May 29, 2025 • 45 mins
In this episode of the Healthy, Wealthy, and Smart podcast, host Dr. Stephanie Weyrauch welcomes Dr. Jeff Golini, the CEO and executive scientist of All-American Pharmaceutical. Dr. Golini shares his journey from being a lifelong athlete, participating in various sports from elementary school through college football, to becoming a trailblazer in sports nutrition and business innovation. He discusses the foundation of his company, which is rooted in science, passion, and purpose, and highlights some of his globally recognized supplements. Please tune in to learn about Dr. Golini 's unique insights into the world of sports nutrition and how he has built a successful business in this field.
Time Stamps:
[00:01:32] Professional bodybuilding journey.
[00:04:12] Innovation in nutritional supplements.
[00:10:53] Entrepreneurship and patience.
[00:12:55] Patience in business growth.
[00:17:17] Balancing multiple roles effectively.
[00:22:01] Treating employees with respect.
[00:26:55] Quality over profit in healthcare.
[00:30:11] Importance of delegation in business.
[00:31:36] Importance of having mentors.
[00:39:08] Defining success as a leader.
[00:42:07] Importance of exercise for success.
[00:44:19] Advice for young professionals.
More About Dr. Golini:
From his beginnings as a high school All-Conference/All American athlete turned Professional Body Builder, Dr. Golini, knows with hard work and a creatively strategic plan, anyone can take life’s challenges head on and turn ordinary circumstances into extraordinary opportunities. Seeing a need to invent and develop high quality, drug-free supplement, Dr. Golini took his own competitive spirit and performance knowledge from a hobby in his apartment in 1985 to the current multi-million dollar state of the art, 150,000 square foot Research & Manufacturing facility in Billings, Montana.
Dr Golini is a multi-Patent holder, inventor, author and scientist currently working at the helm of All American Pharmaceutical as CEO and Excusive Scientist. Dr Golini has also published several studies and has been the host of National Radio Shows “Science for Humans” and “The EFX Sports Show” heard live on ESPN 910 Radio.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:03):
Hi, everyone. Welcome back to the Healthy, Wealthy, and Smart podcast. I'm
your host, Stephanie Wyrock. And I'm
really excited about today's episode because it actually came
about through a local connection that I have here in Billings, Montana,
where I live. And one of my colleagues from a
local networking group that I'm involved in had listened to a
(00:25):
recent episode of the Healthy, Wealthy, and Smart podcast and had said,
you know, Stephanie, you should talk to Dr. Jeff Galini. He
is doing some really incredible things, and he is right here
in Billings. So today I'm thrilled to
welcome Dr. Jeff Gallini, who's the CEO, executive
scientist, inventor at All-American
(00:48):
Pharmaceutical. And he's a trailblazer in the
world of sports nutrition and business innovation. So
he started out as a professional bodybuilder and he founded
this company called All-American Pharmaceutical. And
he has created globally recognized supplements like
Crealkalin and Carbolin, and he's
(01:11):
built his business rooted in science, passion,
and purpose. So thank you so much, Dr.
So tell us a little bit about yourself and how you ended
(01:32):
You know, I have been an athlete my whole life. I
started way back in elementary school, you know, track
and field. Um, I ended up playing a high school
football, basketball track, you know, all conference, all, you
know, American, you name it, uh, went on to play four years
of college football. My dream was always to go into the
(01:53):
NFL. So, um, that was sort of
my lifelong dream. I love basketball, but at six foot, I
really wasn't tall enough. I played one year of freshman basketball.
As a matter of fact, I got recruited for two sports, but it was just too
much garden, you know, six foot 10 guys. So I
concentrated on football, weight training, um, power
(02:14):
lifting and such. Well, an injury, um, in
the spring, um, of my senior year, I
was getting ready for a NFL tryout and,
uh, just kind of shut me down. You know, I was so discouraged
because that was my lifelong dream. I came back home and
one of the guys at the YMCA said, Hey, you,
(02:35):
you ought to enter this bodybuilding show. So I needed something
to kind of focus on, you know, athletes got to always have a direction and
I wasn't ready to retire. So I got a
little bit of info, did the best I could. And I ended up winning the
Mr. Lorraine Ohio show and I got hooked.
So I kind of did a one 80 and focused on bodybuilding. Um,
(02:59):
I started training with a gentleman who was getting ready for
the Mr. America. And this was about 1982. And
he said, Hey, let's go out to California. Gold's
gym. You know, uh, we've got memberships. We've
got places to stay. We got jobs. We'll go out there and train for
the summer while I get ready for my show. So here we go.
(03:19):
We pack up his little, uh, station wagon, four of us.
And we head out there. and pull up the girls' gym, find
out we got no memberships, no jobs, and no place to stay. But
that's a whole story for another day. So
I ended up staying there. I thought, well, if I'm going to bodybuild, this is
really where it's the mecca of bodybuilding. Work
(03:43):
part-time jobs, bouncing.
I got a job at GNC, General Nutrition Centers.
And one of the things I realized You know, bodybuilding,
because you are presenting your physique where
the other sports, I just had to go, you know, and
supplements really became important. And I realized
(04:06):
early on, there really wasn't anything at GNC that really
was helping me. And I had an idea that if
I would take this terrible tasting protein that we
drank and I could get somebody to make it into a tablet. then
I could substitute some of my protein with these tablets.
And that's kind of how the company started. I saved $3,500. This
(04:30):
gal that was making my posing suits, I was telling her
about it and she goes, well, you're an All-American, you should call it like All-American Nutritional
Supplements. So that was my original name, started
in Los Angeles. I made a run of these protein tabs and
Goals Gym let me sell them out of my gym bag. And
I basically paid for my own use. Kind
(04:53):
of as time went on, you know, popularity grew, store started
calling, I added some other products. And, you know, went
from working out of my house to renting a little place
in Venice Beach. And as I started to grow the
business, you know, adding products, I found again,
that the manufacturers I was buying from I
(05:13):
had to buy what they had. I couldn't use my science
background and my athletic, um, knowledge
to create things that, you know, would work for me because I was
still bodybuilding. So lo and behold found
out that Billings Montana had an airport and,
uh, they had UPS and I found out how cheap
(05:33):
it was. And my wife and I, we ended up moving back
to a Billings in, uh, what was it? 92. And
the journey kind of started, you know, started to build the business, get
into manufacturing. Our current facility
is 150,000 square foot. And this is the third
facility that I've been in since I've been in Billings. But that's kind of
(05:56):
the short story long how I, you know, went from being an athlete to
Did you have the scientific background before
you went into bodybuilding, or is that something that came about
You know, I always liked science. I excelled in science in high
(06:18):
school. When I went to college, I was going to major in biology.
chemistry and the football lab, the
labs were at the same time as football. Well, you know, I'm on football
scholarship. So I bounced around to geology and,
uh, they talked me into majoring in, uh, back then they
called it physical education. Now they call it exercise physiology. So,
(06:42):
you know, again, the labs would not compete with football practice. So
I had kind of a good, uh, base on it, but
really, um, you know, it was all trial and error. You know,
I mean, being willing to try something, have some ideas and
figure it out, you know, and that's kind of what I did, which
is what led to all the innovation. You know, if you're not willing to take some
(07:05):
risk and to try, you know, you're never gonna be able
to develop or invent things. And I think most inventors, you know, didn't
really have the knowledge or skill. They just went in and started pounding
Yeah, I mean, there is something behind that. Because I think when we talk about entrepreneurs,
I mean, risk is always something that I think
(07:27):
is in the blood of an entrepreneur. So
what does your innovation process look like? I mean, I know you
said that it's kind of a trial and error process. But
if you could give us a little bit of a systematized
way of how to look at that, from the idea to bringing a
product to market, what does that innovative process look like for
(07:50):
Yeah, and you know, today, it's a lot different than it was, you know, 30 years ago,
you know, 30 years ago, had no money, you know, banks
wouldn't lend you money, because you had no money. So, you know, I really had to depend
on myself. And, you know, again, learn how to budget
and how to save and build a business. But I think it
starts with an idea, you know, you have to know your market, you
(08:12):
have to know a need, you know, you don't want to just reinvent
the wheel. And I always say take calculated risk
because anytime you invest money into something, it is a risk. But
if you've done your due diligence, you see that you've either
fixed an issue or there's a need for something, especially
in our industry, in the health industry. where, you know, there's
(08:35):
so many products out there. You got to be able to
differentiate. Once you come up with the idea, now you got
to figure out, you know, how are you going to put that together? You know, what is
the cost going to be? You know, will
it be effective? You got to then make some in the
lab, which is research and development. And
I try it on myself. I've always been my own
(08:58):
guinea pig for the most part, especially everything on the EFX Sports
brand, because I still enjoy working out. And if it
works, if you have the money, which in the dietary supplement they
usually don't, you go out and do clinical trials, which
is what I did. I did a lot of clinical trials on all
of our patent items. Again, I wanted to prove that I
(09:18):
really did have something which would then lead to patents to
protect what I created. But
again, it's coming up with an idea and trying
to see how you can put it together. And again, it doesn't matter what it
I love the aspect of
(09:40):
your business that you started it with your own money and it was back before,
you know, venture capitalists were around investing all
this money. And I think in healthcare, that's one of the biggest things that
we've seen is that you have a lot of these smaller practices. So,
you know, I'm a physical therapist, so you have a small independent private
practice that wants to grow, but in the healthcare
(10:01):
marketplace, you almost have to have some type of
venture capitalist or big hospital space
coming in to invest in you in order for you to compete. So
the fact that you were able to truly start out
as a small business and organically grow
your business, I think is such a cool part of
(10:24):
what has made you successful. There are a lot
of practice owners that I know that are wanting to
kind of have that experience that you have. What type of
advice would you have to entrepreneurs
or clinicians who started where you started, where they
had a small amount of money and they wanted
(10:46):
to grow it but don't want to sell their business to
My advice always is, number one, If you want
to start a business, don't do it because you want to work
less hours because, you know, you're going to work double
the hours. But again, it's like, you know, renting a home or
(11:06):
buying a home. You know, this is your investment for your future. The
problem with most young entrepreneurs is they are impatient. You
know, they don't want to work the business. They don't want to put the time in.
They don't want to grow. I see it all the time. Everybody is
looking for investors because they want to be like,
you know, Nestle's chocolate overnight, not
(11:30):
realizing they've been in business for 200 years. And same when
I talk to people and go, I started this in 1985, you know,
I'm not a newbie. It took a long time. But
we own everything we don't owe everything. And, you
know, we learned along the way, you know how to get good
people next to me. I'm not an expert everything I'm very good at
(11:51):
what I do, but I learned how to, you know, bring on great people
that had skills in different areas that I wasn't. either
necessarily skilled in or things I don't like to do that
I'm just not good at. But you gotta be patient. You
can't start a business today and have five patients
and go, oh, I'm gonna get the
(12:13):
hospital to invest into me so I can be 5,000. Well, you might
as well go work for them because they're gonna take everything
you have and these venture capitalists and all this. you
know, they're the ones that make all the money and you do all the work and make
no money. So again, it's just about putting the time in, you
know, what is your goal? You know, do you want to be self-sufficient? Do
(12:34):
you want to build a lucrative business that you can
make a living on and, you know, eventually retire on? Then
I think that that is so wise. And I think in our society
today, patience is a lot harder to come by in the world
(12:55):
With the cell phones, people have no patience.
Everybody wants it now. You want information,
you ask Siri, where when I was young, you want
to learn how to spell a word, they told you, go look it up in a dictionary.
And I'd be like, well, if I knew how to spell it, And,
you know, you had to dig for information where now, you know,
(13:18):
again, people don't want to wait. But I think that's,
you know, anyone who is successful, you know, will give you
the same type of advice is don't be in a hurry. It takes time. And,
you know, if you can not sell yourself out to banks and
everybody else. you know, you're going to be better
off. Now, you know, there's a time where, you know, we grew and,
(13:40):
you know, I needed to build a new building. And, you know, the banks were
very good with low interest loans. And, you
know, you knew you can make payments. But for the most part, you know,
try to fund yourself. I mean, that that's the best way to do business. Every
What is the biggest challenge or what
(14:01):
are some of the biggest challenges that you faced as
a business leader? And how did you overcome them?
Because I mean, it's a different atmosphere now than it was
when you started your business. So I'm sure you've seen all these
changes. So tell us a little bit about some of the challenges that you faced.
You know, early on, my biggest challenge was, I'll
(14:22):
just say jealousy, because again, you know, here I
am, I would go to a trade show, I would have a little 10 foot booth, and
I'd see this other brand, and they'd have an 80 foot booth. And
I would get envious. And I'd have to sit back and
go, you know what, you know, I need to
be happy with what I got and what I'm building and
not look at what everybody else is doing. So that was
(14:45):
kind of an initial challenge, but I think we all do that. We
look at social media and we wanna be like everybody else. So
I realized I gotta be myself. I gotta have innovations that
are me instead of just kind of copying and
trying to be like everybody else. Today,
the biggest challenge is staffing. Obviously,
(15:09):
the economy is tough, and I think
businesses, you just got to ride out the storm. I've seen a
lot of storms over the years. You go back to 9-11
where business halted. Nobody
paid you, nobody shipped, and we
went probably six months without revenue or
(15:31):
anything. It was a rough storm, but you can either quit, And,
uh, you know, I was going to quit at that time. And a friend of mine said, nah,
ride it out, man. Don't, you know, you, you want to sell your
business. You're going to make no money because you know,
you, you want to quit. And I was like, yeah, that's right. I'm an athlete. You
(15:52):
know, I got beat up. So what I'm going to come back, I'm going to work harder and
I'm going to rebuild the business. So again, you know, there's always
ups and downs in business. There's ups and downs in the economy. you
know, COVID, I mean, you just got to ride out those storms. But
if you're smart enough, and you look ahead, you
see that there could be challenges with supply
(16:14):
chains, well, you're going to have to invest a little bit to overcome
those things. And that's what we did, like during COVID, you know, we invested in
our inventory. And we had no supply chain
issues where everybody else was struggling to get lids and models. And
they were wanting to buy from us. And I'm like, sorry, you know, I mean, you know,
(16:36):
Yeah, that's a really good point. I think that one
of the things that distinguishes leaders from
maybe people who could continue to develop as leaders is
that visionary outlook and really predicting
the future and anticipating the needs that a business may have.
And, I mean, not only are you the scientist
(17:00):
of your company, you're the CEO of the company, you are
an author, you are a radio host, I mean, you got a lot going on.
And you said that you don't start a business if you don't want to keep
working. How do you not burn out? How do you do
Yeah, I mean, if you don't like what you're doing, then
(17:22):
do something else. And I enjoy
what I do. Now, I'm older, so
I don't work as many hours as I did when I
was in my 20s and 30s. But again,
I didn't have staff back then. It was me, myself, and I. So I
made it. I packed it. I had one other guy. I worked Saturdays, Sundays.
(17:44):
There were weekends that we slept at work and
worked the whole weekend just to get orders done. I
call it the life switch. When
you leave home, you've got to turn off the switch. You've
got to leave your home problems at home and you've got to come to work. When
you leave work, you need to learn how to turn that switch off and
(18:06):
not take your problems home. And again, I think as an
athlete, I learned that early on that it's
gonna be here tomorrow. I don't need to go home and worry about it because
there's nothing I can do at home. I got tomorrow's another day and
I'll work on it tomorrow. So I'm very good at time management
and I've always managed my time. I
(18:28):
don't take on more than I can handle. So even though I have
written books and I do shows and I've done stuff, I
do make sure I have enough time to relax and to
unwind, to do the things that you like to do. But
(18:49):
How do you like to relax? What are some of your
You know, I play guitar, you know, so
I enjoy music and guitar playing. I
played in bands for years and years and years. I did the music
at Faith Chapel for the kids for probably 20 years, so that was always
fun on the weekends. We live in Montana. I
(19:12):
mean, I love it here. I love the outdoors. I love going to the
mountains where there's no cell phone reception. I like
hunting, you know, fishing. But I
just, you know, I deal with people, you know, from customers all
over the world to employees. So to me, just to go
home and sit in the backyard and mow the yard is
(19:33):
enjoyable. You know, it's kind of a break from what
I normally do. You know, and all those things you
can kind of turn your brain off and just enjoy the sunshine and
That when you had talked about one
of the things that you suffered early on in your leadership journey
(19:54):
in your business with that aspect of jealousy and
really stepping back and appreciating what you have, it
sounds like that you've carried that lesson, that early lesson, not
just in your business life, but also in
your personal life, really just living in the moment and savoring
the time that you have with the things you like to do and
(20:14):
the people that you enjoy being around, which I think all
of us as business owners can take a step back and just kind
You got it. You got to learn how to smell the roses, you know, and again,
I'm not saying I did that my whole career because early on
I didn't it was, you know, pedal to the metal and
(20:35):
all of a sudden, you know, 10 years 1520 years going by, you know, and The
older you get, you realize, man, forget the
10-year plan. Let me just work all month. But
you got to. You have to be able to enjoy stuff. And
getting back to, if you enjoy what you do, coming
(20:58):
to work is fun. Now, are there issues and
are there things that I don't like dealing with? Absolutely. Who
likes dealing with conflict? But that's just part
of, you know, part of the job. I mean, you know, you're going to have some
issues you got to deal with, but for the most part. You
know, you enjoy you enjoy work,
(21:19):
you know, if you have good staff and you set good parameters.
you know, on what are your business goals? You know, how do you
treat your employees and how do you expect your employees to treat
other people? And you kind of develop that atmosphere that
everybody enjoys coming to work. When you come in here, one of the things
people notice is, boy, everybody's working and
(21:41):
they all seem to be smiling. Well, yeah, they like what
they do. You know what I mean? I couldn't do
some of the repetitious jobs, but they love it. They're built
to do those things, especially when you're dealing in production and
(22:01):
I think my dad taught me from
a very young age to treat people with respect.
And that, you know, he was my accountant for years before he passed away.
And he always told me that, you know, your employees are your number one
asset. So you need to treat them well. And
I think just, you know, faith beliefs in
(22:24):
treating others as you want to be treated, you know, and my
athletic, you know, from a team concept, Everybody
is important from the water boy up to the star
quarterback. And that's really what I promote here is
more of a team concept where the people who are cleaning the
floors, the maintenance and sanitation are just
(22:47):
as important as myself. We all have a job to
do that equals the quality of the product we
put out. And when you can show them that
they are important, Then again, that attitude filters
through the whole plant. Business owners who come in and
they're grumbling and moaning, and every
(23:07):
time they turn around, they got no money in their business because they bought another Lamborghini.
Employees don't like to see that. They
need to know that the business is stable. I guarantee every
employee that comes on, you will always have a full-time job. In
all my years, I don't know, 39, I've never laid
one person off. If we got no work to do, I'll
(23:30):
still pay you. You can sweep the floors, you can wash windows. I'll
find something for you to do, but I will never, you know, lay
you off or send you home because we don't have work. And, you know,
the last four years have been rough. You know, the
Biden administration was rough on businesses and, you know,
everybody was struggling a little bit, but, you know, our employees knew
(23:55):
That's great to hear. I mean, you know, I think that it's
always nice to hear a leader talk about
how they value their employees. And I think in
the healthcare space, that's something that a lot of my colleagues who
work for hospitals or something, they feel like they're
just a cog in the wheel and that they're replaceable. Even
(24:17):
though staffing, it's hard to hire physical therapists
and physicians right now. But yet, it
doesn't seem like there are companies that don't seem
It's tough. I remember back in California, I worked for a
family that owned a pharmacy. And I managed
(24:39):
one of the pharmacy. they were so rude to
me. You know, I took
the job for six bucks an hour, which back then was a lot. And
they only paid me for 40 hours. And I was working seven days a week,
opening and closing, I got cussed at, you know, and
that was the only job in my life that I ever quit. And the first time
(25:01):
I resigned, they tore up my resignation in front of me and said, No,
you ain't quitting. And I was like,
I can't deal with this. And I never want to, you know, ever treat
anybody that way because it was just terrible, you know? And
so I've always, again, you know, whether, you know,
you go into the grocery store, hey, how's your day going? You
(25:21):
know, you always try to give somebody a smile because
everybody got problems and, you know, people come to
work, you know, again, we encourage them to leave it at home. And
when you leave, don't take work home. You
can do it tomorrow. So I never make anybody
work overtime. If we do have overtime available, it's
(25:42):
upon, you know, you can sign up for it. It is time and a half. It's
just because we have extra work. But even my salary people, I
encourage them, don't work on the weekends. You know, enjoy your family.
I mean, you know, you got plenty of time during the week to
Healthcare, when you get to the big businesses, that's
(26:06):
where it gets tough. And when people do sell out, you
have to realize that that's all about the bottom line sometimes
and isn't about the people. It's about the money. And
as you know, our healthcare system, especially when you get to
these CEOs who are making a chameleon dollars and
then the people at the bottom are making nothing. So
(26:28):
anyhow, that's why I always decided, I'm
just gonna run things myself and take time
and again, be patient. It's always
interesting when some venture capitalist is dangling
the check, but it's like, nah, that
doesn't interest me. Gotta
(26:49):
make a living and it's fun making money, but at the end of the day, you
don't want that to be your driving factor. It should
be, again, enjoying work and putting out a quality product.
At the end of the day, we're producing things that are helping people.
They're alternatives to drugs. You know, I'm a firm believer
in dietary supplements, that they are very beneficial for
(27:12):
everything out there from, you know, high end sports athletes to, you
know, people just looking to have a better quality life
to, you know, healing diseases. I mean, everything is
in nature that the pharmaceutical companies have copied,
Yeah, and you know, I love this theme that
seems to be popping out on this patience aspect. Having
(27:36):
patience in today's world is difficult. And
when we talk about scaling a company, I mean, you have to
have patience for that. So what advice would you give to
a small business owner that's looking to grow their brand in
So you need to know, you know, today, what
(27:57):
can you handle? You know, in my business, I
had to figure out, you know, how much business can, can I handle, you
know? Um, because it's nice going, Oh boy,
we'd like to get this customer, but we had to take a look and
go, man, we couldn't, we couldn't handle that right now. So I
think you have to look at, you know, what, you know, how many patients can
(28:17):
you, you handle with your staff? You know, how many bottles
can you put out? And then from a growth standpoint,
obviously it comes down to either investing into equipment
or investing in the staff. But the problem is
always the corporate cart before the horse. Well, do I
take more business and then can't keep up or do I hire somebody and
(28:41):
not have enough business, but then I can grow? I always went
from the standpoint, you got to invest and
then you grow. Because if you try to grow without the
investment, it could bite you. Again,
I made those mistakes early on. You know, this
is a funny quick story, but I
(29:01):
used to have a clothing line years ago that I had somebody
in California making. And when I came out here, it was just
me and another guy that came with us. And we thought, oh, we'll get some sewing
machines and let's just sew it ourself. And this
company called and said, hey, could you make us these reversible red,
white, you know, kids jerseys for
(29:22):
our flag football? Oh, sure, sure. We
worked, I mean, around the clock sewing these, and
they were the worst job. And the kids got them, they washed them,
and they bled, and they shrunk, and they fell apart. And
the guy ended up suing me to get his money back, you know, $3,500. And
I realized, I can't, I gotta do what I'm good at.
(29:46):
And I should have hired it out and made less, but done it right instead
of, you know, trying to make an extra buck. But
anyhow, invest into the business and then grow it. Don't
grow it and then have an issue with keeping up. Because
again, you don't want to ruin your reputation. That's what we have
as entrepreneurs, is our reputation. And once you
(30:07):
start to tarnish that reputation, people won't want to
I love that story. That is like the
quintessential story, I think, of a physical therapy business
owner. Because I think a lot of times we think that we do have to do everything ourselves.
And the advice I hear over and over again from
my mentors is, if you don't like doing it
(30:29):
or you're not good at it, find somebody who will do it for you. Because
time is your most precious resource. And you
And you've got to do what you've done. And, you know, again, early on entrepreneurs, you
know, I had to learn how to run equipment. I used to do the blending because
I I was adding stuff on and I was learning and then
(30:50):
I could train people, even, you know, analytical equipment.
You know, I remember the first HPLC machine
I got. I thought I can figure this out, you know, and,
you know, I started to get to the point where, OK, this is beyond
what I have patience and time for, it's time to now hire a
(31:10):
chemist who knows how to do all this stuff. And again, you
can try and get things going, but you have to
realize there's a time to bring somebody on if you're going
to grow that part of your business that knows more than you.
What role do you think mentorship has played in your journey? And how
do you recommend others either seek
(31:36):
Yeah, don't hire online mentors. Right
now, that is the trend. Let me show you how to
make $1 million a month. Buy my course for
$3,000. Those are the guys making money. I think
mentors are important because people who have been
around the block They've
(31:58):
seen it all. I mean, I don't know if I've seen it all, but I've
seen a lot. And I've been mentoring quite a few young
business guys here in Billings that, you know, one guy's in
the fish business, another guy's in another business. But at the end of the day,
business is all the same. And they struggle with the same things
that I did. Oh, I want a bigger building. Why? Well,
(32:18):
because it looks good. No, no, no, no, no, no, you know, you're
you're trying to keep up with the Joneses, but I think having some
mentors that you can go to. And I was fortunate that
my dad, you know, was my number one mentor, you know, he was a
brilliant. accountant and a good business guy. And
I mean, I would constantly call him up with questions. And
(32:40):
some of them I look back on, they were so stupid, but he always answered
me gingerly. I remember one time
I said, Dad, should my payroll be like 2% of my
gross revenue? He's like, well, there's really not a
number for that. It's just And
I had other business folks that I met in Billings along
(33:02):
the way that were good mentors, you know, where I
would turn to, you know, for different type of stuff. And
even like today, you know, our mutual friend, Billy Gordon, you
know, even though he's younger than me, you know, he's
a financial wizard. So, you know, when I have financial questions, you
know, I just go to him and, you know, he's the one that knows how to
(33:23):
do things. A lot of times you can get good mentors at
banks, which I had, you know, they really helped me with a
lot of decisions. Where, you know, I was
looking at a piece of property years ago, and I wasn't
looking, I always could look at something and see what it
could be. But sometimes I early on, I had trouble figuring
(33:43):
out how much it was going to cost me. And some of my bankers friends,
you know, were able to show me look, this is not a good investment. The
amount of money you're going to have to spend to get this up and running, you
know, find something that you have the capability of
building and using right away. But again, I
think, like I said, those mentors are really, really important when
(34:09):
Yeah, I mean, I've never even really thought about using like a banker as
a mentor, you know, that's and that's I feel like also
when you're when you're in a town like Billings, that's such a that's
such an easy thing to do, because, you know, you see your banker at
the grocery store or, you know, they're they know your kids
is you know, your kids are friends or
(34:30):
something like that. So, you know, that's always nice when
you're in a community and you as a business owner
are engrossed in that community because it allows you to find
those mentors and develop those relationships so that
Can you share a practical strategy that helped you
(34:53):
break through a plateau in your business or your leadership development? I
I think, you know, I was blessed.
I mean, from day one, every year, my business increased
as far as sales go. And I think the biggest challenge
(35:16):
Oh, no. I remember 9-11. I could tell you exactly where I
was. I was in seventh grade, so I
And what I learned from 9-11 is we
were making money, and I was spending money. And again, I
was growing the business, buying equipment. you
(35:37):
know, getting things. But I wasn't thinking
that something could happen that next year we weren't going to be up again.
And 9-11, when things shut down, you know,
is when I realized I have
to have a better way of saving. And when
something happens that we can survive this. So
(36:00):
I think that was one of the big plateaus because 9-11 was the first year that
we went down in sales. And I really had to restructure
and rebuild the business back, you know, from that.
And I think that's what helped through the COVID because
it was a similar situation where things were shutting down. And
we ended up with record years during that COVID, even though we
(36:23):
had bankruptcies and we had, you know, places go out of business, but
we had enough revenue coming in where I joined the
Montana task force. And we started making hand sanitizer
so that businesses could stay open. And, you know, we donated to
all the first responders. all the sanitizer they
need. And then we sold to the hospitals and you
(36:45):
know, the businesses just a little bit over cost, you know, just
to cover cover our cost on things. But that build
a lot of goodwill, too. So again, anytime you can build
goodwill, but again, I think it comes back to saving.
You know, you look at like an Elon Musk who doesn't even have a house, you
know, what is your goal? You know, again, if
(37:06):
you have you know, you're the only person, but you
really would like to get to where you have five physical therapists and
200 clients. You know, you can't constantly take all the money
out of your business. I mean, you know, take out
what your business can afford and pay you because, you know, you built your
business, but, you know, leave money in so that you got, you
(37:27):
know, cash for a 911 or you have
Yeah, I think that was a big lesson that a lot of us as business owners
learned during COVID too is, you know, those businesses that
didn't have the cash flow saved, I
mean, when business stopped. And I mean, in some states, physical therapy practices
(37:47):
had to close. In other states, they were able to stay open. But of course, you're
not maintaining the same volume that you're
used to. I think that you make a really good point as to anticipating
some of those problems that may develop is really something
that can make or break a
(38:08):
It kind of comes back, like you said, riding out the storm, realizing that
Whatever administration is in the White House, we've
had good years and we've had bad years, and that's
just the way it goes. And for
us, we deal globally and we see how the
(38:30):
US economy affects the global market. So
even though the dollar might be weaker and they can buy more,
their economies are affected if the US economy is weak. So
we're now seeing kind of a resurgence in things. And
again, it kind of makes things a little funner than struggling
(38:52):
like a lot of businesses do. But don't quit.
I mean, ride it out because Monday
How do you define success as a leader? What does success look like to
You know, that's a great question. People ask me that all the time. And
(39:14):
when I tell people my answer, they have to
then define it. Success to me is being
the number one employer in Montana and
being the number one business. And they go, oh, you want to sell the most? No,
no, no, no, no. That's not success. Being the
number one employer means I'm providing jobs for people. And
(39:35):
to me, you know, That makes me happy knowing
that, you know, people are able to make a living off of what we do. And
being the number one business means that people want to work here,
that this is a fun place. It's a safe place to
work. You know, too many people can't stand the jobs they do.
(39:55):
And we all have to make a living. So obviously, you know, we got to sell
in order to do all that. But again, the main focus isn't
on the mighty dollar that comes. That comes with hard
work and you'll get the revenue. But
if you concentrate on your morals, your mission
statement, and your employees, then the rest
(40:18):
I love that. I got a couple personal questions for
you now. First, what's one book that you
recommend to aspiring business leaders that has impacted you?
I read what I need to read.
(40:40):
To be honest with you, the Bible is
what has inspired me and what has set my faith
and everything that I've built my business off of. Other
than that, I read the Merck Index. I read scientific
journals, but I am not a motivational book
(41:00):
reader. I don't know. I just, I never could. I
remember being on a plane one time with one of my sales guys and
I got a book and he's looking over at
me and he's like, you got a Merck index? Now, Merck index
is kind of like the Bible for the chemical industry. It
has every chemical in there, how it's made, all the properties. And
(41:21):
I go, yeah, I'm just doing a little reading. He goes, that's light reading for you? I
Yeah, people always suck when I don't read
this or read that. I don't know. I guess I
never had time. I read what I needed
to read. And if you look at my bookshelf, it's
(41:44):
all chemistry books and biology books and different
chemical reference books. And I'll read those.
But I'm always reading to look for something because I got to come in and
(42:07):
Yes, because, you know, life
is stressful. I mean, you know, to be honest with
you, from family life to business life, life is stressful. And
I don't know for people who do not exercise, how
they make it through the day. So for
me, when I was, um, training, um, competing,
(42:30):
I did it first thing in the morning. So at four o'clock I was in
the gym because I didn't want my day to affect my workout. Now
I enjoy training after work. You know, it helps me wind down
before I go home. I'm tired. takes my
mind off things. But you know, as you know, there's something about
exercise, you know, the endorphins, the
(42:52):
physical activity, you know, when you feel good about yourself, you
know, you're going to be more beneficial to others and yourself. You
know, when you're out of shape, you're not healthy. Again, I
don't know how you can make good business decisions. You know, so
exercise number one, and number two, find a hobby, you
(43:13):
know, something that you can do that you enjoy that again, you
can turn your brain off work and just go do something that you
I love that. What's something people
Um, I think when I tell them that I'm a musician, you
know, I think they don't see that coming. Everybody knows I'm an athlete, you know,
(43:35):
cause just of everything out there. So they're not surprised that,
you know, athletic, but I think when they find out that, you know, I play
guitar and, you know, um, and, and
a lot of them are shocked when they find out I'm into, you know, hunting
and outdoors and stuff, you know, they, they think that I just spend
all my time at work or, or in the lab, you know, but
(43:56):
when I go off grid, Cell
Well, Jeff, this has been an awesome conversation. We
ask this last question to all of our guests. And that's, if
you were to give yourself one piece of what your 25-year-old self,
(44:19):
Boy, I never thought about that. I
think it would be. Do
everything honestly. Don't cut corners. Don't
worry about what the next guy is doing. Be patient
and earn everything you have. As an
(44:42):
athlete, the harder you work, the better the outcome. And the
same with business. I think that's what I would probably tell
myself. Again, looking back early on, the mistakes and
Well, thank you, Jeff, for joining us today. And thank you for
listening. And I hope you stay healthy, wealthy, and smart.
Hi, everyone. Welcome back to the Healthy, Wealthy, and Smart podcast. I'm
your host, Stephanie Wyrock. And I'm
really excited about today's episode because it actually came
about through a local connection that I have here in Billings, Montana,
where I live. And one of my colleagues from a
local networking group that I'm involved in had listened to a
(00:25):
recent episode of the Healthy, Wealthy, and Smart podcast and had said,
you know, Stephanie, you should talk to Dr. Jeff Galini. He
is doing some really incredible things, and he is right here
in Billings. So today I'm thrilled to
welcome Dr. Jeff Gallini, who's the CEO, executive
scientist, inventor at All-American
(00:48):
Pharmaceutical. And he's a trailblazer in the
world of sports nutrition and business innovation. So
he started out as a professional bodybuilder and he founded
this company called All-American Pharmaceutical. And
he has created globally recognized supplements like
Crealkalin and Carbolin, and he's
(01:11):
built his business rooted in science, passion,
and purpose. So thank you so much, Dr.
So tell us a little bit about yourself and how you ended
(01:32):
You know, I have been an athlete my whole life. I
started way back in elementary school, you know, track
and field. Um, I ended up playing a high school
football, basketball track, you know, all conference, all, you
know, American, you name it, uh, went on to play four years
of college football. My dream was always to go into the
(01:53):
NFL. So, um, that was sort of
my lifelong dream. I love basketball, but at six foot, I
really wasn't tall enough. I played one year of freshman basketball.
As a matter of fact, I got recruited for two sports, but it was just too
much garden, you know, six foot 10 guys. So I
concentrated on football, weight training, um, power
(02:14):
lifting and such. Well, an injury, um, in
the spring, um, of my senior year, I
was getting ready for a NFL tryout and,
uh, just kind of shut me down. You know, I was so discouraged
because that was my lifelong dream. I came back home and
one of the guys at the YMCA said, Hey, you,
(02:35):
you ought to enter this bodybuilding show. So I needed something
to kind of focus on, you know, athletes got to always have a direction and
I wasn't ready to retire. So I got a
little bit of info, did the best I could. And I ended up winning the
Mr. Lorraine Ohio show and I got hooked.
So I kind of did a one 80 and focused on bodybuilding. Um,
(02:59):
I started training with a gentleman who was getting ready for
the Mr. America. And this was about 1982. And
he said, Hey, let's go out to California. Gold's
gym. You know, uh, we've got memberships. We've
got places to stay. We got jobs. We'll go out there and train for
the summer while I get ready for my show. So here we go.
(03:19):
We pack up his little, uh, station wagon, four of us.
And we head out there. and pull up the girls' gym, find
out we got no memberships, no jobs, and no place to stay. But
that's a whole story for another day. So
I ended up staying there. I thought, well, if I'm going to bodybuild, this is
really where it's the mecca of bodybuilding. Work
(03:43):
part-time jobs, bouncing.
I got a job at GNC, General Nutrition Centers.
And one of the things I realized You know, bodybuilding,
because you are presenting your physique where
the other sports, I just had to go, you know, and
supplements really became important. And I realized
(04:06):
early on, there really wasn't anything at GNC that really
was helping me. And I had an idea that if
I would take this terrible tasting protein that we
drank and I could get somebody to make it into a tablet. then
I could substitute some of my protein with these tablets.
And that's kind of how the company started. I saved $3,500. This
(04:30):
gal that was making my posing suits, I was telling her
about it and she goes, well, you're an All-American, you should call it like All-American Nutritional
Supplements. So that was my original name, started
in Los Angeles. I made a run of these protein tabs and
Goals Gym let me sell them out of my gym bag. And
I basically paid for my own use. Kind
(04:53):
of as time went on, you know, popularity grew, store started
calling, I added some other products. And, you know, went
from working out of my house to renting a little place
in Venice Beach. And as I started to grow the
business, you know, adding products, I found again,
that the manufacturers I was buying from I
(05:13):
had to buy what they had. I couldn't use my science
background and my athletic, um, knowledge
to create things that, you know, would work for me because I was
still bodybuilding. So lo and behold found
out that Billings Montana had an airport and,
uh, they had UPS and I found out how cheap
(05:33):
it was. And my wife and I, we ended up moving back
to a Billings in, uh, what was it? 92. And
the journey kind of started, you know, started to build the business, get
into manufacturing. Our current facility
is 150,000 square foot. And this is the third
facility that I've been in since I've been in Billings. But that's kind of
(05:56):
the short story long how I, you know, went from being an athlete to
Did you have the scientific background before
you went into bodybuilding, or is that something that came about
You know, I always liked science. I excelled in science in high
(06:18):
school. When I went to college, I was going to major in biology.
chemistry and the football lab, the
labs were at the same time as football. Well, you know, I'm on football
scholarship. So I bounced around to geology and,
uh, they talked me into majoring in, uh, back then they
called it physical education. Now they call it exercise physiology. So,
(06:42):
you know, again, the labs would not compete with football practice. So
I had kind of a good, uh, base on it, but
really, um, you know, it was all trial and error. You know,
I mean, being willing to try something, have some ideas and
figure it out, you know, and that's kind of what I did, which
is what led to all the innovation. You know, if you're not willing to take some
(07:05):
risk and to try, you know, you're never gonna be able
to develop or invent things. And I think most inventors, you know, didn't
really have the knowledge or skill. They just went in and started pounding
Yeah, I mean, there is something behind that. Because I think when we talk about entrepreneurs,
I mean, risk is always something that I think
(07:27):
is in the blood of an entrepreneur. So
what does your innovation process look like? I mean, I know you
said that it's kind of a trial and error process. But
if you could give us a little bit of a systematized
way of how to look at that, from the idea to bringing a
product to market, what does that innovative process look like for
(07:50):
Yeah, and you know, today, it's a lot different than it was, you know, 30 years ago,
you know, 30 years ago, had no money, you know, banks
wouldn't lend you money, because you had no money. So, you know, I really had to depend
on myself. And, you know, again, learn how to budget
and how to save and build a business. But I think it
starts with an idea, you know, you have to know your market, you
(08:12):
have to know a need, you know, you don't want to just reinvent
the wheel. And I always say take calculated risk
because anytime you invest money into something, it is a risk. But
if you've done your due diligence, you see that you've either
fixed an issue or there's a need for something, especially
in our industry, in the health industry. where, you know, there's
(08:35):
so many products out there. You got to be able to
differentiate. Once you come up with the idea, now you got
to figure out, you know, how are you going to put that together? You know, what is
the cost going to be? You know, will
it be effective? You got to then make some in the
lab, which is research and development. And
I try it on myself. I've always been my own
(08:58):
guinea pig for the most part, especially everything on the EFX Sports
brand, because I still enjoy working out. And if it
works, if you have the money, which in the dietary supplement they
usually don't, you go out and do clinical trials, which
is what I did. I did a lot of clinical trials on all
of our patent items. Again, I wanted to prove that I
(09:18):
really did have something which would then lead to patents to
protect what I created. But
again, it's coming up with an idea and trying
to see how you can put it together. And again, it doesn't matter what it
I love the aspect of
(09:40):
your business that you started it with your own money and it was back before,
you know, venture capitalists were around investing all
this money. And I think in healthcare, that's one of the biggest things that
we've seen is that you have a lot of these smaller practices. So,
you know, I'm a physical therapist, so you have a small independent private
practice that wants to grow, but in the healthcare
(10:01):
marketplace, you almost have to have some type of
venture capitalist or big hospital space
coming in to invest in you in order for you to compete. So
the fact that you were able to truly start out
as a small business and organically grow
your business, I think is such a cool part of
(10:24):
what has made you successful. There are a lot
of practice owners that I know that are wanting to
kind of have that experience that you have. What type of
advice would you have to entrepreneurs
or clinicians who started where you started, where they
had a small amount of money and they wanted
(10:46):
to grow it but don't want to sell their business to
My advice always is, number one, If you want
to start a business, don't do it because you want to work
less hours because, you know, you're going to work double
the hours. But again, it's like, you know, renting a home or
(11:06):
buying a home. You know, this is your investment for your future. The
problem with most young entrepreneurs is they are impatient. You
know, they don't want to work the business. They don't want to put the time in.
They don't want to grow. I see it all the time. Everybody is
looking for investors because they want to be like,
you know, Nestle's chocolate overnight, not
(11:30):
realizing they've been in business for 200 years. And same when
I talk to people and go, I started this in 1985, you know,
I'm not a newbie. It took a long time. But
we own everything we don't owe everything. And, you
know, we learned along the way, you know how to get good
people next to me. I'm not an expert everything I'm very good at
(11:51):
what I do, but I learned how to, you know, bring on great people
that had skills in different areas that I wasn't. either
necessarily skilled in or things I don't like to do that
I'm just not good at. But you gotta be patient. You
can't start a business today and have five patients
and go, oh, I'm gonna get the
(12:13):
hospital to invest into me so I can be 5,000. Well, you might
as well go work for them because they're gonna take everything
you have and these venture capitalists and all this. you
know, they're the ones that make all the money and you do all the work and make
no money. So again, it's just about putting the time in, you
know, what is your goal? You know, do you want to be self-sufficient? Do
(12:34):
you want to build a lucrative business that you can
make a living on and, you know, eventually retire on? Then
I think that that is so wise. And I think in our society
today, patience is a lot harder to come by in the world
(12:55):
With the cell phones, people have no patience.
Everybody wants it now. You want information,
you ask Siri, where when I was young, you want
to learn how to spell a word, they told you, go look it up in a dictionary.
And I'd be like, well, if I knew how to spell it, And,
you know, you had to dig for information where now, you know,
(13:18):
again, people don't want to wait. But I think that's,
you know, anyone who is successful, you know, will give you
the same type of advice is don't be in a hurry. It takes time. And,
you know, if you can not sell yourself out to banks and
everybody else. you know, you're going to be better
off. Now, you know, there's a time where, you know, we grew and,
(13:40):
you know, I needed to build a new building. And, you know, the banks were
very good with low interest loans. And, you
know, you knew you can make payments. But for the most part, you know,
try to fund yourself. I mean, that that's the best way to do business. Every
What is the biggest challenge or what
(14:01):
are some of the biggest challenges that you faced as
a business leader? And how did you overcome them?
Because I mean, it's a different atmosphere now than it was
when you started your business. So I'm sure you've seen all these
changes. So tell us a little bit about some of the challenges that you faced.
You know, early on, my biggest challenge was, I'll
(14:22):
just say jealousy, because again, you know, here I
am, I would go to a trade show, I would have a little 10 foot booth, and
I'd see this other brand, and they'd have an 80 foot booth. And
I would get envious. And I'd have to sit back and
go, you know what, you know, I need to
be happy with what I got and what I'm building and
not look at what everybody else is doing. So that was
(14:45):
kind of an initial challenge, but I think we all do that. We
look at social media and we wanna be like everybody else. So
I realized I gotta be myself. I gotta have innovations that
are me instead of just kind of copying and
trying to be like everybody else. Today,
the biggest challenge is staffing. Obviously,
(15:09):
the economy is tough, and I think
businesses, you just got to ride out the storm. I've seen a
lot of storms over the years. You go back to 9-11
where business halted. Nobody
paid you, nobody shipped, and we
went probably six months without revenue or
(15:31):
anything. It was a rough storm, but you can either quit, And,
uh, you know, I was going to quit at that time. And a friend of mine said, nah,
ride it out, man. Don't, you know, you, you want to sell your
business. You're going to make no money because you know,
you, you want to quit. And I was like, yeah, that's right. I'm an athlete. You
(15:52):
know, I got beat up. So what I'm going to come back, I'm going to work harder and
I'm going to rebuild the business. So again, you know, there's always
ups and downs in business. There's ups and downs in the economy. you
know, COVID, I mean, you just got to ride out those storms. But
if you're smart enough, and you look ahead, you
see that there could be challenges with supply
(16:14):
chains, well, you're going to have to invest a little bit to overcome
those things. And that's what we did, like during COVID, you know, we invested in
our inventory. And we had no supply chain
issues where everybody else was struggling to get lids and models. And
they were wanting to buy from us. And I'm like, sorry, you know, I mean, you know,
(16:36):
Yeah, that's a really good point. I think that one
of the things that distinguishes leaders from
maybe people who could continue to develop as leaders is
that visionary outlook and really predicting
the future and anticipating the needs that a business may have.
And, I mean, not only are you the scientist
(17:00):
of your company, you're the CEO of the company, you are
an author, you are a radio host, I mean, you got a lot going on.
And you said that you don't start a business if you don't want to keep
working. How do you not burn out? How do you do
Yeah, I mean, if you don't like what you're doing, then
(17:22):
do something else. And I enjoy
what I do. Now, I'm older, so
I don't work as many hours as I did when I
was in my 20s and 30s. But again,
I didn't have staff back then. It was me, myself, and I. So I
made it. I packed it. I had one other guy. I worked Saturdays, Sundays.
(17:44):
There were weekends that we slept at work and
worked the whole weekend just to get orders done. I
call it the life switch. When
you leave home, you've got to turn off the switch. You've
got to leave your home problems at home and you've got to come to work. When
you leave work, you need to learn how to turn that switch off and
(18:06):
not take your problems home. And again, I think as an
athlete, I learned that early on that it's
gonna be here tomorrow. I don't need to go home and worry about it because
there's nothing I can do at home. I got tomorrow's another day and
I'll work on it tomorrow. So I'm very good at time management
and I've always managed my time. I
(18:28):
don't take on more than I can handle. So even though I have
written books and I do shows and I've done stuff, I
do make sure I have enough time to relax and to
unwind, to do the things that you like to do. But
(18:49):
How do you like to relax? What are some of your
You know, I play guitar, you know, so
I enjoy music and guitar playing. I
played in bands for years and years and years. I did the music
at Faith Chapel for the kids for probably 20 years, so that was always
fun on the weekends. We live in Montana. I
(19:12):
mean, I love it here. I love the outdoors. I love going to the
mountains where there's no cell phone reception. I like
hunting, you know, fishing. But I
just, you know, I deal with people, you know, from customers all
over the world to employees. So to me, just to go
home and sit in the backyard and mow the yard is
(19:33):
enjoyable. You know, it's kind of a break from what
I normally do. You know, and all those things you
can kind of turn your brain off and just enjoy the sunshine and
That when you had talked about one
of the things that you suffered early on in your leadership journey
(19:54):
in your business with that aspect of jealousy and
really stepping back and appreciating what you have, it
sounds like that you've carried that lesson, that early lesson, not
just in your business life, but also in
your personal life, really just living in the moment and savoring
the time that you have with the things you like to do and
(20:14):
the people that you enjoy being around, which I think all
of us as business owners can take a step back and just kind
You got it. You got to learn how to smell the roses, you know, and again,
I'm not saying I did that my whole career because early on
I didn't it was, you know, pedal to the metal and
(20:35):
all of a sudden, you know, 10 years 1520 years going by, you know, and The
older you get, you realize, man, forget the
10-year plan. Let me just work all month. But
you got to. You have to be able to enjoy stuff. And
getting back to, if you enjoy what you do, coming
(20:58):
to work is fun. Now, are there issues and
are there things that I don't like dealing with? Absolutely. Who
likes dealing with conflict? But that's just part
of, you know, part of the job. I mean, you know, you're going to have some
issues you got to deal with, but for the most part. You
know, you enjoy you enjoy work,
(21:19):
you know, if you have good staff and you set good parameters.
you know, on what are your business goals? You know, how do you
treat your employees and how do you expect your employees to treat
other people? And you kind of develop that atmosphere that
everybody enjoys coming to work. When you come in here, one of the things
people notice is, boy, everybody's working and
(21:41):
they all seem to be smiling. Well, yeah, they like what
they do. You know what I mean? I couldn't do
some of the repetitious jobs, but they love it. They're built
to do those things, especially when you're dealing in production and
(22:01):
I think my dad taught me from
a very young age to treat people with respect.
And that, you know, he was my accountant for years before he passed away.
And he always told me that, you know, your employees are your number one
asset. So you need to treat them well. And
I think just, you know, faith beliefs in
(22:24):
treating others as you want to be treated, you know, and my
athletic, you know, from a team concept, Everybody
is important from the water boy up to the star
quarterback. And that's really what I promote here is
more of a team concept where the people who are cleaning the
floors, the maintenance and sanitation are just
(22:47):
as important as myself. We all have a job to
do that equals the quality of the product we
put out. And when you can show them that
they are important, Then again, that attitude filters
through the whole plant. Business owners who come in and
they're grumbling and moaning, and every
(23:07):
time they turn around, they got no money in their business because they bought another Lamborghini.
Employees don't like to see that. They
need to know that the business is stable. I guarantee every
employee that comes on, you will always have a full-time job. In
all my years, I don't know, 39, I've never laid
one person off. If we got no work to do, I'll
(23:30):
still pay you. You can sweep the floors, you can wash windows. I'll
find something for you to do, but I will never, you know, lay
you off or send you home because we don't have work. And, you know,
the last four years have been rough. You know, the
Biden administration was rough on businesses and, you know,
everybody was struggling a little bit, but, you know, our employees knew
(23:55):
That's great to hear. I mean, you know, I think that it's
always nice to hear a leader talk about
how they value their employees. And I think in
the healthcare space, that's something that a lot of my colleagues who
work for hospitals or something, they feel like they're
just a cog in the wheel and that they're replaceable. Even
(24:17):
though staffing, it's hard to hire physical therapists
and physicians right now. But yet, it
doesn't seem like there are companies that don't seem
It's tough. I remember back in California, I worked for a
family that owned a pharmacy. And I managed
(24:39):
one of the pharmacy. they were so rude to
me. You know, I took
the job for six bucks an hour, which back then was a lot. And
they only paid me for 40 hours. And I was working seven days a week,
opening and closing, I got cussed at, you know, and
that was the only job in my life that I ever quit. And the first time
(25:01):
I resigned, they tore up my resignation in front of me and said, No,
you ain't quitting. And I was like,
I can't deal with this. And I never want to, you know, ever treat
anybody that way because it was just terrible, you know? And
so I've always, again, you know, whether, you know,
you go into the grocery store, hey, how's your day going? You
(25:21):
know, you always try to give somebody a smile because
everybody got problems and, you know, people come to
work, you know, again, we encourage them to leave it at home. And
when you leave, don't take work home. You
can do it tomorrow. So I never make anybody
work overtime. If we do have overtime available, it's
(25:42):
upon, you know, you can sign up for it. It is time and a half. It's
just because we have extra work. But even my salary people, I
encourage them, don't work on the weekends. You know, enjoy your family.
I mean, you know, you got plenty of time during the week to
Healthcare, when you get to the big businesses, that's
(26:06):
where it gets tough. And when people do sell out, you
have to realize that that's all about the bottom line sometimes
and isn't about the people. It's about the money. And
as you know, our healthcare system, especially when you get to
these CEOs who are making a chameleon dollars and
then the people at the bottom are making nothing. So
(26:28):
anyhow, that's why I always decided, I'm
just gonna run things myself and take time
and again, be patient. It's always
interesting when some venture capitalist is dangling
the check, but it's like, nah, that
doesn't interest me. Gotta
(26:49):
make a living and it's fun making money, but at the end of the day, you
don't want that to be your driving factor. It should
be, again, enjoying work and putting out a quality product.
At the end of the day, we're producing things that are helping people.
They're alternatives to drugs. You know, I'm a firm believer
in dietary supplements, that they are very beneficial for
(27:12):
everything out there from, you know, high end sports athletes to, you
know, people just looking to have a better quality life
to, you know, healing diseases. I mean, everything is
in nature that the pharmaceutical companies have copied,
Yeah, and you know, I love this theme that
seems to be popping out on this patience aspect. Having
(27:36):
patience in today's world is difficult. And
when we talk about scaling a company, I mean, you have to
have patience for that. So what advice would you give to
a small business owner that's looking to grow their brand in
So you need to know, you know, today, what
(27:57):
can you handle? You know, in my business, I
had to figure out, you know, how much business can, can I handle, you
know? Um, because it's nice going, Oh boy,
we'd like to get this customer, but we had to take a look and
go, man, we couldn't, we couldn't handle that right now. So I
think you have to look at, you know, what, you know, how many patients can
(28:17):
you, you handle with your staff? You know, how many bottles
can you put out? And then from a growth standpoint,
obviously it comes down to either investing into equipment
or investing in the staff. But the problem is
always the corporate cart before the horse. Well, do I
take more business and then can't keep up or do I hire somebody and
(28:41):
not have enough business, but then I can grow? I always went
from the standpoint, you got to invest and
then you grow. Because if you try to grow without the
investment, it could bite you. Again,
I made those mistakes early on. You know, this
is a funny quick story, but I
(29:01):
used to have a clothing line years ago that I had somebody
in California making. And when I came out here, it was just
me and another guy that came with us. And we thought, oh, we'll get some sewing
machines and let's just sew it ourself. And this
company called and said, hey, could you make us these reversible red,
white, you know, kids jerseys for
(29:22):
our flag football? Oh, sure, sure. We
worked, I mean, around the clock sewing these, and
they were the worst job. And the kids got them, they washed them,
and they bled, and they shrunk, and they fell apart. And
the guy ended up suing me to get his money back, you know, $3,500. And
I realized, I can't, I gotta do what I'm good at.
(29:46):
And I should have hired it out and made less, but done it right instead
of, you know, trying to make an extra buck. But
anyhow, invest into the business and then grow it. Don't
grow it and then have an issue with keeping up. Because
again, you don't want to ruin your reputation. That's what we have
as entrepreneurs, is our reputation. And once you
(30:07):
start to tarnish that reputation, people won't want to
I love that story. That is like the
quintessential story, I think, of a physical therapy business
owner. Because I think a lot of times we think that we do have to do everything ourselves.
And the advice I hear over and over again from
my mentors is, if you don't like doing it
(30:29):
or you're not good at it, find somebody who will do it for you. Because
time is your most precious resource. And you
And you've got to do what you've done. And, you know, again, early on entrepreneurs, you
know, I had to learn how to run equipment. I used to do the blending because
I I was adding stuff on and I was learning and then
(30:50):
I could train people, even, you know, analytical equipment.
You know, I remember the first HPLC machine
I got. I thought I can figure this out, you know, and,
you know, I started to get to the point where, OK, this is beyond
what I have patience and time for, it's time to now hire a
(31:10):
chemist who knows how to do all this stuff. And again, you
can try and get things going, but you have to
realize there's a time to bring somebody on if you're going
to grow that part of your business that knows more than you.
What role do you think mentorship has played in your journey? And how
do you recommend others either seek
(31:36):
Yeah, don't hire online mentors. Right
now, that is the trend. Let me show you how to
make $1 million a month. Buy my course for
$3,000. Those are the guys making money. I think
mentors are important because people who have been
around the block They've
(31:58):
seen it all. I mean, I don't know if I've seen it all, but I've
seen a lot. And I've been mentoring quite a few young
business guys here in Billings that, you know, one guy's in
the fish business, another guy's in another business. But at the end of the day,
business is all the same. And they struggle with the same things
that I did. Oh, I want a bigger building. Why? Well,
(32:18):
because it looks good. No, no, no, no, no, no, you know, you're
you're trying to keep up with the Joneses, but I think having some
mentors that you can go to. And I was fortunate that
my dad, you know, was my number one mentor, you know, he was a
brilliant. accountant and a good business guy. And
I mean, I would constantly call him up with questions. And
(32:40):
some of them I look back on, they were so stupid, but he always answered
me gingerly. I remember one time
I said, Dad, should my payroll be like 2% of my
gross revenue? He's like, well, there's really not a
number for that. It's just And
I had other business folks that I met in Billings along
(33:02):
the way that were good mentors, you know, where I
would turn to, you know, for different type of stuff. And
even like today, you know, our mutual friend, Billy Gordon, you
know, even though he's younger than me, you know, he's
a financial wizard. So, you know, when I have financial questions, you
know, I just go to him and, you know, he's the one that knows how to
(33:23):
do things. A lot of times you can get good mentors at
banks, which I had, you know, they really helped me with a
lot of decisions. Where, you know, I was
looking at a piece of property years ago, and I wasn't
looking, I always could look at something and see what it
could be. But sometimes I early on, I had trouble figuring
(33:43):
out how much it was going to cost me. And some of my bankers friends,
you know, were able to show me look, this is not a good investment. The
amount of money you're going to have to spend to get this up and running, you
know, find something that you have the capability of
building and using right away. But again, I
think, like I said, those mentors are really, really important when
(34:09):
Yeah, I mean, I've never even really thought about using like a banker as
a mentor, you know, that's and that's I feel like also
when you're when you're in a town like Billings, that's such a that's
such an easy thing to do, because, you know, you see your banker at
the grocery store or, you know, they're they know your kids
is you know, your kids are friends or
(34:30):
something like that. So, you know, that's always nice when
you're in a community and you as a business owner
are engrossed in that community because it allows you to find
those mentors and develop those relationships so that
Can you share a practical strategy that helped you
(34:53):
break through a plateau in your business or your leadership development? I
I think, you know, I was blessed.
I mean, from day one, every year, my business increased
as far as sales go. And I think the biggest challenge
(35:16):
Oh, no. I remember 9-11. I could tell you exactly where I
was. I was in seventh grade, so I
And what I learned from 9-11 is we
were making money, and I was spending money. And again, I
was growing the business, buying equipment. you
(35:37):
know, getting things. But I wasn't thinking
that something could happen that next year we weren't going to be up again.
And 9-11, when things shut down, you know,
is when I realized I have
to have a better way of saving. And when
something happens that we can survive this. So
(36:00):
I think that was one of the big plateaus because 9-11 was the first year that
we went down in sales. And I really had to restructure
and rebuild the business back, you know, from that.
And I think that's what helped through the COVID because
it was a similar situation where things were shutting down. And
we ended up with record years during that COVID, even though we
(36:23):
had bankruptcies and we had, you know, places go out of business, but
we had enough revenue coming in where I joined the
Montana task force. And we started making hand sanitizer
so that businesses could stay open. And, you know, we donated to
all the first responders. all the sanitizer they
need. And then we sold to the hospitals and you
(36:45):
know, the businesses just a little bit over cost, you know, just
to cover cover our cost on things. But that build
a lot of goodwill, too. So again, anytime you can build
goodwill, but again, I think it comes back to saving.
You know, you look at like an Elon Musk who doesn't even have a house, you
know, what is your goal? You know, again, if
(37:06):
you have you know, you're the only person, but you
really would like to get to where you have five physical therapists and
200 clients. You know, you can't constantly take all the money
out of your business. I mean, you know, take out
what your business can afford and pay you because, you know, you built your
business, but, you know, leave money in so that you got, you
(37:27):
know, cash for a 911 or you have
Yeah, I think that was a big lesson that a lot of us as business owners
learned during COVID too is, you know, those businesses that
didn't have the cash flow saved, I
mean, when business stopped. And I mean, in some states, physical therapy practices
(37:47):
had to close. In other states, they were able to stay open. But of course, you're
not maintaining the same volume that you're
used to. I think that you make a really good point as to anticipating
some of those problems that may develop is really something
that can make or break a
(38:08):
It kind of comes back, like you said, riding out the storm, realizing that
Whatever administration is in the White House, we've
had good years and we've had bad years, and that's
just the way it goes. And for
us, we deal globally and we see how the
(38:30):
US economy affects the global market. So
even though the dollar might be weaker and they can buy more,
their economies are affected if the US economy is weak. So
we're now seeing kind of a resurgence in things. And
again, it kind of makes things a little funner than struggling
(38:52):
like a lot of businesses do. But don't quit.
I mean, ride it out because Monday
How do you define success as a leader? What does success look like to
You know, that's a great question. People ask me that all the time. And
(39:14):
when I tell people my answer, they have to
then define it. Success to me is being
the number one employer in Montana and
being the number one business. And they go, oh, you want to sell the most? No,
no, no, no, no. That's not success. Being the
number one employer means I'm providing jobs for people. And
(39:35):
to me, you know, That makes me happy knowing
that, you know, people are able to make a living off of what we do. And
being the number one business means that people want to work here,
that this is a fun place. It's a safe place to
work. You know, too many people can't stand the jobs they do.
(39:55):
And we all have to make a living. So obviously, you know, we got to sell
in order to do all that. But again, the main focus isn't
on the mighty dollar that comes. That comes with hard
work and you'll get the revenue. But
if you concentrate on your morals, your mission
statement, and your employees, then the rest
(40:18):
I love that. I got a couple personal questions for
you now. First, what's one book that you
recommend to aspiring business leaders that has impacted you?
I read what I need to read.
(40:40):
To be honest with you, the Bible is
what has inspired me and what has set my faith
and everything that I've built my business off of. Other
than that, I read the Merck Index. I read scientific
journals, but I am not a motivational book
(41:00):
reader. I don't know. I just, I never could. I
remember being on a plane one time with one of my sales guys and
I got a book and he's looking over at
me and he's like, you got a Merck index? Now, Merck index
is kind of like the Bible for the chemical industry. It
has every chemical in there, how it's made, all the properties. And
(41:21):
I go, yeah, I'm just doing a little reading. He goes, that's light reading for you? I
Yeah, people always suck when I don't read
this or read that. I don't know. I guess I
never had time. I read what I needed
to read. And if you look at my bookshelf, it's
(41:44):
all chemistry books and biology books and different
chemical reference books. And I'll read those.
But I'm always reading to look for something because I got to come in and
(42:07):
Yes, because, you know, life
is stressful. I mean, you know, to be honest with
you, from family life to business life, life is stressful. And
I don't know for people who do not exercise, how
they make it through the day. So for
me, when I was, um, training, um, competing,
(42:30):
I did it first thing in the morning. So at four o'clock I was in
the gym because I didn't want my day to affect my workout. Now
I enjoy training after work. You know, it helps me wind down
before I go home. I'm tired. takes my
mind off things. But you know, as you know, there's something about
exercise, you know, the endorphins, the
(42:52):
physical activity, you know, when you feel good about yourself, you
know, you're going to be more beneficial to others and yourself. You
know, when you're out of shape, you're not healthy. Again, I
don't know how you can make good business decisions. You know, so
exercise number one, and number two, find a hobby, you
(43:13):
know, something that you can do that you enjoy that again, you
can turn your brain off work and just go do something that you
I love that. What's something people
Um, I think when I tell them that I'm a musician, you
know, I think they don't see that coming. Everybody knows I'm an athlete, you know,
(43:35):
cause just of everything out there. So they're not surprised that,
you know, athletic, but I think when they find out that, you know, I play
guitar and, you know, um, and, and
a lot of them are shocked when they find out I'm into, you know, hunting
and outdoors and stuff, you know, they, they think that I just spend
all my time at work or, or in the lab, you know, but
(43:56):
when I go off grid, Cell
Well, Jeff, this has been an awesome conversation. We
ask this last question to all of our guests. And that's, if
you were to give yourself one piece of what your 25-year-old self,
(44:19):
Boy, I never thought about that. I
think it would be. Do
everything honestly. Don't cut corners. Don't
worry about what the next guy is doing. Be patient
and earn everything you have. As an
(44:42):
athlete, the harder you work, the better the outcome. And the
same with business. I think that's what I would probably tell
myself. Again, looking back early on, the mistakes and
Well, thank you, Jeff, for joining us today. And thank you for
listening. And I hope you stay healthy, wealthy, and smart.
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