93 - From Inspiration to Innovation: Improving Products to Address Needs with Clip Different's Tom Mcmullen

Welcome to Listening with Leaders. I'm Doug Noll, lawyer turned peacemaker. I teach executive leaders how to listen to emotions rather than words so that they can become the leaders everyone wants to follow. And I teach those same leaders how to be authentically present, available, and connected to their families despite being insanely busy. I have learned that we are 98% emotional and only 2% rational. Learning how to listen to emotions is, in my experience, the foundational skill of life. Stick around to the end of the show, and I'll reveal how you can be on our next guest in 15 to 20 minutes. So let's get started. Tom McMullen, welcome to Listening with Leaders. You are the founder of ClipDifferent, which makes really amazing nail clippers. We'll talk about in a minute, and you can be found at clipdifferent.com. Clipdifferent.com. Welcome to the show.

Thank you, Doug. Look forward to it.

So you're kind of like me. We're kind of getting— we've gotten along. We've been out in the world for a while. Um, tell us a little bit about your career and then what led up to Clip Different.

I, uh, my father was in business for himself, and, uh, and I went to work for him in high school and whatever. And when I was, when I dropped out of the U of M in about 1962 or '63, I went to work for him. And he manufactured products and sold equipment. And, but he pulled me in at a young age into meeting with executives at 3M. That was our major customer. And, One thing led to another and I got a chance when he was out of town to work on developing a product. They wanted to be able to lay tape on highways and, and the person who headed up the reflective products group said, my boss is on my neck. He said, we're building all this tape, but we can't figure out a way to lay it. And they had engineers working on the project. And I said, it doesn't sound like too big of a deal. And so I called him the next day. I met him at a Toastmasters meeting, called him the next day and said, could I get a roll of tape? So I went over and got a roll of tape. 2 weeks later I called him and I said, I have that apparatus to put the tape on the highways. And so he'd even forgotten who I was, but I went over and showed it to him. They wound up buying thousands and thousands and thousands of these products. And then that got us into 3M on many other fronts and, and. And so that was my first exposure developing products, although I'd been living in the house with my father and I heard him talking about developing some products. And then after about 6 years or 5 years when I was just, when I was 26 years old, I quit working for him. It was a real dysfunctional relationship and I quit working for him and and went to work a few months later for a company in Minneapolis. And they manufactured various products to hold concrete, hold fixtures and HVAC and whatever into concrete. And that was a small company, maybe $600,000 in sales. And I was with them for like 7 years and helped grow it to like $14 million. And it was sold out and I helped the owner sell it. And that was my first exposure to selling companies. And I thought it was very fascinating. And that after a while, I left that business and went to work for Olympic Stain Company where I met Steve Covey. And that was in consumer products. While I was only there 2 years, but after a year, my wife, who, At the time, she found out she had a tumor in her spine. She was 32 years old. I was 33. And the doctors at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester couldn't take it out. So they didn't expect her to live too long. And I had 3 little kids. And, and so I had to get the kids off to school in the morning and get to be home at night. And I couldn't travel nationally anymore with, with what Olympic wanted me to do. And so I talked to my wife one day and, and, uh, I said, I have to do something locally. She said, what do you want to do? I said, I always wanted to sell companies. And she said, go sell companies. I had no idea. I had no background. I had no training, no education for it. But a guy wanted to sell his truck and his route, and I sold his truck and his route for $7,500. I sold it for $10,000 and he wanted $7,500, so I kept $2,500. I said, this is easy money. So that was it. So that one thing led to another, and I had a 40 a 5-year career in that business. I called myself mergers and acquisitions at the end. The last deal I did was with a fellow who had acquired 12 companies from me over the previous 23 years or something, and then I helped him sell out the last— sell out to somebody. And interesting, I didn't want to spend a lot of time working on agreements and all the various things to protect myself in case somebody was a crook and cheated me out of a fee. So I trusted people and I, because of that, I had to really be careful on who I did business with. And most of my deals for the 30 years that my daughter wasn't in the business with me were handshake deals. Wow. And it's interesting. And people say, how can you trust people for, you know, nice big size checks? My wife's illness progressed at age 39. She had to start using a wheelchair, and she was in a wheelchair the last 25 years of her life. And, and so, but I had a sense for being her eyes and her extra legs. My legs were strong, and she would transfer out of her wheelchair in the evening. And, and then she'd say, Tom, would you get me a glass of water? Would you get me a Coke? Would you get me my book?

Would you?

And one night, you know, that That went on for about 45 minutes. And the last time she said, would you get— I looked at her and I started laughing and she started laughing because she realized what I was laughing about. That's how our life went. She was at the health club every other day keeping whatever strength she had. She didn't have one moment of self-pity. And I was just reading something about a peacemaker before I had that. His name was Mattie. Matty J. Stee Steponik and Little Matty, and which you have to look up. And Matty, one of the things he said was, I haven't had a good life. I mean, I've been sick and whatever, no one to choose it. And I used to think, I used to feel sorry for myself about it. Then I realized I'm no different than anybody else. Why wouldn't this happen to me? And that was my wife's attitude. But when I was 40, she had just gone into the wheelchair. I was clipping my fingernails one day and I looked at this metal fingernail clipper that hadn't changed for years and years. Always looking for a product to develop. I always wanted products. I, when I got into the M&A business, I thought I'd be in there for about 3 years and then I'd develop a couple products and that would be my, my way to make a living. And so I looked at this fingernail clipper and, and said, I can do, I can do better than this. And that started me on a journey. And I thought about the people with hand issues. And at age 10, I had a sis— it was just ingrained in me. At age 10, my year-and-a-half-old sister came home from the hospital after recovering from polio and it affected her left leg. I, there's a lot of kids in my family and a lot of chaos and a lot of things, and I knew no one was gonna take responsibility for her. Recovery for with her left leg. So I did every morning and every evening I'd lift her onto the dining room table and, and, and help her with her exercises, strength, stretch her leg, do the exercises to strengthen it. And to this day we're connected at the hip. And so I had this feeling, it was inside of me. And so at age 40, when I thought about the people with hand issues and I started, and I have no mechanical ability and the lowest that you've ever seen of anybody with mechanical aptitude. So everything I did, I had to hire.. And in the, in the business I was in by myself, some years you'd make money, some years you wouldn't. I went many times for 2 years or 2 and a half years without making a dime. And so I had to put the project on the side and, and, uh, that's why it took me 35 years. But it, there wasn't a moment wasted in any of that time. It had to exactly happen the way it did or this product that we developed, uh, wouldn't, wouldn't have come to fruition. It's just a, my whole life has been intuitive. I've lived on my intuition and, and, and I've had remarkable synergistic events that happened in my life that are just off the chart. And so I worked on this project and on and on, and I had models made and this made, and it didn't work. And I was a real perfectionist. It had to be perfect. So I got to be, it got to be 33 years and, and something changed and I decided to try to make it automatic. Or somebody said, how about making one for somebody with one arm? Well, in 33 years, I never thought of somebody with one arm. I thought of MS and people who are sightless and people who had had strokes and people who had whatever, but never anybody with one arm. And then at age 33, I was challenged to build a product for somebody with one arm and that changed everything. So I made it automatic and it was sitting on my kitchen table and my, so my wife passed away when I was, she was 58, I was 59. I remarried when I was 4 years later. And so my present wife and her son was at my house from visiting from California. And I had this thing sitting on the dining room table or the kitchen table and I said, David, take a look at this thing and talk about listening. And he, I said, I've been beating my head against the wall for 33 years. I've just now compounded my problem because now I'm trying to make it automatic. It looked like an oil well working. And, and he looked at it and he walked by and he looked at it and he stared at it and he said, you don't even need the fingernail clipper in there. And my first instant was, I've been working on this 33 years. Are you going to tell me I don't need the fingernail clipper in there? But then I said to myself, Listen, he just said, you don't need the fingernail clipper in there. Explore that opportunity, explore that possibility. And within 5 seconds, the Clip Different product was born. And it took a complete— it's 180 degrees different from anything I worked on and spent $500,000 trying to develop.

What did he— what was his idea?

He didn't have the idea. He said to me, you don't need the fingernail clipper in there. And So I, what'd you say? So I took, so I just thought, take the fingernail clipper out. What does that mean? Well, that means you'd have a blade and a little surface where the blade would come down and you don't have all this plastic in the thing that holds it and you're whatever. It'll just be automatic. And of course my kids lived with me while I was developing this product over the years. I had a, I quickly hopped in my car, drove to Southern Minnesota, got somebody to make a, model, went to northern Minnesota and had somebody else make something up, met my son for lunch. I said, TJ, I put the thing on the table. It was a big clumsy unit. And I said, clip your fingernail. He turned it on, put his fingernail in there, shut it off, started crying. He said, you got it. And it was born in an instant, a 33-year instant. Where we could, we could clip a sliver of a fingernail every time without hurting the finger, without the skin being cut, without— so, and all the people I'd interviewed, thousands and thousands of people, because I was at the Mayo Clinic like 4 times a year for, you know, 25 years, and interview— they were lined up. I could go somewhere and there'd be people lined up, and I'd ask them, how do you clip your fingernails? I never once experiencing somebody with one arm. Uh, but anyway, uh, so all these people I've kept in mind. And at one time in this whole pursuit of this project, I thought, I know more about the underserved market, underserved people, and fingernail clipping than anyone else in the world. If I don't do this, who is going to? So, um, that's my story.

Wow. So ClipDiprint was formed and you now, the products that you have are automatic fingernail, I presume toenail clippers too.

We don't have a toenail clipper. Toenail clipper, I said it took me 35 years to develop a fingernail clipper. I'll be 186 before I develop a toenail clipper.

Okay, so we got fingernail clippers and you got them for adults and also you got the, what do you call them, the little nippers?

We have the original product that was sat on a table for somebody, was designed for somebody with one hand and then it was for people with a stroke and seniors and veterans that had been injured and whatever. And people whose arthritis were so bad and sightless people. Now we came out with much smaller units. The first product was $149. These are $49. Wow. We have 3 of 'em. One for infants and toddlers where you can't, a parent or a caregiver can't cut the infant's, the toddler's fingers, cutting their fingernails. One for kids, an autistic 6-year-old girl or a Down syndrome 9-year-old boy can use our fingernail clipper, not worry about their parents and guardians don't have to worry about them cutting themselves. They can clip their own fingernails. And somebody who bites their fingernails can clip their own fingernails. Kids who parents want 'em to be more independent, they, some kids are just want to be independent. Some kids don't like people coming at 'em with fingernail clippers, these big metal clippers, and they fight and whatever. And then for adults where it changes the thing, it's changing the fingernail clipping world.

You would never think that something as banal as cutting a fingernail could serve so many people.

There's 100 million people in a one-down position regarding clipping their fingernails. Even carpal tunnel. If you have carpal tunnel and you, you go to squeeze a metal fingernail clipper,, it sends a jolt up your arm to your shoulder. Now, I found out there was a radiologist who told me about his, his clients, his, his patients who've had surgery, breast surgery, and their muscles are all configured, just been hurt and cut up, and them using their hands to clip a fingernail is very difficult. And okay, on a fluke, Uh, I did an interview with a guy, and his— he found out the day before that his brother's client, or his brother's patient, had bought a Little Nipper and was so thrilled with it. So this guy couldn't wait to interview me. He was like bouncing off the chair. So, so that—

I mean, the sense that I'm getting from you is a tremendous sense of satisfaction that you were able to bring this product to market and serve so many people.

I'm very— the stories we hear from people who say, "Your fingernail clipper changed my life," is very touching. It's very empowering. It's very energy-giving. It's very validating. All sorts of things. We hear those stories. I have a file for people who I talk with. And I'm like third on the line in customer service. So the last one that gets called is me. And now I'd like it to be first because I get to talk to so many people. Uh, but, uh, a fingernail clipper changes a mother's life. It changes her son's life who is, who is sightless. It changed. And then she decides to buy 5 more little nippers to give out to all her friends that have issues. It changes the life of the whole community. A fingernail clipper. I know it is very satisfying, uh, to get the— see, this is the Little Nipper, is a, is basically a new product for us now, uh, and we came out with it the end of last year, the last quarter, and then the manufacturer, uh, had a, had a flaw. They, they did something and I caught it, uh, which I do because everyone constantly watching everything that happens with the function of the product. And, uh, and so they had to recall the first batch of units we ordered. And so we really didn't get started until first quarter this year selling our Little Nipper products. And, uh, of course they're, you know, every month it's 3 times what the month before was and stuff like that. That ha— that's happening. So it's still, it's still, there's so many millions.

Yeah. Really need to get your word out. This is really exciting for you.

It is. The other thing is I'm 80 years old. And, you know, as Lombardi said, when there's, the clock hit zero and he was still on the 1-yard line. Well, we did folks, we just ran out of time. And that's kind of me. You know, I'm 80. How much, who wants to be in a meeting with an 80-year-old? So that's the way I look at it.

And I don't know, I'm finding you're pretty darn dynamic for 80 years old.

I've been given a gift and my job is to pass that gift on to everybody I meet in my life every day, whatever their situation is. It doesn't make any difference.

So now your children are in the business with you, is that correct?

I have a daughter. My son was in the business with me and he left last year and he moved to Vancouver, British Columbia, and Tacoma, Washington. I mean, he's an outdoors person anyway. So, but my daughter Melanie is CEO of the company. An incredible person.

How many employees do you have?

We have no employees.

Oh, just the two of you?

Well, not even the two of us. She's not even an employee. I'm not an employee. We all work on contract with Cliff Different. And so we have fractional people, although Melanie, I think, is about 12 or 3. Her fraction, like, you know, 4 times what anybody else would do.

You were running a virtual company. You outsourced the manufacturing. Product is, I don't know, how do you distribute your product? I saw them.

We have a fulfillment center out in City of Industry, California that helps us. We have the products made in China. The first products were made in the US, right in north side of Minneapolis. And And the, but with all the tariffs and all the issues that things have happened and the COVID changed the world. And so we are having our products manufactured by a plant in China that we were walked into by a very wonderful person. I made a cold call on a company on a Friday afternoon at quarter to 5 and All the executives were gone except for this one guy. And the cleaning lady got ahold of him and said, would you come down here right now? He didn't know if there was a terrorist or whatever. And he walked around the corner ready, you know, ready for action. And there I was with my fingernail clipper and I wanted to show it to him. And he was from, you know, another state and whatever. But I was driving by and I sold it to him and we became personal friends. And he walked us into a plant over in China that was specialized in grooming products. And, uh, and so they do our, our manufacturing for us now, and they're just incredible. Um, you know, we hear about all these horror stories about doing business with people in China, the Chinese and whatever. Uh, to me, I, I've been a Midwestern person all my life, and they were always— people were always so conservative and and honorable and whatever. And I find the same thing with the Chinese people we're dealing with. And you, they go out every length to help you.

Excellent. Tom, let's, let's pivot to listening. You've been around for 80 years. You've been a very successful businessman and product developer and now entrepreneur. And the, in this part of your life, tell me about the importance of listening to you.

If I wouldn't have listened to my stepson when he said, you don't need the fingernail clipper in there. Well, you and I wouldn't be talking because I'd still be batting my head against the wall trying to come out with some inferior product where the right things didn't come together. So for the— I don't know for how long. For so many years, I thought I knew what I was doing. I thought I knew, I thought I knew. And now I find out the older I get, the less I know. And there is so much talent out there and these people have such great ideas. And I just can't walk to wait into a room, can't wait to walk into a room with people, young people, mostly young people, and just listen to what they have to say. And, uh, and so it's— it makes my life better, it makes our products better, it makes our method of distribution better, it makes my daughter better, it makes everybody I communicate with in every walk of life every day, everybody I meet, better by me listening and being able to pass on what I've learned.

The foundational skill of life.

To me it is.

It's— it's—

but You know, so much I batted my head against the wall in my life, not listening, thinking I knew. And I probably listened to a degree, uh, that served me, whatever it was that served me. But now I can listen to all sorts of different ways of living life, people that I normally would have walked away from, and now I love them.

So That's amazing. So what's next on your plate?

When I was 70, I hired a coach, and because I didn't want to waste my time from 70 to 80, and at 80 I wanted to be looking back and feeling good about what I did. And I have an attention span of about 6 seconds, so it's actually maybe about 8. It used to be 6. So I needed help to lay out some things and discuss and talk. And we, so I went through some things with this coach and we spent 4 or 5 months and I developed a plan and some things I wanted to work on and all the projects I wanted to work on. Everything I wanted to do came true. And at 80, I looked back and I just felt really good about what had happened. So now I've hired another coach at 80. I want to be looking back at 85. I'm not going to kid myself. And so I want to be looking back at 85. And what's next? I have an uncanny ability to take and filter all the things that I've learned and run them through my, my brain and, and put my hand on my heart and close my eyes and just offer, uh, whatever it is that needs to be done with this project and, and see, and see where it takes me. And I was doing that, uh, 6 months ago or 7 months ago in my clip different room in my lower level, which I spend a lot of time in, and I have a workout room next door, and I spend a lot of time there. And in between everything, I'm whatever. And I walked out of that room and it hit me. Wait a second, you can make a toenail clipper, a safe toenail clipper. I mean, like, really? I've been telling people for years, no way I can make a fingernail clipper because it's so critical. If you cut the skin of a diabetic, you're liable to cause them to lose their toe, lose their foot, or lose their life. And so there's no way And to be able to, to offer, to be able to cut the skin of a diabetic's toe, we can do that without injuring the skin. And so what's next for me? I would love to be able to spend my time working on that project and, and coming to market with a toenail clipper. It would be, it would be terrific. So that That's what I hope to do.

I love that. I mean, here I'm 7— I'm a little younger than you, I'm 72, and I'm thinking about going back and getting my doctorate in education in another year or two.

Way to go! Of course, you, you know, you're that kind of guy. You can, you can teach people things. I can energize them, I can talk to them, whatever. I can't teach them a darn thing, but I can— but they feel better when they leave me., and that's my gift.

And I love that.

And if I can make it a concrete feeling by having a toenail clipper that works, because that's a, that is such a significant issue and problem with veterans. I mean, uh, there's all sorts of opportunity. If I could have a wish, it would be I'd like the VA to invite me in and together use their biomedical engineering and their robotics people to help me with this the other details of this fingernail, of this toenail clipper.

That's really cool. So one more question for you.

Yeah.

What's one thing about you, Tom McMullen, that we wouldn't even guess at unless you revealed it to us?

I've been, uh, um, I've been, uh, I still go to meetings on a Wednesday night. It's the greatest night of the week because I get to see, uh, all these young people trying to change their lives and seeing opportunities. And I've been, um, alcohol and pain addiction medicine-free for 53 years.

Congratulations.

And, uh, and so, yeah. What a gift.

When you go to those meetings on Wednesday nights, you are a huge inspiration for a lot of people.

I'm the one that comes away feeling better. That's an interesting thing. I mean, to see Samuel, who couldn't lift his head up, couldn't talk 11 months ago, who volunteered to give the meeting last week. I mean, And to see him, he dresses like he's a Harvard MBA and he was a dirtbag guy that you could, I mean, talk about, this is no way, he'll be in the annals of recovery, a poster child. Wow. So.

Well, Tom, this has been an amazing, and I say this from the bottom of my heart, this has been an amazing conversation. Thank you so much for joining us on Listening with Leaders.

Thanks for having the energy and enthusiasm to encourage me. Appreciate it.

Doug Noll here. Thank you so much for listening to Listening with Leaders. If you are a successful executive leader who would like to be on this program, please visit podcast.dougnull.com/podcast. If you got something out of this interview, would you please share this episode on social media? Just do a quick screenshot with your phone and text it to a friend or post it on the socials. If you know someone that would be a great guest, tag them on the social media to let them know about the show and include the hashtag #ListeningWithLeaders. I love seeing your posts and guest suggestions. We are regularly putting out new episodes and content. To make sure you don't miss any episodes, go ahead and subscribe. Your thumbs up ratings and reviews go a long way to help promote the show and mean a lot to me and my team. Want to know more? Go to my website, DougNoll.com, or follow me on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram. That's @DouglasEnoll. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you on the next show.