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 Fix Your Gym podcast. Another episode with a fellow fitness equipment service company owner. This time we have Will Santillan. Did I say it right? You did. Santillan from SoCal Fitness Solutions out in Southern California. I appreciate you coming on, man, and taking your time to Dig into some, some stuff today, um, in our industry and some, some different things, get to know you a little bit. That's the first time I've actually met you. I mean, we've seen each other in the group and everything like that. Um, so I appreciate you joining the group and like being active in there and, and kind of, you know, posting and, and engaging with, with people in there too. And you're, uh, it seems like you have some, some good experience and. And stuff like that. So, yeah, thanks for your time and for coming on, man.

Adam Niffen

Appreciate the invite. And, uh, in case anybody gets confused, I'm will Billy.

Will Santillan

Yeah.

Uh, it's just a name I've had on Facebook forever. Um, and never really changed it. I went by Billy in high school and then, uh, got into the fitness sales side of things. I'm like, no, one's going to give me their money. If my name's Billy, it's I upgraded it to will, uh, you know, my real name's William. So it's just kind of stuck and it's worth Billy dude.

It's catchy.

Yeah. Yeah, for sure.

Hey, real quick, before we, before we dig into the conversation, I want to give a shout out to a couple of sponsors we have. So the podcast really is supported by, by these guys and they help me, you know, keep this thing going and and everything like that. So I really appreciate first field tech fitness solutions in the field tech app. If you don't know, Ruben hand. Um, get to know him, connect with him on social media, and he's got a really cool company. He also owns the fitness equipment service company. I think out in Arizona. Um, has a ton of knowledge and experience in the industry, and he's built this app. called the FieldTech app to kind of streamline all of your operations. So if you're, you know, if you're in the fitness business installs or service in any way, shape or form, or even sales, you should definitely check out the FieldTech app, manage your work orders, submit invoices, estimates. It's, you know, kind of built in CRM. It's got preventative maintenance tracking, stuff like that. So it's got some stuff that are, you know, that is specific for our industry, you know, that may be other software. Uh, doesn't have, so, uh, if you, uh, if you're interested in set up, set up a meeting with, with Ruben, um, you can set it up online at, uh, I believe it's fieldtechfitness.com. Let me confirm that. I don't want to get that wrong. Yeah. Fieldtechfitness.com and you use the coupon code podcast 24 and get a, I believe it's 10% discount. So. Um, but yeah, instead of a meeting with Ruben, um, and then we have also a new sponsor with AES fitness franchises, Adam Schwab out of, I think he's in New Jersey. Um, really good dude. Another guy that everybody should just connect with and get to know anyways, a 20 year industry veteran. Um, but he's setting up fitness equipment, uh, uh, service, uh, maintenance and repair company franchises up in that area. You know, um, got kind of a platform that's already built for people who's maybe new to the industry or thinking about getting in, um, you know, where relationships are kind of already built and so on and so forth. Um, but yeah, it's a franchise. You can hop in and get going, um, off of business model. That's already built for you. So E AES fitness franchises up in New Jersey, get with Adam Schwab. Um, don't know that I have a website therefore, but I need to get one. Yes. Fitness.com. Um, It's his website. Um, but yeah, get with Adam. Um, and, uh, yeah. So thank you guys for, for supporting the podcast, um, and everything like that. All right. Back to the conversation. Well, um, so you're in Southern California, Huntington beach, Orange County area, correct? That is correct. Which I bet is a booming area for fitness.

It always has been brother. Um, you walk out, you know, to a PCH and it's just a really active community. You see a lot of people moving, walking their dogs out there, surfing, running the boardwalk. It really is. And I tell a lot of my friends and family and clients, it just really motivates you, honestly. Something about being right next to the water, the energy, the vibe, um, and then seeing everybody just being active. Um, so it really does kind of go hand in hand with the whole fitness side of things for sure.

Yeah, for sure. But is the market like super saturated out there with providers though too, or is there plenty, is there so much work? Like how, how is that?

Yeah. So I think, uh, with the market of this nature and this size, um, and the fact that I, I feel there's a lot of companies that maybe exited the business during COVID They weren't maybe as profitable that they wanted to be. And that was just an excuse to kind of get out of the business. Um, and then the power of the internet and how consumers at least out here in this market, uh, find providers, find, you know, equipment, um, find solutions to their fitness needs. Um, it's all in the power of your phone these days. Um, and so, uh, there are a lot of providers, but it's a massive territory. Uh, it takes forever in this type of traffic to get from one destination to the next. Um, and I just feel that there's maybe not as many as experienced guys out there. Um, so there's definitely a lot of opportunities still. Uh, and we could definitely talk about some of those other avenues that I've kind of found more opportunity, uh, that's helped our business grow, um, with kind of select, uh, partnerships that we've kind of developed and, and kind of found, uh, some pretty cool relationships.

Yeah, for sure. Well, so yeah, let's dig into that a little bit. Um, so, I mean, a couple of things there that we can hit on, I think the power of the internet is huge. Um, and then, you know, relationships and partnerships, but yeah, what, what in particular. Kind of, are you, you sell equipment too, right?

We do. Yeah. So we're, we look at us like a full service, uh, fitness solutions provider. Um, you know, if someone wanted to hire us out, we literally do full turnkey solutions for everything. Um, we are sweet spot for us. We, I know there's a lot of people on here that deal with more of like the commercial service, preventative maintenance, and those are options that we definitely do offer. Um, but we're really into a turnkey solution for multifamily, um, small hotels, uh, and then high-end residential. Um, you go up and down the coast out here and you got homes that are starting at like 5 million and go all the way up to like 135 million. Um, so there's a lot of money. These, uh, type of clientele, they don't want to go to the same gym as you and I go to at the 24 hour fitness where every other piece of machines broken down and it's dirty as all hell. Um, and so they build their own high end commercial gym inside of their homes. And it's just wild. Some of the properties we've been in, man, but, uh, I think, uh, a good starting point would be. a little bit of kind of background knowledge about myself, if that makes sense. And then we can kind of dive into how I've kind of led to where I'm at. So, uh, for being 39 years old, I got almost 22 years of experience in the industry. Um, started when I was like 17. Um, there was an old company out here called Nelly's fitness equipment, small retail mama pop shop, uh, was in high school and just left working for in and out and, uh, played sports all my life. So, I was like, this is great. I get to sell equipment and work at all day when no one comes in and they're going to pay me. So I'm like, sign me up. Um, and then, so I went from Nelly's exercise equipment to busy body home fitness, which, you know, at that time, they're pretty big. They had some stores in Texas as well. Um, and worked for them for about three years as a fitness consultant on the retail side of things. Um, left busy body during the whole 2008 housing crisis. I was just lower on the totem pole and, uh, they closed up some shops and I was just an odd man out along with a couple of others. And so then I ended up working and some of you guys may or may not know him, but, uh, Jim Rosen fitness blowout.com. Um, he was selling a ton of fitness equipment online prior to the internet really taking off. And, uh, it was basically. I shit you not like the boiler room. Uh, we had these little cubicles with our headsets on and he was driving traffic to these phones and all over the country. We were talking to everybody from New York to, you know, the Midwest, all the way in California. And we were just grinding like six sales reps in the boiler room. And these phone calls would not stop. We were manning them from like 6 AM to 9 PM. Uh, and, uh, that's where I really kind of got. my first taste of the power of the internet and what that could do and how much money you can make. Um, and then, uh, I went into, uh, I left them where we just bash heads a lot, um, you know, ethics and morals. And so then I ended up coming back to the industry and working for busy body home fitness again. They eventually got acquired by Johnson fitness and wellness, obviously who owns matrix Johnson health tech. Um, I initially went back as a consultant, um, the owner of busy body when he got bought out, um, left, and he was also the district manager. Uh, they have eight stores out here in Southern California. And, um, I'm just a go getter, I guess you could say. Um, and I always think, you know, of more opportunity and bigger opportunity and want to be better and do better. And, uh, so I threw my name in the hat for the district manager position and, uh, brought a lot to the table, brought us, you know, 30, 60, 90 day plan, you know, what I was going to do, how we were going to do it, how we're going to execute. And I ended up getting, you know, the position as a district manager. Some of the guys were a little pissed off at me because I just came back and they've been there for, you know, 10, 15 years. Um, and, but the way I saw it is, you know, they go into the same store day in, day out for five days. The walls, same walls, same equipment, nothing changes. And they just lose motivation. And, you know, they just get stuck in their ways. You know, they don't want to get better. You know, they don't want to learn. Uh, a lot of things I've heard is you can't teach a dog new tricks. And, uh, then COVID hit, bro. So I was, you know, I was like a year or two into the position COVID hit. It was the wildest ride I've ever been on. We were so busy. Um, Johnson had about. 25 to 30 stores in the Midwest area. And we had eight stores in Southern California and our eight stores destroyed their 25 to 30 stores on a month to month basis for like two years during COVID. Each store doing like over $2.3 million a month in sales. It was just, you know, on a monthly basis between all the stores we're doing upwards of like 15 to $20 million. It was just wild, to say the least.

That's insane.

Yeah. And we could talk about that forever. So I really don't know what COVID was other than living in California and all the restrictions that did give me a nice, friendly reminder. But other than that, it was exciting. It was the craziest thing I've ever been a part of in this industry, the most money we've ever made. And then once it kind of slowed down a bit, Um, you know, the upper management came to us and basically said, you're making too much money. Uh, we never, uh, budgeted for you to make that much money. And I said, well, you guys also never budgeted to sell this much equipment. And, uh, we didn't see eye to eye. Um, so they try to put a cap on. Basically all our sales guys and reduce all the money that we're going to be able to make. And I've never been part of a sales organization that's ever put a cap on a sales guy or a sales team. And so then I just had to make a decision for myself. You know, am I happy? Am I doing what I ultimately want to do? Uh, is it worth, you know, even still, it was great money. Is it still worth all the additional responsibilities for, you know, what they're going to be paying me? And I've always just had this. If it wasn't an entrepreneur, it was an entrepreneur attitude, right? You know, look, thinking of myself as a business within a business all the time. And it was kind of just the right spot to go out on my own. Uh, I, you know, built a pretty good nest egg during COVID cause I really couldn't spend the money we were making and, uh, took three months off, traveled and then, uh, and then went all in.

Nice man. That's, um, I'm sure there was a lot of, uh, God, I bet it was insane out there in California during COVID. Um, it was wild. But that experience though, yeah, right? Has it, has it really even, I mean, I'm sure it's slowed down some, but that definitely changed up the whole game. Yeah, for sure. You know, so, um, that, that's cool, man. Um, so, so you've been on your own now for what, a couple of years?

Yeah, we're going on, uh, about to hit, uh, five years and, uh, next year. Nice. So five years, you know, I'm a big Andy Priscilla for Mosey. Tommy Mello from the garage side of things.

I just failed 75 hard this weekend. I went on a vacation. I was on day 40. Okay. Have you accomplished it? No, I've done it three times. I made it to the first time. I made it to like 50 days. And then the second time I made it to 70 days and got a fever. Oh, crap. And, uh, and then this third time, this is the, we did it three times in the last year. And then I failed.

Um, so I actually did it. I made it through the whole thing, man. Um, and the honest, you know, the honest thing is probably the first two to three weeks is like the tough part. Especially if you're someone who likes to have a little bit of a social life or you know, into sports and like to go to like sporting events. I'm, I'm big on that. It's kind of like where I, I kind of get out of the business. Um, although you're always in the business, you know, if you own your own company, um, but allows me to kind of get away for a couple hours and just enjoy myself. Um, and who doesn't like a good barbecue and having like a nice cold Modelo sometimes. Um, and so, but I did it and it was a two to three weeks and it's definitely a mental thing for sure. I remember having to finish like my second workout at like 1230 in the morning and then having to get up and get it done again at like 630 in order to try to still manage my day. Um, and the craziest thing about it is how much more time you honestly have when you're not wasting it on everything. And that was like the big eye opener. I was like, what do I do with all this time?

Yeah. No, it really is. It's great. And we, I don't know, in a way, I think maybe I fail on purpose, just so I know, because I know that I'm going to start it again, eventually. So like, so like, we've done it three times in the last year. So I mean, a big part of our last year has been 75 hard. I mean, Um, and it's absolutely changed our, you know, me and my, my girlfriend is also my partner in the business. Um, definitely changed our entire life. I mean, um, we, and plus I love Andy Priscilla and what he has going on and, and kind of what he does and. But, uh, but yeah, we went to matrix training up in like Milwaukee, I think. Or Madison, Wisconsin. Yeah. And like, so I was on it during that. And so I, but we got done, we drove up there. It's like seven hours or something from us or something like that. So we just drove, but, um, I didn't get my, I did my workout in the morning indoor, but I had an outdoor workout to do at like one o'clock in the morning when we got home. And it was like storming real bad. So I'm like out running four miles in the rain and storms in the morning, dude. But I loved it. It felt good. You know what I mean? But it was difficult.

Yeah, I've been out there obviously being part of the Johnson team. And then we were a big dealer for Octane. So we've been out to Minnesota as well. I'm coming from California, born and raised by that, you know, in the wintertime. I'm not built for elements like that. It gets cold, but it's nice out there. We were able to one time go on an octane trip to Gull Lake, and it's beautiful out there. I've been out there a couple of times. They were big on road shows. They were doing state fairs, a lot of home and garden shows, and being a district manager, we actually had to go and run the booths for the sales organization. So we all rotated amongst the like eight district managers in the, in the region or in the, in the, in the country. And so, man, I got a lot of experience, man. I don't know if you've ever had to work, uh, uh, like a state fair before and, you know, be a carny for 22 days, but that's a wild ride, man. Uh, 22 days with 22 straight days, man.

Yeah. That's the longest I've ever done is like two days, like a convention, you know, uh, but 20, that's intense, man.

It was. It was. I lived off of corn dogs and anything else I could try. I started trying to eat healthy at first, trying to find every best option.

By day seven, I was like... Yeah, those are the times when 75 hard is almost impossible when you have to travel and shit like that. That's generally why I failed. Yeah, brother. But yeah, dude. So, let's get back into the power of the internet. What are you... What are you doing today, you know, to like drive leads to your business? How are you utilizing the internet, social media, whatever the case is to build and grow your business or build your, even your personal brand or whatever the case is.

Yeah. So, uh, first and foremost, I'd say I have to do a hell of a lot better job on it. Um, we have a game plan that we're trying to execute. Um, I think Jim from Jim maintenance may, uh, mentioned Dylan from CTX. Yeah, they do a really good job. And obviously I, I see a lot of content creators and what they put out. Um, we just haven't been able to execute because if I take this hat off, I'm putting another hat on. Right. And I got so many things that are going on. Um, I have, if you go through my phone, I got great content, great videos, great photos. I just haven't put the actual plan in place from the personal branding side of things and social media, you know, I'll post a couple of our projects that we have on our social media page, but we definitely need to execute and do better on that end. Um, because it is powerful. Um, as far as the internet goes, uh, I will tell you that, uh, right away I made a conscientious decision to really attack Google reviews. Um, Google reviews have been massive for us. We have over like 102, uh, currently. Um, and within the area, the SEO of like actually, um, doing optimization on your Google business page so that you're found. for the services that you provide, um, was massive. So we paid somebody to help us out with optimizing our Google business page. And we just keep on trying to hammer that. Um, and it's just a kind of a common thing. It's like when I'm talking to my girlfriend or I'm talking to a buddy or my mom, whatever it may be. And they asked me a question. I don't know. I'll Google it. And it's, it's so common that, you know, everyone, they don't hop onto the computer. They want an answer real quick and it comes from this phone and they hop on Google. And that's how we've really pushed kind of getting found and kind of, you know, driving leads to our phone and making it ring. And, and then I'm sure you guys are familiar with, but Thumbtack is a massive platform. Um, a lot of people use it. Okay. So Thumbtack is basically a B2C community marketplace that connects Uh, consumers that are looking for services, um, from different business providers. Um, they have a massive marketing budget, uh, that they spend. So if you Google fitness equipment, assembly, fitness equipment service within your area, typically thumbtack is like the number one or number two sponsored ad. So we attacked, I noticed that I noticed that we could get out in front of customers. So we created a, a thumbtack business profile. And started hammering, you know, reviews on there as well. Um, we're getting good business from it. Um, the platforms kind of turned a little bit from how much they charge, but at the end of the day, there's a cost of doing business. Right. Um, but we keep it open because what we've found is people will Google fitness equipment service, treadmill repair, thumbtack will come up. Uh, they'll be the number one ad. Someone will then click on that. And we've done such a good job at ranking ourselves within thumbtack that when we come, when they open up thumbtack, we'll be the number one and number two company. Then people will want to go and just verify or talk directly because you can't call through thumbtack. So they'll want to talk directly to the, to the company and they'll go on Google. They'll see our Google reviews. And then it just solidifies that we're legit. And then we end up, you know, getting their business, doing a service, selling them a piece of equipment, doing a relocation, you know, whatever that, you know, whatever they may need.

Nice. Yeah. That's interesting, man. How much business do you think you get off of that?

I mean, yeah, probably we generate anywhere between 10 or 15 leads a week through thumbtack. Um, I will tell you that. We were fortunate enough to do Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck's big gym at their $77 million property. And that was through their personal assistant who found us on Thumbtack. Interesting. You sold them all the equipment? We didn't. They had three properties full of commercial equipment, free motion, dual AXT, life fitness, five stack, side bags, plate loaded, Uh, you know, like press a bunch of high end commercial stuff that she likes. And, uh, we consolidated three homes of equipment. I mean, I'll send you the video. Extracting this equipment was insane. Um, and then consolidated at their new, at their new home. And I mean, we come across people all the time. We just did Bezos his new $165 million property about three months ago. Um, you know, so the type of homes we're in. type of properties that we see. It's just, it's, it's insane. It's a, it's a whole nother world sometimes. Uh, but it's also very motivating to myself personally and the team that works with me. Cause we're like, look at this guy's like, this is where we need to go. This is the area we need to be in. Like, these are the clients we want to work with. And it's because they really value someone who has the knowledge, the expertise knows how to get the job done. Right. And we're not competing on price. And so, and they, don't have really a fixed budget, right? They just want it done the right way. They want it done so their high-end floors don't get damaged, their walls don't get damaged, their equipment doesn't get damaged, and that's really what we bring.

Nice. Very smart. Love it. Hey, real quick, I'm going to give a shout out to our sponsors. If you want to streamline your operations and your fitness equipment service and repair business, reach out to Ruben Hand and Fieldtech Fitness Solutions and the Fieldtech app. Really appreciate his support and he's got some great products and services that he offers people in our industry. So if you're looking for a way to, you know, his platform or software, you know, you can manage work orders, add notes regarding, you know, work performed on each piece of equipment. So he's got, you know, areas in there where you can break down each piece of equipment on like preventative maintenance, put in serial numbers, things like that. You can do it all from your phone as well. scheduling service calls, installs, relocations, so on and so forth. But yeah, check out FieldTech Fitness Solutions and the FieldTech app. Ruben hand, you can connect with them on Facebook and LinkedIn, um, or go to field tech fitness.com. And then, um, we have, uh, Adam Schwab at AES fitness franchises who's supporting us now. We really appreciate that. Um, he he's got a fitness equipment service and, um, repair, uh, franchise business that he's launching. Um, he's up in the Northeastern area, New Jersey. Um, so. the fitness franchise concept works across markets nationwide. It requires minimal preparation time and you come in and you have credibility within the industry and you're in a growing industry and it's kind of already there built for you. So if you want more details on his business and what he's got going on and see if you can help, I know that Adam is more than willing to just chat with anybody about the industry and talk shop Um, so good with Adam Schwab of AES fitness franchises. Thank you guys for supporting us. And, and, uh, you know, we don't, obviously we don't make any money or anything on this, on this podcast and it's, it's, it's fairly expensive to keep going. So it really helps getting support and it, and it definitely is even better having support from, from guys who are in our industry anyways, you know, providing products and services. Um, that, that are valuable for, for, for the people who are listening. So not just some random shit that, you know, so, um, thank you guys. Um, but yeah, back to the conversation. We have a few more minutes here, man, but I really wanted to get into. Um, one thing that you mentioned, which was the value of, of the technician in general, right. And the value of what, what are you doing? What, how big is your team out there? Do you have multiple technicians? Is it.

Yeah. So great question. So, um, we run really lean and we try to keep our overhead very minimal and our profit as high as possible. Um, so I have two guys that work under me or for my partners in the business. And then, uh, we really subcontract out, uh, a lot. So, you know, we'll bring in some heavy hitters that go across the country and extract, you know, full on gyms when they're closing down, when we have some massive projects and then, Uh, we have a couple of different service companies that we'll partner with, um, because trying to get from San Diego to the Valley and the span of Southern California is just super difficult. So we look at them as like satellite teams. Um, and well, ourselves personally might not make as much. Necessary for like a general service call for like a preventative maintenance or something, if we sub it out, but it's keeping that customer in our pipeline. getting to them in a pretty expedited timeframe as best as we can, keeping them in our network so we could remarket to them for other services, new equipment, things of that nature. So that's what we're really looking at doing is data, data, data. How many people can we get into our system so that we could remarket gym flooring, gym mirroring, new treadmills, service, preventative maintenance, moving and relocation, we really want to have those seven revenue streams as best as we can. What I've noticed being mostly on the sales side, don't get me wrong, over the past five years, I can wrench with the best of them in regards to the install and service is definitely a big portion of our business we want to grow within our company out here because the opportunities out there. What we found is, and at least I found coming from the sales side, And now being on the back end in a home with a client or in a facility with a, you know, a, uh, director of facilities, you know, who makes the decisions at the end of the day is where the last point of contact. Right. A lot of it's now from the internet. Uh, leads are coming from the internet. People are shopping on the internet. There's not real, uh, direct, you know, human to human contact anymore, but there is with us. And, you know, and so there's so much value. I think that the technician brings this days that we're able to get into someone's home and, you know, play with their dog and recognize the sports teams that they cheer for and meet their kids. And it's that human connection point that I think really allows us as technicians on the back end to tie in that relationship. And it's more valuable than ever because say someone goes on a website, buys a piece of equipment. They didn't talk to anybody. They just added it to cart. Then they went and tried to find a solution to get it installed for them in their home. And, you know, they come across us and, and, and now we get in there. We're not biased by any means. Cause we work on everything, right? We can install every piece of equipment. We can pretty much service any piece of equipment. We could relocate any piece of equipment. So like from a sales perspective, the resistance is really low because they look at us as like. very knowledgeable and experienced and not biased. We're not trying to shove one piece of equipment down their throat. And so the relationship really opens up is what I feel like. So. I know there's been kind of a disconnect. I've seen it personally because I've been on the sales guys and they're making more money on the front end and the back end. So I'm making as much, and we're trying to figure all that out. How can we be more profitable? How can we make more money? How can we sustain our business? And, uh, so what we've done is. We now sell flooring. So we sell Rigapool, we sell Ecore. We offer Jim Mearing solutions. We have a really great installer that comes and does Jim Mearing. She could custom cut to any situation. We also, for the residential side, we have a really good floor guy who does concrete finishing and epoxy. We have a matting installer that, you know, really does the hard, big, big projects as far as the matting installs go. Um, we have moving companies that we partnered with where they don't want to even touch fitness equipment anymore because they'll damage it. They don't know how to rip it apart the right way. Uh, they try to move everything with the weight stacks. Uh, shout out to you guys who still do that. Uh, I'm getting too old to do that anymore. Um, and so we have a lot of moving companies within the whole Southern California area that will directly call us. Here's what we're working with. Um, you know, we offer two options. We'll either do the professional disassembly. let their team move the equipment, and then we'll come back in and do the professional reassembly. It's the more affordable option, or we'll handle the whole relocation. And then we've really gotten into working with interior designers and general contractors. They're in the front end of a home build, hopefully high-end home build, and they're building out the plans, they're building out the room, they're building out what flooring's going in, you know, what equipment's going to go in. And before anyone even goes to the internet to shop for a piece of equipment, if we could get out there in front of it, man, we could handle the whole solution from A to Z source, procure the equipment source, procure the flooring, you know, do the measurements on the Marion, uh, do the install delivery, install setup, ongoing preventative maintenance. And we're just checking all these buckets down the road. Um, and that's just from being a technician in the field and building those relationships, brother, which is just. So gnarly. And so I look like guys like at us when we're doing our own, you know, service contracts or PMs having the ability to have equipment to sell. I think it's massively valuable, uh, you know, because you're going to tell the consumer, Hey, you know what? I wouldn't put 700, 800 bucks into this unit. You know, it's 15 years old. It's gotten its life worth. Like, but we do have some options and because you're a current customer, we could offer you X amount of discount. Right. So then you could make some good margin on the front end, even if you give them a discount and then the blended margin of having, doing the delivery and install, man, you're really, you're really getting a good, healthy blended margin across the board. And that's what we really want at the end of the day is good, profitable business. We can make money. We got seven streams, you know, of income that we could do. Uh, and I think it's just valuable for everybody if they kind of expand. I know I've been talking to Jim from Jim maintenance and he's like, I want to get into flooring. He's like, I want to be able to sell some equipment. Um, because things do slow down on, on one end or the other. And we've got to be able to make that up and keep the business flowing. And so I, if I could say anything, I think that's the most valuable thing that we've done. And we've just really created some different revenue streams that have allowed us to really flourish out here, brother.

Yeah, for sure, man. That's a, that's good stuff. And you know, we're in the same, same fight and, uh, And, you know, I don't know, I could go on and on about that, but no, that's that's really good stuff, man. Jim, I love talking with Jim, dude. He's he's new and like full of energy to succeed. I love that. Yeah.

So and he's good at what he does, but he puts out good content. And I called him because, like I said, we're not as big in the CrossFit space. There's a lot of CrossFits out here.

And I think, yeah, what he's doing is interesting. Yeah.

Yeah. And like servicing barbells, uh, what he does with the concept two rowers and, and with the skiers. And I called him and I, I'll tell you one thing. I am not afraid to call somebody and get knowledge from someone who's better than me. I think that's the most massive thing you could do is be humble. You can learn from everybody, you know, never stop learning. And, uh, I called him right up. I'm like, bro, how do you do this? Yeah.

Yeah. What do you got a niche there, dude, that a lot of people don't pay attention to? It had me thinking like, because my accountant mentioned to me recently about because he's in a CrossFit and he's like, dude, why don't we start this CrossFit thing? I'm like, look, I never even thought about CrossFit too much. You know what I mean? Like, that's generally a place where businesses like us, we don't, you know, we might sell some equipment or whatever the case is, but But he really broke down like the boards of maintenance of those places like, yeah, of course, they definitely need maintenance and repairs probably quite a bit, because they beat your shit up. And I like it. That's a niche, a little niche area that he's in. I think that's good. But man, we're getting close to time I got to, we got to head out to an install up in Iowa. So we got to load up some trucks and I don't know, I don't always go, but on this one I'm going as the first one on a pretty big new customer. So I'll go and tag along and build some relationships.

I hear you, man. Yeah, we're just closing up on a deal for a big police department, and we're doing the whole thing A to Z. So it's a massive project for us. We're getting in a lot of those. And it's exciting, man. Being a small business owner is super exciting, brother. And every day is different, and you get different opportunities. It opens your eyes to other potential avenues you might be missing. And it's stressful, don't get me wrong. For sure, dude. It's fucking war, man.

Help yourself more than anything, you know?

Yeah, but like yourself, man. If you listen to Andy Priscilla, I start off every morning with him. He'll get you motivated and fired up enough to get after it.

For sure, dude. And then Hermosy will give you all the knowledge you need to to build some cool things too. Yeah. It's pretty, pretty amazing. We have access to so much like free knowledge these days where people back in the day at pay tens of thousands of dollars to get a lot of that, a lot of that higher up people who have a lot of experience. Uh, so yeah, I love that stuff, man. I haven't even thought about joining though, uh, RTA or REIT syndicate or whatever, you know, if you go, I'll go, bro.

It's been on my back of my mind forever.

I was a part of, um, um, Oh, what's, you know, Ryan Stumann. Yeah, yeah, about I was a part of his group, Apex for a while. And dude, I was really valuable. I mean, it was it was, it was great. It just didn't. I just wanted to do some other things. So I so I got out but Um, the year that I was in, man, it was the seminars, like learning how to, we'd go to class and like break down how to break down a profit and loss and like how to build budgets. Like we would do that with the people there, they would teach us how to do it. Like, you know, and so, uh, that type of stuff's really valuable, man, for, for, for business owners. So, so yeah, Andy's deal, he seems like he's got a cool thing going there, but.

There's one good one too. I've listened to it's called real business owners, Trevor Cowley. Um, you know, it's just like normal day dudes, like me and you, man. And, uh, he brings a lot of good information and insight. It's called real business owners. They got two different kinds of options for their groups, but they, they do podcasts all the time. Uh, really good information. Like I find myself when I go working out, I'm listening to business podcasts, like Andy for sale or whatnot. Um, I don't listen to music. I don't know either. Yeah, like it gets me excited and fired up to go and try it out and see if it works and all that stuff. I mean, that's what I'm all about.

Yeah, and that's similar to what we're trying to do here, man. And I, you know, I think kind of this is developing into a sort of a mastermind, at least where I think we'll build a little networking group and get together somewhere, um, you know, maybe the center of the country though, somewhere or throw an event, something like that, have speakers and maybe have somebody like you come out and. You know, do sales training or something like that, you know, and, and, uh, and stuff like that.

So, um, but I actually think that's great, bro. Um, I heard you talking to Jim on the last podcast about the whole service and putting together something of that nature. And I actually think that's a really great idea. Um, having a mastermind like that, uh, get together like that, um, you know, being able to offer that service, you know, training. We don't need just directly matrix or directly like fitness or directly pre-born. You need to know the basics and the foundations and all of that stuff. And some of it all just, it all kind of circles back to the same thing at the end of the day. Um, so it, it be massively valuable and. Also, I think, you know, once again, from the technician side of things, we all need to collaborate together for sure. Um, you know, because the internet once again, brings us leads that we typically didn't get before the internet, uh, in relationships where they might have properties outside of our territory, uh, or opportunities that come out outside of our territory and. and being able to work as like a collective network is massive.

Yeah, there's people passing around deals, you know, job, the group a little bit, you know what I mean? Those are, that's work you wouldn't have had otherwise, you know what I mean? I've done a couple quotes on there for some people and stuff too, where they just had, you know, like whatever, sold some equipment near us or whatever the case is, and just needed an installer and stuff. So yeah, it's good to have that. Um, and then just a place to share, share some knowledge. So we're going to build on it from here. This is kind of the foundation where we're just, Hey, we have the podcast. Let's gather some people together, you know, and so on and so forth. And then we'll build from here on, um, you know, the training programs, you know, the virtual masterminds in-person events, things like that and different. You know, areas that, well, we all need training in, in sales, stuff like that. And then you even mentioned some stuff of like, Hey, how do I execute on social media or whatever the case is? You know, maybe we can have somebody come in and I'm not an expert in that area, but we could have some, somebody, Dylan, Dylan would come in and it was like, Dylan, come teach us, you know, wisdom, you know what I'm saying? You do it. And he's more than willing to, to help and stuff too. So yeah, we'll start doing some of that stuff coming up, man.

Yeah. Anyway, I can help. Let me know, brother, but I appreciate the time. Yeah, appreciate you taking the initiative and getting this whole thing kind of started. Yeah, ultimately, at the end of the day, we needed someone to do it. So hats off to you, brother. We appreciate it.

Hey, absolutely, man. I'm just here here to help. I mean, it helps me. It was a solution to my own business. You know what I mean? Like, how the hell do I so I'm right there with with everybody else. So um, but yeah, man, thank you for your time. Enjoy a beautiful Southern California out there. We'll have to meet up at IHRSA next year. I don't know if it's back in San Diego or not, but I'm sure it'll be in that area, I think. Or is it in Vegas next year?

That would be dangerous. Yeah, I don't know. Anyways, but yeah. I went to one in Vegas one time and by day two, everybody looked hungover.

So yeah, I don't want to go to Vegas. I'm not a big gambler or anything like that. Don't drink or anything. So like, yeah, yeah. All good. But yeah, dude, thanks for your time. Enjoy your day. And we'll talk again soon. Thanks, man. Yep.

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