Ep 53 Putting Your Customer Before Your Product w Ryan Lee| Mike Up In Your Business Podcast #MUIYB

We're in the show, just so you know. Like, we're in, we're in, we're in. Um, what is your favorite poster behind you?

Ah, I mean, it's like picking one of your favorite kids. Uh, I mean, Cameron's mine. It's just so easy to do. It is very easy.

It's Jake. Of my kids, it's Jake.

Yeah, well, I have a Jake too. It might be Jake. Um, it's always Jake. I— oh God, I mean, I, I'm— it's, it's probably Goonies.

Yeah, and you win. That was the right answer. I guess we're done with the show.

Yeah, good night everybody. Good night. And if we have a winner, can everyone— I love people watch this, by the way, or they just hear us?

Now people watch it. People watch. They can see the video behind you.

All 3 people?

Yeah. All three watch, um, and then they may even listen. My mom only listens. That's about it. So, um, I had a great— that was a fun time hanging out at our usual haunt now, the Palisades Mall.

Palisades Mall, that's, that's the halfway point between Connecticut and Jersey.

So yeah, who knew that would be a mall?

I know.

And, um, it was kind of weird with this COVID situation, you know, walking around, um, It's empty except for the Hasidic Jewish community. Uh, community.

Yeah, very— they—

what's that all about?

Um, it's funny because I'm, I'm from the area. I'm from Rockland County. Um, and it's just a very— a lot of Hasidics. Um, yeah, they're just out, uh, rocking and rolling. Uh, I know COVID spread pretty badly throughout the community there in Muncie for a while. Um, because everyone's just totally close-knit.

But, uh, I had no idea it was Hasidic. I thought it was hisidic. So sorry.

Oh, you said hisidic?

I said hisidic. Yeah, like it's his-idic.

Yeah, it's, um, Hasidic.

Hasidic.

Yes.

Yeah, so there's a big Hasidic community in— now I'm going to say like that— Hasidic community in New Jersey. Same thing, continuing to party on and super spreader events.

So, you know, I don't I, I'm, uh, I'm, I'm Jewish. I'm a very, very Reform Jew, so I don't think the, the Hasidic even consider me Jewish. But yeah, we're doing our thing here. We're just, uh, trying to hang. But, you know, seeing you at the mall and just— we, yeah, we did pretty much have the place to ourselves, and you and I were able to hold hands and kind of spread out.

Um, right, right. We kept 6 feet— well, our hands were—

we basically took up the whole aisle. Yeah, it was—

yeah, it's like we were clotheslining people because we were running and, well, kind of skipping as we ran down the hall. And that poor, it's like 9-year-old child that we knocked over.

Well, WWF, we were the Wild Samoans.

We're tag team wrestlers. I was wondering when I saw you, I'm like, why are you wearing a singlet? You know, the one nipple showing and one. And you're like, because we're wrestlers, dude.

Yeah. I got all greased up too for it.

So it was, and I had that mask on the Mexican, you know, the unknown Mexican wrestler. Yes. But nothing else. It was just the mask.

Otherwise, that's why the kids were running.

So I'm watching the video of you, you're showing off Rewind in your kitchen, which, dude, I thought you were at a culinary institute. I've never seen a kitchen of that size and that cleanliness.

Yeah, uh, my wife, she did not mess around. We did a whole— we basically blew out like part of our house and built this kitchen, which which is kind of weird because the kitchen is basically the same square footage as the rest of our house. Um, you just walk in and I never knew a refrigerator could cost more than a car, but they can.

No.

Uh, yeah, yeah. It, but it's really nice. I will tell you. So, you know, you know, I have, I have 4 kids. So what's been great though is cuz we had, it's, it's an older house. We redid it and now it's like this place where we're all together, the family and We have meals together, and it's a new place to yell at each other. Uh, but no, we like it. And I— yeah, I've been filming more videos there, there and here at the Rewind Arcade.

And you know that refrigerator that's more expensive than that car? You actually drove it to the Palisades Park. I was wondering why you're driving a refrigerator, because it effectively is a car.

You know why? That's why I'm always so cool.

So you start Rewind, um, as a a nutrition bar company, right? What, what brought about this idea of, of starting this business?

So, oh, so I've been online for 20-something years. And so back in '98, I started doing online fitness and I had launched 2 nutritional supplement companies in the past. And they both had really, they were both really successful until they weren't. I had a couple of partners. We had some really good highs and then things changed and the traffic changed and we didn't roll with the times. So then I left that space, was teaching, was more teaching marketing and just doing some other stuff. And I spent years away from the health and nutrition space. And back in 2010, after, right after my fourth child was born, then my mom passed away from cancer at 63 and the businesses started to fail. Everything was just kind of falling apart. And my health deteriorated. I was diagnosed with autoimmune disorder, gained about 35, 40 pounds, um, and it took a slow road back, back to health. And I'm like, you know what, let me, let me kind of get back into this world. I'm, I'm motivated again because that's what my master's degree was, exercise physiology. And so let me start. Yeah, people don't realize, I mean, I was a trainer. That was my thing. That was my gig. Get jacked. Yeah. And I actually wanted to start with greens. I wanted to start with drinks, and that was the first thing I was testing. But it was— I couldn't get the taste right. I'm like, ah, the— I got them to taste okay, but I'm like, you know what, if I don't love it, if I don't feel really good about it, I can't sell it. And I'm like, well, maybe bars, because I also like bars. And that's where I kind of went into the bar market and started with a— with kind of an all-in-one type bar without inflammation. And, uh, and it, it went well. We sold a lot of bars. I know you were a customer. Yeah.

How many bars did you sell?

I don't even know. I mean, I don't know if it was in the millions, but it was definitely high hundreds of thousands, maybe, maybe a million or so. Okay. Um, yeah, no, it had to be over—

I thought you sold 3 bars to our 3 listeners. I was just trying to get you a little twist back.

Yeah, you're gonna try to get me back to the 3.

Yeah, it failed.

Yeah, it didn't, it didn't work well for you, Mike. Um, I think it was— yeah, it was definitely like over a million bars. Um, but, but So we were doing it and it was great because look, I like marketing. I love promoting. I love building. I love creating, like probably a lot of entrepreneurs listening to this. My Achilles heel, my weaknesses, like a lot of entrepreneurs, is the little tiny details, like things that I wasn't thinking about. I wasn't thinking about, okay, well, we're doing bars and there are 12 in a box, But to ship a box of bars, you have to put it inside a box because it gets squished. To put it inside a box, and because it weighed over a certain amount, it was like over a pound, it was like the next level of shipping. So it increased our shipping costs by like 20, 30%, which, like, okay, it increases it by, you know, $2, $3, but over, you know, hundreds of thousands of bars, that's a lot of money.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And then the The production time was really long. It was taking— we were promised, of course, by the manufacturers, oh, we get bars done in like 6 weeks. I'm like, okay, I could float 6 weeks of cash. Well, it's more like 10 weeks. Oh, well, it's actually 12 weeks. Well, then again, once the bars come off, we got to let it sit. We got to let them cure for a week, and then it takes a week of testing. And then by the time we send it to you and it goes to the warehouse and they inventory, it's another week. So it's really like 16 weeks. I'm like, well, that's a big difference. Now all of a sudden you need 16 weeks of runway and all the cash to lay out. And what if all of a sudden you have a big promotion? You have someone who says, you know, I wanna promote your bars and I think we're gonna sell like 30,000 boxes. And I tell my company we need 30,000. They're like, all right, we'll get it to you in 4 months. Like, well, we can't wait 4 months. So it's just a lot of challenges when you're a big, big player, like some of these larger companies like Kind who some of them probably own their own manufacturing or they're having their own lines of runs and they're doing millions of bars a month or a week, it's a different story. But for the smaller to midsize, I was just getting kind of squeezed out and the margins were super tight. And I was offering discounts to everyone. Hey, hey, here's another 30% off. Here's 30% for you. You get 30% off.

Give me a review.

You get 30% off. You get 30% off. And I'm looking at my bank account, I'm like, We're selling, but it keeps going down.

Um, yeah, you got 100% off.

Yeah, yeah, it was, it was tight. Um, then we— and then I was— another mistake I made, we were expanding the line too quickly. Uh, we kept adding new flavors before the other flavors really had enough, uh, had enough regular buyers. So there was just, it was just, it was like a whole— there's all this stuff happening once, and then COVID hit, and now 16 weeks is like 20 weeks. And they're like, oh, we're out of P-Protein. We're not gonna get it for 3. So, and then I'm like, all right. I can't, let me take a timeout. At that time, I started to reintroduce drinks because I was able to keep testing on the side. I'm like, I need a backup. Let me do some more products. I finally got drinks that tasted good. So I was able to start rolling them in and they were selling well. So I took like a leap of faith. I said, you know what? We're drinks now. Like, we're gonna pause the bars. And we're going in with the drinks and some people thought we were crazy. They're like, you're insane. I'm like, but that's what I wanted to start with anyway. Mm-hmm. Everything about the drinks was easier because they're not a raw food ingredient. It's like fruit in powdered form. It's the production time is much shorter, much easier to get ingredients, much easier to make, longer shelf life. And that was the other thing with the bar is the shelf life.

Wow.

You know, it was like 6, 6 months, which sounds like a lot, but By the time they come off the line and sit and test and everything, that's— you lose almost a month. And then we start selling them. And if you put yourselves in the shoes of a customer and they just bought 3 boxes, but 2 of the boxes expire in 2 months, that's plenty of time. But they're like, these aren't good, right?

Of course, right? Their perception.

I'm like, but they're fine because they actually— we're ultra conservative. You can have them for like 2 months after, but they don't care. Uh, so it's fun business. That's a great way to—

and we're done.

And we're done.

You hear these stories, I hear these stories pretty regularly, these small businesses, food products. You did something that's different. So it reminds me of a story of a company called Batter Blaster. Great innovative idea. The guy says, you know, when you make pancakes at home, you mix the dirty dishes and stuff are the frustration point. So he used a Cool Whip kind of whipped cream can filled it with batter, uh, this, uh, batter, and he blasted on. There's his batter blaster. So no cleanup. Uh, pancakes were great, but business within 3 years almost bankrupted him. And so that's the backstory you don't hear.

Very similar issues.

The one thing you did, Ryan, that rarely I ever hear other people do is you're already trying to improve and come out with alternative products, uh, while you're doing this. Why did you stick with it? Why, why didn't you, even though you wanted to do drinks, Yeah. And now you're making bars. Why didn't you just say, you know what, I'm, I'm a bar guy now. I gotta dominate this. Why did you keep experimenting? Because that saved you.

Yeah. You know, I wa— it's funny because for a while I was, I even changed the domain name from, you know, Rewind Today to Rewind Bars.

And for a while it was, we don't make drinks. It was rewindwedon'tmakedrinks.com.

We hate drinks.

We hate drinks.

We'll never sell drinks. Yeah. Wehatedrinks.net, uh, was our backup. Because I, I saw— I said, okay, you know what, we're gonna have bars. The initial idea was let's start with bars and then we could roll out other products, because I never wanted to be just a quote-unquote bar company or even just a drink company. I wanted Rewind to be this whole thing, like a lifestyle, like let's rewind, feel good, knock years off your body, this kind of retro fun stuff we do. So I never wanted to just be like one specific product category. So the idea was always to roll out other products Drinks were one of them. Um, so that was the thing, and it was kind of in a way hedging my bet. And I was thinking, well, maybe we could keep the bars at a front end, and maybe it's a loss leader bringing customers in and then sell them the stuff with better margins like supplements and drinks on the back end. Um, but the bars were just losing too much money that I couldn't keep them in. Um, it was too much of a loss leader. It was a really big loss. But, and I'm I, I think a big thing for entrepreneurs is, and I'm not saying this, it's tough because we, we get so attached to what we do, but I say never get emotionally attached to your product. Like, it's a product. If anything, you know, get attacked, like fall in love with your customers but not your product. So I focus more on my customers and I'm saying, look, the bars aren't working, we have to pause this. However, I'm here to serve you. I've been here to serve you all the time. I'm always emailing you. We have a community. If you like us, if you like our vibe, if you like what we do for you, you like what Rewind stands for, try the drinks. And we kept almost all of our customers. Did we lose a couple? Yeah, one's like, oh, if there's no bars, I'm out of here. I'm like, we've been—

that was me, by the way.

That was you, I know. And I tried to do your voice. I didn't really do a good job.

It was pretty good.

It was pretty good. Thank you. Um, so we, we lost a few, but most people stayed with us and, and loved the drink. So I— and it's hard because you do get emotionally attached and you're like, this is my baby, and I've put so much time into it and I've put so much money into it. And yeah, you know, it's— look, it's a sunk cost. Like, it doesn't— the, the customer, the end user, if someone visits my, visits my site right now, like, they leave this incredible interview, they click on the— they go to buy something, they don't care if we spent 7 years and $3 million testing a bar. If they don't like it, for example, the price is too high. Yeah. Or it's too chewy. Like, I'm not buying it. Um, they don't care. So you've gotta— it's, it's all about what's gonna be good for them at the end of the day.

But you're, you're so— but you did have momentum. So you sold a million plus bars. That means you had tens of thousands, perhaps, of customers. A lot of people, they're now— there's this abrupt shift, maybe out of necessity, But how did you navigate that? How did you bridge that? How did everyone not do the Mike McCallum? So I'm out of here. No bars. Screw you.

Um, you know, I think I was able to do it because I've always had a relationship with my customers. Um, we don't even call them customers. We call them rewinders. We have a Facebook group with thousands of them in there, and we're in there every day, and I'm in there every day, and I'm always transparent. And I've always explained the process of how it works. And I said, look, it's, it's, it's a difficult time, you know, it's always— it's never easy to make our bars. I say, here's what happens, here's how we actually have to make the bars. We have to go here and we have to go here and we have to order the ingredients and we have to get the wrappers from here and the boxes from here. And with COVID now, everything is double the length of time. I don't want you to have to wait 6 months for a bar, and it's better for us to just put a pause. Let's see what happens. But for now, If, you know, for us to stay around, we're going to focus on the drinks. If, if you don't want to be with us anymore, you— we totally understand, and I wish you the best. If you like us, you want to give it a try, here you go. Here's a coupon, 30% off, um, drink. Give it a try and see if you like it. And, and that worked. It's— people are always looking for, well, what's the script, and what's the thing, and how do you say it? If you're consistent throughout just being a good human being and being transparent. I know transparent is such a buzzword, but it really is. Like, what else? How else are you going to be? Uh, yeah, they're— and they're so involved in our company where if we have like the next flavor, we would put them to votes and our customers would choose. Um, so they were— they're just involved in the process. And, uh, it was, you know, we still get messages, when are the bars coming back? Uh, like, probably never. Uh, It— would I like to bring them back? I would love to, but, um, we'd have to work out a bunch of things first manufacturing-wise. If we had our own facility now, uh, which I don't want to do because that's a whole different— manufacturing is a whole different world. Um, I still want to have a life. I don't want to sleep at a factory all day. Uh, so I think, I think just staying in constant communication with your, with your customers and your tribe and not just emailing them, you know, on Black Friday and President's Day sale. Because you'd be shocked how many companies, especially e-commerce companies, you order and they disappear and they come back and they send a coupon, 30% off President's Day, and that's it. And there's, there's no, there's no relationship at all.

Well, I want to talk about the relationship because you maintain it, I think, is in a really unique way. You're really into the retro, or in retro defined by '80s, early '90s, maybe late '70s, Hall Oates, your favorite band. Love Hole. I know you sent me a pic. We were texting back and forth with just Hole notes GIFs. And, um, but you made that so prominent. The risk is, uh, someone that was born in the '60s or '50s will be like, what the hell? Or someone that's born after won't get it. By being so prominent in that, aren't you risking alienating most of the population?

Um, Well, it's, it's the actual— when you go to the site, it's really not that prominent. It's a lot of things. It's very subtle on the site. Some of the marketing I'll do, it, it will— I'll have a picture of like Hall and Oates or a movie, or I'll say, hey, you know, stay healthy, stay strong, and keep rocking the '80s songs. Like, I'll do little things like that, but it's not, it's not such a part where it feels cheesy or it's oozing where everything is called, you know, the Hall Oates supplement. Like, it's not— it's not that infused. Um, but here's what I found is, number one, I— yeah, there will be— will there be some people like, oh, I don't get it, it's not for me, and maybe they, they leave? Probably. Uh, but I'd rather have the people who identify with us, the millions and millions of people who are Gen X who are like, this is my company. I'm cool with that. I don't need to take over the— I don't need to build a multi-billion dollar company. I'm cool getting a slice of 20 million people, you know, however many Gen Xers there are. But we still get older and we get younger and we get people that have their kids on it. And what the other thing which is really interesting is that people still are attracted to other people who have a passion, even if it's something they're not passionate about. So interesting example, Yeah. So you're, I know Mike, you're really into music and guitar, even though you're not very good, but you're really into guitar, right? Right. So if in your, your videos and in your emails, I don't know, do you ever talk about that?

Occasionally.

Yeah, I do occasionally, but probably not as much. Like if I, so I spoke at one of your events. If I asked everyone in the audience, what instrument does Mike love and what does he play? Will they all know it's guitar?

All 3 of them would say guitar. Um, it's actually a question. No, I don't, I don't know. You know, I don't know.

Well, they should.

Yeah, they should.

And why is that? Why is that? Okay, irrelevant. So if they see you're really passionate about guitar, and let's say they don't play guitar, they still are like, oh my God, Mike is— look how excited he is about it. And they're— people are attracted to other people who are passionate about anything. You know, I've watched cooking shows, like someone making some weird dessert thing that I have no interest in, but I'm like, look how passionate this chef is, and you can't help but be drawn to them. Uh, you know, if someone's a big Springsteen fan, you're like, hey, maybe Springsteen's not my dude. I know you're a Jersey guy, uh, but I could appreciate how passionate that person is about it. So I, I like the idea of bringing personality, and it, it adds a little bit more dimension to you, to the company, and the people who are interested in guitar, man, they're like, oh my God, Mike is really my guy.

Yeah, and I think as an anchor too, like whenever I see now a vintage video game, a jukebox even, Yeah. I'm like, oh, I think a rewind.

Yep.

Oh.

It is. It's— Jonah Berger calls them triggers. And it really is. It's a powerful way to have something kind of tangentially related to your company. But every time people see that, they think of you. So when— with my company, Freedom, when I ran it years ago, every morning I'd write an email, say, hey, it's Ryan, and I'm coming to you live from Starbucks. Every day because I'd work from Starbucks. To the point where every time people would go to Starbucks or they would tag me and do a photo, hey, I'm at, you know, Starbucks Freedom style or Ryan Lee style. Now you have no idea how many times I get tagged for '80s, everything. Even if—

yeah, I can imagine.

Even if it's not related to the '80s, it'll be like, you know, oh, uh, Frank Sinatra.

I love it.

Frank Sinatra, NSYNC. I'm like, they're '90s, okay, uh, but I'll take it. So, uh, but it's good.

Taylor Swift, she rocked the '80s.

Yeah, but you could do it with anything, like I, I could say, um, what food do you think of when I say Tuesday?

Me? Uh, uh, tomatoes. Tomato Tuesday.

No, taco. Taco.

Did I fail the test?

Taco Tuesday.

Oh, I see. Oh, I see what you're doing. No, it didn't work for me. It doesn't work because we only eat tomatoes on Tuesday at our house. For more— what food do you think of on Friday?

For no—

it's FunDew Friday.

For most of humanity, most normal human beings would know Taco Tuesday. Tomato Tuesday.

Everyone listening is like, is McCallum an idiot?

That—

so whenever anyone sees an idiot, they think of me. That's my angle.

Now they think of someone— now they're idiots. Every time they see tomatoes, they're gonna think of you. And you're probably gonna stop buying your books because they're gonna be like, how am I listening to this guy for business advice?

I know, I just lost every reader.

Oh my God, I'm horrible. Yeah, but you know, okay, so you're attracted to tomato people, by the way.

I know, I know.

Tomato people like, yeah, Tomato Tuesday!

Exactly. I probably won over a fandom.

You're gonna do a keynote at TomatoCon. Yeah, I'm—

yeah, I— now I will. So, so, um, your lit— your, uh, consumers also direct the product. I saw that video and you're like, oh, you can make a tea out of this, I never thought of it. Tell me about how the community is engaged in actually implementing your product, basically.

Yeah, so we really encourage them to experiment because ours is a superfood greens, right? And the original idea was just Put a scoop in 8 to 10 ounces of water, stir with your spoon, and you're done. That's it. That's the whole thing. But people start saying, "Oh, cool. Well, I'm adding it to smoothies. Great." And then someone said, "Well, I've started adding it to yogurt and it tastes amazing. I add it to plain yogurt. Now, I've got cherry. Cherry yogurt is the greatest thing in the world." That's smart. "My kids love it." Yeah. And someone says, "I do it with oatmeal." And then one person said, "Well, I've been adding it to my tea." Their tea and they add a scoop of peach. I'm like, hmm, hot, that's, that's pretty cool. And I asked the nutritionist, I said, if we add it to hot, is it going to break down the nutrients? Like, nope, not at all, go for it. All right. So I added it, uh, in the morning. I said, you know, I'm not gonna have coffee, I'm gonna add it to hot water. And I did it with, uh, peach first and then cherry. And I'm like, this is the greatest thing in the world. And now people are having it in the morning. And it's, you know, it's cool because now people use it for more than one thing. It's it's just a way to add more superfoods into your diet. But, um, you know, on a marketing business perspective, it's cool because now people kind of use it more, you know. Yeah.

Have you seen an increase in sales? Can you attribute or link that? The same customer buying more frequently now?

Oh yeah, yeah, definitely. Frequencies— yeah, yeah, customer coming back and buying has increased. It's like the old, um, business thing with shampoo. Where they said, you know, the person said, I'm going to double our sales. And all they did was add a couple words. They said rinse and repeat.

And all of a sudden, right, and repeat.

Yeah, shampoo sales doubled because now everyone's doing it twice.

Uh, well, I'm thinking baking soda because like baking soda, like, oh, first you, you bake with it, that was the intent. It's like, oh, uh, use it to remove odor from your refrigerator. Oh, add it to water to clarify the applications. And, uh, it sounds like yours, the, the applications are, it's not just a energy drink or a mixed drink with cold water. Now it's a supplement. It enhances the flavor of all these other things.

Everything. Yeah. And, um, I've even been doing it now. I, I just did a video where I add it to, uh, seltzer. And now— and I added the cherry to, uh, plain seltzer, unflavored seltzer, and I call it Cherry Cola because it's amazing.

Cool.

It tastes like cherry soda. Um, and I showed a video on how to do it, and it's— now it's like it's opening up all these things. And from a marketing perspective we do— we drive a lot of our traffic on Facebook and Instagram ads. It gives me different hooks. So now I can try a video and an ad on, you know, how to make your own healthy cherry soda. We're going to do one how to make your own, you know, healthy peach tea alternative. So it opens up the, the potential to bring in new customers that hadn't thought of it like that, that don't want to just have a glass of greens.

So the thing is, to be clear, is your product— it, it, the It doesn't have any artificial sugars, artificial sweeteners. It's all natural superfoods. So people are experiencing cherry soda without all the junk.

Right, right. There's no added sugar, no artificial flavors, no artificial colors, which is always weird for people because they get it, they open up the container and like, oh my God, it smells like cherries, but it's green. They just got to get over that green. But once you taste it, you're like, you're kind of blown away by how good it tastes. But yeah, we— I, I made sure with bars and with the greens and with everything we do under Rewind, there's nothing artificial and there's nothing that's, that's going to cause inflammation, because that was the original reason why I created the company, you know, for to help fight inflammation or have stuff that's good, that is at least at minimum not— that's not inflammatory. So that was a big part of it, and that's something we're never going to change. Uh, I don't want to add fillers or cheapen it at all.

So tell me some of the structure of the company. How many units are you moving per month or per year? What kind of infrastructure does this require, and how is it different than how it was when it was a bar company?

Um, we're moving, um, tens of thousands of units a month. Um, we're still— I still keep it lean. So we have— and we're on Main Street in New Canaan, Connecticut, my— where I live. Um, we have this— it's a two-floor building. So I'm on the bottom. I have this whole thing all decked out for all the videos and, yeah, couch where I take naps. Um, upstairs there's a direct line right to Main Street. Um, and we do all our fulfillment upstairs. We used to— we, yeah, we used to use the 3PL, uh, uh, a fulfillment center, but man, they would lose things and they never cared as much about our customers as we did, right? Because they have 100 companies. We're obsessed. Our goal is if you order before like 3:30 East Coast, we get it out the same day. Not only do we get it out the same day, I have the staff every 20 minutes printing out labels. So if you order now, at most you're going to wait is 20 minutes. You get an email, "Hey, it's shipping. Here's your tracking ID." And it's like the greatest feeling of our— the fulfillment center, they're like, "Yeah, we'll get to—" and it would take 2, 3 days to get out and they— so we do that. So we have We have 2 people, uh, full-time doing that. We have, uh, a customer service person, uh, who works from her home, but she comes in sometimes as well. So they're all local. And then I have, uh, an operations person. Um, she lives out in Vegas who handles a lot of the day-to-day, the, the billing, the books, the, the ordering, the inventory. Uh, and then everyone else are freelancers. We have a couple pe— a couple tech people who just do project by pro— you know, hourly stuff. Mm-hmm. We have a media buyer who works on commissions on, on the buys. Graphic designer, again per hour. I, I just didn't want to bring in full-time people because we just didn't need it. Um, yeah, so why? I know we've talked about—

what about the demands on you? How much time do you spend running this business?

Rewind. It's a great question because it really is kind of autopilot-ish right now. I mean, I'll sit and the, the What I do is every morning, or most every morning, I write an email to the list. Um, I probably spend an hour a day going into our group, going on the Facebook ads, because every time someone comments, we try to immediately reply in some way, shape, or form. Because we— and that, that helps with Facebook algorithm. Facebook likes that. They like when you respond to your ads. It shows engagement. Yeah. Um, so I, I would say if, if I want to do the minimum amount and we have our media guy running the ads. I could probably work an hour and a half a day if I wanted to, but— Wow. I like, I like doing more, you know. I like tweaking copy.

You like a good 3 hours a day of work. What's that? Maybe you like a good solid 3 hours.

It's solid 3. Um, yes, it all depends on how it— everyone is different, right? Uh, there are some people who are like, I want to, I want to make $100 million, but and I'll work till I die, and that's it. I've just never been wired by that. I've— my first job for 6 years, I worked in a children's hospital. Then I was a gym teacher in the Bronx. Like, I, I come from nonprofit world, and yeah, I wanted to build a business around my lifestyle and around my family. So I'm home, even this— even after we do this, I'm going home and I'm driving my son to basketball. Like, that's what I want to do. Uh, do I sacrifice some money because I'm not putting in more hours potentially? But I'm okay with— I'm absolutely okay and at peace with that. So I still work. Like, when I work, I know I get more done in an hour and a half, 2 hours, 3 hours than most people do in 10 hours because I just— I go into hyperfocus mode and I just couldn't— I'll crank out 5 ads, 10 pages of copy, 35 emails in like an hour, uh, where some people like, oh, let me check what McCallowits is saying, haha. Um, all the McCallowits stalkers.

I love how you, how you trash me in that beautiful thing. So you just put yourself on a pedestal. I get all this shit done in 1 hour and other people go, oh, oh, McCullough, shit. What's he doing? Dude, there's no better way to end an interview. And I'm going to make it abrupt. We're ending on that. Brian Lee, friend, freaking business maven. And, uh, the king here of the pivot, even though I don't like the word, you are the king of the pivot in this situation. Uh, Ryan, after I want to do that post and B-roll, I will share details on your business, but thank you so much for joining me today.

You know, first of all, anything for you and everyone listening, continue to support my man, Mike Michalowicz. Good. And he's desperate. I am desperate. I'm trying to make it up for you.

No, I'm desperate. I'm desperate.

You're, you're, we're both desperate. Uh, I will say this as, you know, I'm, I'm honored to be here and I do consider Mike a good friend. And we, we hang out offline when we're not interviewing. And Mike is the exact same funny, warm human being offline as he is like this. You know, some people you do an interview, they like before that, like, and then they come on like, hello.

Oh yeah. Hello.

How are you? It's an act. There's no act with this. This is like when we have dinner, this is us the whole time. So I know, I know. I know.

Playing pranks and stuff. But I, my brother, I love you. I appreciate this.

Catch you. See you. Yeah.