Welcome to Fix Your Gym, a podcast dedicated to bringing you expert knowledge from fitness industry leaders, salespeople, gym owners, tech experts, and other fitness enthusiasts, where you'll learn about the latest industry trends, innovative technologies, new and current products on the market, and health and fitness news from experts across the nation. And now, here's your host, Adam Kniffin.

All right. Welcome to the fixture gym podcast. I'm super excited to have my friend, Adam Schwab on this morning. Um, he owns AES fitness, a fitness franchise. Um, what, what part of the country are you located in?

Adam Niffen

Good morning. We're on the East Coast. So we're based in New Jersey, and we service the tri-state area. You know, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and New York is our core area. We also have a technician in Virginia Beach. So we're building our presence down there as well.

Adam Schwalb

Cool, man. Awesome. Yeah, thank you for coming on. I'm still so we got a we got a new new thing to talk about here. We just recently partnered up before we get going. with Ruben Han. I think most people in the industry are starting to hear about Ruben. He's definitely making waves and getting noticed. Very creative individual and we connected with him not too long ago. Went out to IHRSA and did a live podcast from IHRSA and just been talking with him and about ways that we can improve as an industry as a whole and kind of start innovating and do some unique things. So we brought him on as our premier sponsor and kind of partner for the podcast. And I mean, Ruben's providing value for us, you know what I mean? He's providing products and services that can be very valuable to service providers, new and old. So Ruben has developed the FieldTech Fitness Solutions app for those who don't know. Basically, it's a way for you to streamline your operations, work orders, scheduling, keeping track of parts, so on and so forth for installers and service companies. So if you're in need of something like that, check out Ruben, you can connect with him on all social media platforms, Ruben hand, and then field tech fitness.com. If you use the coupon code podcast 24, um, you can get a discount for his, his product and his subscription. Um, and yeah, so we're super excited to, uh, to partner with him and then we'll be bringing him on, um, once a month to kind of, um, just talk about the industry as a whole and, and where, where, where are we going and what, what can we do to, um, to grow and everything like that. Um, and, and Adam and I were just talking about, you know, a similar thing, like, um, first of all, thanks for coming on, man. Sorry. I didn't, it didn't say that. I appreciate you coming on and giving me, giving us your time and everything like that. So, um, but, uh, but yeah, so, um, you've been in the industry a long time. You've been, you started with life fitness in 2003. Um, so you, you were a field service tech for them, right? Yeah. Yeah. For eight years. Yeah, so and then so so kind of, you know, touch on that that process a little bit. What was that like? And then kind of what led you to start AES Fitness?

Yeah, being a field tech for Life Fitness was a great experience for me. It brought me into the industry. at a time where, you know, there was still a lot of mom and pop gyms and it wasn't all big box gyms like it is now, so it was a much different time. I was their field tech all over New Jersey and it really honed my skills of what it's like to be a field tech, working on the fitness equipment, troubleshooting, being in the field all day, and I loved it, you know, and you know, out of I think things can happen out of out of negative times in life, like I went through a divorce, and a really tough time, you know, I had to move back in with my parents. And that's what led me to, you know, I always thought about starting the service company. And I Really that I jumped on the opportunity. I just felt like no time is now, you know, like now. So I had a lot of people. I sold my motorcycle and bought a work van. And love it. Yeah, yeah. Bottle work broke down on me many times. You know, I had, you know, very limited funds and just started out there hustling, man, just trying to get the accounts, just trying to, you know, work the contacts that I built over the years with Life Fitness. And I'm grateful to Life Fitness. And I always will, because when I first told my manager that I was leaving to start my own company, he immediately made me an independent service provider. Really, really gave me a step ahead. He started, you know, they started giving me giving me warranty work, so I'm always grateful for that. Yeah, like fitness always has a special place in my heart for that reason. You know, you still do a lot of work for them. Yes, not not so much as I was what, you know, listen, I got a warm spot for my heart, fitness, but honestly, the the labor rate that they pay, yeah, wasn't justify the work that needs to be done. And the travel rate that gets paid, it just really doesn't. It doesn't make sense right now with expenses of labor and travel going up so much. So for sure, I've, I've tried to negotiate with them to get a better rate and it's been a very resistant path. So I'm still trying to do that and I would love to do more work for them, but it's, it's gotta make sense.

Yeah, absolutely. And that's one of the, one of the goals of this podcast and what we're doing, you know, unifying as kind of an industry and we'll like, like I was talking about that mastermind that we're, that we want to start that, uh, networking event for all of us to start getting together and, and, um, Truthfully, we have more power with unity. We can make the changes that we need to in our industry. Nobody's going to come and do it for us. They're not going to change their price structures because we try to negotiate. If we can join together and start making them make these changes, that's what we're going to do.

because we're very much needed. Independent service providers aren't the only ones having trouble finding technicians. Listen, the manufacturers, they're having as much trouble as we are. So they need us.

Um, yeah, so no, that's good stuff, man. And, uh, I love the struggles of an entrepreneur, dude. I, I, I totally get that and, uh, come from a very similar place. And I think the more I bring people on the show and get to meet people and, and hear their experience do a lot of people are, I used to almost think like I was kind of like alone in that situation. You know what I mean? Like nobody really, you know, I didn't know really necessarily everybody was going through real similar struggles. I don't know. You just live in that world where you get so consumed with what you're doing, you don't realize, I guess, what's going on in the outside world. There's a lot of other people struggling with these things, man. Coming from nothing and sold their motorcycle, which I ride motorcycles and anybody who does knows that that's That's like a big deal to sell your motorcycle to get into business, man.

That's like, it's like the last thing I've had motorcycles my whole life. And when I did that, that was the last bike I've owned. I haven't, I haven't owned a bike since. Yeah. Yeah. And I would love to get back into it one day, but yeah, for sure.

I know. But, but it's more important, man. Um, what you're doing is more important. I also haven't rode my motorcycles while sitting in my, my warehouse. I don't, I don't have time to ride it anymore. Um, but, but yeah, man, it's, it's, uh, what you're doing is very, very important. So, um, so yeah, so you start AES fitness in 2011. What are, uh, you know, kind of summarize, you know, what, what you've been through, um, since you started, what struggles have you gone through? What, um, obviously the industry has changed a ton COVID changed everything, you know, kind of what, what, what's your experience been?

I mean, overall, it's been a wonderful experience. I mean, it changed my life. It's providing a living for myself to, you know, support my family. I have two kids and my wife and, you know, it's changed my life. I don't think that I'd be in this position without it. So I'm very grateful to it. But with that being said, I think that If the only thing I think about when I'm if I'm not with my family, the only thing I really think about is forwarding the business. It's kind of like I guess I'm kind of obsessive and I'm kind of addicted to it. You know, I have other hobbies like going to the gym when I have time to do it. But I am always thinking of this business. I'm always thinking about what to do, how to forward it. The customers that I currently have, jobs we're currently doing, always trying to get prepared before the jobs. I think Preparation is the most important thing. And if you go into an installation or anything and you're not prepared, it's going to, you know, you're not going to do well. And I've had very, I've had very, very limited times like that with this business that I've been unprepared. There's been times that I've tried new things. It didn't work out. And that happens, you know, it's happens to everybody, but I try to be very prepared. Um, And I just try to, you know, I'm very upfront, man. I, you know, I'm very honest with the customer. You know, if the job looks like it's a great job, but I, you know, I feel deep down that I really can't, you know, fix the unit or because of the, you know, the age of the unit, or we can't get parts for it. I'm not gonna. tell the customer, oh yeah, we can fix it. I'm going to tell the customer, listen, I think it's time for you to upgrade. There's no parts for this thing. There's no tech support. I can't come to your house and take your money and then tell you I can't fix it. I'm very upfront with all my customers. I'm very firm on our warranty. If I sell a piece of equipment and the equipment is failing, I warranty the equipment, I'm going to make it right. And I've done that throughout my career. And I've only had a couple, couple times where I've had to, you know, go out and take care of a piece of equipment that wasn't living up to what it should. Just being honest with the customer, working very hard. Those are the things that I've done throughout this time. You know, I have a lot of people that want to, you know, not pay taxes on a service call or on a piece of equipment. And they want to, you know, just do a cash deal. And that sounds very appealing. But if you're trying to build a business that's going to have longevity, not having your numbers, be correct and not having the real number of businesses doing, that's just not the way to do it. And I'm trying to build a business here that's substantial, something that's going to be past me when I retire. And that's a big reason as to why I'm currently in the process of franchising the business. A lot of the struggles that I've had, A lot of the struggles I've had, it's just really been one main thing. And it's, it's been the labor, you know what I mean? Hiring people to, you know, to have longevity. I mean, I've had some guys who've been with me for years. My admins have been with me for years. But those are those are diamonds in the rough. You know, you go through a lot of people to get one good person. And it's very, very tough on the business because you invest in when it costs money and time and then it doesn't work out and you got to start from the drawing board. Like last year, I totally got burnt out from it. And I told my wife, I was like, I'm not hiring anymore this year. I'm not going through this anymore. I'm just going to go out there and do as many service calls as I can. Yeah. Burn the candle at both ends. So I don't have to deal with it anymore. And and that's when I, you know, I started to really think of ways to pivot around that problem. I've made some really good relationships with other companies in my area that I could subcontract work out to, so I can make the calls in a timely fashion. And that's been a great thing. Subcontracting, you don't have to worry about, you know, paying workman's comp, and all the stuff that you have to pay an employee, they go out there, they get the job done, and that's it. You bill out for it. But labor has always been my biggest problem.

Yeah, I think it's, I just made a Facebook post about this on LinkedIn this morning, because it's a problem that's on my mind, and I think every other, really probably across the board in all service industry, and trade businesses in general. But why is that? You know what I mean? What is the solution to the problem of finding good people? How do you build a team? And how do you get people to stay? I think on my post this morning, I was looking up the average attention span of the human in America right now is 8.25 seconds. There's so much information out there. There's so many things to get distracted from, new opportunities, new ideas, people are distracted in general. The quality of employees is low and not everybody is a, is entrepreneur in which, you know, a lot of times I'm like, man, why, why aren't, why don't these people care about what they're doing? You know what I mean? No, and they don't have the drive. They don't have the motivation. Um, they don't have the skillset, you know what I mean? So you have to, you know, train them in so many different areas. Um, and, uh, yeah, it's difficult, man. Um,

We're in a delusional life now too with Instagram and TikTok and everybody sees these videos and they see the end results of people that do work hard and or or they try to pose as somebody that's been a successful person and people see that video and they're like I want that but they don't nobody sees what goes on behind the scenes like every Saturday you know what I mean all the work that goes into it so

Yeah, absolutely. The discipline aspect of it for me, you know, well, I lost my first, um, company Metro fitness repair. And when I went through that, I went through divorce, went through this whole thing. I actually was like, fuck this. I hopped on my motorcycle, got out of the business and I traveled and I'm traveling up in Miami, you know, and, and, um, and just was like, what the hell do I like what I, so I started really like thinking about like, What was the problem? You know what I mean? What was the problem in the business? What led to this whole thing? And the conclusion was myself, you know, I was my own worst enemy in the whole process. I was not disciplined. Um, you know, I was, I was unhealthy. Um, you know, I had unhealthy mental, physical, all the above, you know what I mean? I, um, And, uh, you know, started kind of re strategizing of like, well, you know, what can I do different? And I mean, you have to be, my, my theory is, is that if I'm going to build a team around me and I'm going to be the leader of that team, I mean, I have to be able to be a good example. You know what I mean? Um, But I've also found that the same struggles still apply, you know what I mean, I can be the best leader in the world, but if there's nobody who wants to come on, you know what I mean, and learn, or they're few and far between. then it's still the same struggle. So you just got to figure out how to not get burned out.

I was listening to a podcast a long time ago. One of the key notes that the guy said that always stuck with me, he said that it's not all about you, but it is all about you. When you have a business and you have a team, it's obviously not all about you. You have a whole team, but it is all about you and the way you lead and the things that you do on an everyday basis. So I try to always think about that. But at the end of the day, you can lead and be a good boss and manager and still you get people that just aren't passionate about what they're doing.

Yeah, for sure. I was listening to this guy. I don't know if you've ever heard of him, Dan Pena, the trillion dollar man. Anyways, he was on the Bradley podcast and I was listening to him and he's like, I don't know. He sold his business. He's in the oil and gas. He's in all kinds of stuff, but you know, he's like sold his business. Um, his first business for like 200, $300 million. Right. Um, and, uh, but anyways, he's a, he's, He's a total piece of shit, I'll say that. Like his podcast, like all he talked about was like women and blah, blah, blah. But his mentality overall was this, was basically a no-nonsense type of guy, was like, basically almost kind of like a gangster, right? Like business is war, basically, you know what I mean? no matter what, everything that he did was all about winning. You know what I mean? Um, he did not play the game to, um, uh, for, uh, only for the reason to win, you know, and anyway, so it was kind of interesting, but his whole model was, um, that's called like QL QLA or something like that. Um, quantum leap advantage where basically he's saying that you should go out and, um, buy the businesses that other people are building, get their employees and have the owner of that business finance it for you. So you go to, because they're burned out, right? And so you can go to somebody who's burned out, basically like, say, hey, I'll take your business. I'll pay you this much, so forth, monthly, whatever the case is. And then you acquire their business and their employees. And I thought that was interesting. I was like, huh, I wonder if that's a, a solution to this, this problem, you know, um, because if each company has like one or two good technicians, you know what I mean? Like what, what is it anyway? So the point of me saying that is like, this is the struggle, man. How do you find good people? What is the solution to the problem of being able to build a good team? I think your idea of the franchise, that idea has also worked with FMT in our industry. Instead of trying to hire employees, and each FMT still hires employees, but you have the franchise owner who is now invested as a business owner. It's not just an employee. And I imagine that's kind of what your strategy is or, you know, your kind of way of thinking when you started to franchise that, correct? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Like they care more about the business because they own it. You know what I mean? So they actually have more skin in the game.

100% man, they're invested in it. You know what I mean? Somebody that's going to put their own money into something, you would think that they're going to take that extremely seriously and want to get a return on that investment. And that was my mentality, you know, and I, I feel like the brand that I've built over the last 13, 14 years is a is an amazing brand. You know, a long time ago, I was doing work with this company. And the name of their company was International Fitness Suppliers, something like that. And when I told them the name of my company, because they wanted to partner with me because they saw that I was doing well. And they're like, well, the name of your company, you know, AES Fitness, it's nice, but it's not big enough. You know what I mean? It doesn't appeal to the whole world or whatever. And I'm like, in my mind, I'm like, bro, like, and this company went out of business a couple of years later. And in my mind, I'm like, dude, I was like, it's not about the name. It's what's behind the name. You know what I mean? Yeah. You can make anything blow up as long as you do the right thing and you work hard and you got a good name and a good brand. And that's how I always felt about it. So I kept my name. I didn't partner with anybody. And, uh, You know, a lot of companies have gone out of business and I'm still around. And I think I got a really good brand here and any franchisee that wants somebody that's all in and wants the leadership and the knowledge and someone that's going to be there for them. I don't think there's a better guy than me to do that. This is all I think about. This is my blood, sweat, and tears. It's what I love and it's what I do. And I'm all about the business, man. I'm all about it.

So what was that like? What has it been like since you started franchising a year ago? How many franchises do you have? What kind of progress have you made in that year? What are you seeing?

I'm still don't have any. I haven't sold one, but I'm very close to I'm working on some things right now, which I'm hoping come to fruition. You know, it's a very tough thing to franchise. You know, you're asking a stranger to believe in your product, to believe in you and invest in you. I get what it is. I get how hard it is. I get the, um, how, how substantial it is and what I'm asking people to do. And, but I'm like, um, I think it's going to happen sooner than later. I'm plugging it all the time on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram. I'm really trying to make good posts, not just about the franchise, but about the business, about the type of work that it is, about tips on how to do the work. You know what I mean? Because that's pretty important. for people to see what we actually do. An entrepreneur might be like, oh, that's a great business. The margins are great. The sales are great. It looks awesome. But then they start doing it, and they're like, I don't know how to do this. I don't know. So I'm trying to put it out there what we really do. So, yeah, that's what I'm trying to do now. And I'm getting close, you know, and it's a marathon, man. It's not a sprint. Right. I'm here. I'm in it to win it. And I do feel that I'm going to start selling franchises soon and be successful at it.

Yeah, for sure. Do you, do you have like locations kind of already set up close to like where you're at? Do you, or what kind of is your, and you don't have to share your in-depth strategy by any means whatsoever. But I'm just curious, like, yeah, do you have like, well, how big, how big is your, your team where you're at?

Where I'm at. I mean, I have two admins right now. I have three technicians plus myself and we work out of a corporate office and warehouse in Piscataway, which You know, I have the warehouse, which I think is an excellent training ground for anybody that wants to become a franchisee with my company. We can train them on site. Also, we can train them in the field doing service calls. So, you know, that warehouse space is very important. I keep treadmills, ellipticals, all types of equipment in there from all the major manufacturers. You know, they can see, you know, what it entails to, you know, work on a piece of equipment, troubleshoot the piece of equipment. They could see how we keep our parts and all that stuff. And, you know, I have a warehouse. As a service company, you probably don't need a warehouse, but I have the warehouse because I sell equipment, you know. I refurbish and sell fitness equipment. It's been a big part of the business. But as a service company, as a franchisee that's starting a service company, you don't need all that. I started the company out of my parents' basement. And then I continued it in my corner of my apartment when I had an apartment, you know, and then I had a small office. And then from the small office, I got the warehouse in 2018. So, you know, there's very little over the overhead that a new franchisee would have is not like the overhead that I have, you know, that's for sure. And, you know, As far as you know, yes, we do have specific territories and we have all that structure and everything and we would be able to go over all of that with a new franchisee and everything would be laid out for them. You know, I hired a great company to help me facilitate the franchisee so it's not just me doing it. I have this company behind me that I paid a lot of money to that's helping me facilitate the franchisee. So it's very structured, very organized, very legal. We have lawyers and all that good stuff. We have trademark patents. I have the FDD in place. Everything is there for a potential franchisee to look at the business, I know all of my numbers. I know my best year. I know my worst year. I know the year when I had the most profit margin. You know what I mean? I have all those numbers. I'm ready for it. I know all my expenses.

Um, real quick, I want to, uh, to, to note, um, this, this podcast, uh, is brought to you by our, our new premier sponsor field tech fitness solutions and the field tech fitness app. If you are a service provider, um, like Adam and myself, um, and in the fitness business at all, um, check out the field tech app. If you don't have, uh, uh, a, um, a software that you use already. Um, this is a complete software application built specifically for people in the fitness equipment service and install industry. Um, very cool stuff. Check out Ruben hand, follow him on, um, all the social media platforms, LinkedIn, Facebook, everything like that. Fieldtechfitness.com. use a coupon code podcast 24. And, uh, but we really appreciate Ruben, um, and field tech fitness for helping us produce this podcast. It's not cheap to do. Um, and he's a very valuable person in our industry. So check him out. Um, but yeah, thanks man. Sorry. Uh, I had to do that real quick.

Like I was telling you before, I think Ruben's a super cool man. I always watch the post. I love the treadmill dolly he's doing. And I was for that. And yeah, I'm very impressed with him. He's an innovator. And I think his application is cool. And he's a sponsor here.

I am too, man. It's nice being able to have a like, I'm not a big, you know, like, sponsor type of guy, like having to like break and talk about some shit that nobody really cares about. But Ruben actually, and what he's doing is, is important. So it's a lot easier to bring that in and fit that in, in the podcast, you know what I mean? It only, it only makes sense. Um, you know, so, but yeah, man, um, I love your story. Um, it, it makes a lot of sense. Um, I relate with it in a lot of ways. Um, And, uh, your, your drive is, um, is impressive. And I think you got a lot of, uh, a lot of value to add people who are to add to people who are, um, wanting to get in the industry or wanting to kind of scale their business, grow their business, um, the struggles and, and, and kind of the, the grit that it takes to do that, then the consistency, um, you know, you've, you've been grinding for a long time, man. And, um, And that's, that's good. So, um, excited to kind of see, yeah, excited to kind of see where you're, where you're going from here. What was COVID like for you?

COVID was, um, a very, like, I think for anybody else, just a super weird time, man. And just, uh, the weirdest time, but I remember like, You know, when they said that you had to shut down your business, I told my wife, I said, I don't know, I'm not shutting down. I don't know what's going to happen if I get arrested or whatever, but I'm not shutting the business down. And I didn't shut it down. And I went to work every day. I did have to, you know, lay off some people, but I brought them all back after the pandemic or after we were about to do that. So I had to shut down the service department because there were no gyms open. There was no place to service. The thing that got me through it was the sales of the equipment, man. I was at my work every day selling equipment, and it was the weirdest time. I wouldn't go near anybody. I'd be like, listen, the machine is over there. Test it out. That's awesome. Test out the equipment, leave the money there. That's awesome. You had to sanitize the money and all this crap. And then I remember I would get home, my wife would be like, take your clothes off. I couldn't come in the house.

Decontaminate.

I had to jump right in the shower. It was just the weirdest time, man. But I'm happy. I'm so happy it's over, man. It was just. I'm happy that, you know, I really don't think that we're ever going to go through anything like that again in our lifetime. I hope not. And it was just an insane time, but I'm so grateful that I got through it, you know, and I'm so grateful to still be here with AES Fitness. Man, it really humbled me because everything was at stake, everything that I've worked for. And to think that I had to shut it down and possibly lose everything, I was like, I don't, there was no way I was shutting down, bro. Yeah, no way. So I'm just grateful that I didn't do that, man. And because I know a lot of companies that did. And I don't know what happened with those people. Yeah.

You know, a lot of people didn't make it. So if somebody is listening and that, you know, maybe they're going through this, the struggle and they want to kind of plug in with you, buy a franchise or whatever the case is, kind of skip over all of the struggles and everything that we go through to start these companies and plug it into a franchise, you can kind of overcome a lot of those things. You've already went through the struggles for the people, you know what I mean? You have it set up, you have it already set up for them, relationships with manufacturers, systems and processes that are very important. you know, it makes a lot of sense to buy into a franchise. A lot of people are doing it. So tell me a little bit, tell us a little bit, if somebody's wanting to do that, how do they, how do they do that with you?

Well, right now, as I mean, they would, they would inquire, you know, click on the link or, or the, you know, they can contact me directly and I would, I would put them in touch with my franchise rep. That's the first step. And he would discuss with them the opportunity. And then there's an application that needs to be filled out. They would do that, send it back. Then they would further the discussion with the franchise rep. And then, you know, for, you know, and, you know, you got to sign the FDD. You know what I mean? We're not giving out any information until these things are done. You know what I mean? So once the FDD is signed, then we can have an introductory call and then move forth from there. You know, it's a very structured process. You know, we're not doing anything out of step. And just trying to do it correctly and structured. And yeah. And then, you know, once all that stuff is done, then we can start diving into the business, start diving into the numbers, start looking at the actual financials. We have, I got the answer for everything. I know my numbers, man. And I know that's what other entrepreneurs at the end of the day, that's what they want to see. And I know my numbers and, um, You know, I know the demographics of the business. I know where the trends are going. This business has changed a lot. You know, the manufacturers, you know, taking over a lot of the times, you know, a lot of the stuff is going. There's not so much billable work as there was before. Now, a lot of it's warranty because all the a lot of these gyms all have new stuff that are under warranty for three to five years. So you have to have those relationships with the manufacturers and we do have them to become, you know, we can get the franchisee to become warranty certified so they can immediately start getting warranty work from manufacturers and start building relationships that way. You know, when I first started out, I had the relationships already because I was a technician for Life Fitness, but I was able to continue building those relationships and building new relationships with the warranty work that I was getting from Life Fitness at the beginning, it was putting me in spots that I wasn't at before. And that's how I started building the brand and the business and making connections. And I've, you know, I'm very happy, you know, I have business relationships that have stemmed for, for, you know, the time that I started, you know,

Curious, man. I think a lot of people are, like you said, you started this business when you were living in your parents' basement or whatever the case is. And for me, it was a very, very similar experience. I had just moved out of my parents' basement, but it was only like a couple months after that when I started Metro Fitness Repair. You know, coming from nothing. How does somebody who's coming from nothing, who's got probably not a ton of capital to work with, How do they get involved? Do you do seller financing or something like that? How can somebody like that buy a franchise? I'm just curious.

Yes, we do have franchising. We do have, yes, we do have lenders and all that stuff in place where you can get your money. If you have good credit or whatever, you can apply for the loan and you get the loan and there's working capital built into the loan, which will get you through the first couple months where you're training and you're learning the business and you're learning the procedures before you're gonna be profitable, you have to have working capital. And that's all in place with the loan. So yeah, there's definitely things in place to have somebody become a franchisee that does not have liquid money to invest.

So there's ways to do it. That's good. That's good to know, man. Yeah, so. All right, Adam, I really appreciate your time. We're up about there. I'm sure we could go on and on. I say that with every guest, especially the guests that are in the same business as me, man. Yeah, we could definitely go on and on. But I appreciate your time and what you're doing.

Likewise, man. I appreciate it so much you having me on, man. It's really cool. And I'm sure you don't just have anybody on. You want to have your peers in the industry that have been in it for a while. So I appreciate it.

Yeah, absolutely. And I want to continue the conversation. And like I was saying, I want to go ahead and get this, this word out there. It's not completely formed into a, it's just kind of an idea right now, but I want to start some sort of event where we all get together, maybe somewhere in the center of the country, kind of where I'm at Kansas city, St. Louis, somewhere like that, get together and have a mastermind. We can talk, talk about, I'll have speakers that come in and things like that, maybe a one or two day event. And we'll have different speakers and workshops on how to build your business, how to scale your business, how to build credit, how to build business credit, all kinds of different things that us as entrepreneurs or aspiring entrepreneurs, people who maybe want to buy a franchise, people who are in the industry, even if you're working as a technician for another company, it'd be a great place for us all to get together and network, learn about the business, learn how to grow, and all things like that. So that's something that is in the works right now and something I want to start doing here pretty soon. So we'll continue the conversation, keep talking, maybe bring you back on or even talk about that event and things like that. Really good to meet you, man. I appreciate it. Thank you. Yeah, absolutely.

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