's gonna spit out how your landing page looks across all these different browsers we've had clients come to us especially target the older generation and who still use the dreaded Internet Explorer and stuff like that and their buttons call to actions forms everything are missing from those browsers so always double-check number for positioning making sure your value proposition is very very strong 84% of your visitors won't scroll further unless you're above the fold proposition is strong. So what this means is you need to get across above the fold is exactly what you do hit hard hit home make it obvious don't put any distractions and pique their interest now speaking on this I'm going to take you to the next slide because this feeds in but making sure that value proposition is strong is crucial otherwise people don't scroll down. ADA principle now this one is one of our favorites is probably the the one that we feel is most important. Now to use a psychology and user journey flowing them through that page to that call to action whether that's at the top at the bottom you should always repeat that call to action what's this stands for attention interest desire action and I'm going to quickly run through these attention making sure you have that strong value proposition. Look at our example this is our old website. Increase your business sales and conversions so people come into the landing page guys want to increase their sales through landing pages that convert we've already got that attention by having that clear you know title at the top then we pick their interest with the features and benefits and you want to focus more on benefits and features. Yes show your features that's great what your product does but always talk about benefits to the user we've outlined them and we get their desire how do we do this while using trust and social proof so for us it's a portfolio, it's testimonials. When it comes to testimonials always use all organic testimonials get real people people, real persons and you don't want real quotes, no stock photos nothing like that and use this trust and social proof to lead people down to that strong call to action we've got them now we want them to take action let's give this the them the easiest route to do whatever it is. Click a button to buy a product, a form to submit, whatever it is give them the easiest route to do it and call to action and that's the ADA principle and you should definitely be using this in your landing pages so that's five of a lot of tips that we can give you to increase your conversion rates on your landing pages. Thank you for listening please get in touch. Thanks to fulfillment dot com and always stay green and I'll speak to you soon. Thank you [Music]
[Music] welcome to FDC's ecomm blog. My name is Chris Hibbs and I am one of the Head Accountants here at Easier accounting. I am here to share with you my experience on accounting and bookkeeping in the e-commerce industry to help you learn more so that you can earn more. After 26 years the Supreme Court has ruled on June 21st, 2018 that States can impose sales tax on ecommerce sellers the vote was a five to four decision that was in favor of brick-and-mortar businesses who have long complained at the disadvantages of having to charge sales tax while most online retailers haven't had to those who will feel the biggest pinch are the small to medium detailers instead of the big companies who have been paying sales tax because of their warehouses and stores in almost every state. This is how it can affect you for example if you are located in California and sell a product to someone in this state of Utah you then would be required to make sure that the state of Utah gets the sales tax for the product you sold just so you're aware there are five states that don't have any sales tax Alaska, Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire, and Oregon. All other states will have some sort of sales tax and each state could be a different amount, this is what makes it hard to track it by yourself or in a spreadsheet. Don't panic there are several software companies that are available if you plan on tracking it yourself. The three main software providers are tax jar, tax a five and a Valero tax jars built for small to medium sized companies and we have found it to be a better software for our e-commerce clients tax. If I and a valera are built to support the larger companies and with that said also have a larger price tag to go with it if the thought of tracking your own sales tax is too daunting or you just don't have the time to do so we would recommend the use an accounting firm that you feel the most comfortable with that specializes in sales tax like all things in the e-commerce industry sales tax laws will continue to evolve and it is important as an ecommerce entrepreneur to keep up to date on the new rulings and laws. We hope that this helps you put in place a system that works for you. This is Chris Hibbs signing off staggering [Music]
[Music] Welcome to FDCs ecommerce education blog. Hi my name's Richie Hale and I'm the Chief Innovation Officer. I've touched CR in this video I'd like to share a patent-pending process to significantly reduce, well actually eliminate chargebacks. That's right is eliminate chargebacks. As we all know chargebacks are the digital poison of any e-commerce company. You generate a lead, convert them to a customer and ship the product then days or weeks later actually up to six months your customers that decide that they didn't want the product in the first place so rather than call your company and ask for a refund which you gladly and cheerfully fulfill. Your customer calls their bank and disavows any knowledge of the transaction taking place in the first place. Of course the bank sides with their customer and immediately issues a charge back to the merchant, you and exceed the 1% threshold when you have a digital target on your back but what if theres a way to change the chargeback game. Well if there's a way to stop charge backs at the source before they ever leave your customers bank. Well I'm happy to say there is, by using a technique well known to the industry and applying it properly to the front end transactions we can actually eliminate charge backs. The secret is simple: two-factor authentication Two-factor authentication is a method of confirming a user's identity by utilizing a combination of two different factors, the first factor something they know; the password credit-card details, their address; the second factor is something unique to the transaction in this case a six digit code sent to their mobile phone that the answers have verified their identity. So let's review the process as part of your order form be sure to require the customers mobile phone number this is critical to the process then when the customer proceeds to the next step they fill in their credit card details and select the Pay Now button then the fun begins the customer receives an SMS message on their mobile phone with a six digit authentication code they're asked to enter this code on the checkout screen which now contains a pop-up like this the customer enters the six digit verification code and they're done of course you can gamify this process if you like buffering a free gift exciting information a contest and so on once entered the confirmation page appears and the transaction is complete. Congratulations you've just processed a credit card transaction validating the customer's identity using two-factor authentication. Now to be clear this will not eliminate true fraud and the credit card stolen. However what this process does is prevent the customer who made the purchase from committing a fraudulent act by filing a false filing. A false claim in other words the bank knows this is a two-factor authentication transaction therefore if the customer calls the bank with no knowledge of the transaction the bank has a fiduciary responsibility not to allow the customer to file a false claim nor can the bank so the bank will most likely suggest that the customer call your company and ask for a full refund. Of course this is a simple quick overview of the process if you'd like more details on how to use this for your company please contact us at info at touchier. Thank you very much. [Music]
[Music] - Jeremy Adams here co-founder of Unicorn Innovations and co-founder of Unicorn IQ which is the hat I'm wearing. And today I want to talk about one of our favorite subjects to talk about it's how we live our lives and how all the people we have partnerships with a new consulting with and do training for it's something we stress all the time and that's customer lifetime value and to really just break down customer lifetime value into three steps you know and I'm gonna share those three steps but actually let me backtrack you know customer lifetime value if you don't know is pretty self-explanatory but it's either in depending on how you calculate it at different businesses are different the amount of profit made over the lifetime of a customer or the amount of revenue which could be one purchase it could be three months it could be three years business models vary but it's the lifetime value either profit or revenue that customer will give you and focusing on the lifetime value is what typically separates the eight and multiple a figure businesses and above and the six and seven figure business is an actually shooting this with like a crazy storm going on right now so three steps. Number one: stop worrying so much about your initial cost acquire customer you can't be looking at random Facebook ads and things seeing these four or five X returns and you're at a two X return and you're super mad about you can't scale your campaigns at four X just we do a lot of like high-level paid traffic consulting and you know our most successful customers sometimes only are only making a little bit of money around a break-even sometimes even losing money on that initial purchase but that's okay because you want to pay a little more to get a quality customer so don't worry so much about your initial cost to acquire customer and that leads them to number two which is the reason you don't have to worry about it that much is because you have your long-term game. Your long-term game figure it out now, we spent weeks and weeks just for our unicorn cube rain coming up with a year-plus automation of upsells for affiliate products that we use internally and for service providers that we use and you know it's very value focused this isn't just selling. Selling its we put videos on how we use them in our business and how they've been able to help us know we have a super long term focus you know if you have a product of any kind you know if there's a continuity option put a continuity option in place or upsell the continuity right if you didn't get it on that initial purchase if there are higher priced items you can solve that customer that you offer great if there's Christmas specials if there's Easter specials break. You know this is an opportunity to build out your long-term game if there's strategic partnerships you can make with companies that offer other products that sell to the same type of client you have, great you know, figure out your long-term game so you can make money off that customer for for hopefully years to come and then again you're not so much worried about the the initial costs to acquire that customer. Number three and this one is is a very important one and it's one of the the hardest ones that even sometimes personally I've had challenges with the last couple years have been different and it's been huge in our success and businesses value things like brand equity and quality word of mouth in your industry even though you may be breakeven on that that that front end and you you know may not be making as much as you want long term yet you're still trying to test things. You know when people are seeing your ads when people are telling their friends about how good your product or services there's so much value to that and eventually that's gonna snowball to additional opportunities for example we run a lot of traffic to our unicorn IQ Academy to our Facebook. Of course there are days when we are not profitable and we're really mad you know we're not like we don't print goal here we do very well we've had a lot success and we're scaling really nicely now but we're not perfect but from that brand equity people will reach out and say hey we saw your ads we did some research would you like to partner up in this company of ours or hey would you you know we're uh you know twenty million dollar company we're looking to scale 250 million would you like to partner with us and help us so there's there's so many things outside of your initial offer so many benefits you know we've actually brought on some of our team members because they loved our mission they reached out do you have any opportunities and we hired them and they're great team members because they just love their mission a level we were doing so just value things like your reputation and brand equity and all those things that you really can't put on a profit and loss statement. So hopefully this was helpful definitely reach out to me if you want to connect any anybody with fulfillment dot com is awesome so we were always looking to connect with people in that community and thanks for watching! [Music]
[Music] Welcome to FDCs ecomm education vlog, my name is Justin Christensen the Co-founder and President of Conversion Fanatics and the number one best-selling author of Conversion Fanatic: How to double your customer sales and profits with a/b testing and today I wanted to talk about the anatomy breakdown of what goes into creating an effective product page on your ecommerce store. Now we're in the world of Shopify and we're in the world of all of these other elements but a few of the key things that you need to pay attention to are first, very high quality professionally taken product images and the more the better. So the problem we have with e-commerce is that we don't have the luxury of people coming in and trying on our product or touching and feeling it and holding it and experiencing it before they make that buying decision. So we need to take the best approach that we can to let them experience it through the images so show the image or, show the product from all angles, show comparison size of the product, show people you know wearing the product or using the product the more that you can provide that to them the better off you're gonna be. The next step is do a clear and concise title of the product, don't give be gimmicky or you know sales are you're tricky just tell them exactly what this product is next is if you have reviews on the page be sure to highlight those reviews up near the title. You know a star rating usually in gold, take a page out of Amazon things like that but then move on to a very short description and don't talk about too much of the features of the product but tell exactly what that product is going to do leading with the benefits of those products, then make sure we have a very simple and easy to consume and easy to digest and easy to use selection option so if you have size and color breakdowns and things like that don't be tricky in that process you know make it very simple for your visitors to select and know that they need to make that selection next or first before they can move on to the next step. Another thing that you can do is or one thing you should be doing is make sure that you have a very strong contrasting big bold call-to-action button that helps lead that visitor down the next path you can also leverage things like your guarantee shipping times you know, security , you know satisfaction guarantee, made in the USA all of these other things but leverage them as icons because people on the product pages don't necessarily read so the shorter breakdowns that you can have on your paragraphs and the imagery and things like that the better off you're gonna be. Next below on for a little bit further down on the page make sure that you are recommending additional products. Another way to really ramp up your average order value is to actually create bundles you know take a page right out of Amazon and say frequently bought together you can actually create bundles on that specific page and we've seen up to 30 or 40 percent increase in average order value, just by giving them an additional complimentary product for sale directly on that page. So hey buy the bundle you want to buy this product but why don't you just buy this bundle instead and save 10% or whatever you can do to incentivize them to push them down but next break it down a little bit further by your product description and features and you know maybe a little bit more about your guarantee and anything you can do and then have your reviews break down further on the page then on mobile one thing that people don't pay attention to is they have a mobile responsive site so they just think they're good. Well in fact you're not good the way things stack up specifically on stores like Shopify is the theme doesn't always stack things in the right order so on mobile make sure that you have your title and your reviews above the image. Chances are that will help increase your results. Show the images, have an easy breakdown on mobile with a carousel the image not too big allow them to zoom, mouse over zoom, something incredibly effective versus a click to zoom and then make sure your call-to-action and your and stuff is up higher on the page so it's a very easy to see if you can get it above the fold the better off you're gonna be there. So that's just a few tips that I have to make an effective product detail page. Be sure that you're testing those elements and not just making the changes and if you have any questions feel free to reach out to me. Myself and my team are happy to help and help you get more results out of your product detail pages. Thanks for watching [Music]
I discovered years ago before I started my company in 1977 - yes that's how old I am - that businesses don't work, the people who own them do. Get this again businesses don't work the people who own them do and unfortunately the people who own them are doing the wrong work. Yes, you. Please don't take this personally unless you would truly like to have the circumstances of your business and your life completely transformed. Now I don't speak about this again academically I speak about this from the street we have worked with over 75,000 small business clients in 134 countries, my books have been read by over 8 million readers - not nearly the same as pastor Rick but the fascinating part about that is that Pastor Rick read my book and Pastor Rick was the first to tell me that when he introduced me last year to TEDx and said I wanted to introduce you to the man who wrote the book I built my church on. Well he built his church on another book but if you're going to build a church that's got to work in the world there is no more important book to read than my book. Now hear me please when I say this, I'm a wandering jew. Pastor Rick did say this in a meeting that i can fix that but when I say that by reading my book you can transform your business I don't mean that sort of I mean that absolutely. People come up to me and said I read your book it changed my life I read your book had changed my life. When business people come up to me and say this please I'm not selling books, if you understand this is not to sell a book if you didn't know the e-myth when you came here and all of you owned a business then you really have a problem. What I'm really saying is that the book speaks about very specific point of view that in fact will alter the way you think about your business from this day forward. My intent here in the hour that I have is that you will walk out of this room if I never meet you again with the most powerful idea you have ever heard that in fact is more than an idea it's an absolute fact and is at the core of every great company in the face of this earth. Core of McDonald's the cola core of Walmart, the caller core of Starbucks, the core of every extraordinary company in the face of this earth and you might say yeah but I'm not in the hamburger business, I'm not a retail store, I don't sell coffee, I don't sell tea yeah but none of them do either so this is what I want you to write down, please write this down every single one of you. If you're seriously here for a serious reason - seriously understand in fact what it is that enabled Pastor Rick from a word old perspective to build the most extraordinary church in this country this is the expression go to work on it not in it please write that down go to work on it capital o n not in it. I've been saying this for years, I implore you to hear it, go to work on it not in it [Music]
[Music] [Music] E-comm Education Blog my name is Ben and I'm the marketing director at No Issue. Today we're gonna talk a little bit about custom packaging. So what is custom packaging, what different types and methods there are of using custom packaging and finally how custom packaging can help you. So first things first let's talk about what custom packaging actually is so, ordinarily a box will arrive at your doorstep it'll look something like what, that's a regular brown box. What you want is something a little bit more special, something that says a little bit more to your customer. Looks something like this, a custom box isn't necessary for your brand but it does say a lot about what your brand represents it gives your customer something special, something a little bit extra and it makes it almost like a little surprise when it comes to the doorstep they'll be happy to get it. What are some different packaging types? Let's see, you've got tissue, stickers, boxes, tape, ribbons, a personalized note, packing peanuts or styrofoam. Pretty much anything that goes into that box when it's on its way to the customer, including the box that's the type of packaging. With all those different options for packaging there are a few more variables you're gonna have to consider when it comes time to making a decision on what you want your custom packaging to be. The first one is always gonna be cost because you're printing something customized and special for your brand it's gonna cost more than just a regular brown box package or plain tissue paper. The next thing you have to think about is the time so it takes a little bit more time to print on a box especially when that's a custom printed item for you and that means they have to make a new dye line and ship it to you so that's always gonna take a bit longer than a typical brown box and last but not least you've got to think about the quantities of the packaging that you're ordering. So this will influence both the cost of what you're finally gonna go with and your choices as to what packaging you use. For instance a box might come in a minimum order quantity of a thousand boxes. That's a lot of boxes, especially considering that a box can cost up to five dollars per unit, with that whole order you're paying about $5,000 just for your packaging. On the flip side you could go with ribbons which obviously cost a lot less but they don't really cover your entire product so trying to wrap something in a ribbon isn't really practical. Tissue on the other hand is a great little middle ground where what you get is something that can wrap your entire product at a low cost. Your minimum order quantities are important to think about because if you can get something at 250 units that can end up influencing what you go with in your packaging decisions. One last thing to consider is the environmental impact that your packaging has. Now this is just a note but there's a lot of plastic in current packaging and if you can reduce the amount of plastic you're using or in some way use recycled materials or anything else that has a positive environmental impact can be beneficial for your brand and for the Earth. And that brings us to the last point which is what can custom packaging do for your brand? Well the first thing is your customer is going to get an amazing unboxing experience. That's when they get the package, they open it up and it fosters a sense of curiosity and care that you've put into your packaging. In a dot-com distribution study this actually proved to increase customer loyalty as well as repeat purchases and those repeat purchases as you know are always going to be better than trying to go out and find a new customer. I bring this to our next point which is that people are gonna share it on social media any time you see someone having an unboxing video on YouTube that's because they've gotten a package that's amazing and looks great and they want to share that with their friends. Now the last point is that as a brand when you send out a custom packaged item you're actually making your brand seem more upscale. You're impressing people with the thought and the time that you've put into their experience and that's always gonna be beneficial and look good when it comes to your brand. Hopefully you've learned a little bit more about custom packaging, what it is, what to think about when you're ordering it, what different types there are and ultimately how it can help your business. From us at No issue that's a wrap! [Music]
[Music] Welcome to Fulfillment dot coms ecomm education blog my che for the sales whisperer. Today let's talk about the five proven steps to make every sale. As you can see here I have the traditional looking funnel, this is something we have all seen if we've been in sales for any amount of time. The funnel is obviously wider at the top, it's more narrow at the bottom. Now in traditional selling, you cast the net wide you have a big open funnel at the top because like they say you throw enough stuff against the wall something's bound to stick, same thing with fishing you throw this big wide net it increases the chances you'll catch something the problem is when you go out into open waters sometimes what you catch along with the fish include tires, plastic bottles, license plates, things you don't really necessarily want or need but as you notice here with this traditional funnel it's top down it's one directional. Yeah at the bottom you might be able to get some referrals and testimonials or whatnot but traditional companies, traditional salespeople, are not looking for that they're thinking about the sale and that's it. Throwing enough stuff in the top not even patching the holes in the leaks that come through the funnel along the same lines you'll see a lot of times people talk about a pipeline, I equate this to dating because everyone has either been on a date, been asked out on the date, told someone know they're going on a date or been told no going out on the date but you can relate. But this is literally how I met my wife 24 years ago, at a country bar we made eye contact I asked her to dance, asked for her snapchat I was very advanced back then I knew snapchat was gonna be a thing and buy them a dinner right go on dates too, you meet the family figure out range attire or not. There's a process there just like with the funnel, you have stages, you have steps. There's a natural progression that you try to follow to make sure that the deal you're working on is on task, it's on it's on time, it's moving along the way that it should. Now there's not a right or wrong in so far as how many steps that you need but in general the the kiss process applies to, keep it simple stupid, right? You need just enough steps and know more to ensure that you're tracking things as you should. Being from the south I like to keep things simple I call it ABCDE. You attract, you attract people to your place of business, to your storefront, to your website, to your to your trade show booth, you want them coming to you but it's not enough just to get a visitor you need them to identify themselves so you offer them something you know a free dinner on your birthday, get our free report, free samples whatever, as long as they opt in, as long as they provide you their phone number, their email, their address something to help you stay in touch with them from there you can bond with these prospects. Preferably it's multimedia, multi step, don't assume just because they ask for something that they really wanted it or that they have time to read it or that they understand what it is you've given them or that they're taking action which brings us to the next step the conversion, the close , decline at the cash rookie sales people think this is the end goal. Get the money and run. That's why their rookie, amateur sales people. Professionals know to to think beyond the sale, deliver that Wow experience, delight to the upside. I'm getting into it right now with a guy I've known for many years, he's been my mechanic, we spent three thousand dollars fixing a car with him the radiator busted on my daughter's old car it took them multiple trips to get it right I never even looked at it. I'm finally helping her replace a light bulb you know a headlamp and I look this has been after over a month I really two months of working on it at least five times and there's radiator fluid you know just residue all over the engine so after paying this guy $3,000 he couldn't be bothered with hosing down the engines you know the engine compartment now he's probably gonna lose a customer and there's obviously other things that go on there but we've been a customer for 14 years probably referred 20 or 30 families to him all with multiple cars probably he's probably worked on a hundred cars because of our referrals, but he didn't delight, he didn't deliver a WoW experience, took him multiple times to fix the car that's fine he stuck with it but it couldn't be bothered to spend 18 cents throwing some goop on the engine and hosing it down. Okay think beyond the sale. That's where you adhere yourself to your customers, that's where they now are in love with you and they are singing your praises but even though I have this in a pipeline going left to right, the reality is it's a cycle, it's a circle. Okay the hip bones connected to the leg bone, everything's connected . That's why I say to make any sale you have to make every sale. How do you attract business to you? How do you bond and stay in touch? What's the sale like, the actual closing process, the transaction, the handing over of money? How do you make them feel? Buyer's remorse is a big thing, just because somebody gives you money doesn't mean they're happy about it. What do you do to ensure that they're happy? What are you insure? What do you do to ensure that they're thrilled, they're delighted, they're overwhelmed in a great way? So now you endear yourself to them, now they're giving you five star reviews on Yelp, they're they're singing your praises on Facebook. Somebody's asking you know for a mechanic, or chiropractor, for a dentist, for a roof or whatever. And they're like you got to go see Joe, you got to go see Mary, they're the best. Now you're back to attracting, now that business comes to you just about free and they don't need three quotes, they don't need to think it over because three of their friends, 10 of their friends said you got to go see them so the business comes easier, it comes faster, it comes at a higher price, higher margins because these people are happy. Okay so think through this look at your business and do you have a system? Do you have processes?Can you boil it down to these five simple steps? And of course you see in here I have multiple steps within the five steps but in the overarching picture you know where you are. You're in the attraction phase, you're in the bonding phase. Okay do you have this down to a system, to a process that everybody understands and can execute? Because if you can measure it, you can improve it. Alright this is how you improve your sales attract bond convert the liver in deer. Thanks for watching, now go sell something! [Music]
[Music] You [Music] All right with no further ado please hit this isn't real for Mr. Berg! Give him a round of applause as well he's been called the man behind the brand's the chief brand accelerator and the six billion dollar man . Burne Coleman is one of the world's leading experts in brand development management licensing and business acceleration trusted by iconic moguls and CEOs such as Donna Karan Daymond, John Russell Simmons, Eddie Lampert Kevin, Harrington and Tommy Hilfiger having created collections for the Rolling Stones, Steven Tyler and American Idol. Mr. Ulman is the go-to man to skyrocket business growth and shatter yearly projections his astonishing achievements include launching the Adam Levine and Nicki Minaj brands for Sears Holdings earning over 200 million in annual sales as president of fast fashions he propelled retail sales from 80 million to 800 million as CEO of mesh he developed a Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony collections for 1,100 Kohl's stores the largest celebrity brand deal in history worth 3.5 billion and as president of booboo international he drove yearly revenue from 100 million to four hundred million dollars. I want to acknowledge my buddy here burnt almond who was my company from 100 million to 4 the man in the genius this guy foul out as the CEO and co-founder of celebrity lifestyle brands Mr. Ulman employs digital marketing and social media to incite massive well through the power of brand equity. Berndt is also passionate about helping entrepreneurs utilize the same tactics that have launched a billion dollar businesses his mentorship quickly uncovers the story and strategy behind a brand to transform followers into devoted ambassadors proficient marketing lucrative licensing and distribution savvy product development. No one understands how to grow compelling and authentic lifestyle brands better than burnt almond and now mr. Ulman is ready to share his wealth creation blueprints with you so you can supercharge your business build an empire and leave a legacy a customer they may forget what you say they may even forget what you do they will never forget how you make him feel ladies and gentlemen please welcome the chief Business Accelerator himself burnt almond [Music] All right thank you good morning good morning thank you Nate, Thank You Franklin, Thank You Cory Bergeron. Okay guys so before we get into it, hey you know what makes our fulfillment company unique? The fact that I've been in your shoes looking for an excellent fulfillment center. That's right I had a successful online business when my company started to grow I went searching for a fulfillment center that could meet my high but very fair expectations you know what I found? That that was very very hard to find all I wanted was a fulfillment center that could ship the right product to the right address at the right time at the right price should be easy right it wasn't I couldn't buy what I needed so I built it fulfillment com not just for me but for thousands of other businesses just like yours hey we can't help you if we don't talk to you so we're not going to take too much your time just a short call to gather some information so that we can delight you that's right its fulfillment dot coms goal to delight all of our clients. Book a call today with Fulfillment dot com because we get ship done [Music] They already pick up on the fact that I speak with an accent so I'm gonna try to take it slow so you can follow and even though I work in New York City my accent is not from Brooklyn. I am actually from Norway and I know what you're thinking I'm supposed to be tall and blond but that didn't really happen for me. However as you all know as entrepreneurs, it can be tough and when I started out early on before my journey in entrepreneurship I was actually six foot five blond with blue eyes and I have a picture to prove it so this is before and here you have the result after. Okay let's get into it what's a brand right? So a brand is named the sign a symbol anything that distinguishes a product from the rivals in the eyes of the consumer that's a brand, okay? Why does it matter? Because what we're going to talk about today is of course the seven steps of brand building which ultimately leaves leads to wealth creation the creation so what's the power what's the difference so here it says what makes a consumer willing to pay more for the same item it's a basic white t-shirt right and in the example on the bottom it's the haints 3-pack the Hanes 3-pack you can buy for $8.50. Nautica it's a brand a little more elevated they have a basic white tee for 1950 Ralph Lauren higher level bren 3 or 3950 up to 55 and lastly John Varvatos at the sign a t-shirt yes $98 to $148 dollars basic white tee. So what makes people willing to pay more for in essence the same product? Well it's brand equity. Brand equity is the value of your brand in the mind of the consumer and that is a folks is how you make them feel about your brand. when we now start on the seven steps: why? why did I create the 7 steps ? what's the value in having a brand and brand equity? well if you don't have anything that sets your product or your services apart from the competition, what are you left to compete on? That's right price. Your only left to compete on price and if all you have to compete on this price you will find yourself in what I like to say or call a death spiral race to the bottom because there's always someone out there that's willing to work on a lower price or lower margin. So that's why we brand. step one : one this one mission one brand so first start with a mission statement. it's the company's core purpose it's what we do it is what problem do we solve you focus on what's important it identify core markets and communicate corporate direction to all stakeholders and here's a good example. Google to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful clear mission everyone can rally around that now let's go to division so the vision is your aspirational description of your objectives it's what you're aspired to do it's to what end why and of course if your why is to become filthy rich quick that's good and your mom might like it but you are often and I always find you're better off when you're providing a service or a value for others here's a good example Ford to become the world's leading consumer company for automotive products and services make sure though that you make the vision statement realistic because vision without execution as you all know is hallucination. So we were talking about the Harley earlier, well that's another great brand and what are the most important aspects of great brands they have to be authentic credible and aspirational. Here are a couple of very successful brands I bring them up primarily because as we are all here as entrepreneurs I want to remind you these are some of the most successful brands of our times so Nike for instance it was founded by a college athletes and his coach that college athlete was Phil Knights it was back in 1964 they had an idea for an athletic brand their market cap today is somewhere between 120 - 130 billion dollars depending on what day you check with the market turbulence. McDonald's Ray Kroc he was a milkshake mixer salesman but one day he got an order for multiple mixers to one location he thought that was odd anyone to check it out as they say the rest is history and McDonald's has a market cap of 130 billion dollars, if we go to the tech space Apple , Steve Jobs have they've topped a trillion and of course Jeff Bezos and Amazon they're hovering somewhere between eight hundred and seventy five and again to eight hundred seventy five billion to one trillion dollar market cap so the point is these were individuals these were entrepreneurs no different than any of you in the room they had an idea they had a vision and this is the end result so if you can dream it you can achieve it. Step 2: Concentration dominates. You have to analyze strengths and weaknesses of your business people. Don't plan to fail, they fail to plan and hope is never a strategy. You have to do your planning so the SWOT analysis is start by looking at your strengths. what is your unfair competitive advantage? Maybe it is your brand. Maybe it's an algorithm maybe it's unique product you should identify it to optimize your business weaknesses. Well for instance if you are selling apparel online the return rate typically hovers somewhere between 30 to 35 percent; in the brick and mortar, return rates are somewhere around 8%. That would be one thing to look at, how do you mitigate that? There are new technology sales opportunities. Are there opportunities in new markets new products . what about voice search and lastly what are some of the threats again if you're importing products from China come January if nothing changes there will be tariffs slapped on of 25% what will that do to your business so these are the things that you have to look at. so we have a little bit of a system where we said does your brand pass? So first we look at product quality. we anticipate customer needs, we obviously wants to have superior distribution, we want to optimize the distribution and lastly strategic pricing and it comes to strategic pricing I always like to institute a treat here to price strategy does not does no matter what product what level it can be luxury it can be open end I always do three tiers good better best. So for instance let me give you an example show of hands how many people thinks $128 dollars for a pair of jeans is expensive? Yeah I'm getting hands yes $128 dollars that's pretty expensive now I'm gonna assume that I know the answer to this how many people thinks 498 dollars for a pair of jeans is expensive there you go so it is expensive what did we do when we wanted to sell 128 dollar coogee jeans all day long we created coogee Lux and we priced the Coogee Lux gene at four hundred ninety eight dollars and then we took every coogee customer and we walked them past the Coogee Lux gene and each and every buyer had to hear that this is the Coogee luck gene for four hundred and ninety-eight dollars by the time they got to the Coogee gene and they were ready to make a purchase the hundred and twenty eight dollars sounded outright cheap and we sold a ton of jeans business jumped out to over 100 million dollars in less than one and a half years. Okay brand the feeling so these are the initial components of building a compelling brand so brand DNA so the brand DNA is in essence what makes your brand unique so you tried to identify what sets the brand apart what makes it special what are the aspects I once you may have seen in the video I was part of doing the largest celebrity deal ever done three and a half billion dollars for Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony would Kohl's and I once spent two days locked in Jennifer Lopez's closets it was quite exciting it was all for the purposes of identify what was the brand DNA what was unique about the brand and what determine what it was supposed to look like and I have no fair her closet is larger than the room that I'm staying in and and it's catered to 24/7. So we look at when we look at brand DNA we look at product design for D then brand name and lastly the brand assets DNA first here's an example of what we do with the design so we might just mentioned coochy coochy was originally a sweater a multicolored multicolored highly patterned sweater here models died by Dr. Huxtable so when we now created the street where Brad we captured dose the movement we captured a color and this is what coogee streets were looked like and as I said it worked and we built a hundred million brand literally in 18 months. when you're looking at product name please make it simple make it clear make it work . I ran Phat fashion's Phat farm and baby phats and once upon a time when Russell Simmons formed the founded Phat farm. Phat was the coolest thing you could ever be that you could ever say because Phat stood for pretty hot and tempting Phats so this was pretty hot and tempting and it came from the farm that's where you grow stuff.However by the time the brand hit mainstream, by the time you were ready to go into every single department store there wasn't a kid out there that used to term phats so the only thing that happened was aid the brand now dated or the name dated the brand and number two no one used to term anymore and the reality is too mainstream buyers from the large national retailers retailers originally thought we were coming with some formal weight loss products. Another example, who in here has heard of Justin Timberlake? Almost everybody right okay good. Who in here has heard of william rests william rests ic0 hence william rests is Justin Timberlake's clothing collection. it is what happens when you over think it's so william r ass it's the middle name of justin's and his partner's grandfathers names so it's so cool that nobody knows the connection and they're getting none of the benefits from Justin's very large following and fame so keep the name simple and straightforward. Lastly Brant acid packaging so I always say nothing sells products as well as product. However you need more than just product if it was true that you only needed the product cereal would be sitting in the clear plastic bags you could just see the product but as we all know that's not true is it so packages packaging is important and in the Director consumer space it is specifically important because you actually have to sell your product twice. First you're selling it when you make the emotional connection and they're on your website or they're interacting with a brand the first time and they make a purchase then the product gets shipped out by now they've had a fight with their spouse it's raining outside and the other shitty day at work and your product arrives and it needs to sell itself one more time it needs to look unique it leads to look appealing so you can rekindle that emotion so that's packaging emotions they matter emotions make decision nobody needs some other products so we're buying because of the feeling your products creates have a Coke and a smile or Apple think difference which was a play on IB ends think so or Amazon the world's most consumer centric Brent these are all emotional statements that you can connect with so as you heard me say in the video it says here to your customer will always remember how you make them feel I'll take that a little further and say they may remember what you say they may even remember what you do they will never forget how you make them feel okay master to touch so this is about brand consistency strong and powerful brand maintain consistency throughout so for physical its logo its signage letterhead and business cards products shop concept events and experiences and all of these attributes says something about you and about your brand so I brought our celebrity lifestyle brands business card and this is what our car does so not so unique not so special however it sets us apart it says something about us and our business you need to of course maintain brand consistency also in the digital space your website ecommerce apps social media and even the smaller things like the email signature I just mentioned our company celebrity lifestyle brands and here you see how we sign off and the reality is consistency in brands should permeate everything that you do and it includes you it includes your brand ambassadors it it includes every single consumer touchpoints alright innovates communicates so you've all heard if you build it they will come but I've added really because the reality is in this cluttered marketplace if you build it and you don't tell them about it nobody will come not one single soul they don't care there's too much information so and in this group you're all sophisticated so you know you need to deploy all of these resources video viral campaigns consumer engagements social media blogs editorial paid and targeted ad campaigns Facebook everything you can think of guerilla marketing all of the above way back when before we had all these social media I launched my first business back in the mid eighties and it was Scandinavia's first home delivery of pizza so it didn't exist until I launched my business and I thought I had corner tomorrow kids when I got the write up on the cover of the business section of the weekend paper and the phone started ringing as soon as people picked up their for their papers by early morning even though we didn't open little tooth until 3:00 by early morning my phone system had broken down and later in the afternoon one of the pizza trucks broke down we ended up delivering soggy cold pizzas three to four hours after people called for him it was a disastrous way to launch a business and if it wasn't for the fact that the idea was so good we would have been out of business before we ever started so you only get one shot at making a first impression you might as well make it a good one this was a terrible launch on to a couple of really powerful launches this thing is amazing so this is referred to as the hangman hangman ad and this is how the Tommy Hilfiger brand actually launched this is a billboard from New York Times Square and as you can see it says the four great American designers from n R and then you have the R and L and everyone knows Ralph Lauren the next one you may not know that's Perry Ellis Calvin Klein and then no one knew what the T&H was so that's how the Tommy Hilfiger brand launched and it got instant credibility by approximation the neighborhood of those other leading designers led to an affirmation of the brand now it pissed them all off but they got over it and the Tommy Hilfiger brand is today a brand that enjoys seven and a half billion dollars in annual sales another great launch was the launch of Daymond John's FUBU so as Damon said in his book the power of broke they had no money so they had to be really creative when it came to promoting the brand back in Hollis Queens where they are originally from there are metal gates in front of all of the stores the FUBU guys offered to clean and paint all the gates in return for putting their logo on the gates a lot of the store opener owners agreed and at nights this start of brand FUBU would have his logo on every single storefront all over Queens but that wasn't the launch Damon then spoke to his friend LL Cool J. LL Cool J became a brand ambassador and then they did two things they went to a trade show called magic and they had six salespeople and they told every single one of those guys to call every single one of their buyers and invite them all to come to the booth at nine o'clock in the morning on the first day of the show and every single one of those salespeople said can't do that they won't work but of course they did and fear is a phenomenal motivator so every other buyer that hadn't gotten the call came in to the trade show and so this one booth completely mobbed and surrounded by buyers and they were all petrified of losing out and that was part of the launch the second part of the launch was the gap commercial yes gap commercial a 30 million dollar gap commercial and gap reached out to the FUBU spokesman LL Cool J had asked if he would appear in a commercial forum they did not had a headwear on the time and ll asked could he bring his own hats so I'm gonna play that commercial for you I want you to look out for LLS hats and I think you will be able to see F beyond the hats and then I want you to listen to the lyrics because foo BER is an acronym and it stands for for us by us so listen for for us buyers on the low in the middle of a 30 million dollar gap commercial yes so as it says the price goes to innovative I will take it one step further innovate or die a 30 million dollar FUBU commercial launched a brand even though sponsored by the Gap okay step 6 cover your assets this is important because as you start building your business and building your brand you don't want it to be all for naught so there are trademarks you used ads for brands logos slogans etc copyrights for all the creative work books lyrics and then patents for innovations processes this is what can happen if you run afoul of it so Jennifer decided that she wanted to launch a fragrance with Cody a million dollar multi-million dollar company in the space and they wanted to call it glow it was glow by j.lo and they were so set on it that even when they found out there's a company out there called glow industries they went ahead anyway well glow industry file filed the suits they blocked the launch of Jennifer and Cody's fragrance they held him up tied him up for over a year and glow industries a tiny company had their biggest payday when they collected millions of dollars before Jennifer and Cody were able to launch don't let that happen to you ok we're at step 7 pedal to the metal so we talked about brand equity quick reminder it's the intangible asset that gives a branding for mental value in the mind of the consumer and it's of course created through implementing the branding process now here's a quiz so why show hence it says which comes with a premium price thanks to brand equity the wants to think hits the green box show hands I see no hand soap here in delights the grey box show ends I got half ahem purple box no okay how about the turquoise box okay I'm getting a lot of hints that's right so Tiffany the high-end jewelry company has in essence made their turquoise color cinnamons with their brand so it's a powerful message known by by discerning consumers everywhere so strong brand equity this is why we love it that is a profit faucet do we all want a profit faucet of course we do we get it through strong brands so what does a strong brand and brand equity allow you premium pricing increase cash flow it lowers customer acquisition costs and the asset can be sold or licensed so that's what's so powerful about brands I have the utmost or respect for anyone that builds a business anyone that is in business is wonderful but if you have no brand and if you have nothing else as we talked about you're forced to compete on price not only that you have to reinvent your business over and over and over again and you're just as strong as your last transaction with a brand not only do you get to benefit from the business you build a today you are creating an assets fad fashions - remember I said I ran fat farm and baby fat the company was sold no I take that back the company wasn't sold the IP the intellectual property only was sold for a hundred and forty million dollars to a company called Kel woods and Kel wood had to put a hundred and forty millions on their books as an assets under goodwill that's the power of building a brand that's what Russell Simmons did I am NOT working closely with Bethenny Frankel one of the original housewives from Housewives of New York she has created a brand called skinny girl skinny cocktail Skinnygirl margarita maybe some of you heard of it she gave birth to that brand while on the TV show and a couple of years later only a couple of years later she sold the alcoholic beverage rights only again just the IP there was no company she just sold the alcoholic beverage rights to Bheem Centauri for a hundred million dollars that's the power of brand and brand equity now the brand equity can be enhanced how step one with celebrity endorsements target the right celebrity influencer structured optimal deal leverage their fan base every celebrity worth their salt has now a massive social media following top right that's Gigi Hadid Gigi Hadid has around 45 million followers on the Instagram alone she did a partnership with Tommy Hilfiger they created the Tommy Gigi collection we heard earlier Tommy Hilfiger was mentioned that's one of the format's Tintin for most influential men's collections or men's designers was never asked relevant with women went out and did the deal with Gigi and overnights they had instant credibility they blew the business up now this may sound complicated but we are here to help have no affair so celebrity lifestyle brands our company we have a booth outside if anyone is interested in working with celebrities please see Greg Ryder my partner or myself outside and we can help you with that and it does a lot hey what are other ways you can put this brand equity on steroids and blow up your business with licensing two ways well if you are one of those guys that I would forced to compete in price get yourself a license you can license a strong brand name and all of a sudden as you could see you can charge a lot more for your products or your service if you have built a brand or if you have a brand well sign licenses these are brand extension you grant another company the rights to manufacture their product but on your own brand name and they pay you a royalty of fee so there are product licenses their territory licenses this is what you can do if you sell apparel you can add other items add fragrance bags shoes for instance when I took over fat farm and baby fats the company was actually losing a couple of million dollars a year I changed the operating model to 100% licensed and overnight. literally we went from losing a couple of millions to having between 40 and 50 million dollars in annual royalty revenue licensing. why do we love it? it's easy it's fast its cost-effective and its profitable so the last way to put your brand equity on steroids simple get yourself a board of advisers they provide non-binding strategic advice and they leverage their rolodex for your benefits as we often often say your network is your net worth it's informal it's flexible and it's a revenue multiplier let me give you one other example a lot of people have sought out tommy's Hilfiger's advice over the years Michael Kors legendary designer came to Tommy back in early two-thousands not for advice on how to grow his business no for how he could seamlessly actually end it all go out of business Tommy said not so fast firstly I think you should do this this and that to your business which entail focusing more on eye on accessories secondarily he leveraged his rolodex he called two of his former backers Lawrence troll and Silas chow he got them involved they deployed the necessary capital and michael kors have gone from being on the verge of going out of business in early 2000 to having a market cap of nine and a half billion dollars today so that's the power of having a good or strong Board of Advisors so on that note we have gone through the seven steps and my timer here in front of me is now blinking red so I will leave you with just one final time one final thought hmm I had wanted actually to add for another thing and that is just I went through the licensing part a little quickly I want to say if any of you are interested in talking to us about that we can help with that as well and then on to the last final thought and the final thought is really very simple: build a brand, create wealth, leave a legacy. Thank you [Music]
[Music] [Music] Alright alright alright how are you guys doing? Mr. Franklin Cruz everybody! He and I go way back so he likes to make fun of me it's okay! So uh let's just get into it huh let me take a pulse of the room, okay I thought I was getting some feedback. Raise your hand if you consider yourself a beginner marketer? You're kind of just getting started getting your feet wet haven't really got it going. Okay okay, because this presentation can go a few ways I want it to be as valuable as possible. If you consider yourself intermediate, you got going, you have some traction, you feel like you're getting the hang of things but you know you can go further. Okay, advanced marketers, you're crushing it, you're taking names and you want to take it to another level. Okay perfect! So it's a it's a good blend. I promise you there is something here for everybody. Okay i'm a little bit about me how does this work, okay so today we're going to be talking about what I consider the future of marketing and we're gonna cover three quantum leaps that you can make to your marketing and we're actually going to divide it in three kind of stages according to the question I just asked. If you're a beginner there's a quantum leap there's some quantum leaps you can make if you're at that stage, intermediate, advanced there's something here for everybody. Um okay so a little bit about what we do, a little bit about me. So what we do my company which is ten-minute funnels, it's an alternative to click funnels that's why he was making fun of me. It's an alternative to click funnels but it takes things to in other levels and you'll see exactly what I'm talking about so what my company does is we make marketing simple. We build technology that helps you turn a great idea into a successful online business and we do that through a software called ten-minute funnels which is basically a do-it-yourself easy-to-use sales funnel builder. So this is actually the first screenshots of the new version that we're gonna be releasing starting next month so this is I've never showed this to anybody but this is basically it, we provide a catalog of pre-built marketing funnels that you can just drop into your business and get results immediately. Now what makes it unique is, it takes the picture in your mind about what you want your marketing to look like, how you want it to flow and you can literally drag and drop it, connect it in the flow you want it to - how you want it to behave and it will just execute it for you automatically. Hey I'm Justin Singletary. You know what makes our fulfillment company unique? The fact that I've been in your shoes looking for an excellent fulfillment center. That's right I had a successful online business, when my company started to grow I went searching for a fulfillment center that could meet my high but very fair expectations. You know what I found, that that was very very hard to find. All I wanted was a fulfillment center that could ship the right product to the right address at the right time at the right price. Should be easy, right? It wasn't. I couldn't buy what I needed so I built it Fulfillment dot com not just for me but for thousands of other businesses just like yours. Hey we can't help you if we don't talk to you. So we're not going to take too much your time just a short call to gather some information so that we can delight you. That's right its Fulfillment dot coms goal to delight all of our clients. Book a call today with Fulfillment dot com because we get ship done [Music] mission two that we provide you with pre-built funnels for all different kinds of industry niches. Everyone has been proven in real markets with real dollar values so you know whatever you use is going to produce a lot of value for you so this is the drag-and-drop funnel builder and then of course you have a drag-and-drop ready, easy to use, what you see is what you get page builder. Okay so it's very very simple way to get powerful marketing techniques in in in a very short period of time and what we're about to release and you're the first audience I've shown this to, takes it to a level which no one has seen and I'll get into all of that today. Okay so a little bit about me, who am I? I am your typical geek turned marketer but I'm a I'm like I'm like a geek of geeks I've been programming since I was eight years old. If you if you slice my wrists ones and zeros would pop out, that's who I am at my at my core. When I was eight years old my dad introduced me to one of those super old computers with the green words on the screen and I just fell in love so while everybody was playing at playing sports and stuff I was hacking away at a computer and that's who I've been and you haven't been able to pull me off of it since. Now I fell into the world of marketing and online marketing through through web design so around '94 the world wide web kind of came onto the scene and my dad said hey why don't you try to figure this thing out people might be wanting to get on there so I started to build websites for people and I was like twelve years old and the money at that time was really really good so the whole appeal of like working for someone trading time for it never appealed for me to me because of how lucrative it was at that age so I pretty much been doing that ever since. So around the time I went into college is how I kind of put myself through college I had a couple of clients and they were asking me certain questions about hey can I, how can I get in there and do things myself how can I get in there and and and edit my website all by myself? Now I was in a pretty intense engineering program so I couldn't be as available as I wanted to be so one spring break I spent the time basically building a software that would help people get in and edit their website themselves now this is back at like 2001 2002 so there was no WordPress there was no anything and so I built what at least I consider based on what I saw was the first drag and drop visual page builder so all the stuff that you see right now. You know not to brag cause I don't know one day someone will prove me wrong but I think we had the very first drag and drop page building technology and I just kind of gave it to my clients and said here's a way you can do it and I gave him a little PayPal link and then left it alone and it just boomed into this thing that is basically what we are today it just took on a life of its own and that's kind of how I fell into the world. Well the next question was okay I can build my site I can get in there and do it, well how do I make it work? How do I make it succeed? And so that's where we were basically forced as a company to really learn online marketing and so through that we built a product called 10 minute pages and that was all about marketing and then that product evolved into what we are today which is ten-minute funnels which is all about giving powerful proven marketing funnels to people easily easily. So it's built, we've built over 275,000 landing pages about a hundred thousand funnels for almost 40,000 clients and through that we collect a lot of data obviously so we have certain insights that most people don't and so we've observed certain patterns about marketing that seemed to work and a lot of those patterns aren't necessarily what the Guru's tell you is the right thing to do. So everything I share with you is based on real world data this is stuff that we've seen and we have a huge data set to to to tell you this. So would you like to know some of what these are? These are very actionable things that you can do in your business. So I'm gonna share three quantum leaps you can make in the next 90 days based on our observations if you just take I'm gonna be going through a lot of them and you might not be able to take in everything but if you just take a few just like anything that jumps out at you and just make a note I'm gonna implement this it will help you these are these are fairly Universal they're not unique to individual situations. Okay so these are powerful, okay so the first quantum leap is just all about the funnel okay so I'm talking to beginners but if you have if you have a funnel pay attention because we're gonna get extreme in advanced really really quick okay a funnel we've seen can three to 10x your business when you do it right okay and some of these strategies are some of the better strategies we've seen and easily approachable strategy. Okay so we have a unique way we view funnels it's not doesn't follow the the typical paradigm and so I'm gonna give you kind of a top-level overview of how we look at funnels so you can approach it the right way so instead of specific little tactics hey put this on your page put that on your page it's better if you approach it strategically first and then of course I'll give you a few tactics. Okay so first off understand it's gonna sound basic but we're gonna build up the goal in any marketing campaign is to influence behavior. That's really what we're trying to do, someone gets to our sales page or our hour order page they're either ready to buy or they're not so they either take that behavior of buying or they don't so we're trying to influence that behavior always. Okay funnel marketing is a structured way of how we influence behavior okay we're starting real basic but we're gonna build up now behaviors are a reaction to someone's belief system. Okay what do they believe at the time if someone does not buy when you want them to buy it's because they did not believe whatever it need whatever they needed to in order to buy so every single marketing campaign in every single business anytime you want someone to do something it's based on this. Okay, customer journey is basically a representation of different beliefs at different times. Someone who goes through your entire marketing process has to go through a sequence of belief changes in order to be ready to buy, opt in ,etc and that's why we have you know an opt-in page where I put my email that's why a lot of the stuff the speaker was just talking about with SMS and stuff it's all about trying to change someone's belief to get to to to to take the action you need them to take. Okay so your customer journey is the journey they take on the way to arriving at the belief you need them to have, a funnel is just a map of how we intend to influence that behavior that's all. It is so in a little I'm going to show you some funnels and they might seem a little complicated and I'm doing this on purpose because the funnels is just a map of the different ways we're influencing different behaviors that they have at different times. Now most people have a very simple funnel and nothing's wrong with that they do very very well and it's basically a linear a journey you want your customers to take in order to buy and maybe buy again and those are great however if you want to go to the next level you want to track or or or take inventory of the different belief systems they have in the customer journey and then you'll create what I call little micro funnels to influence each behavior. I'll give you examples so here's how we design a funnel I'll probably have to breeze through and if we have some time at the end I can do a deeper dive but this is the foundation, this is how you construct the funnel okay so we start out with what is the primary belief that they need to have before they buy then we go backwards what do they need to believe before this and just keep repeating so if you can map out the belief system sequence that they need to have and you design little micro funnels to counteract each belief or to produce each belief you will see results you've not seen before. Okay so we're setting up this foundation now once we have the belief mapped out we need to ask ourselves what can we say or provide to bring about that belief? The absolute best way that I've seen to change a change belief there's many ways to do it is to provide proof okay some proof you need them to believe that your product is better than the show proof okay so I talked about micro funnels which is how will we influence this belief so every behavior that someone takes on your site or on that customer journey there is a micro funnel framework to influence that behavior and what I've seen is the funnels that do mediocre versus the funnels that absolutely kick butt it's how many of these little micro funnels that they're using to change these beliefs because if you think about it why doesn't someone buy why doesn't someone take action it's because they don't believe they don't they're not there yet and so if you have a little microphone to influence that belief and and every belief they can have now you have a you know a funnel. So a couple examples let's say someone lines at your shopping cart your checkout page and then they don't buy okay most checkout pages 10% at best 90% of them leave, why? Well we can ask them and once we know we can have what we call an abandoned cart micro funnel that will change that belief okay let's say at the beginning of the funnel you have people they have an urgent problem something's wrong, that's why we have a lead capture funnel, okay because we're gonna deliver some value to fix their urgent problem and that will get them through the funnel. Okay if they're ready to buy we have a shopping cart funnel, let's say they want it you they've been with you for a while but they're just not taking action. I we have what we call a Rainmaker funnel which is basically a flash sale where you just say hey there's now no reason not to buy let's just get you in there. And these work extremely extremely well. So here's a couple these are screenshots of our software of some of these micro funnels that you just get with you know one-click so we have the lead funnel sales funnel you know there's dozens of them, upsell funnel, fulfillment funnel, event funnels. There were tons of them but basically every single belief system or behavior that you want to change there is a micro funnel that can do that. Okay so this is the part we're gonna have to speed through but this is the this is the process these are the steps so you can take a picture and if there's time just shout it out I'll go through this in more detail but this is the structure we follow to bring about a change of belief. Okay we find the problem we produce a promise and we then we give a little offer and then we could go and you see the proof of how to do that and then what you see here you don't it's not about what it's doing it's the structure okay we're basically taking people through different belief changes. Okay so to get the sale we have to change you know beliefs and underneath each one is how you bring about that change. I'm happy to give these slides to you but basically that this is this is how you do it the best funnels follow this strategy. Okay then of course there's ongoing optimization this is a little acronym grow how you grow you gather insight and ideas so that's talking to your customers putting feedback mechanism so you can see why they're taking certain behaviors. You do your research on that calling them up on the phone, you go on surveys and see why are they doing that, you look at your data, your analytics okay then you validate your ideas of how to do it. So what microphone is am I going to introduce and then what works you scale as in widen and what doesn't work you suppress it's simple it is simple you follow this process you get extraordinary results. Okay so here are a few tactical things that you can do take any of these and drop it in your in your funnel right now and you will see results you will see results the great thing about this and everything I'm about to go through is these are all additives why by that I mean by putting these on your page and on your funnel you can't hurt sales it's very very hard I should say to hurt sales by doing these. Okay so by adding retargeting it's very hard for that for you to lose by doing that, by putting an upsell after someone has already bought something it's very hard it's impossible for you to lose so just adding these alone will grow your business. How well you do that is another story but it's if you don't have it you need to do so follow retargeting upsells having a proof bar out I can show you that. Daily emails if you're not sending emails it's an absolute must okay and bimonthly rainmakers you can expect $20 per open so just do the math on that and these are these are things you can do at this stage. Okay hopefully that was a little bit valuable if you have a funnel and you do these things you will you will see growth let's take it up a notch because this is what excites me okay this is where we get into the world of automation okay done right I've seen three to 10x growth on top of everything we've we've already talked about in the first step. This is all about influencing more behaviors okay this is about taking inventory of more behaviors that are people are doing and influencing them in other creative ways. Okay so a few tricks for this for this stage we can trigger various sequences or campaigns based on video watch time someone who watches 10% of a sales video is very different from someone who watches 90% of a sales video you should be communicating with them very very differently so triggering different micro funnels or campaigns based on that we'll always help okay an abandoned cart sequence lots and lots of people are getting to your buy page your checkout page and they're leaving what are you doing about that okay adding more mechanisms of communication that last presentation touched on this webinars SMS a call center Direct Mail wingless voicemail these are all things that you can use to communicate the the sales element to change that change those behaviors okay we can go through any of those here's some examples this is a campaign by a marketer a very smart marketer he's out in Australia and he had he had a an event like this right and he did over two hundred thousand dollars in two weeks with this funnel this is a screenshot of our software I've actually printed this out and if you want a copy of this just go to the back where you did the checkout and and you can have one of these but basically this funnel is an example of what we're talking about you can see he's bringing traffic in a few different traffic sources and they're going to a sales page typical funnel behavior however he is basically segmenting his list based on how they respond so for example he might send out an email that's that that has one angle of why they should attend his event the people that click on that email will receive a different message on the sales page then the next email he might send out which is another reason they should attend the event so essentially he's segmenting people based on who they are and what they are all about so one might be we're gonna talk about paid advertising the people that click on that email are different from the people who click on the one about e-commerce marketing or something else you get what I'm saying this is very very powerful in two weeks with a local segment of his list he did over two hundred thousand dollars here's another one that illustrates this this is my buddy Jason Hornick this is an 800 percent ROI a campaign very very powerful what he does is he has again he's segmented his audience and he's sending out different communications so these are blog posts he's sending about in different categories of who his customer is and he's sending Facebook ads to each one so essentially he's attracting different types or different segments of his prospect audience and he's sending them through the funnel for different communication uses so using retargeting he's able to send them back through the funnel with with a messaging based on who they are so it's like a conversation for each person very very powerful and then if you follow it he basically takes them through a sequence of upsells step one step two then he has a webinar step one step two and that's it it's not complicated it really isn't so even though there's a lot of pictures on the screen what it is is different behaviors different beliefs and different little micro funnels to bring about that last one is Ryan Levesque super smart guy he's doing way better even now but this is a campaign that does one hundred and fifty thousand leads per day okay very simple funnel he takes them through he asks them certain questions are you a male or are you a female in many markets this a big difference if you're a female that the conversation is very different if you're a male different so there's a process of uncovering what are the different segments of your audience and you want to basically bring different communication sequences different customer journeys for each segment this is how you take a a mediocre performing funnel to an advanced high level and I'm not talking about little bumps I'm talking about two three four X growth of a typical marketing funnels this is a quick funnel that we did super super powerful it's a it's it's modeled after a friend of mine and I'll tell you his numbers this campaign is basically four videos that goes out okay and he's selling a product for four for $2,000 okay he found that if people get through and watched the fourth video ninety percent of them zero percent of them will buy okay I've never seen conversions like that at all okay the way he's able to get 90% conversions buying a two thousand dollar product is by sending these follow-up emails based on video watch time simple if someone watches 10 percent of the video these are the sequence of emails that happen if someone gets through 90 percent these are the sequence so all he's doing is if you didn't finish the video he sends two follow-up email saying hey go back and watch go back and watch go back and watch by the time they get so he gets a lot of people to watch all his videos and that triggers that 90 percent conversion rate I hope you're seeing this is this is unheard of this is very very powerful and also not not complicated okay is this making sense making sense are you ready to take it up a notch because what I'm about to share nobody's doing nobody's doing so where we're at in the marketing space at least how we see it is what I just talked about is the peak or the extremes of marketing okay where we have sophisticated automation happening based on what people are doing on and off your website and this can this can explode your business where we're going now as a market is to the next level and this we've seen we're starting to see the results this will catapult your business again and this is where we use intelligence by intelligence I mean artificial intelligence and I know that word might sound scary but it's not as scary as it sounds is that yeah okay to me this is the holy grail of marketing because all we've been trying to do as online marketers is we're trying to replicate what we know works the best at scale what works the best is when I'm talking to someone face to face and I can mirror everything I can see what they're doing every eye twitch everybody move I can adapt my presentation to them based on what I'm seeing okay a lot of you are might be sales and coaching and so you get high conversions that way it's not uncommon that three out of four people you talk to on a one-on-one basis we'll do business with you okay and that's because it's one-on-one adaptive marketing all we've been doing since the internet began is trying to find a way to replicate that at scale and what I've seen in the research and the testing that we've done is that I think we're finally here or really really close and this is extremely powerful this is where we can adapt to the behaviors people are exhibiting in real time okay so it show your funnel is just is just like a conversation so in the last quantum leap we talked about how you can predict you can document the different behaviors that people are taking with this is you can detect the behaviors that you see happening and the intelligent system can automatically adapt to it I'll give you some examples Amazon Prime there are trillion-dollar Amazon is a trillion dollar company what right now and I think it's enlarged Lee in part to what I'm talking about they've been doing this for many years and they've exploded as a result in 2013 five years ago they were getting seventy five percent conversion rates thirty five percent of all their sales came from what I'm talking about intelligent adaptive funnels so they will look at your browsing patterns of what pages you're seeing how long you stay on the page and they will basically give product recommendations based on that they will look at I remember and I flipped out when I saw it I was in the market for a television and I was browsing a couple then I started getting emails about that television that I was just looking at checking out and what did I do I ended up buying the television this is extremely powerful because it's talking to me and only me based on what I'm doing intelligent adaptive predictive funnels give you a couple examples we can watch the mouse movements that your prospects are taking through your funnel we can see people who are little who are hesitating they're exhibiting the behaviors of a buyer or a non buyer and based on algorithms you can say hey this is that we classify this person as a non buyer let's introduce a behavior microphone will change okay a little pop-up window says hey you might so you may have seen things like call them exit Papas where the mouse is moving to leave the screen and something comes up and that works really well this takes it to a whole other level where someone can just be scrolling down the page doing what they're doing behaving the way they normally behave and the system can pick it up because exceeds what everyone else has done and says hey this is this is someone who's getting ready to leave when you do things like that it's just it's insane okay for example how many of you know that your landing page speed is a direct correlation with your conversions the faster your pages load the higher your conversions okay well what if you could predict click behavior so you can look at your funnel and see what pages are people likely to click on next and what if you could preload that page in the background so you get instant page speeds instant so our technology we have what looks to be there like some of the fastest page speeds on the planet because we're able to predict what people are gonna do next so just by taking an existing campaign that might be on a different technology and using something like ours you can get conversion increases email look-alikes this is powerful a lookalike audience on like Facebook is where you can upload a list of your customers and using its network it's always its intelligence more artificial intelligence using its network it will find other customer other people who are like that and you and if any of you have experimented with that it's very powerful well you can do that yourself with your email you can say here are my customers who are the people who I want to find others like and so now you can send emails to those people who are likely to be customers before they're actually customers another one LTV prediction this is also very powerful based on behavior matching you can predict the lifetime value with a good level of accuracy it's not perfect but it doesn't need to what their lifetime value is gonna be if you do any of this stuff you know how powerful that is it takes many many months to know what the lifetime value of a customer is well you can predict that and so your marketing changes if some if a brand new person comes in and they are matching the behavior characteristics of someone who who spends ten thousand dollars with me I'm gonna market to them differently I can take more risks with that person so this stuff is extremely powerful I could go into more detail but there's lots and lots of things that you can do to start to get to that holy grail of that one-on-one marketing and what we're seeing is that there is quantum leaps improvements with each of these which each of these categories of things that you can do when you do these things so in summary I'm gonna just summarize all this and show you guys how you can get some of this technology the minimum cost to do this yourself is like a hundred thousand dollars because a lot of this technology is brand new it's just coming onto the market and there's just a few providers to do it we've built tech we spent all this here building tech and testing to do all of this stuff for you automatically and we're starting to see results that are you know they're they're very very very powerful and so where we're at in our phase because we're gonna be launching this in 2019 is we're trying to do case studies to validate the results that we're seeing okay so if you'd like to have this done for you we're doing the case studies because we need to prove the numbers that we're seeing okay so I'm just gonna go through because Nate asked me to a couple of ways that we can work together if you're interested so if you want everything we're working with a few people one on one to produce case studies with what I've been talking about because this is this is where we do all the work for you so we've been doing case studies all this year and we're at the final leg and we have a few more spots if you're interested basically to qualify you need to have a hundred thousand transactions of some kind orders email us because that's where you get the maximum value okay and so in this we build out and launch a campaign that will beat your best marketing campaign over the last six months by 50% or more that's basically what we're what we're trying to do for you okay if this is you and you're interested it's simple just text me and we'll see if it's a fit or not okay quantum leap one and two this is advanced funnels and extreme automation so this is where you use our technology and then we work closely to help you reach success so we're doing a pre-release of our Xtreme automation software the first week of November official launch is January but like I said we need we're looking for case studies so if you wanted it's 497 a month but Nate asked me to offer a special deal for add some people and so basically for the price of 10 months you'll have it for 16 months we've never done a deal like that so basically if you do that you won't see a renewal payment until March 2020 so 10 months up front you get it to March 2020 I've got the link down there it's not going to be a big pitch but basically if you're interested if this is something that could be a value for you there's an opportunity to get it no one else has it this is right now because we're launching next year if you want quantum leap number one which is just a funnel building part this is where you do the work we still help and there's just basic funnels it's not automation but it still can get you great results it's 197 a month but also same deal applies price of 10 months you have it for 16 months so if you're interested simple go to that URL down there 10 minute funnels comm slash event if you're interested in us actually working hands-on with you we're not an agency but we're doing just a couple of case studies before the end of the year text me we're only gonna do it for probably about five more people so it's kind of first-come first-served if it's interest you can text me my things right there a couple bonuses if you're interested we've got pre-built funnels 1.3 million dollars of pre-built funnels in there at any level if you get these are plug-and-play funnels that have worked in our businesses that you can just plug in yours we're doing a five-week funnel building workshop where we go into detail on this stuff and this is the first time that I'm offering myself for one-on-one assistance because again the goal is getting these case studies in place for what we're trying to do next year okay personal guarantee is six takes sixty days to try an ROI 100% risk-free money back the goal isn't to pitch or to get a bunch of sales that's not what we're trying to do my personal selfish goal is I want to prove this out I want to really prove that the numbers we've seen we are seeing are as good as we're saying they are and no one would believe us unless we can show real hard evidence we've been doing it for three quarters so far this year and so we're on the last leg if this is of interest to you just let me know okay and that's it I'm out of time but if you've got any questions I'd be happy to answer one or two maybe one one [Music] you [Music]
[Music] Hey guys it's Brit Lane with Ingenious Marketing and today on FDCs EECOM education blog we're going to talk about is SEO and e-commerce. So I will bring to your attention three tools that will help you rank your site and get it to be much faster so you can have the opportunity for ranking for more keywords at Google so the first tool is called SEM rush com. This tool is really cool in that they will enable you to conduct an SEO audit for your website which will give you detailed information as to what you can do to get your site to be optimized. You're going to have 30 to 50 different data points as to what you can do. I highly suggest running the tool, getting the information and then fixing what it says to fix and then rerunning the tool to see how high your score has become. The second tool is Google's page insight tool, now this tool will enable you to see how fast your website is to users on desktop applications and mobile phones. Google is gonna enable you to put in a URL. You hit the submit button and within literally thirty seconds you're gonna get a lot of really good information as to how you can get your site to be faster in the eyes of Google. Why is this important? It's important because Google now says for your site to be able to rank you have to be able to have a better user experience and if you have a site that is fast you're giving consumers a better user experience, so at the end of the day faster is better for Google's users.The third is called GT metrics. GT metrics dot com, this tool is also another site speed tool that will enable your users to get to content that much quicker which also makes your site look even better in Google's eyes so if you look at using these three tools in conjunction with one another you're gonna have a site that is architectural sound. It's gonna be way faster when a user visits it via a desktop browser or a mobile phone application so I highly recommend using those three tools, spending a good amount of time to implement the changes that they recommend and then rerunning the tools to see how much better your scores have increased. This is Brit Lane from Ingenious Marketing. It's been a pleasure providing you with this information and I look forward to creating new videos for you guys in the future [Music]
One of my biggest concerns when seeking a fulfillment service provider was the ability to implement domestically but also scaling for international. My name is Michael Gardner I am the founder and CEO of Thin Energy, a health and wellness brand . I was in need of a company that can handle a to z customer service delivery domestically but also with the ability to scale international. One of the things that attracted me to Fulfillment.com was not only could they go to b2c but also they can actually help implement my brand into the fba amazon platform. One of the things that i was very impressed with was that the staff was very helpful from walking me through dashboard to implementation to fba for amazon very user-friendly and understanding that everything's a process so it's good to be part of another team that can actually enhance and amplify the success that we're seeking. From the setup to the billing, expectations were set very clearly and for me that meant something. Beyond just the services but also the integrity of the company which was really important for me in choosing a service provider. I would recommend Fulfillment.com to anyone that's looking to grow their business and also more importantly maintain their customer service at a high level and be able to set those expectations for themselves. The amount of success that we've had in a short period of time has been tremendous with Fulfillment.com I now have a true fulfillment partner.
My name is James lingk, I live in Los Angeles, California. Working the e-commerce space operating about 70-80 small websites some of the problems that led me to Fulfillment.com were my previous providers lacked in communication, their CRM integration lacked with me in kitty with our CRM samba comm was the second or third I reached out to and ultimately after speaking with their team and organization it was kind of a no-brainer at that point I'd say the process getting started with them was actually pretty easy I mean it just filled out their online inquiry and they reached out to me within 24 hours we did apples for apples comparison of my current fulfillment invoice and worked on pricing together to make it work and from there I was able to have an easy person to make a decision I think what stood out the most is their web presence and their user interface is extremely friendly very simple to use for a business owner and I can always see where my shipments are and if there's any issues kind of where to look and what to do my dream outcome was to get a solid team behind me to have any issues should arise to be able to solve them together quickly efficiently and try to get my cost down and I saw the infrastructure in place that I don't have to be constantly monitoring all my shipments that's what I'm able to do is become calm and the lifesaver for me everything all around been pretty solved I would highly recommend Finland [Music]
The logistical issues that we had had revolved primarily around speed of delivery of products, maintaining how quickly we can get a product out the door and managing all of the information so that we can actually be a more data driven company. My name is Michael Cantrell, I own a company called Next-Gen Mobile; we provide premium car care products. The main reason or problem that we made the move to Fulfillment.com was that we were growing at such an exponential rate our current fulfillment house was unable to keep up with the order magnitude we were bringing in and we were able to work with Fulfillment.com in such a way that now we are not having an eclipse which is term issues in our previous set up it was really just shifts the product and wait for it to arrive. Now with Fulfillment.com we're able to ship products, track products, we're able to see warehouse inventory management in real time. Those are all things that we were looking for is a company continue to grow the thing that goes well beyond what I anticipated is that Fulfillment.com has been able to allow us to grow in a way it does not matter how fast these. We started with one warehouse with Fulfillment.com we're now in - by the end of May we'll be in a third warehouse and I imagine by the end of summer, we'll be in a fourth warehouse so I know that from the top down Fulfillment.com has invested in their clients. They are invested in our success. I believe that a large part of our success as the company has come from partnered with a fella back home. [Music]
When there would be an increase in orders something would always have to give, and it was typically the time with my family which made it more difficult. My name is Dan Baer, I live in Charlotte, North Carolina. On a daily basis I'm either writing for my blog or thinking of new product ideas that use duty war military fatigues that allow me to give back to the veteran community and creative and sustainable ways. Before I found Fulfillment.com I had historically always done everything myself I was having a really hard time managing my time across combat flags the corporate job is my family when things got to the breaking point I ran a couple google searches and found a couple of other companies but they weren't as responsive as Fulfillment.com and I felt like Fulfillment.com was able to really kind of address each of my pain points and actually answer my questions without talking around an answer. Once I decided to move forward with Fulfillment.com it was remarkably easy. There was a hand off during the onboarding I met my account rep and now things are running extremely smoothly I just launched a new product last week and I sold I had a couple hundred orders come off a little in a few hours I knew that I didn't have to do anything Fulfillment.com had the product and they had everything mapped and ready to go and most of them are arriving today. So it's been really great I would say Fulfillment.com is perfect for anybody who's running an e-commerce business. Having them take the daily weight and stress of having to constantly fulfill and watch orders off of my plate, off of my shoulders has been amazing. I highly recommend looking into Fulfillment.com because it is well worth the investment to get that mental and physical energy back so that you're able to adequately put it back into your business. Fulfillment.com has definitely exceeded my expectations it's nothing short of awesome! [Music]
So I just got done with my second dive. Getting dive certified here in Bali and as a business owner if you don't have things automated it can be hard to break away. So one of the ways that I've been able to fully automate a section of my business is by using Fulfillment.com and what I mean by that is, it's really hard to manage inventory levels while selling online, as well as outgoing orders and I actually used to do all of that stuff in-house, managing employees and it also took a lot of my time to manage myself . So it simply switched over to them it was about two years back I've been able to work with an Account Manager that does everything for me. I'm able to break away for 16 days at a time and not have to worry about my outgoing orders. I have to worry about returns and not have to worry about label printing and inventory levels so thank you guys. Thank You Fred,my Account Manager over there and I just wanted to shoot this quick video and just say thanks, appreciate y'all!
We have an explosive business we can't handle this on our own and we needed somebody who can execute better than we could. My name is Matt Silver, I live in New York City and I own a health brand. I was expanding off of Amazon and I needed a 3pl with killer logistics with a killer interface and also we're looking for a fulfillment facility that can expand with our brand worldwide. We had problem fulfilling volume we have problem with logistics we had probable shipping and we needed a platform and a company that had all the pieces in one place for us to execute our orders. I had met Justin through general Boston I came highly recommended and fulfilment come work for us in flying colors he had a very good onboarding process, give us an account manager and worked with my team to get everything in place it was a pretty seamless process with a Fulfillment.com. We're better organized and we're postured for worldwide expansion. We're already available in twenty eight markets around the world I think Fulfillment.com is perfect for any aggressively growing e-commerce brand. I would recommend Fulfillment.com to any of my e-commerce friends and I already have and well Justin has a hell of reputation in the e-commerce world is also veteran. For my end is no better person to run logistics than Jewish military veterans. We're very happy with Fulfillment.com and the attention to detail that is company gifts to our company. We're happy with the service 100%!
We were shipping all sorts of stuff out of his garage we have no idea how to figure out and optimize different shipping costs and it was challenging to say the least. My name is Chaz Shively, I live in Denver, Colorado. I'm an entrepreneur and I own a couple of companies. One of them is Legendary Ventures which creates and sells health supplements and the other company is Prosper Wellness which creates health products. Back when we got started seven or eight years ago I started fulfilling my own products in my house with my two-year-old and four-year-old son in my life after awhile we grew to where we had so many products that wouldn't fit in a garage and luckily I had met somebody from Fulfiolment.com at a conference and the rest is history. At the time we started doing less than a million dollars a year in business and now we're roughly around ten million dollars a year so it's grown a lot. As a bit of a non control freak I did have some concerns about outsourcing a core component of our business and make sure that it worked well but it integrated so quickly and easily and out of all of our vendors, out of all the years that we've been in business well Fulfillment.com has never been a concern. Don't worry being an entrepreneur for twenty five years and just realize how things work and the things break and there are always issues and with Fulfillment.com it seems like there are never issues. Once you outsource to them everything is taken care of you don't have to worry about it. There's no question Fulfillment.com has fulfilled all the expectations that I had and exceeded them.
We're taking time away from saving a dog and saving a hero's life by shipping these materials out across the country. My name is David Sharpe, Founder and CEO of Companions for Heroes. We are a charity that saves shelter dogs and has them adopted by wounded veterans, active duty military spouses, gold star families and first responders across the country. We started selling apparel about two years ago and the process was convoluted to say the least. We had to get all these orders together at once, we had a very difficult time of sending that out and taking up a lot of our resources so now with our partnership we are now able to do that through Fulfillment.com's network. They take care of all the processing, our team doesn't have to worry about shipping out the order that's being done by Fulfillment.coms team now and our team is more focused on their job which is to save a dog and to save a hero from taking their lives or being killed. The process was simple and structured their welcome packet laid out step by step what we need to do and getting our product shipped out and spend tremendous Fulfillment.com is perfect for any scale business for the first time in the charity's 10 year running we're prepared for any type of orders that come our way thanks to Fulfillment.com