Scaling Up a Business, Influencer Marketing, Work-Life Balance, and More with Ryan Crowther.

Join us in this inspiring episode as Ryan Crowther, a tech-enthusiast, and sneaker lover, unwraps his journey from a phone repair technician to a multi-million-dollar business owner. His story, driven by self-belief and a willingness to learn, shows the transformative power of betting on oneself and turning opportunities into success. Learn about his experiences being mentored by his employer, the growth of his side business, and his foray into corporate sales.

In the heartful retelling of his success story, Ryan discusses the use of social media marketing in initial business days and how contacts with influential people propelled their brand to extraordinary heights. Discover how setbacks led to a deeper understanding of marketing strategies and ultimately to better results. Ryan stresses the importance of constantly evolving business strategies and resilience.

Get a glimpse into the world of big-time sales as Ryan delves deep into strategic goal setting and the balance between profession and family. He shares invaluable tips on effective sales, targeting, networking, and the necessity of maintaining customer-centricity. From keeping non-negotiable family commitments to staying dedicated to professional obligations, learn how to juggle a high-profile job with family life without losing sight of your passion.

Uncover the nuances of maintaining a relationship while running a business, set clear expectations, understand the demands, and establish boundaries. Our guest puts emphasis on open communication, early disclosures, and the potential challenges of delayed conversations. Journey into the corridors of a successful business and discover how to foster a work culture that inspires creativity.

Immerse yourself in Ryan's thoughts on building a successful workplace culture and how starting from the bottom and growing helps shape one's leadership. Learn the importance of fast learning, asking questions, and not being afraid to make mistakes. Ryan reveals his gratitude and how family and opportunities played huge roles in his journey to success. This episode seeks to inspire and motivate listeners on their journeys towards achieving success.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Music.

(00:16):
Yo, what's up, guys? Welcome to another episode of the GMRT experience.
Dude, we're on a roll, man. We've been recording. We've been steady.
We're bringing you guys a lot of value. Like, I'm making sure that you guys
get all kinds of information so you understand, you know, this path of success,

(00:38):
whatever success means to you.
You've got to have certain things for this recipe. But I'm excited for this podcast.
We're going to get a lot of game. We're going to get a lot of good nuggets here.
And welcome, bro. Thank you for having me. How do you introduce yourself?
Ryan Crowther, computer guy, shoe guy, whatever you want to call me.
Cool, cool, man. So, bro, tell us a little bit about who you are yourself and all of that.

(01:04):
That's a loaded question, I feel like. Ryan Crowther from Utah,
born and raised here, West Valley.
I don't know. So, like, first podcast. So, if I mess stuff up, bear with me.
I don't know, man. I feel like that's a tough question to answer, you know.
When someone asks you, you know, who you are, a lot of things come to mind.

(01:27):
I think a lot of us default to, you know, work.
I think work defines a lot of us at the end of the day. So, I guess we could start there.
Work, what I do, my work for Dan the Laptop Man.
You guys probably, a lot of you guys probably know him. who's been around a
long time. He's my main mentor.
He's driven me forward in life. I would say probably more than anybody else.

(01:49):
I started out of high school, just, you know, fixing phones.
That was always kind of the tech nerd of the family, the friends,
you know, I started there, like I said, started fixing phones,
a local company went out of business.
We were me and my buddy, Manny, we were lucky to pick up two locations kind of on the fly.
And so we went from one location to

(02:12):
three locations really really fast what year
was that that was that would have been let's see 2016 2017
maybe date wise i don't know my brain's bad with numbers uh when it comes to
dates and we were kind of bouncing you know we went from working together every
day in a really small almost kind of like nail salon type of size room to now

(02:38):
bouncing between three locations,
you know, getting parts, dealing with employees,
you know, which was an interesting thing to learn. But we made it work, you know.
It was tough. There were a lot of challenges.
I think the biggest thing we learned from that was how to deal with and manage
people, you know, from my car won't start to, hey, something more serious like

(03:03):
a family member passed away, right? You know, that...
That part of growth and dealing with people, I think, is one you just have to
experience to learn more or less.
So let me ask you this really quick. So how long were you running that with your friend?
Gosh, it would have been about two years. Two years? Two years.

(03:26):
And was that on the West Valley area?
Yeah. So we were right actually by Taylorsville High, right where we went to high school.
We there was a vacancy i
think we had like a thousand bucks in
our savings and we're like hey we'll sign this lease you
know we'll do a month to month and just see what happens you know

(03:46):
dude that's that's interesting because my first store was in west valley that's
crazy so i was in valley for mall so so i i really like as you were sharing
your story you were taking me back to 2018.
2019, those years, you know, all the, all the cool people that I met in West

(04:08):
Valley was, you know, as I'm going through my journey right now,
they played a big part, part of that because I was just starting out.
I didn't know what I was doing and, you know, they kind of like let me fuck
up a little bit and, and they weren't that rude.
Yeah. So that's really good. So from From that point, where do you start working

(04:32):
with Dan? How did that connection happen?
So Dan, funny enough, before, this is crazy.
So I kind of like, I didn't know like who had money in Utah,
more or less, you know, but I would always see this guy on TV, you know.
And I remember actually just cold. I think I sent him an email being like,

(04:53):
hey, bro, like you do computers.
I do phones. Like, do you want to have lunch maybe or something?
And I think I still have that email. The response said, yeah,
kind of like let's grab lunch and you know, whatever, we'll talk about it.
And that's kind of the same way he is today.
You can really, anybody that I've seen reach out to Dan, he's really good about
just giving them the time, you know?
So we had lunch and he was like, yeah, it's probably not my type of thing, you know, but good luck.

(05:21):
And then, funny enough, I started dating his niece at the time,
which is now my wife. Oh, wow.
But, you know, I can't remember. I think it might have been like Easter get
together or something. I went back up there. He's like, oh, like,
bro, like, how you doing?
You know, like, it's been a while. He's like, you're back. He's like, oh, you're back.
He's like, what are you doing now? I was like, oh, still doing the phone stuff, you know?

(05:43):
It's like, oh, really? He's like, for him, it was almost like a test to see
if I'd stick with it and like survive.
Because then shortly after that, he's like, let's talk again,
you know? And that's where he was really like, hey, like, you've done well.
You've stuck with it. That's kind of what I wanted to see.

(06:03):
What do you think about coming over to PC laptops and teaching all my retail guys phone repair?
You know and kind of integrating that into the stack you know next to computers yeah so,
that's kind of how I started with him you know and so I did that we got everybody
trained up on phone repair and you know I was more just like a techie type of

(06:28):
dude I didn't really care,
even from West Valley growing up like money was never like I never had it so
it wasn't like a goal type of thing per se it was just like oh work with computers
and phones it's cool it's you you know, nerdy. It's what I like to do.
And as I started going store to store, you know, I'd go from anywhere from Orem
to Ogden, across the valley, even to Vegas, you know, and teach these guys.

(06:50):
I started looking at the sales guys selling computers and be like,
seeing what cars they were driving, you know, the houses that these guys were
living in and stuff like this. And I'm like, oh, like.
That's kind of cool. You know, that's really when money started to be like,
oh, that that would be cool if I can do both, you know, do what I love with
computers, phones and still make money, make good money and have these things

(07:12):
like maybe that's what I want to do, you know.
And so I started, as I would train these guys on fixing phones,
I would start to listen to the sales guys at every single location and just
sit there for probably like an hour at the end of the day and just listen how they were interacting,
how they were helping solve these customers' problems.

(07:34):
Whether that be, oh, my computer's too slow to log into Facebook or like,
hey, I want to just be able to get on and video chat with my family who doesn't live here.
All these things. So I was lucky to experience that from every different location.
And I remember going to Dan one day and being like, Hey man,
like the phone stuff's cool, you know, and it's been awesome,

(07:57):
but I think I want to try sales.
And he's like, no, like you can't do sales, man. Like I need you doing this phone stuff.
Like you're really good. And that's like what you need to do, you know?
And so I kind of just like, let it go, push it under the rug more or less,
you know, I was happy, right? Doing what I love, phone stuff.
But then it kept kind of bugging me. I kept thinking about it.

(08:19):
I kept seeing like, oh, I do want a house.
I do want a family. I do want all these things, but it all requires more money.
You know and so I asked him I think a couple
months later like hey like I really want to do this can I
like give it a shot or something you know like if someone's sick you know wherever
you need somebody I'll I'll go give it a shot you know and I remember he's like

(08:39):
well I'll give you two weeks he's like because that's like a pay period right
he's like our guy's going on vacation out of the Orem store you know he's like
it's an hour drive but that's kind of what we have right So I was like, all right, cool.
Like, no worries at all. Like, I'll do it, you know.
And I remember getting to the first day and thinking like, oh,
there's this is this is I mean, over my head, there's no way I can like sell these computers.

(09:03):
And, you know, I don't even know if I'm going to be able to answer customers
questions more or less, you know, which is the most important part.
And when it, when that first customer came in, it just kind of clicked like,
oh, I've got all the knowledge from eight guys, you know, like,
there's no way I'm going to like mess this up.
I remember the first customer, I remember it was an older lady and she just

(09:28):
wanted to do family history stuff like, oh, here's, you know,
this computer, it'll be great for what you're doing. And she bought.
And I was like, holy crap. Yeah. Like I can really, really do this.
And then the next customer was the same thing.
And I'm like, that's, I think was a big moment for me being like,
I think that goes, you know, across life.

(09:48):
I think we all often look at like, you know, multimillionaires,
billionaires be like, oh, this is, this guy's a freak. This guy's an alien. Right.
But if you reduce it down to ridiculous, you're human.
I'm a human, right? There's no different. We're both human. Why can't we do
the things, you know, that we really want to do.
And so I ended up in that pay period outriding all of the sales guys that were

(10:11):
there, you know, some seven years, eight years, nine years, 10,
12, whatever, you know, and that was fun.
And I kind of bounced around just going to like different stores where I was
needed more or less after that. that. And then I really, an opportunity came
up a couple of years back to do like the corporate side of things,
you know, which is what I do now.
And that's been awesome. But it was kind of the same thing, you know,

(10:34):
it was like, well, these, these are corporate sales guys, you know, they exist.
This is, it's a different ball game. Right.
And so I was there learning, you know, doing these things and it was just kind
of a natural progression, you know, to where I'm at now.
And it's, I love it, man. Every day, you know, I get to work with the studios
that are building, you know, Halo, Call of Duty, all these games that everyone

(10:56):
plays, which is awesome.
That's kind of my story, man. Quick kind of jumbled together. I'm a rambler.
That's so good, bro. Because, you know, as you're talking,
all I'm hearing is that you bet on on yourself yeah you
just bet on yourself like and your story's always
been that like just when i'm listening to like

(11:19):
you're constantly betting yourself and you
know having to prove that yeah i can do that yeah and now
like you know like i was telling you off camera the one thing that it struck
to me when i met you was because i for what we do the the shoes and all the
art I've been fortunate enough to be in rooms that I've never thought I could be. Yeah.

(11:43):
And then I'm a listener. When I go into those rooms. Yeah.
Like, I ain't smarter than anybody. I'm here to learn. I'm a student of the game.
And when Dan kept bringing you up, like mentioning you, I'm like, who is this guy?
I need to talk to this guy. And I made it a point. It's still in my phone,

(12:04):
like, talk to Ryan. Yeah, that's awesome. I'm bold.
And then the crazier thing was that when I told Ozzy in my right hand,
I was like, dude, like, I sent him that picture. She's like,
yeah, like, I know that my brother knows that guy.
And then even today he was like, yeah, my mom like holds a high standard of this, of Ryan.
And I was like, dude, like, I'm glad that, you know, I was able to pick that

(12:26):
up. And I was like, dude, like that, that guy's legit.
So, I mean, so I'm glad that you're here.
So one of the questions that I have for you is like, you know,
you just told us all this, that you're doing all the cool stuff,
but you also have a business on the side. Yeah. Yeah.
And, you know, from what I was reading on your Instagram as I was prepping for

(12:47):
this episode, you know, I saw that, you know, you were running the business.
You're still running it out of the basement, but you took it to seven figures. Yeah.
And dude, like explain that to me, man.
That's crazy. Like I said, man, it was one of those things like I always like
to have something else, you know, like I find it fun to do a lot of business stuff.

(13:10):
You know of course I like you know hanging with
friends you know watching soccer all the time playing video
games from time to time but I think I think I've
been lucky to watch Dan you know over the years and I
think what he does is so cool in regards to
like almost turning life into the
video game if that makes sense so to me it's like when we

(13:32):
started that like I just had my kids I love sneakers right I'm
like what can we do like COVID's here like what can
we do after work that's going going to be fun cool
and maybe we can learn some
stuff that'll help who knows where it will help but maybe in the future it'll
help who knows you know so really me and my wife were like oh like baby you

(13:52):
like shoes and so we started looking you know to buy my son kendrick some shoes
and so we started searching you know like gap old navy all these places and
like there's not really even like Like Nike.com,
there's only when you get to like a certain size for like little kids,
you know. So I'm like, oh, there's maybe...
A gap there that we can fill with something you know just funny

(14:15):
something crazy so we ordered
a bunch of samples i look for different suppliers you
know and we started ordering all this stuff in to
see you know quality how is it is this something we could scale up potentially
and so we started on etsy i mean just sold like a couple one one or two order
like holy crap like if one person will buy it a thousand people will buy it

(14:39):
you know it's kind of the mentality from there And so I built a website.
I love building websites. I do that still for people now in doing some of the
automation behind that.
And so I built up the website. We threw it up there. We started an Instagram,
started just posting, you know, maybe like one or two likes,
you know, using all the hashtags, all this stuff on YouTube,

(14:59):
you know, they tell you to do and trying different things.
Things, and we started to gain some traction.
It was like, oh, we got one order this week. Oh, we got one order every other
day. It started getting shorter.
It's like, oh, we got one order every day for a week now. Oh, we got two orders today.
Okay. Now with that money that's coming in, we just were like,

(15:22):
we don't care if we lose all the money that we put in, which was only like a
couple hundred bucks, right?
We're just going to spend all the money and reinvest it to To see how this scales.
Yeah. It's intriguing, right?
Once you get a couple of sales like, oh, how far can this really go? You know?
And so that's what we did. We started buying. We take 50% of the profit and buy more inventory.

(15:44):
And then we started taking 50% of the other 50% and putting it to marketing.
And at first it was just like, we're going to test out like a boosted post.
We're gonna test out like the Facebook
like little promotions they used to offer on
certain like add things you know stuff like that

(16:05):
and that was like we started to realize like we'd get likes and views on these
boosted posts and stuff but it didn't necessarily translate to people purchasing
and so we started just watching YouTube videos and like mark from marketers
and stuff like like that and really learning how to.
To scale marketing effectively. And we ended up losing a lot of money for about

(16:32):
a month, just trying Facebook ads,
which is across, you know, Facebook, Instagram, all this stuff.
And it was, it seemed to be very volatile.
And I remember, I think it was month two, we lost about 10 grand.
And we're like- On marketing. And we're like, hey, like- I've been there.
We should not do this. This is not working.

(16:53):
Like it's fine we'll just you know we don't
have too much inventory we'll just kind of keep selling what it is and
so we kind of just let it die and then i'm like let's let's not market let's
just try dming like a bunch of influencers right maybe that maybe that's the
way this grows right so we started all these you know celebrities we started
looking at hashtags for like baby baby mama all all these to try and like snipe

(17:17):
out some influencers. Right.
And it, we realized it took the same effort to message somebody with a thousand
followers or a hundred million, right. It's just typing a message and hitting send.
So we started going after these bigger people and funny enough at the time,
AE, I don't know, he's, he's friends with Tyga, another, another another rapper

(17:39):
producer, he was about to have a baby with Amber Rose.
Okay. And so we sent him a message and I had, I had, uh, I looked at like,
when, when, when I try to snide these people, I look at their profile,
you know, do some research.
I saw he was wearing the same Jordan over and over and over and over in a lot of pics.
And so I sent him a picture like, Hey, we'd love to, you know,

(18:01):
just send you a pair, you know, congratulations on the baby, whatever.
He's like, Oh my gosh, this would, this would be awesome. Like Amber would love
this. and so we just sent it like we didn't know like to do like a contract
or posting or anything like that we just sent it you know and and.
Never heard anything back, like just ghosted. And then we woke up,

(18:22):
I think it was November 16th.
We woke up and we had a thousand orders on our shop.
We had a thousand orders and we're like, what the fuck happened? You know, oh, sorry.
We're like, what the hell? We're like, what the fuck happened?
Like, this is a joke, right?
And we open up Instagram and we see a message from Amber. I was like,

(18:44):
thank you so much. We love this. like we'd love to buy some more. Right.
And then throughout that day, orders just, just kept coming in like crazy, like crazy.
And I think we ended the day around 16 to 20,000 in sales in one day.
And I'm like, Holy crap, this kind of reassures my original thought,

(19:05):
you know, if one person will buy a thousand people will buy. Right.
And so I was like, okay, okay, this influence thing does work.
And so we kept doubling down on that, just messaging, you know,
we made it a goal, at least 20 people a day, we're going to just send out 20
messages a day and see if we can just give away product, right?
It's cheaper than Facebook.
And that worked for a little bit, but we weren't able to ever replicate like

(19:28):
that impact of the Amber Rose thing.
And so we started to slowly try Facebook ads again.
And Dan introduced me, it was a mutual mutual friend that they kill it on advertising,
right? That's what they do.
And I joined one of their classes. I bought the little course thing.
What's his name? Jason Howard.
Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah. So they're crazy, right?

(19:52):
I started watching all the videos he was posting out. I joined their Facebook group.
I started taking a course. I went out to their warehouse and I went through
this entire course and finished it and started advertising again.
And with just that knowledge and that one connection, it was like totally different.

(20:12):
We went, you know, a hundred dollars a day, $200 a day. We're spending at the
peak. Some days we're spending three to five grand a day.
And we just continued to do that until Black Friday of 2021.
I think we got to a point where we're like, holy crap, this is so much.

(20:32):
And we really need to decide, are we going to continue this?
Or do I need to focus more on what makes, you know, the livelihood of our family,
which is computers, you know?
And we kind of finished out holiday season, which was almost,
it was almost like it felt at the time, like too much, you know,

(20:53):
because it was just me, my wife, and we had,
some members of her family helping us pack these orders and do all this stuff
and it was like that on top of work it was almost like,
a burnout in a way, you know, and it got, it got tough,
you know, and, and then, you know, like I said, we started it with my son being
born and like, it became like a time thing, like, oh, we're working from,

(21:15):
we'd wake up, pack orders at 6am, go to work, come home,
pack orders again, go to bed, you know, type of thing.
And I think that caused a little bit of loss of passion, realistically, looking back.
And so now it's just kind of like a back burner thing. We do the orders orders
every day, but we're not at the point where like scaling it massively, but we learned a lot.

(21:37):
And I think we're kind of in a stage where we want to find something like that
next thing, you know, that we're really passionate about.
So I don't know, it was a kind of a crazy ride.
It's still, you know, like I said, we still get orders pretty much every day,
but it's a different feel, you know?
No, I feel you on that because I've had
that multiple times throughout

(22:00):
my my entrepreneur journey so i started with
my brand it was a fitness brand then you
know i opened my retail stores and it became a streetwear brand
yeah i started like selling other
people's brand and customizing shoes and it
has evolved yeah but the biggest
thing for me it was like because i i

(22:22):
remember at one point on my journey
learning i didn't want to keep doing apparel i
was tired yeah but i i struggle i'm
like dude this is my baby like and luckily
enough like i always been passionate about like
art and designing so i just tapped into like
the shoes and now we're tapped into murals like

(22:43):
we're we're just expanding into it and then
that's helping me like see the bigger picture because it
happens to us it's like right now like yeah when we get
a one-on-one shoe they're they used to be like hella fun yeah they used to be
like fuck like yeah we're gonna do this this custom shoe one-on-one don't get
me wrong they're still fun to do like it's cool cool for the cloud like instagram

(23:05):
and all that but now it's just like dude we want to build like visions we want to build big stuff,
and it requires you to go to places that okay i need to like really think what
i want and that's hard it's super hard i think it's just at the end of the day it's like being.
100 honest with yourself you know like like

(23:25):
you said off camera it's like i think if it's just about money it's not going
to work and a lot of times if it's just about what you only you like it's not
going to work either right it's about finding that kind of weird in between
which i I think this is tough for a lot, for everybody.
It's just one person. And that's what, that's what I've noticed.

(23:49):
Like a lot of people give up and they quit because they lose that,
that passion, that fire.
But what I've seen from a lot of successful people is that, yeah, they, they just pivot.
They pivot, you know, like, yeah, they were doing this. Okay.
But now that led into, oh, now I can do this. Okay. Now that's a new passion.

(24:09):
And they just go like that.
I've seen it with a lot of clients. Like, you know, they'll be doing one thing
and out of nowhere, they're like building another company. Yep.
And I think that's kind of where we're at with like that. Our little kicks thing
is like, we've done it. We've learned a lot.
We've dialed in, you know, a lot of the marketing stuff, a lot of the backend
email stuff, the automation, you know, it's like, because I've seen a lot of

(24:31):
people. people that do quite a bit of, you know, orders and stuff like that.
And now I can see like, oh, this process that we created,
I remember doing like 10 orders in one day when we first started,
it would take us like an hour and a half because the process was crappy,
right? Like we just didn't know, we hadn't learned yet.
And now it's like, I know like with a two person team, we can crank out a thousand

(24:56):
orders in two hours. Right.
And so it's like, now I can take that process process and whatever that next
thing be, apply it here and it's still going to get better even then, you know?
So, I think that's the exciting part. Because the knowledge doesn't go anywhere.
It's just where you apply it. It's where you apply it. Yeah,
that's the biggest thing as, you know, you continue on your path and your journey,

(25:18):
all the lessons, they stay with you and then you're just taking whatever you go. Yeah, for sure.
And I think that's been a super big advantage, you know,
working with Dan is like, like in video games, we call it power leveling,
you know and i was it was interesting we call
it he he taught me power leveling and i was listening
to your episode with vick and he and he made a point like every

(25:38):
coach has a coach right but power leveling is just
like in a video game i hop in with you you're level 100 i'm a level 10 you're
gonna bring me up to that level faster yeah and so with dan that's like i was
able to see like okay i'm doing seven figures here out of my basement okay but
he's got this mega warehouse all the the processes are dialed in.

(25:59):
He's doing millions, you know, like.
There's stuff I've done and stuff he's done. And it's like, I can bridge that
gap now because I've seen both spectrums, you know, which is huge.
So that leads into my next question, because, dude, right now, as a company,
we're in that stage that I can see the breakthrough, you know,

(26:24):
because right now, like, I mean, I have employees, like the overhead gets higher,
like the quality needs to go up.
Up the shoes needs to go up like everything just goes up so
yeah we're making money but i'm spending
just as much because the business needs to match the
quality everything so but as you're
working with dan and you know being with him and to me like when he i was at

(26:49):
that last event where i met you felt like that dude you were his right hand
like he was pointing you out i'm like dude so what what's been the biggest lesson
that that you've learned like just by observing and hanging hanging out with
him and seeing how he's building his businesses?
What's been that biggest thing that you're like, okay, man, like, I get you.
Yeah, I think resilience is a lot of it, right? Because he's been,

(27:10):
gosh, locally now he's been 33 years.
So I think the first thing, I think whether you're successful or not have a
lot of money, I think track record over a period of time is the most important thing, you know?
Like, it's kind of like the crypto mentality, right? I could buy some coin and
I could be a millionaire tomorrow, right?
But if I could buy that, if you get so good at something, you can do it for a long time.

(27:35):
And that's what Dan's shown me is that consistency over now 30 plus years,
that's a hard thing to do, right? Right.
But I would say the one concept that he's taught me that I've seen,
you know, with him over and over also is that reduced to ridiculous.
That to me is something I think about daily. And that goes hand in hand with

(27:56):
goals, obviously. Right.
He always he always used to tell me, like, if it's not written, it's not real.
He used to tell me that like almost every day because he'd tell me to do something
and then I would forget it. Be a knucklehead, you know, forget it.
He's like, did you write it down?
I'm like, no, that's like a pen and paper. Like you have there,
you know, it's like, I'm not going to write it down. That's so old school.
But then I started like writing down my goals. And I think when you take those

(28:19):
goals, like, hey, I want to make.
$100,000 this month, right? Let's just say for that, for example,
that's cool. That's a great goal, but how often are you going to think about it?
So what he made me do is write down my goal every morning. It's saved as the
screensaver on my computer.
Every day before I come in, I have my coffee.
I'm just looking at that goal, but that goal isn't just 100,000.

(28:42):
It's, okay, what's 100,000? I'm going to be here 30 days.
Okay, let's do 100,000 divided by 30 days. this is exactly how much I need to make per day.
And then take that and then go to, you know, how much is that per hour even?
Okay. And now that I have the hourly, how many computers is that to sell?
How many baby shoes is that to sell?
So good. And then the caveat to that is then being honest with myself,

(29:06):
you know, because, you know, sales days are going to go up and down.
But if I'm looking at it daily, I have to be honest, being like,
hey, yesterday was crappy.
Happy like if i needed to sell 10 computers that day and i only sold two well
now i've got 18 this day but if you're not looking at that every single day
it's easy to get complacent and just be like,

(29:27):
yeah i'm moving towards my goal right like yes that's enough that's that's enough
i'm making progress when in reality you might just be spinning in that circle
right so i think writing down your goal like you said you're in this phase of
like costs are going up but the business is getting and you're spending all
this stuff, but it's like.
Do you have the goals outlined? What does the next step actually look like?

(29:50):
And what action items are there to get it there?
And I think that's a big one that I struggled with in the past.
And I think a lot of people do still now, like daily, like a lot of people,
whenever I hire a new sales guy and stuff, it's like, oh, I want to buy a G-Wagon.
Okay, but do you know how much a G-Wagon is?

(30:11):
50 grand, 100 grand, 150? Okay.
Cool. Let's just say 150. What do you need to do to get to that level?
You know, it has to be so clear and you have to look at it daily or it's not going to happen. Right.
So good. So right now, what, what, what do you do for Dan and where you guys
are working? What, what, what's your role right now?

(30:32):
My role right now, my specific role is a director of corporate sales.
So I handle handle all of just the major B2B accounts, you know, like NASA, Tesla.
So I'll go in and be like, hey, you know, what do you need to do?
What software are you running? What projects are you working on?

(30:53):
And here's the computer hardware that will help you do that, right?
And then I'll sit down with them, you know, let's run through,
you know, what programs you're using.
Hey, hey, it took you an hour to render this part of your project.
Okay, let's see. If you had better hardware, yeah, it's going to cost X amount.
But if you can save, you can turn that hour into 15 minutes for that render

(31:15):
project, that pays off exponentially over the course of a year.
So that's pretty much what I do in a nutshell. I help with a lot of other parts of it too.
But that's my main focus there. I recently took on all of our online chat sales team.
So I'm over all those guys now, which they're all awesome.

(31:37):
And we're trying to kind of build that out and up.
So I'd love to talk to you more about that because right now,
that's what I'm focused on, like sales, corporate.
And it's been interesting because I went from like, you know,
like customizing shoes with the team to like, now I let they do everything.

(31:59):
Now I'm just focused on the vision, but that means I have to have bigger conversations.
I need to be in different rooms. I need to, I need to be like dial in pretty much.
And it's been interesting. Like, like I just hired a coach to help me like myself,
like how to sell my product, my vision, right.

(32:22):
And every time I coach with him, I'm like, dude, I fucked that other call. Like, I did that wrong.
I'm like, but it's like, here's the thing. Like, he was telling me this the
other day. He was here. He's like, you have to learn, bro. Oh, yeah. You have to.
So, I'd love to talk to you more off camera what that process is because I'm
deep in that right now. Like, very deep.
I'm trying to, like, it makes me even think deeper about my business and what

(32:48):
we're doing. because I need to be able to explain that to other people to help
them solve their problem because that's what it comes down to.
So, dude, that's pretty awesome. One thing that I noticed too when I was at
you guys' building, it was like when they gave us the tour, Dan really explained
why you guys' computers are the best.

(33:10):
And I did a video of it and the way he was explaining it, it was like you could
see the passion behind the product.
You know i was like fuck yeah dude that's what
i like yeah i like seeing the passion like okay
if you're building a notebook tell me why this is the
the best yeah which i think that's important right but
see even myself i would say i think

(33:32):
being aware of what you're good at is also a thing
like i don't ever see be i don't ever
see myself being able to portray the passion the same way dan is but that's
why you know being a part of the team it's like he brings that you know aspect
I think that's important is when you are creating teams and hiring people is
hire people that are better than you at what, you know, your weaknesses.

(33:56):
Be honest with yourself to be like, hey, I'm really bad at public speaking.
Okay, if I need somebody in that role, I'm going to hire somebody that's way
better, you know, and being humble enough to do so, you know,
because Dan's good at that. But I think like what you said earlier is like,
you're really good at listening.
And I think that's where I come in. Like, you could probably go talk to 100 sales guys.
I might be the worst at public speaking and actually talking,

(34:18):
but I'm really good at listening.
You know, when I hop on a sales call, I'm like, hey, is it okay if I take some
notes? I'm an old guy, you know, I get my pen and pad out, write everything down.
And then I'm able to review that kind of why we're talking and almost prescribe
what they need. need, almost like a doctor, what's going to fix their needs?
What is going to solve their problems?

(34:38):
And so I think it's just, again, like you said, you're diving into that sales
aspect and getting that coaching.
I think it just needs to also be catered to what you're good at.
You're a great listener.
Maybe it's you are really good at asking questions that provoke thoughts in others.
I think once you figure that out, you can lean into that.

(35:00):
And it's, you know, people buy from people at the end of the day.
You don't have to be robotic sales bro that can sell whatever, you know.
But if they feel like they're buying from a person.
And fill that passion, you know, easy, easy, easy.
I had another question for you. So how do you guys like work with this,

(35:20):
like athletes, celebrities, how does those connections start happening?
Cause I know Dan was talking about that. And I never thought about that,
like, you know, athletes buying computers, but then at the same time I was like,
well, I do see him on TikTok.
Like they're always like playing video games. So I was like,
dude, yeah, that makes sense. So how did that work out? Like that's, that's crazy.

(35:42):
I think the first, like, I think some of the big, like the jazz athletes and
stuff, I think a lot of it was just from events like the X room.
Honestly, I think when you get certain people in a room and you start making
those little connections, right? It's like, oh, hey, this.
And then it's like, athletes are funny because yeah, a lot of them do love gaming, right?

(36:02):
Like when COVID was there and everyone was in the NBA bubble,
those guys were gaming nonstop. That's all they could do, right?
And it's like, oh, one guy got a computer. Well, this guy, oh,
I want a computer now. It's like shoes, right? Someone gets a custom shoe.
Hey, where'd you get those?
And it just starts to snowball, right? And if you provide that experience of
like, chill, like just being friendly almost,

(36:25):
you know, it's like, you don't need to sell people anything if your product
is really good and the experience is really good, right? right?
It's like, how can you, when I look at a brand or like I look to buy something
somewhere, I'm like, how are they selling me without even talking to me?
Do I feel like there is, can you feel that brand passion? Can you feel that culture?

(36:48):
You know, is it like, you can almost feel it. You can get a sense of like, is this going to be good?
But yet the celebrities, the athletes and stuff like that, it just kind of snowballed.
Like referral is huge, you know even with like a lot of my clients now I don't
I'm lucky to not have to do like.
A bunch of cold calling. It's just like, hey, we worked with Ryan on this project

(37:09):
here. You should give him a call.
You know, and I think that's, that's what it is. And I feel like you'll know
if you provided somebody a good experience, you know, like, or a good product.
You'll have no issue being like, hey, like, if you loved it,
like, is there anybody else like you were awesome to work with?
Is there anybody else that comes to your mind that would love this or this,

(37:30):
you know? I think that's really cool.
I think it's really cool. That's really good. Yeah. Like, Everything that we've
done up to this point has been referral-based.
Yeah. We don't run any ads. We're not sending emails, which,
I mean, we should, but I'm like, I like the referral because it helps me.
Like, you know, I'm not going to lie, not everything I've done perfect, but I just get better.

(37:55):
You know, like I've just been learning, learning, and focusing really on the experience.
That's what I love. That's what my podcast is called, the GMRT Experience.
Yes. And my life, my world, my business, my employees, it's an experience.
And I like to give my clients and friends that experience because it's that
passion that comes with like the packaging, the presentation,

(38:16):
the stitching, like the video, like the whole thing.
And it's very fun when you can connect those things.
It makes your product, you don't even have to sell your product.
Like just people just feel attracted to it.
And they just kind of want to just buy from you. Yeah, 100%.
So my other question for you was, like, being a dad and, you know,

(38:37):
working corporate and owning your own business and, you know,
family stuff. Bro, how do you—.
How do you do all that? I mean, you work for a guy like Dan.
I don't know like that behind the scenes, but I would assume that,
yeah, his life is, it's fun.
It's a little crazy. So how do you deal with all of that? Like imbalance that out?

(38:59):
I think that's why it goes back to like finding the balance of passion and like obviously money.
Because at the end of the day, you have to have money to do stuff,
right? That's the reality.
I think one, finding that balance. And then I would say like when it comes to
relationship stuff, stuff.
Another thing Dan taught me really early on is ask permission ahead of time.

(39:20):
Like with my wife, it was like, he's like, Hey, sit down with your wife,
say, Hey, this is the life. This is the income that I want to make.
This is what it's going to require to do so, you know?
And there are going to be nights where it's like, Hey, I'm going to have to hop on calls 8 PM, 9 PM.
That's going going to happen, but are you okay with that ahead of the time? You know?

(39:45):
And my wife, I'm lucky enough, she was, she was a hundred percent on board.
She's like, yep, that's the life.
We were very aligned there, you know, and those small sacrifices,
you know, when it comes to kids and spending time, that's also something,
you know, I told Dan, I was like, Hey, I have kids.
That is my priority, you know, is being a great dad first, because without that,

(40:08):
you know, like the money at that point doesn't matter to me.
You know what I mean? Like the kids are number one and I don't want to miss my kids' soccer games.
That was a non-negotiable for me. You know, he plays on Saturday and I want
to be there, you know, and setting that expectation.
Is all it boils down to really, you know? Hey, I want to be at my kids' games,

(40:29):
but Dan knows if he needs to call me here, X, Y, or Z on this date,
this time, we need to go do this. We need to fly out to California.
He also knows I'm going to respect him enough to be like, yeah,
this is what I signed up for. We both agreed. And that's what we're going to do, you know?
So I think just setting those boundaries and asking for that stuff ahead of

(40:49):
time is really all that it takes to manage that, you know? And then do stuff you love.
At the end of the day, you know, because you, you know, you start to,
I think everyone starts to feel the pressure, the tension, like getting overwhelmed.
I think that's just a natural human thing, right?
Have those healthy things to almost reset, right?
Whether that is, you know, hop on and play Call of Duty, play FIFA,

(41:12):
whatever it is, you know, maybe that, who knows, maybe that is having a beer
at the bar with your buddy and that can completely reset you,
but be aware of what that is and make sure you
schedule those the time to do those little
things too i think that helps a lot no and i
like asking those questions to anybody that comes to the to the podcast and

(41:34):
they're married and have kids because i'm a single guy i don't have any kids
but it's always in the back of my head because i'm an all-in guy i'm passionate
about what i do like like right now Now I don't have to tell anybody. I just do it.
But it's also in the back of my head. Like, okay, how would I manage this when
I bring somebody into my life? And I want to let them know, hey,

(41:54):
I want to have this lifestyle.
It's going to require this because I've been doing it for this long.
Are you okay with that? And the way that you just phrased it, you helped me.
You helped me because, like, you know, it's something that's always in the back of my head.
Yeah. Like, I don't want to, like, lose my drive because I'm bringing somebody
into my life. but I still want to love that person and my kids and all of that, you know?

(42:18):
Yeah, 100%, which is, like, it's important, right?
Because I think where things go wrong is like.
You meet a girl and everything's great. You know, you're taking her to dinner,
you're doing all this stuff.
And that becomes the expectation. And in the early stages, she's not going to see that.
Oh yeah, well, during the day I'm busting my ass or all weekend, I got this special part.

(42:42):
Like she's only going to see one side of it. And then, so if you are now a couple
months in and that changes, you know, it's, let's say it's crunch time,
right? It's Q4, whatever, busy season.
And that completely changes. That's where all those problems are going to hit,
right? And you're going to be forced to then choose like, it sounds bad,
but you're going to be forced to choose like this relationship here or business, right?

(43:03):
But it's different. It's tough because if you do it like my way and ask for
permission and set it up from the beginning, there's probably going to be a
lot of people that are like, nah, like, I'm not down for this.
That sounds crazy, right?
And you're going to, you know, lose some relationships maybe you thought was
meant to be almost in a way.
And that's tough. That's hard. that's really hard but I

(43:25):
think you know I'm big when I think if it was meant to be
it'll be type of guy and that's something that
I've never done that's what I'm telling you it's helping me like just
what you just said right there he helped me I'm glad I I
never when I brought it anybody into my life let's just talk about woman I've
they seen like they're like Joe these guys like doing all this stuff like but

(43:48):
I've never been upfront in a way like yeah like but But this is what it requires
for me to have this, for you to go to a nice restaurant,
like the stuff that you like and stuff like that.
And now that you said that, that puts already, you know, your honors right up front.
And then that saves you from a lot of pain too.
A lot. A lot, man. Because, yeah, just spent some time where it's like,

(44:12):
yeah, it can get rough, right?
Like, especially because you start to get really invested in another person,
right? This is awesome. She's everything I wanted.
But at the cost of all this stuff that I loved before she came to the picture,
that's, yeah, it's tough, man.
So up front, it might hurt a little bit more up front, but it's going to save,

(44:36):
you know, in the long run.
Yeah. That pain of like breaking up in six months because, oh,
it's just the same fight over and over and over.
Well, for the younger guys out there listening, take note.
You know, I'm like, I'm 31 and I'm taking notes. Like, I'm like,
yeah, I need to do that next time.
Dude, honesty is the biggest thing, man.
So thank you for giving me that game, man. That was really good.

(44:58):
Dude, I also wanted to ask you this.
I've noticed when I was at your building a couple weeks ago for the X Room.
Shout out to Sean Finnegan. Great guy.
Love that, dude. He's a massive connector. That was awesome. That was awesome.
So I saw all the cool stuff, all the art.
I was just fucking fascinated. I'm like, dude, I want to work here.

(45:21):
I have my own job. I want to work here.
So how does that work? As we were also walking through the warehouse,
I peeked into Dan's office and I saw all the cool stuff. Everywhere I looked, I was like, dude.
And I get it because that's how I am. Every room here, I wanted to be cool. I need to be inspiring.

(45:43):
Who comes up with all those cool ideas?
Budget. Okay, we need all of this. How does that work, dude?
It's funny. when it comes to Dan's office there is no budget there's a lot of
the stuff in Dan's office is super cool.
His daughter drew or created most of that. She's an awesome artist.
And then a lot of the stuff, like the weapons you probably saw in there,

(46:04):
all the, all the crazy guns, the alien stuff.
It just, we have a bad habit of just collecting cool stuff along the way.
Like in my office, I have the big Spartan from Halo.
We did the Halo world championship stuff here a couple of months ago.
I was like, Hey buddy, like it's done. Like, can we just take one of those back?

(46:24):
We always ask people for random stuff and it
just starts to collect and it kind of everyone
brings stuff that they love and it creates kind
of a really cool you know place to be honestly i relate to that because like
that's how i am a lot of the things that i have is like i got a bunch of friends
that artists or like i'll go like thrifting or like like facebook marketing

(46:49):
i'm like i like i I want something random. Yeah.
And I just start looking and looking and I'll spend hours just looking for a
random chair or a table. Yeah.
Just because, I don't know, it's inspiring, bro. Like having random shit like
that throughout your creative space, it just does something to your headache.
Yeah. I feel like it almost like breaks up, it breaks up the flow a bit, honestly.

(47:13):
You know, it's like you're smashing away, maybe like punching numbers,
doing accounting work, whatever it may be. But then you look up and you see,
oh, Charizard, you know? Oh.
Yeah it's almost like a almost like again like a little reset
it's fun to have that stuff there and then
i was gonna ask you too like what like you're working with dan and what's been

(47:33):
that like the biggest like like the coolest thing you guys have done like or
like top three or like something that you're like oh that shit that was dope
gosh there's been a lot of there's been a lot of crazy So I got to think about that. That's tough.
We've done a ton of just crazy stuff. The coolest.
Craziest I would say would be Lake Powell. We did, we got a house boast and

(47:57):
got pretty crazy out there.
That's probably the craziest thing because we ended up calling some artists,
telling them to come over here, like private show type of stuff.
That was probably the craziest. The coolest thing, I think Dan hit it at the
X room, was that whole Ebola thing.
When the outbreak there, we're able to, you know, create that hardware to make
the world a better place. And I think that's awesome.

(48:20):
And that's why, again, working with the clients that I do, whether it be Tesla,
NASA, all this stuff, it's like these computers that we're doing is make that
we're creating and selling.
We're creating them to solve problems that are actually having an impact,
you know, and whether it be practical or they're being used to,
you know, build the video games that everyone loves and plays,

(48:41):
you know, because I think video games is some people hate them,
some people don't, whatever it may be.
I think it helps a ton of people
you know like i said it might help that guy
that works an 18 hour shift and that's his way of
just completely decompressing right or hey
it may be single dad here that gets his kids on the weekend and they bond over

(49:02):
playing mario kart you know and it's the best time in his life you know the
best time he looks for so i think that's that's a lot of cool stuff man like
so it's just cool going back to that how do you how do you like work with tesla
and NASA. How does that even work, dude?
That's crazy. So when you get super big corps, it gets a little bit tricky.

(49:23):
But again, like those two accounts were just referrals.
Wow. It was a buddy who was like, hey, like...
I want you to meet Ryan. He helped us with this project at this,
when I was at this company in the tech world, it is interesting because people
tend to bounce to different companies a lot, you know?

(49:44):
And so when a guy leaves, you know, test Lango works for NASA,
we can also, we try to retain, you know, where he used to work and where he's going to work.
And because of that relationship, and then we kind of just keep growing.
Maybe he goes to five different companies our goal
is to you know work with all of them you know which which

(50:05):
is awesome and then dude i just
have so many firing because i'm just gonna ramble i'm you're gonna have to edit
you have to edit the crap out of this only the best clips i got a good editor
but one thing that stuck to me when i was going back to your to the building
i was very very fascinating.

(50:25):
It was like, it was very inspiring, man, because yeah, we're not at that level,
but I can see like what you guys are doing.
I can see it right when I walked down, like, fuck yeah, I get it.
Computer laying down the, the, the fucking break room, the lockers,
the way everything was displayed and laid out. I'm like, Hmm. Okay. I get it.

(50:47):
Even like we were talking about like the goodie bags that you guys gave us at
the end, the quality of the hat.
Yeah. I was like, Like it wasn't like a regular hat. Like I could tell there
was like, let's take care of this.
But as we were walking in the warehouse, I noticed you guys had like a production line.
Yeah. And we thought about doing that with shoes as we're doing corporate orders.

(51:10):
And we've been testing out. Right now, we only have, it's just Ozzy and Sierra.
But as we're growing, we're testing things out. Like how could this look like
when we have an order of two, 300 shoes and we need an assembly line?
Who came up with that idea? How does that work?
That's going to be a mix of Colton.
Colton was not there. He was quarantining so he could go to Fiji on a vacation

(51:33):
that he deserves and needs.
But Colton is the other. Colton is the president. He's the other genius there.
And that's something, again, that goes down to writing your goals.
I think for a few, Colton was like me.
Dan always likes to say, me and Colton, you guys are very alike.
Because Colton used to work at NVIDIA, which is like the big company behind
the graphics card and all the AI stuff, right?

(51:55):
Colton came over from NVIDIA, and he started very entry-level position as well.
He was just in purchasing.
That's what he did, right? But as the company started to grow a little bit,
that relationship came better.
And Colton is amazing at taking an idea. Yeah.
Bringing it to life almost. And I remember early at the old warehouse,

(52:17):
they would always talk, oh, one, like Dan, even we're going to have a big warehouse.
We're going to do this. And I remember one day Colton was like,
well, like, what does that look like to you?
You know, we talk about this, right? But let's draw it out.
And Colton actually designed the entire warehouse.
It used to be the Quilted Bed. I don't know if you ever knew that company.

(52:37):
I was like, I remember as like like an
old place my grandma used to go to like weird stuff but
colton took that building went out for sale colton went
through there and then he got the plans and he was
able to draw everything out this is what it looks like this is what we're gonna
need this is how much production and stuff we can do with this size of a building

(52:58):
so really that was colton was the genius behind so good bringing that but i
think it is important like you said with your shoes you thought about like Like,
oh, what if we get 200 orders?
I think even if it's just on the back of a paper, a mini drawing of like what
that would look like helps so, so much, you know?
It's like, because I even did that like for the shoes in our basement.

(53:21):
I'm like, crap, like we don't have a lot of space and I don't want to pay to
rent a place like because time's already limited, right?
I don't want to drive somewhere just to do these orders and then go to work, right?
And remember driving out like, oh, we're going to have 12 racks.
They're going to be horizontal horizontal and we can fit 10 here.
And then the bins will be around the edge of the room and we can restock the
mini bins. But it's just, even if it's.

(53:42):
Not complex and very simple yeah like i
said if it's not written it's not real write it down and
look at it yeah no that's really good like i'm telling
you that's what i was telling you off camera i want to take the team
to so they can see what i
saw because i was telling them but i'm like fuck you guys just need to go see
that dude let's do it because it was like it was like it was good the assembly

(54:06):
line was hitting me hard because i was like okay even the little rooms you got
the the computer set up in between the assembly line yeah and i was my head was just like.
Spinning like crazy so it was it was very
profound to get to see that and have the opportunity
to see that it was like holy shit i'm here yeah like it was just so fun to to

(54:29):
see all that cool stuff that you guys are are building over there and one thing
that i just thought about as you were speaking and I'm bringing all these people
that are helping build this company that you guys have.
It sounds like Dan, you know, he moves people up. Oh, yeah, 100%.
You know, and that's very, like, profound, too, because, you know,

(54:52):
that's kind of what I've been doing.
Like, everybody, like, right now we all have, like, Ozzy's here and me,
we have, like, we're wearing, like, multiple hats. Yeah.
But what I've noticed is, like, you know, like, when I bring people in,
I started them like how Ozzy started.
And then I started slowly moving them up, giving them more.
And I've noticed like it builds that culture in the company.

(55:17):
Yeah. Because they can see what we're doing. They can see the vision.
They're bought in. Does that make sense? Yep, 100%. And I think even more so
it's like the greater understanding.
You know, it's like I remember Dan. And at one time,
we went to one of the stores and someone at the time, there was a bunch of trash

(55:40):
out in front and the bathroom was dirty.
On the way in, Dan stopped and picked up all the trash, put it in the garbage
can, didn't say anything, walked in, used the restroom.
He's like, hey, after we left, he's like, hey, the bathroom was dirty.
You noticed all the trash and stuff.
He's like, I asked so-and-so to clean it. And their response is,

(56:00):
I'm not the janitor, you know? Wow. And I think, I think.
It's very important to have people on team that are willing to do anything regardless of your title.
And I think that's why starting people low and watching build all the way up
is super, super critical just because that way they can,
as they move up, they can still resonate with people lower than them because

(56:25):
they were there once, right? They did what they were doing.
They're not going to be an asshole and be like, hey, clean my shoes.
Hey, take out my trash because they were there once. And I think it just builds
that super, super strong culture. So good. Like it's, it's crazy.
Oh, that's really good. Cause even the bathroom thing, like we all,
like right now we all have, I'm a cream, clean freak. Yeah. I like shit clean.

(56:47):
I get mad if it's not clean, but we all understand our roles.
Like, okay, I still clean.
I own the company. I'm making sure I'm cleaning. I got sections that I'm in
charge of making sure it's clean. They all have their own section that they're in charge to be clean.
Like, make sure the fridge is stocked up. Like, everything's for a reason.

(57:08):
And what I realized is just like when I, you know, it happened to me that now
when I tell the team, like, okay, you're in charge of that, I already done that.
Yeah. So I can relate to, like, what you're going to go through.
And once they pass it along to the other person, they're going to relate to
that because they already did it.
And they might be still doing it, too. Yeah.

(57:29):
And Dan always tells people that too, new hires. He told me that multiple times.
Hey, I'm not going to ask you to do something that I haven't done once already or wouldn't do again.
And I think that's a great way to go about it, you know?
And it's like, hey, like if stuff didn't handle it, let's say like even with
Colton, for example, it's like, I remember...

(57:49):
Was it last year? Yeah, last year, our dock where we receive stuff started to flood.
And the first person out there, it wasn't, you know, a warehouse worker. It was Colton.
He's in there. His pants are all wet. He's getting water out, you know.
And I think that shows a lot about a company and the culture of a company,
you know, when it's a top-down approach.

(58:09):
Yeah. Dude, and that's the biggest thing, like, I've noticed,
like, with good companies, there's culture.
There is culture. culture the ones that you know
you can start seeing that retention people leave come
and go they're always hiring i can pick right
away there's not a good culture in there yep and it starts from
the top and it pours down to the bottom yep and

(58:31):
it's that's yeah dude but on one of
my last questions here is like you know you
i mean you're working for dan you have your own business
like you got a lot of fucking skills bro like you're managing
this big big accounts and all that like you know
can you give us some game to me and
everybody that's listening what's been the biggest lessons

(58:52):
that you learned lessons because there's i
know there's multiple but let's just say somebody's starting
right now they're listening to you you're doing all this cool shit you're working
with this great guy that you know has all the all the stuff what have you learned
what's the biggest key lessons that you can give us right now and be like okay
this was it i know it's it's very cliche,

(59:15):
but ask questions.
Don't be afraid to ask questions, especially, especially if you're starting
out and you don't understand it.
I think a lot of the times people start and they're afraid to ask the question, right?
Because they don't want to look dumb. You don't want to feel dumb,
but asking the questions results in you getting past that point you're stuck

(59:38):
at. If you don't ask the question, you're going to be stuck at that point.
And the other one, the super cliche one is fail faster don't
be afraid to fuck shit up like that's the reality you're gonna
have to fuck shit up over and over and over in order
to get it right but the next time you do it you're gonna
get it right but just don't be afraid to
fuck it up that's that's the big one honestly like you can't but that cripples

(01:00:01):
a lot of people man yep bro because you don't want to look stupid that's this
is a dumb reason it's a dumb reason not to get better yeah because i've been
there Only you don't want to look stupid. Yeah, I've been there. I've been there.
That I'm like I'm too scared to fuck it up and
I'm like you just don't do anything now I'm like
I'm just gonna fail fast learn do it

(01:00:23):
again and move on yep and it's funny that's bringing me
back because you said Valley Fair Mall too it's it's just
so funny because I also did back in the
day there right next to the uh the old food court
and they had a little subway right there my buddy worked at the
subway and then my other buddy worked selling those uh
do you remember those was power band they do like pushing your arm
and you balance and shit yeah yeah yeah and i

(01:00:46):
would always go to subway and my buddy be working at that booth trying
to sell those and i would sit there at subway and just clown on him
just like this guy is looking he this guy looks like an idiot right
and then he'd be like well i made 300 bucks today man like what'd you do you
spent five bucks on a subway and i'm like dang he looks funny but he's making
money you know he's getting it done so i can't be afraid like and then so i

(01:01:08):
started just like standing there doing the demo was sometimes and started to
learn like so you worked at Valleyfair unofficially.
When he took his lunch I'm like hey dude I'll cover for
you and we'll split it whatever I sell then we'll split
it man hustler bro so we started doing that because I wasn't at the time I wasn't
old enough yet it was my older buddy but yeah Valleyfair I spent a lot of time

(01:01:29):
there man oh that's crazy crazy crazy I spent a lot dude I learned so much by
being about I started on the kiosk the funny thing is that I started on this kiosk,
And then even the general manager, he's like, I could tell the look on his face
that you ain't going to last, bro.
So, but it was a challenge. Yeah. And then, you know, I was there for a few months.

(01:01:52):
I didn't make any money. I was actually losing money.
But I took over a store, an old Payless shoe. And then he was like, he gave me a killer deal.
He was like, okay, I'll give you two months for free, but you got to clean up
the store, bro. And Payless Shoe, there's shoe racks from here all the way.
All the way. I remember that. Dude, so I had to hustle. So I had to hustle.

(01:02:15):
Hired like some this mexican guys
from home depot got him in the fucking my car all right
let's take this stuff out that's awesome and then i
put that all the metal things in facebook market
and some guys just can't pick it up that's awesome
so it kind of like it helped me out but dude i
learned so much from that mall yeah they didn't care about

(01:02:36):
anything so they just let me do whatever i want so i
was just like testing with them yeah that store is crazy
that mall is crazy back in the the day man because it's still crazy bro i
go there once in a while just to like you know
like i just like to like remember nostalgia it drives
you back i walk into the store too sometimes i walk into
the store and i'll be looking at the they still haven't painted

(01:02:57):
it like they still have the same paint like and i'll be looking at the floor
and i'll just be remembering oh shit i spend a lot of time yeah that's crazy
yeah i was right next to that kiosk the power balance one was yeah the food
court the power balance and then i don't know if you remember Remember,
it was like the old, it was the fragrance store.
Okay. Yeah, right there. And
so we would just, man, we spent a lot of time over there. That was crazy.

(01:03:19):
Good times. Good times, yeah. Dude, and so lastly, my last questioning,
I ask this to every guest that comes to the podcast. It could be multiple things.
What's the biggest things that you're grateful for right now in your life,
your current situation?
It could be multiple things, but, you know, like, what are you grateful for
right now? Family, number one.

(01:03:41):
That's everything for me, you know, health is number two.
And then just in conjunction with health is the opportunity to work and learn.
I think that's the biggest ones for me right off the rip. What about you?
Dude, that's the first time somebody. I feel like I've been talking for five hours.
That's actually you. Here I am. I'm like, I'm a good listener.

(01:04:04):
And I just spewing out rambling on. I do that because I'm a bad speaker.
But now I see you're now you're my favorite guest.
Yes you asked me nobody has asked me
that dude i can tell you like right now i'm grateful
for like people like
you bro like you know like being able to have
conversations and meet people like you because not too long ago i didn't know

(01:04:30):
where people like you were yeah i feel like i even like dude even like when
i was at x room like i've been to a lot of masterminds lately like or or throughout
like last year and this year,
but being in those rooms and, and.
Listening bro like it's just like mind fucking blowing to
me that what am i doing here that i was

(01:04:52):
just at a kiosk at valley fair mall my
first sale was 45 bucks yeah my first day like what what am i doing here so
now having conversations like this you're helping me as much as you can even
imagine bro because you're you're helping the vision you're helping my employees my team Like you're,

(01:05:13):
it's just, that's what I'm really grateful for, bro.
Like just having those, this type of conversations and, and bringing people
like that into my world and, and because it's helping us, you know,
like I'm building this thing, like no investors,
like figuring it out, making mistakes, like employing people,
you know, we have seasons, we go up and down.
And the biggest thing is, you know, another thing that I'm grateful for is my team.

(01:05:37):
Like, they believe in what we're doing.
And when things get hard, like, there's been many times that I think about,
dude, they could go do something else and probably make more money than what they're doing with me.
But they stick. That culture, man.
That's the culture in here. You can see that just walking through, man.
It's mind-blowing to me. I'm like, so that's, that's a thing that I'm like,

(01:06:01):
that's what I'm like, okay, I need to, I need to work hard.
I need to figure out, I need to be a better leader for them because they're believing in me. Yeah.
That's a lot. That's a lot of pressure. A lot of fucking pressure.
I can't be messing up. So, so,
but yeah, dude, thank you for asking me that, bro. Like it means a lot.
And lastly, just give people your social, like where they can find you,

(01:06:21):
if they have any questions, your credit card, demo, whatever.
Social, social. Social?
Dude, that's a crazy question. I don't even know my socials.
That's how bad I am. So bad at social stuff, man.
At rlilkicks is one, I guess, where I'm looking up my actual personal one. Ryan, at Ryan00C.

(01:06:42):
There you go. There it is. I was like, I got to look that up,
man. No, you're good, bro. A lot of times I forget to post even.
No, it's so good. My wife is like, post something.
I'm like, all right. No, I just like to ask in case, Cause we don't like,
I see like the numbers that people listen, but I don't know,
like it doesn't tell you who's listening.
You just see a number, but you know, I know there's somebody out there that's

(01:07:05):
going to listen to this and you said something very profound and they may have a question.
So I like to let them know, Hey, reach out to, to him directly.
He'll be able to help you out.
So, but yeah, dude, thank you for coming by.
Like right on time there we go i appreciate you
you're swinging here and giving us some game thanks
for having me man it's been awesome like i said first one i i

(01:07:28):
may be a sales guy but i hate speaking no bro but but here's the thing you got
so much fucking game bro like literally like i'm just gonna say this in front
of everybody because i was gonna ask you off camera but i need to be coaching
with you bro like you need to like i need to be hanging out with you bro because
Because you have wisdom. I'm down.
I'm like, I need to learn more. I'm down. My only thing is I don't like to like,

(01:07:50):
I'm down for all that stuff.
But I'm the type, like, let's say like, even like, I remember my buddy,
he's now, he does a lot of stuff for Crumble now. He does all their media stuff.
I'm the type of like, hey, I want like to pick your brain on like building out
my website or like my email flows or something like that.
I'm just like, I want to be like, hey, dude, like, let's go. Let's go do it.

(01:08:11):
I'm a hands on type of guy. So as long as people are fine with that, that's for me.
Let's do it. You know what I mean? I love doing that stuff.
So thanks again for having me, bro. Thank you for coming.
And guys, I encourage you, go re-listen to this stuff, man. There was a lot
of game, a lot of value in there.
Like I was telling you guys at the beginning of the episode,

(01:08:32):
I don't know what success looks to you guys, but it's a recipe for you to get
to that level that you want to get to.
There's a lot of things that you gotta have in place so
that's why i make sure that i bring all kinds of people into the podcast so
you can pick and choose like it doesn't mean like you have to do it the same

(01:08:52):
way but you know there's a way so anyways guys thank you for listening to this
episode and we'll see you next time peace.