Getting Real with Ryan Kugler — Plan B Distribution

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Today's story is a getting real conversation with an entrepreneur about all of their business background. The highs, the lows, the things they learned along the way, how they developed as a leader. Listen in as we start getting real with Ryan Coogler. So hi again everyone. I'm Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach, host of the show. You can find Hunter hundreds of episodes on leadership and everything to do with scaling up at our site scalingcoach.com we've got downloads in the show, notes from everything that the speakers, guests talk about in our show and you can even get a free copy of the international bestseller Scaling up right there of scalingcoach.com these getting real episodes on our show, on our live streams, that kind of thing. Explore how our leadership has been shaped over time with the growth of the business and all of that ups and downs. What are the lucky breaks that we've had? How have we navigated things? What surprises have we had along the way? What's frightened us? What regrets do we have? Where are we growing, developing as leaders. All of that. These episodes are sponsored by the Bay Area Entrepreneurs Organization and Chapters, commonly known as eo. The member led organization is the best place for entrepreneurs and to find peers to connect, to learn, to grow. And I'm proud to have been a member of the organization for about 21 years now with several different companies. EO members in the Bay Area are supported and connected with over 14,000 members, giving them access to a whole world of entrepreneurship. If you'd like more information or apply for membership in EO, just visit eonetwork.org is where to get your information. All right, listen in now as we talk with Ryan. Welcome, Michelle Ryan.

Thank you. Appreciate it.

Hello. Hi. So are you down in LA now?

Yes, I am.

Nice.

Lucky to be in the same state with you.

Yeah. So listeners should know Ryan's an entrepreneur, strategist. 25 years of building businesses across a range of size and types and things like that. He's originally from Chicago. Yes.

Yes.

But moved to LA and never looked back or did you feel like you needed to get back into the ice and cold?

I have not looked back to Chicago, but maybe over the last year some other states.

Nice.

Yes.

So Ryan has some background in TV and entertainment as you might do in la, and he'll talk a little bit about that. He's done. Got. You have three companies now or do you have three companies over time?

No, I have three companies now that I run simultaneously, all at the same time. I call them layered companies.

Layered, yes.

Which means all the employees work on all three companies. So every day is like a new day. They're doing something else. So the person who is doing this is working on the other two companies as well.

Oh, interesting.

Yeah.

So plan B is about excess inventory, right? I think if you've got an inventory business, thinking about your plan B for what happens when something doesn't sell or comes back is a really important thing. As I learned over a number of years. Running an inventory based business, then there's a five events. You do events type work. That business has got to have been challenged in the last year.

It's been paused, it's been mothballed. Yes. Our last event I think was March 7th of 2020 and then everything got canceled. Rescheduled. Rescheduled, Rescheduled. We are now starting to book again. Things are opening back up, but not until fall. So we've had nothing to do in the last year other than keep rescheduling.

But you haven't done any virtual events. You didn't.

I've actually stayed away from that. Our customers have asked us to and I've just been nice and said, you know, you can really do the virtual event yourself. Just get the software, I'm going to charge you to do it and you could really almost do it for free. And I'm kind of a touchy guy, which means not touchy is a bad sense. But I'm the physical guy who knows how to put on a physical event running, you know, thousands of people at a time. So when it comes to virtual and software, that's not me, that's just not my brain chip.

That's a different way of thinking for sure. As we've seen, some of the companies that we've worked with that have moved into virtual events over the past year, helping folks and of course our own show. Like the whole way we work with people, our coaching of clients, our workshops, everything has moved into. Not everything, but the vast majority. Right. 95% of our work.

But are you ready to go back out and go out into the world again?

I've done two in the last couple weeks. Two outdoors sessions. I did one yesterday, we did one last week. We started to do. And when the weather was cooperating, we would do them. If they were somewhere somewhat nearby or could be nearby, we would do like these outdoor things. And I actually kind of like the outdoor thing better than being in a, like a meeting room or a hotel room or that kind of thing. So I like that aspect of it a lot.

Nice outdoors. All of my events are Mainly outdoors, you know, when the weather changes. Yes.

Things are different. So that. And then the teams that we would work with in other parts of the world. Right. That is changed in that way. It just means that I have to either work very late in the evening or work very early in the morning at Lucy too in taking care of people. So, you know, we have a workshop coming up in Southeast Asia next week. It'll be in our evening time here. We'll do it remote from a studio Vern and I are doing together. So we have things like that.

That's good. Well, it's fun to get back to work and start doing events again.

So you've got that and then you've got a content company. Yes, it's.

It's actually a marketing company. It's called Ideal Content, but it has to do with content. We make specialized video brochures, which are brochures that open up and play a video. So we're putting content in physical paper.

Like your notes, in those things that open up the little screen with them and. Yep.

And then a video starts playing. So we, we've been doing that for about seven years. It's really high end marketing. So if someone's looking for something new, different, unique. We also do presentation boxes, which has done well during COVID Someone wants to send someone a box with like a tumbler in it or a coffee mug and then a video play saying, hey, let's have our little virtual meeting type thing. So it's been going well there.

Interesting. So talk about your beginning as an entrepreneur. Your family had a business. It sounds like the plan B was started with your parents.

Yes, it was actually under a different name in the beginning. So when I got out of school, I really wanted to work. I just wanted to go make money. I wanted to like be in a business. I mean, when I went to school, I carried a briefcase with me. I was just into that whole mock up in that world. So when I was done with high school, I said, great, I'm going to go work in the family business. My father gave me a job and at the time time it was a vis. It was a business that supplied video stores with videos. So we were building video stores as they were opening. This was the heyday of when people can go rent a movie as opposed to sitting at home and clicking a button on their remote. And we, my company or my family business was supplying Blockbuster Videos and for anyone that's, you know, old timer Hollywood videos, movie galleries, west coast videos all across the country. So I started working at the age, honestly, 17.

Yes. Well, I think many of us. Right. Started with some kind of teenage hustle.

Yes, yes. This, that. That was my teenage hustle. I loved it.

That seems like a perfect movie title.

Yeah, it is a good one. Let's start writing it.

All right, let's go. Right. Who's it going to feature? It sounds like a. An old Houston movie or something like that.

Yeah, it could be.

So what, what was that? How did that. How does that evolve? Right. What kinds of stuff do you do today with that business?

Okay, so how it evolved is really. When I came into the family business and I became a buyer, I was just buying videos. Movies and bringing. They were coming into the warehouse and they were sold, shipped out to the video stores. And how it turned into an entrepreneurial. Should I say scaling level is basically what I wound up doing was I basically went to the receptionist and said, any odd call, you get anything that's weird, I want it. Okay. So I got the first odd call, which was really, interestingly enough, someone saying, hey, I have 50,000 movies for sale. And they came from McDonald's Happy Meals, you know, when they had the toys and the Happy Meals, putting movies in Happy Meals at the time. But it failed. And they called us with the inventory. And I went, huh, this is interesting. So I said, let's do this deal. Let's buy it. Let's. Let's take the. Let's take the jump. Let's do something different. Let's get out of the norm, out of the box. Because I wanted something different. And I. We did. We made the purchase and we sold the product, the movies to Target stores. Actually, the invoice and the PO is right behind me because that was the start of my entrepreneurial life. And so basically from that point on, I said, why are we thinking small of just these small time, you know, buying 10 movies here? 20. Let's just think bigger. 50,000 units. 20,000 units. 100,000 units. Units mean pieces. So that was the leap into it, which then I then started a new division for the company of buying larger lots and working on much larger inventories, which if you translate it today, to skip forward, yes, I'm still in that business. But movies is not. Videos isn't something we're buying anymore. We're, you know, we just moved 20.

Right. Like, you get your, like, what's the store with all the. The hipster clothes for cheap that Urban Outfitters. Urban Outfitters, yeah. Start selling VHS players there and old VHS tapes.

Yes. You know, it was funny in 2008, we apparently moved. Our company moved the last batch of vhs. And you can look it up online on Google because we were featured on the front page of LA Times that we bought the last chunk of VHS in the world and sold it. So our company, which was called DBA at the time. But yes, I have actually I'm bringing up this story because we have gotten requests for people who want VHS again. I'm shocked. It's coming back. Like LPs.

Yes. My daughter is a photographer, designer, that kind of thing. She was here recently and she's like, she spied this old. What is it, Hi8 or something like that? No, it's not height. It was. It was a mini DV player.

Yeah, I was gonna say hi 8 is the smaller, like 8 millimeter smaller.

Yeah. Anyway, she's like, oh, could I have that? Right? Like she wanted to start doing lo fi looking stuff with it. Like I've. We still gotta actually keep that because we've got to get all that old family stuff on moved into some other format eventually. I don't know when I'll ever do.

That, but legacybox.com will do it for you.

Yeah, send them all to them. They'll bump it.

You said it. You clock it and you send it to them and then they get it back to you a couple weeks later and you got copies of it.

There you go. First cool link of the thing. So are you primarily involved in entertainment related stuff still or do you do other kinds of.

It's. It's 20% of what we do for our company called Plan B. So we changed from the name DVA at the time to now Plan B. And now I own Plan B. All my family members have gone off and done other stuff because DBA stood for Distribution, Video and Audio. Well, video really means vhs, so the name really didn't work anymore. So Plan B is a little better because when your plan E for your new Plan A for your new products doesn't work, you got to go to Plan B.

Plan B, where the Plan B we.

Help you out when you can't move it.

But do you do electronics, apparel, other kinds of things?

Yes, anything from. I mean, every day is a new day, but we've done plywood, we've done extension cords, we've done candles, we've done light bulbs. Every day something new, but entertainment related, meaning working with the movie studios. Going back to your original question, we still do, but it's about 20% of what we do now. 80% is everything else. That's in front of you, on your desk, at your home, etc.

Interesting. Yeah, that could be a substantial business. I remember when I was running the jewelry company and our business was primarily department stores and catalogs. There'd be times that we'd get a lot of returns or unsold things or stock balancing, whatever. We'd have all this stuff. And a couple times a year we would do a huge unload of older inventory to places like TJ Maxx and that kind of thing. And they loved it because it had been selling in major department stores and like, oh, these are like legitimate good major department store brand goods. And of course, you know, they could get them for a prayer. We'd be happy to move that stuff.

Yeah, our customers are TJ Maxx, Ross. We also go to a lot of smaller discount chains that people don't know of. Like when you drive across country and you see what is this store? We kind of hit the five to 20 store chains where TJ Maxx is like the first 500, a thousand stores. They are our customer and we sell to them. But we focus on the smaller guys as well who don't really have the opportunities because like you said, most manufacturers will go to them first. They'll go to a Dollar General, a big lots, a TJ Maxx, a Ross, and then, but then the little guys don't, don't really get any. They get the real slim pickings at the end of the day.

Right, right. And then you could buy them for a fraction and, and find somebody to, to move them. I, I, I, I think it's interesting to do a general one like that. Of course, we also know about special categories. My brother works as a distributor for some medical equipment and they're buying up medical equipment as people are upgrading and they find there's lots of countries and places in the world that are still interested in stuff that's still very serviceable. It's just not quite as cutting edge as.

Yes, there's a niche for every industry or every vertical where people will buy just that specific. So my company previous to Plan B, called dva, we were known if you had a movie, if you had CDs, if you had video games, we were the number one company to call. We still are, but that was our niche. Just like your brother has a niche of buying medical equipment.

So I always think going to one of those retailers or going to someone like you is a million times better than going to say an overstock.com because with a place like Overstock, you've got A put the listing up yourself and you've got a. They want you to drop, ship it or do things like that for the stuff. And you haven't really sold it. You've just got a channel that you can keep working it.

You are correct. You're very knowledgeable. This, by the way, I have to say, you do know the closeout business, overstock.com. you're right. They. You have to ship it for them. But also overstock.com has changed their M.O. they're not. They're. The name actually doesn't mean anything that they don't buy overstocks. They are basically competitor to Wayfair. So if you want any type of furniture, they're the place to go. And they're a great place to go. But they. We sold to them a long time ago. We actually were very good friends with the CEO at the time, Patrick Byrne. Great guy. And we sold them a lot of closeouts. But then they just shifted their. Their buying patterns and just said, hey, we're just going to get brand new. We don't want closeouts, we don't want overstocks. But if you ever want to sell to us, like you just said, yes, you have to ship it for. For us.

I think the same thing true with those online flash sales. It's like, okay, we've got this site and we've got these memberships and we're going to put this thing out, but you end up selling 10 or something, 100 of whatever, and you're like, I need to move 10,000 of these things. Yes, they need to go.

That is our niche as we move in bulk. 10, 20, 30, 100,000. Half a million units. Because we buy in bulk. So our company. Yes. Someone will call us sometimes and say, hey, can you drop ship it? Or hey, can I just buy 10? And we go, no, this isn't our business. Thanks.

That's not bad. So what do you say has been your biggest challenge so far in balancing between all of these businesses or in any one of them? Clearly, last year brought some challenges. Right?

Well, the challenge. Well, first of all, Covid was a challenge to begin with. And we thought this was gonna just, you know, all three companies. Well, actually, I was like, you know what the governor told us? Take two, three weeks off. Okay, great. I'm gonna go sit home for two, three weeks. But then we actually. Well, the event business just shut down. The marketing business pretty much slowed down because when there's cuts or anything in the world, marketing, unfortunately, is always the first thing that's hit in the budget to reduce. So that kind of got shut down. But we still, you know, we actually were an essential business because we do fulfillment there.

Yeah.

So we were allowed to stay open and keep doing that. We mail order and then the wholesale business immediately pivoted and our customers called us for ppp, ppe. They needed masks, they needed hand sanitizer. So immediately we shifted gears and basically started getting that for them. But beyond the challenge of COVID or whatever else is going on, technology is the biggest challenge. So behind me is a purchase order from Target. So in the old days, as you know, a PO was just handwritten on a piece of paper. Now it's used something called edi and it's all technology and computer based and software based. So anytime someone wants to buy something from you, it's software and you always have to download new software. So it's constantly use this software, download here, update here. I mean even, you know, like you write a letter in Word two years ago, now you do it now. And now there's spacing. So you got to go find how do you make it so there's no spacing in Word. So there's constantly changes in technology with emailing. So that is our biggest challenge is just staying up with the technology of what's the latest and the greatest to use, whether it's making a phone call, whether it's sending an email, whether it's sending a package.

Because your business is pretty basic, right? Like you know, we, we buy and sell things, we find opportunity, we help people do stuff. Right. We put things together. But that interface is a big thing. I mean we had the same kind of thing. And for both our old business as well as many of our clients, one of the most difficult, expensive and yet important things you could do is like implement an ERP system. Not everyone uses edi, but if you're doing major trading or working in certain industries, you're going to use edi. And then you've got to get, not only comply with things and get the interfaces to your system, but you've got to get like a gateway partner who's going to provide the interchange. Because nobody's system wants to talk directly to. And it all feels very antiquated in some respects. Like the EDI system is a whole very antiquated system that's now being bolted or interconnected to very modern systems.

Yes. And then each retailer that we sell to, whether it's tj, Maxx, Dollar General, Walmart has their own. And then you got to go work with their carrier and then pay the monthly fee with them. So the challenge is anytime we get a new account. Oh, which system to use. Okay, now we got to go work with this guy to go do it. So we might have. We're working with 10 different vendors, with 10 different retailers just trying just to get a PO.

Yeah, yeah.

So that's our challenge.

Did you ever have this thing where the buyers would send you pos with heavily macroed Excel files that you had to send back to them in certain ways with all of your data structured? I mean, some of the big online retailers will do that also. Some of the major brick and mortar retailers do that kind of thing.

Yes, they do. And then on top of that, because, you know, this is the routing guide and the chargebacks. So if you're selling to. Yeah, see, I saw. So you sell to a retailer, you now have to read this yellow page book of the routing guide. And then if the skid. The pallet that you put it on has just a nail sticking out, that's a $2 charge right there. So that's the other thing. You're like, oh, my God, really?

Anyway, so years ago, I'll tell you a story, and I'm sure you'll have a good one in return. We had been courting, really excited about doing business with the Federated Group, which includes Macy's and others, Right? Yeah, Bloomingdale's and so on. So it was very exciting. This is really big leagues. And we'd sold to quite a few major department stores, but this is the biggest of the groups that. For our category and that kind of thing. So super excited. Oh, so much on the line for this whole thing. And we're going through the whole, like, handshaking process to get our EDI talking to each other and get like, they want to approve the labels that you're sending on the boxes and the product and things like that. And they were giving us a hard time about, like, every single thing. And we'd heard notorious stuff about it. And so at some point, I'm like, our labels are getting rejected for, like, nonsense. Right? Right.

Yeah, yeah. They look at this guy. We don't like the color of the label.

Too faint or something. That. Or there's some. There's some pinhole things. You're not getting a uniform enough transfer. Like, you know, I remember.

Yes.

I called the buyer and I'm like, this just is ridiculous. We've been doing this for a long time. Our stuff works. Like, can you help? Can you intervene? And the buyer was super, super harsh with me. And no. No other conversations had ever been pleasant.

Right. Right. Yeah. Just one of those buyers middle of.

The conversation, I said, you know, maybe we shouldn't be doing business together.

And.

And. And they were, like, gobsmacked. They were like, I can't believe, like, really, like, got really insulted and offended and, like, are you kidding me? And, like, you know, we've. I've been working really hard on this, and I'm like, well, if this is what it's like in the courtship phase, I just can't imagine what the marriage is going to be like. Like, maybe we should just. We're not meant to work together. And we talked for another 10 seconds or something. That was the last time I ever talked to them. And I still look back, too, but that was, like, a huge relief. I realized, wow, I just dodged a bullet there of heartache and chargebacks and things endlessly.

You did, actually. And that's a. That's actually a policy. It's. It's something that we have in our office. If we're trying to purchase something, sell something, and it takes a long time just to get it approved, we walk away from the deal because we know later on it's just going to be even worse later. So you did the right thing there. And I've had situations like that where it's just like, you know what? It's taken us a week just for you to buy a thousand light bulbs. We're done. We'll move on. We don't want to deal with this. Yeah.

It's too much. Life is short. So do you have any big regrets? Do you have anything like that that you. That you wish you hadn't done?

You know, I. If I quickly. My quick answer. That's always what I go with. The answer is no. So far. I. You know, my wife made a joke once that overstock.com wanted to buy our company, the family business.

Yeah.

So she has a regret that we never did that, But I still don't. I'm still actually fine because I didn't want to move to Utah, so.

Well, there's that. Yeah. Especially if you had to move. And. Yeah, I am fine.

I'm content with the business. I'm content with running three businesses. I decided to do three businesses because in 2008, when you had the, you know, the first recession, I didn't like relying on one form of income. So I'm very happy that I've created two other companies because I don't really go home sad now. So if you have a bad day and you don't get a PO or a retailer as news, I got the two other companies and I know one of them is going to do well. So if you got a, you know where, if you just have one, you go home, you could have a bad day.

So what are, what's a lucky break you've had then? What do you think has been your luckiest break so far?

I think honestly the story I told you, how the guy called us with the McDonald's VHS videos, because that's what, that's what made me jump and go, let me think outside of the box here. Let me move on. Why are we just dealing with, you know, a video store which by the way only holds a 2000 videos at the time. VHS videos, movies, why not think bigger? 10,000, 20,000, 100,000. And we have now moved millions of products. I mean, I think I've moved, I, I, we, I think it's like 500 million widgets, that's what we call it, which is an item that you hold in your hand. Just anything you find in store. I've moved, I've helped people move 500 million pieces. So it did not have to go to the dump.

Oh yeah. Keeping things out of the dump or, or a little longer out of the.

Dust before they go to the dump. So they', re, we've helped 500 million pieces that have been manufactured get repurposed. So, so to me, I'm in a good business. Even though, you know, I might be buying things that people are done with, you know, because I've been called names, but it's like, hey, somebody's gotta find homes for this product that doesn't sell.

So yeah, yeah, yeah. Eventually everything, right, seems to find its way to a future archeological dig.

Yes, there are a lot of things we have not bought and there's a lot of things that have been offered to us that I said we do not buy pig ears, sorry. We do not buy human hair, sorry. So we are offered a lot of interesting things. So as much as I take every call, some of the calls I have to just decline and go, wow, that's a new one, sorry, that's not for us.

What are you working on now? Do you have a big long term goal for the business or do you have a mountain you're trying to conquer? In the longest term, yes.

I mean my, for three companies, basically I want to triple what they're doing in sales. That is my goal right now. Now two of them, it's easy to do because over the last year, the numbers have been down because of COVID you know, event business. Okay, good. Before COVID we were doing 30 events a year. Okay. So I want to get it back up to 30 in the next six months, at least booked. And then I want to grow it to basically 90. Okay. Because I want to be able to do, like, two events a week. And I also. My son's going to be graduating high school, and if he wants the job, I'd to love, love for him to take it. And then he has business to do. The marketing business is growing because we're doing beyond just a video screen inside of a brochure. We're doing boxes. We're doing regular brochures. We're getting a lot of interesting requests because we just, you know, we pride ourselves on quality and customer service. And in any business, that's what I focus on. I don't want to be the cheapest. Okay. Because when you pay less, you get less. I want to be the best. High quality, great customer service, great communication. That is the key to me in business. Sure. You can find people that want to make products that are cheap. I don't want to do cheap.

Yeah, I found there's, I think, a lot of people who are trying to figure out how to sell things right now. Like, trade shows went away, conventions went away, and people are like, wait, that's where I used to do some of my big orders and big meetings and that kind of thing. So they're working around that kind of thing. In fact, we were setting up earlier today a virtual booth and a virtual conference. And I'm like, oh, yeah, I don't know how that's gonna go, but we shall see.

I know we were doing one next month where we're basically like this, and we're talking to the buyers, and I'm like, this will be interesting. Let's see how this goes. I'll try it. And I actually went to a convention last week in Dallas, and it was. It was interesting. It was in a ballroom. It was, you know, a third of the booths, you know, and it was like, okay. But, you know, when I talk to the different booths, they're like, yeah, the buyers just aren't the same buyers anymore.

But that's like Texas and Florida, where there's, like, no rules at all. You can just French kiss anyone on.

The street and breathe on each other and whatever.

Spaces.

That's right.

So a quick reminder to our listeners that our episode is sponsored by the Bay Area entrepreneur chapters, commonly known as E.O. this is a member led organization for entrepreneurs where they can find peers, connect, learn and grow. And I've been a member of the organization for over 20 years now across several different of my companies. Our members in the Bay Area are supported and connected to over 14,000 around the world. So they've got access to a whole world of entrepreneurship, people in different industries and that kind of thing, all trying to do the same kind of thing, sharing the same DNA, the same affliction of being an entrepreneur. If you're interested in membership, would like to know more about EO or any of the EO programs, go to eonetwork.org so what are you grappling with right now? What's next in your leadership journey and in growing your companies? What's the challenge in trying to triple these businesses?

So to for event business it's for the world to open back up, obviously large gatherings to be and then for anyone that is willing to, you know, one of the events that we are booked for, which I know will happen is in Dallas actually. So but you know, following all Covid rules and protocols because as an event producer, yes, we have to, you know, make sure there's, you know, proper PPE on hand and people spaced apart and so forth. So we're doing that and just learning what the rules and recs are to do that so people feel safe and happy and then to grow the business, the marketing business, as more companies open back up and more people go to work, you're going to have more people needing more marketing again, which is good. So over the last year we have survived and I know some competitors didn't and I feel for them but you know, we survived. And it's probably because I have three businesses. So when one business kind of went away and fizzled away for a year, I was able to work on one or two of the other ones and still not have to file bankruptcy or go get a job somewhere else. The last one with plan B, our liquidation wholesale business. We're going to keep doing well there because there's a lot of, I mean you just take what took place in Egypt. There's a lot of backup traffic right now with people not getting products. Okay. Where products delayed shipping is delayed. If anyone's listening who's in the shipping business, they understand shipping is doubled and quadrupled because of less people, less trucks, less, you know, equipment out there. So we're going to keep helping people find homes for inventory. And people like TJ Maxx and others will call us needing product because they couldn't get it when they needed to with whatever they ordered from overseas. So what do I see the challenges? Just working with people and getting people, you know, who might have been working from home back in the saddle of working and doing whatever their normal job is, back in an office environment and just rolling with the punches there.

Did any part of your business grow surprisingly last year? Did you have wholesale business?

Our wholesale business grew because we started selling gloves and mass and. Yeah. So retailers needed that. And, you know, as someone who's in the manufacturing business, I will tell you something happened that I've never seen happen in my life of business. And that was when it was actually like a year ago today. Today is almost the anniversary when retail, when the. When the two weeks were up, retailers started calling us left and right. The phone did not stop ringing, needing PPE to get people back in the stores again. And I tell you, we said, we have it, but the masks are not boxed yet. They're not done being manufactured. The retailer said, we don't care. Put it in a Hefty Glad bag and put it on a skid. We don't care. All routing guides, all chargebacks was out the window. They did not care. They just wanted it. So that's what I thought was the most interesting. And I will never forget that till the day I die when all of my customers said, I don't care how you ship it to us. You can walk it into the door, you can drop it from a helicopter. We need it right now. And it was very interesting to see that.

That whole chain, what's been the hardest part, probably the last year, but it could have been some other time. For you personally, as a leader, like, where were you most confronted? Afraid, at a loss for a plan? What do you notice about anything like that?

That's a good question. I would say two things. One, we had some 30 events booked and to have to contact our staff and say, no event, sorry, that I felt bad about that. Like, literally, like two of my guys, you know, were in the office yesterday and they're like, yeah, that really hurt me, man. I've made no money. And events we did every other week and it was great. So that was kind of bad. I felt sad for that because a lot of them were part timers. So that, that was a little rough. But then also I think the biggest challenges, since you're going to go out on the road soon and, you know, go to ballrooms and outdoor events, I'm actually kind of going to be interesting to see what Happens when I have to do my first event and wake up at three in the morning. Because I do runs in the morning, meaning charity runs and walks. And they start like at 6, 7am so for me to brush off the dust and to get the muscles moving again and to go put it on an event for a thousand, two, three, four thousand people. My first event, I think it'll be interesting and that will be a challenge to just go back to work and do that again and get my staff to go back and put that machine back in place. When someone says, hey, we're doing an event, it's starting at 7am we need everything ready. Because, you know, to put on an event for thousands of people, have it open and ready at 6:30 in the morning is a lot of work. And to not do it for a year, year and a half at that point, point, it'll be interesting to see what did I forget to do, what, what is missing? What? Since I haven't done this for a year and a half, was I able to get back on the bike and ride again? That, to me, is the biggest challenge.

Well, last year I spent 120, 100. Well, not last year, the year before, about 120, 130 nights in hotel rooms. And I got very used to, like, I come, I go, I'm like, you know, it's just my little dance and the way I commute and. And then now I've been here almost entirely with a couple little road trips, that kind of thing. I get on a plane tomorrow, I've got another one coming up. Just the whole thing. I'm like, Lucy has asked me earlier, are you nervous about the thing? I'm really nervous about it. I've been vaccinated now. I've had both my shots. I feel fairly good. I'll still be around, hopefully people who are displaying common sense, but. But it feels weird, like.

Yes. Yeah, that's what I mean. That's my biggest challenge is it's gonna feel weird. I'm gonna be with the first when I have to wake up at three in the morning and, you know, meet the crew of 2100 volunteers to build an event. It's gonna be just weird. And it's gonna be like, am I gonna be tired after 20 minutes? You know, because it's not doing an event for a year, year and a half, and then going out and doing one that's to me, is going to be. I'm not worried. I'll do it, but it will just be that startup, like, it's like going on a date again after you, you know, not date for a while.

What if you. Look, is there a skill that you either discovered you had or developed this last period that you didn't realize there, you know, something new, some new superpower, strength or ability as a leader?

That's a good question. I think I've always had a skill to a get stuff done. I use a swear word in there, too. I don't know if I'm allowed to swear in your show, but I literally know. I mean, my, My kids come to me all the time and go, daddy, you know how to get block done? You know, because I just do. When you, when you run an event, I mean, you know this. People who put on events and manage and run, thousands of people, they do have a certain chip and talent to get things done and to think quickly and to do it. Because I've worked with other people at events.

Crappy urgency.

Yes. You got to like on a, you know, hey, guess what? You got a thousand runners down and running down a road, and a bus just stopped in the road. What do you do with them? You know, you don't sit and think about it. You just act. So that's my talent, is I just act. I know what to do. Just like if you're in a ballroom speaking and all the lights go on, the electricity go, you're going to know how to, you know, hey, you're going to drop the mic, you're going to say out loud, okay, this is what we're going to do. You're going to know what to do instantly. You're not going to stand up there and be dumbfounded. Go, what do I do? You know what to do. So there are certain. So the talent is. I know what to do if something goes wrong, and I know how to get something done. And I know how to get a hold of somebody if I need to, and what to do where others might not.

Yeah, it's interesting, you know, I don't know that everybody does that. I know that I've actually had the power go out with a large event.

There you go. See?

But I've also watched people, when something goes off, the wrong slide is up, or it doesn't work as you effect, or the sound goes out and they lose their cool and they start to have a whole, like, freak out. We've seen celebrities do this at major, major event and, and it looks bad, like it throws it. But if you're kind of like, well, look at that, the power's out. All right, who's got a candle, you know, and. And you play with it. You're like, okay, everybody just chill out. It's gonna be okay. Nothing else has happened, you know, or you roll with it, like, oh, that's not what that slide's supposed to say. That. That somehow, like, if you can embrace the reality, there's. There's something kind of cool that can happen with it.

Yeah. So you. You and I both are on the same page. We have the same talent. We know how to do it. We know how to play it off. We know what to do to fix it quickly. So that's my talent. That's what I know how to do.

Yeah, that's very good.

Yeah. And you other. Did some new talent come up in the last year? You know, I think that using the talent I just mentioned, I mean, when retailers called us a year ago today and said, hey, I need this stuff right away, right now, we acted. We knew how to handle it. Did I outperform better than maybe a competitor or someone else? I think so. And I will say that we just ran with the punches because also, you know, there were a lot of new, like I mentioned before, challenges. There are a lot of new technology challenges in place. Like we learned during COVID When Covid started, banks wouldn't let you wire X amount of money. You had to wait 24 hours. And this was a new law they just put in place because they were concerned about the economy. So we had to roll with the punches there, where we had to pay vendors, and we couldn't get them the money because the bank wouldn't let us wire them, not because we didn't have the money. The bank just said, sorry, you have to wait 24 hours to send that much money. We're like, what rule is this? Why is this in place now? So you just have to think quickly, jump on your toes. Okay, good. Let's do this. We have another bank account here. We can send the money from there. Blah, blah, blah.

Yeah, it's funny how some of those constraints can show up. I did a series of CEO workshops in Pakistan once and, like, getting the travel arranged and that kind of thing. And there's banking restrictions. Same thing working with Nigeria. You know, there's. There's definitely some concern about banking interactions with Nigeria because of some history there that. That are people in banks with pretend royalty and whatnot in Nigeria.

Yes. Yeah. So, you know, so, I mean, we're both on the same page. And. And that's the purpose of your show, is you're talking to People, we're displaying and talking about our talents so that people can go to the next level and go, I can do that. Because sometimes it just does take either hearing someone looking at someone, watching someone do it, and then they realize they can do it, or they just do it upon themselves.

Yeah. So best advice for your younger self, Go back and talk to your younger self. Finishing school, starting your career. What would you say now with some years of experience?

Well, my first advice that I've always followed is do it now. Basically, just decide and do it. Don't. Don't sit and think about it. So that's. But that's. That should be just a given in any entrepreneur. And I think that they already have that. The more you sit and think and the more you sit and ponder and should I do this, should I do that? Time's gonna go on. You're gonna lose whatever sale or whatever deal you're trying to do, thinking about it. Just do it. Make a decision. But my best, my advice that I wish my family would have told me or my parents or someone. Start saving money. Investing money at an earlier age. Because it's fun when you're out of high school, college, hey, I want to go do this. Okay, let's go rent a car. Let's go fly here. Let's. It's great. Okay, let's go buy tons of clothes. But if I started saving, investing earlier, I think I'd be in a better position today. Especially if you just look at the stock market and what it's at today compared to what it was at when I was 17. I remember when it broke 2000 and I was in high school going, wow, it broke 2,000. And now it's breaking every other week these days. So that is my advice, is do whatever you can to save whatever money you can and just start investing it. And all the stuff you see on the news.

Well, if you've got cash, you've got peace of mind, you've got options, you can seize opportunities that present themselves in the moment when other people are panicked. Cash makes all the difference in taking advantage of fluctuations in the world. Right. If our show helped you, please share it with somebody else right now. Like it. Subscribe it, and wherever you get them. And you'll get them every week. You can also go to scalingcoach.com, subscribe there. You'll get our email updates with all the shows, that kind of thing. Drop us a line, send us your comments, feedback, everything else to infocalingcoach.com that's our email infocalingcoach.com Big thanks to Vern Harnish, author and creator of the Scaling Up Framework. Lucy Summers is working behind the scenes to produce our show. Getting things scheduled, guests prepared, things like that. Promote the show, distribute it like that. Our audio is edited by Albert Burge at Podfly Productions. Our show notes are written up by Ayn Kadena and proofread by Tim McGowan. Thanks again everyone and thank you, Ryan, for joining us on the show today. Everyone keep Scaling Up. We'll talk to you next time.