International Growth with Ryan Margolin

You'll only be as valuable to someone, as comfortable as you make them feel. And when they start to get uncomfortable, that's when you start to see the control seeping in. The paranoia and the uncertainty.

Welcome everybody. I am Jeff Duden and we are on the Homefront. And as always, this podcast is brought to you by Homefront Brands. Simply building the world's most responsible franchise platform, encouraging entrepreneurs to take action to transform their lives. It's impact communities and enhance the lives of those they care the most about. All the while delivering enterprise level solutions to local business owners out there on the home front where it counts. So if this sounds like you, check us out today@homefrontbrands.com and start your next chapter of greatness, building your dynasty on the home front. I will be right here looking for you. And today I am excited and thrilled to have an incredible entrepreneur with us, Ryan Margolin. Ryan, welcome.

Thanks very much Jeff. I appreciate the opportunity and I'm looking forward to having a chat.

Ah, so am I. So am I. So Ryan is the CEO of Professional Hair Labs. He is a digital marketing and branding expert, a serial entrepreneur and a full time husband and father of three. He owns and operates several companies in distribution, wholesale, retail and E commerce that do between six and eight figures a year each. As the CEO of Professional Hair Labs, he has built one of the world's leading manufacturers and suppliers of adhesive, clinical cleansers, shampoo, scalp treatments and skin care for the hair replacement industry. Ryan set out on a journey to help create a world leading product in cosmetic bonding. When his mother was poisoned by the harmful chemicals in the hair adhesive products commonly used in the industry. Inspired to keep the same thing from happening to anybody else, his family dove into the research and created their first hair care product free from harmful substances. So much to unpack here. I've consumed a lot of your content online. You've got a great TED talk that is was 19 minutes of just solid gold and nuggets. A lot of stuff around decision which was really interesting because my book Discernment is the business athletes regimen for a great life through better decisions. So all of that resonated with me. What I'd like to do first is just to get to know you a little bit. Would you care to share a little bit about how you grew up, your backgrounds, my background?

I was born in the States, New Jersey to be exact. Spent a couple of years there and ultimately moved down to Florida. I lived there till I was about 14 and at that point then I Moved to Ireland, where my mother was born. Her and my father owned hair replacement businesses in the United States. And when she got sick from chemical poisoning, she took early retirement. My dad sold the businesses, which led us down, you know, the journey where we're on today. But ultimately we ended up moving to Ireland when I was 14 and I finished school, traveled for a bit, big into music, big into sport. And then I kind of decided, you know, when I met my wife, it was time to focus in and build some stuff. So, like, really, in really simple circumstances, the opportunity of how I started working with the company happened. It was 2009, it was the economic crash. The industry I was working in was hit first. It was, you know, I was selling wood floors, tiles, sanitary wear. I had been thinking about doing my own thing for some time. You know, a lot of my background was in sales and marketing. It's the only jobs I ever really had. And I, you know, I didn't have any qualifications. I didn't, you know, after I finished school, I spent more time traveling and kind of learning about life than I did about studying. When this crash happened, it kind of provided the ample opportunity to, to start to look at other options within, looking at those options. My dad called me up and, you know, through, through talking with him, he was like, look, you know, I have my business here. It's not going as well as I'd like it to. I'm not really happy with the way it is. It's a bit stagnant. And, you know, maybe there's an opportunity where you can come over and apply some of your, you know, some of your logic to see what can, what can happen. It was myself and my wife and we had one daughter at the time. And we said, you know what, no, we'll focus on what we're doing here. But then in hindsight, you know, we reflected over a few weeks and we said, you know what, look, maybe it's not such a bad idea. I mean, look, let's commit to it for a year and see what comes out of it. Worst case scenario, we tried it and it didn't work. And, you know, we learned from it. Best case scenario is that something may come out of it. So that's what we did in 2009. It was, I think it was April 2009, we moved to the States. So jumped into my dad's business and kind of just started to get to work straight away. I wanted to consume everything, you know, there was only three of them at the time. The business was doing, you know, 250, 275k per year. My dad had innovated, you know, and created this really good water based solution based upon the previous experience of my mother. He was trying to just show people that there was a different way. So I started to learn about the operations, I started to learn about the products, sales, marketing, and broke it into, you know, three really simple pillars, which was, you know, the operations, sales, and then marketing. So we focused on all those. And in alignment, I spent about six months in that process of learning about the business. But in alignment with that, I manually started building a Excel database through Google because the scrapers weren't really prevalent then of all the hair replacement studios in the United States. And I started to see the areas where there was clusters, where there was some, you know, where there was less of them. And I got a really good, you know, understanding of the marketplace. And that taught me probably more than anything. So put a proposal together, you know, served it to my dad and the person working for him at the time and basically said, you know, look, I need 12k was 10k or 12k to redevelop the website and, you know, rebrand everything. I want to strip everything back and let's build this up again. Because the one thing I noticed was that my dad had this really core, awesome base formula for an adhesion product. But it didn't have the two properties that really would make it exceptional, which was water and oil resistance. Fortunately, opportunity aligned that there was this company who had made an ingredient which provided just that for adhesive products. So we started to explore and reformulate and everything just came together in this beautiful period of a few months where we launched the product. Then at the end of 2009, what we did is we took the database that I had built and there was about 5,000 hair replacement studios. And there was only really three of us that were actively working at that time. So we said, look, if we send out all 5,000 of these, it's probably going to inundate us with calls. We won't be able to handle them. So we split it up into three sections and we did a direct mail campaign. We went old school on it. It was a simple postcard, front and back. The front had the product, the benefits. The back had testimonials from two key industry figures. And from the moment we sent it out, about a week later, we started to get phone calls. They were like, oh, we have to try this. They'll order one bottle. Those one bottles ended up turning into 3, 5, 10, 25 bottles. And before you know it, wholesale distribution. And we had started to really validate the product in the marketplace. So we realized we could then take a look at international scope for this, for this product. And that's when at the end of 2010, you know, we, we had some discussions, myself and my wife, and we decided, look, USA is not really where we want to be right now. So we, we moved back to Ireland and I put another business proposal together and I got an investment of 100k to open up operations in, in Ireland. And that's kind of where the journey started on this side. So over the space of Those next, from 2011 onwards, the next five years, we started to hit periods of decent growth. But in about 2015, we started hitting exponential growth to the point where between 2015 and 2019, we added probably close to $8 million to the bottom line on the company year on year. That kind of led us to figure out that we have these really strong principles and methodologies inside of our business. And, and they actually were created from a point of personal experience of my mother getting chemical poisoning. Why aren't we looking at bringing these same principles and methodologies into the wider range of cosmetics? So we ended up shifting into the manufacturing space because at this time, we didn't have the capacity or the ability to manufacture our products. We owned the formulas, but we were contracting them. And with that came a whole ton of other problems as well. As we started to scale, so we took control of everything, right? We dumped everything we had into the business. It's kind of the approach that we take, is that you set the foundations right. You, you can actually take a lot of pressure and a lot of. A lot of weight on those supports as you start to grow and hit those pain points. So that's really been my journey, kind of at a bird's eye level. There's so many lessons in between and experience that I've gained, you know, just from my own situations, but also, you know, with my mentors and working with people. I've had really good sounding boards, but have also chosen very wisely of who I tend to lend my ears to, to. To make sure that, you know, I'm not getting wrong information because I've learned in the past that, you know, you let the wrong person into your head or into your ears, it'll set you back years.

Oh, 100%. 100%. Well, what an incredible story, man. I'd like to unpack just a couple of things, if you don't mind. Course you really started so your dad Calls you, you take a flyer, you move with your daughter over to the States. And intuitively, you know, when people build businesses, there's a couple of things. I learned this from a McKinsey consultant. He said, when we look at a business, the first thing we ask is, who is the customer? Like, really, who is the customer? Exactly. What is the problem that we solve and who do we solve it for? The second thing is, what's the size of the market? And then the third thing, which is really interesting that a lot of people don't ask is who's the natural owner for this business? Meaning if you're going to build a business and you know, you should be mindful of the marketplace and who might buy the business because it might inform your decision making. If you're too broad and you compete with everybody, then, you know, it makes it harder to find the perfect fit for somebody to buy the business down the road. How did you know, like, you needed to sit down for six months and build a database of 5,000 people manually, painstakingly. And then who was on that list? So. So we can really understand your. The landscape of the market.

Yeah, so. So it was only non surgical hair replacement studios. And you have to remember, that was the only knowledge I had of this coming into it. So naturally, my folks.

Okay, so is that a wig? I mean, are we talking wigs here?

Yeah, individuals who experience hair loss through hereditary means or health issues that hair pieces are. Yeah, hair pieces, yeah. And more commonly now they're called hair systems because it becomes so advanced that look, it's really difficult to tell when a good one is placed on the scalp. So that's where it really had started. That was the industry my mother and my father had been in for years prior to that. But what I did realize very quickly is that, you know, the application of this, this product didn't only solely lie with individuals who were wearing, you know, hair systems for hair loss. They also had, you know, they had actually a wider range of use in just the general marketplace for individuals who wore wigs, you know, just to change their look on a daily basis. And that's really where the explosion happened. Because we started to serve a market that already existed, but they just didn't have the product that they knew they needed. You know, they just. It wasn't available because everything was chemical based. Because, look, industry is deemed too small for the FDA to govern. So manufacturers got away with literally murder. You know what I mean? People getting sick from the chemicals absorbing.

Into the crazy glue on the head.

Well, that was, that was, I could say unfortunate, but like, if you put crazy glue on your head, it's your own fault. You know what I mean? That's the way that's your own issue.

Well, I don't know. I remember that guy was hanging from the beam with the helmet on with the, the crazy glue. But you don't need that kind of, that kind of adhesion.

No, you don't. You need a water based solution that will allow some flexibility because when you need to remove it, which you ultimately will, it has to be soluble in some capacity to make it easier to remove. So you have to be able to remove it with either some sort of a cleanser or with water. And this, this is all part of the, you know, the evolution of the industry. It's, it's, it's creating adhesive technology that will allow some sort of easy removal without using any astringents or solvents on the skin.

Yeah. So when you have a hair system, is this something that gets removed on a daily basis or does it stay on for a week at a time? Is it like contact lenses?

Like if you're wearing a hair system for hair loss, usually you'd like to aim for no less than two to four weeks, to four weeks being absolute max. There are individuals that take it off every week because, you know, they worry about hygiene. But what you have to remember is that once the area is clean and it's cleaned well and sanitized and it's prepped correctly, once you seal that unit on, I mean, if you're wearing, you know, a polyurethane base on it, there's nothing that's going to get in or out of that. It's not breathable. So, you know, it's, it's locked down tight.

So then your product would be reapplied monthly.

Exactly, exactly.

And then you move to. And then you said, well, we got to go back to Ireland. And then you raised $100,000. Now, was this a business that was affiliated with your father's business or was it competitive? Was it to the business? Was it similar but subtle but significantly different?

Well, what we wanted to do. So you see, at that time, so I like my intent moving, you know, before we moved over was to start something. Right. But naturally, you know, over the six months that I, you know, that I learned about the business, I realized there's an opportunity there. So, you know, look, I had no ownership or anything in that part of the company. That was my father solely. So what I did with the business plan Was I presented, you know, to get the investment from him because we had tripled revenue in 18 months. You know, it was. It was. It was like, we did a really good job with that. So we took 100,000 of that and reinvested it to open, you know, and I took a percentage of ownership in that company. When I moved to Ireland and we opened the facility here, it shifted my whole mindset to someone who now truly, ultimately was 100% accountable to yourself, not to anyone else. So it was either you were going to do it or no one was going to do it for you. And I think that was the kind of big lesson for me at that point is like, you know, I had no more, you know, sitting beside me, support. Everyone was focused on me to perform because the money had been spent and they wanted return on that money. So I didn't have long. I was so overly confident because, you know, we had tripled revenue in six or we. In 18 months, sorry, we had tripled the revenue of the company. So I was like, I'm just going to take the same processes and I'm going to roll them out over in Europe. And it was like, great. No, not so great. First six months fell flat in its face. So that was the part where I really had to start to knuckle down and look at myself as an individual to. To improve myself and my mindset and the way I looked at things and the way I kind of had to shift myself from looking for the opportunities and the failure rather than accepting failure for what it is. And like, well, if I can't make it happen, it's not possible. It's like, no, it's always possible. You just haven't tried enough.

You know, what did you learn about the European marketplace that was different and what adjustments did you have to make?

So the way companies and people do business in Europe is much different. My experience in the hair replacement industry when I was in the US Was very transactional. People were busy, they didn't have time. They wanted to know how you could solve their problem and they're willing to pay you for it. In Europe, it was a little bit different. They wanted to get to know you, your values, the company values, you know, you as a person, the company and the ability to supply. It wasn't just about, you've got a product and I'm going to buy it. It was about, okay, well, how can we build an actual relationship? And that was a big shift for me, you know, so. And I realized then the language barrier was another thing. We did a show in Germany two months after we opened. Spend money in a big room, displays products everywhere. Not a single person spoke English and only we. Only very fortunately there was a woman there who was able to speak English and she actually stayed with us the whole weekend and saved our skin.

Look, all you have to do is speak slower and louder and, and, and do a lot with your hands. They'll understand.

Yeah, well, well listen, if you didn't have products there to actually show them how it's being used, I, I don't even want to know what they'd be thinking of you.

You know, they would have no idea what you were doing there.

But I remember it was funny because my dad actually came to me. He came to me at one of the shows and I remember him, he was standing in front of this, this German couple and he was just speaking to them in English. And I was looking out of the corner of my eye and I was looking. I know 100% they don't have a clue what he is saying. And they were very polite and they just stood there. I had to pull them to the side. But he, he, I don't know what he did in this moment of absolute madness. We had this product that was food grade and, and he got carried away with himself and he wanted to show him how beautiful it was and he sprayed it in his mouth and the face he pulled. I, I would never, I would never wish on anyone to be standing in front.

And that was an adhesive?

No, no, it was, it was actually a, an odor elimination spray which we still have in our line. But, um, he just completely lost a run of himself and. Smells great, tastes horrible. It's not meant for consumption, but he sprayed it in his mouth for some reason. And so I think they got a good, you know, bit of entertainment out of that.

Well, let's just, let's just identify that you took action. And the devil's always in the details, but until you go out and you make that mistake, the faster that you can make the mistakes in your business, the faster you can iterate, the more learning that you can have. I see people that are much too slow, yeah. In going out and you know, getting out of their office, getting out of the house, going to a trade show, calling everybody in the industry asking for help. I've seen very experienced, successful, I'm talking billionaire business owners and when they decide to enter a new market, they literally gather information and they hold three different opposing thesis in their head and then they, they ask question after question after question. To anybody that will talk, and they just spend four to six months really just understanding everything about the business. Because when you start making decisions against an industry that you don't fully understand, that's when mistakes get more expensive. You can either invest the time and money up front to learn everything about it, or you can just go out and start making expensive mistakes. And if you've got all the money in the world, okay, fine, it's not going to hurt you. But most entrepreneurs don.

No, and I think you hit the nail on the head there. You know, at that level, mistakes become expensive. They don't become a product of just lost time, which is an expense in itself, but they actually come physically expensive. When you're starting something really small in an industry that, you know, whether it's competitive or not, you still want to understand somewhat the industry as a whole. But when you're dealing on that level, you don't. You don't have the. You can't afford to actually just go into it blind. And then that's why they do it that way, and that's why it works.

Ryan I built a business for 25 years that ultimately I sold. And I started with three partners. We started in central Florida, and then I moved up by myself to the Carolinas and started our second location. And very quickly, our location in the Carolinas became the thought leader, it became the revenue leader, it became the innovator, it became the technical expertise in terms of business, technology, and also technology in the field. The other location just stayed kind of where it was in terms of revenue. There was some infighting. Eventually, partners started leaving the business and getting bought out. It was a constant state of bickering. And I wonder if there's a parallel in your story where you started this business in Ireland. Dad's business was stuck around a quarter million dollars. You went over there and tripled it. Then you moved back to Ireland, and now you start crushing it over here and figuring things out. Was there a point where you and your dad had to renegotiate or recontract your relationship around the business?

Gosh, this conversation would take hours and. Oh, no, look, I meant this is. I think this is really where the learning comes in, you know, for, you know, whether it's myself or whether it's people listening to this, you'll only be as valuable to someone, as comfortable as you make them feel. And when they start to get uncomfortable, that's when you start to see the control seeping in and the paranoia and the uncertainty. And then look at the Same thing happened with me and my father. At no point was the US operation less profitable than the EU one, but what we were doing in Europe was running in parallel to service the us Like I was handling, you know, sales and marketing for the US for many years, being over here as a director of the EU operations while I was actually growing this one as well. But what started to happen was, as you know, we started to go past, you know, the six to seven figures in Europe. I could start to see a lot of that paranoia, you know, creeping in. It's like, you know, it's almost like when someone's not sitting in front of you, you question whether they're working or not. But the proof is in the results, not in what you see. If you're seeing growth, someone's doing something, it's not just happening by itself. Touching on that subject. Yeah. There were many, many instances. And going back even to my TED Talk, one of the, the key ones that shifted everything for me was being handed a non compete by my own dad. You know what I mean? So that changed everything for me. That was the moment where I was prepared, you know, to walk away from everything because I didn't want to be a part of an operation on a familiar level that would have that sort of, you know, that sort of paranoia or that control.

Can I unpack that moment for a minute? Because I've made that mistake.

Yeah.

And I'm wondering, was there a conversation before the piece of paper was handled?

Oh, yeah. And it wasn't even a conversation. It was all the little innuendos and the little underhanded behaviors and human behavior tells you a lot about people. And when you get used to reading people, you start to see some behaviors. Like for example, I know in this case my dad started to become very distant and separate, not only for me and the communication, but from the business as well. And I know that when that happens, I've learned over the years something's going on. So I, I expected something and you know, so he, he came to Ireland and you know, we sat down and over that kitchen table, he gave me that piece of paper and I read it and I flipped it back over to him and told him, not a hope, not happened. And I said, you can fire me, you know, you can buy me out, you can do whatever you want. I'll even walk away from it all. But one thing I won't stand for is the, the lack of trust and belief that, you know, what I'm doing here is actually for the benefit. Because look, my Brothers were involved in the business at that point as well, and they were over in Florida. So it was. It was a really hairy time. But I tell you that the truth of the matter is, what I realized was that every single piece of the problem in that equation lied with my father. I had to just do work on myself to make sure that I wasn't emotionally reacting. And that's where. That's the point where I learned very quickly that, you know, look, there's nobody who's made an emotional decision that has made the right one in my eyes. It's usually your mind always has to be stronger than your feelings, because when you can remove the emotion from it and be logical about it, you can start to explore the avenues and come up with a solution. It's not about avoiding the problem or dodging a bullet. It's about finding the solution that ultimately is going to keep the wheels on track and keep things moving forward. The ego in you wants to stick up your middle finger and say, forget it, I'm leaving, and that's it. I don't need you. But then the other side, the logical side, is like, no, there's a lot to do here. And just because someone is having a little issue here on the right and they're deciding to project it in a way that's quite volatile, that doesn't necessarily mean this is how this has to be where it all falls apart.

So your father leaves, goes back to the States. You're sitting there by yourself. Maybe you sought the counsel of your. Of your wife or a friend or somebody. But now you've got the opportunity for an inflection point. You've got the opportunity to make a different decision for tomorrow than you've been making in the past. How did you work through that process? And then ultimately, what changes did you make moving forward?

Obviously, yes, the first sounding board is always my wife. You know, look, I mean, you know, she is very blunt and she. But she's good for me. You know, she is the one that, you know, when I don't want to hear it, that's exactly what I'm going to hear.

You know, keeps us humble, brother. Keeps us humble.

And you know what? I think it stands. I think it stands to anyone. If you. If you. If you have a partner that truly wants the best for you, they will hold you accountable, and they will do it in a manner that's very fair, and they'll look. I mean, look. But that comes with growth as well. You know, what changed from that point was that I. No Longer cared what people thought anymore in terms of like, how they viewed me or my work or my ethic or what I did. I just got on with my business. And if they had a problem with it, that was their problem. I was no longer the person who was going to defend my position. And naturally, you know, what happened was not too long after that there was another big fork in the road where things didn't really go too well for me mentally and I had to back away for a couple of months. And the real true, I suppose, weight that was on the company, which was ultimately on my shoulders, wasn't handled by the people who needed to handle it. So that there was a lesson in that, I think, for everyone. And I think you look as humans, we, we need that, you know, we need those moments that challenge us. And no matter how strong you are, we're still human. And things happen. You know, it's, it's not about being embarrassed by it or, or about, you know, accepting defeat and just staying on the ground. It's about allowing yourself to just sit within it for a little while and just figure it out. Why, why is this happening to me? I'm, I'm not supposed to be, you know, feeling weak or I'm not supposed to be feeling vulnerable. I mean, I, I, I deal with way heavier stuff on a daily basis. But this particular issue is consuming me and I, and I need to figure out why.

Nobody's immune to the pressure.

No.

As we grow, though, and business owners and we just get, we just get hit with so much, you do learn how to realize that none of it's fatal.

Yes.

And that not everybody's going to like every outcome. There, there is a dollar on the table and people would like as much of it as possible. What's, what's interesting is though, you know how I observe different business owners think about that differently. Is it, is it absolute dollars and I have to win in every transaction? Is it I want to find a way where everybody wins or I've seen some people where, you know, they want to be in a deal where everybody loses and they don't feel good until everybody's uncomfortable.

Yes.

And what I've, what I talk to my kids about, and I've learned a lot of this recently, is, is the first thing I try to understand about somebody is how they make their money.

Yes.

Because if you don't understand, are they a transactional player? Are they looking to make money in every transaction? Are they, do they build businesses quick to move them? Are they long term builders that want to build with people and are, you know, like how, like all the nuances of how people make their money will give you an indication of how they're likely to react. And as long as I know what to expect from people and as long as I know where people stand, I'm usually okay with it. Because what I've learned is that not everybody has the same business building ethos as I do. They don't look at it the same. We're all wired differently. You know, we have different degrees of empathy, different degrees of competitiveness, different degrees of things that matter most to us. Those are the things that drive our decisions. You know, people that weren't like me, I would say, well, I don't trust them, but I've actually redefined my entire view of trust. I try to understand how people make their money, what matters the most to them, what their value set is, and then I trust them to be consistent with that. And they don't have to, they don't have to be a mirror image of the way I think for me to trust them. But I just, you know, but they have to be consistent to who they are. Now, if you tell me one thing and do something completely different the moment, then, then I don't trust you.

But, and, and this is it. But I think there's wisdom and, and, and, and experience in that, because at the end of the day, it's very difficult for someone. Like the moment someone feels uncomfortable with something because it goes against the grain of what they would normally do, they get uncomfortable, and that's where the problems happen. But actually, through experience, as you said, you learn to see there's different ways that people operate. And it doesn't necessarily mean it won't work. It's just you have to manage those expectations and, and, and allow that process to be once. So that's actually really, really, really good. I'm really impressed with that. I actually haven't heard that, but it makes total sense.

Another thing is there is absolutely nothing that is all the way good or all the way bad. Yes.

Yeah.

Everything is shades of percentages or shades of gray or whatever it is. So the puzzle is, right, Putting together business units, teams, partnerships, limited partnerships, employee groups, situations where the interaction between all the parties and all the motivations work together. It's just, it's really about managing human motivations. And then I also think you said something in one of your talks about micromanaging too. They have to be autonomous, and you have to set them up so that they can really win or Lose based on, you know.

Yeah. What they do, you set the outcome and allow them to achieve it. Because, you know, that transaction management style, it does one thing, it actually builds codependency on them not being able to make a move without cross checking it with you, which, what's the point of having somebody there to do that if that's the way you're going to run your business? And then secondly allows people to take ownership for themselves and actually realize, yeah, you know, I've got a lot that I can, I can do and I can contribute and a lot that I can achieve. And it actually helps them set goals for themselves. So you have to be, you know, you have to be more transformational than transactional. It's just without that, you won't, you just simply won't grow a business.

No, I love that trend. You have to be more transformational than transactional. The other point I'll say is people out there that are maybe thinking about starting a business and bringing in a general manager or minority partner. Good agreements upfront.

Yes.

Head off, bad disagreements down the road.

Yes.

So by every measure, you know, and every. And do some scenarios, let's just say the business goes great. What's that going to look like for you? What are you going to need? What are you going to have to do? Or if the business goes poorly, what, what do we do there? Sometimes the worst thing that can happen is a business muddles along.

Yeah.

And it just, it's just making enough money to pay everybody. It's not really becoming an industry leader. You're not getting 1% better every day. There's not continuous improvement. The lights are on, the employees are making all the money. There's, you know, you're not really building enterprise value. Those are the tough ones. Because it's like, all right, well, do we need to put, what do we need to change to push this thing forward? Or, you know, or is this the easiest dollar we can make? Do we do? Do we, do we need to. I think Brian Tracy said the easiest way to ride a horse is in the direction that it's going.

Yes.

But when the horse is dead, get off.

Yeah, yeah, right.

So.

No, I know. And you know what? I've been there myself. You know, look, I mean, I, I've done that exact thing on one of the businesses I had, because simply, it wasn't actually, it was paying the bills and making a little bit of money. But there was, there was more. I had to ask myself the question, like, look, I mean, how committed to this are you really. And you know, don't waste your time if you're not. And pull the plug on it. Just stop doing it, you know, so. And that's it. You have to ask yourself those hard questions sometimes. What is your contribution? And you know, if you do really enjoy it, that, that's one thing. But if you're, you know, if you're doing it and it's not moving anywhere, make a call on it. Just, just close the doors and move on. And continue doing what, what's working.

Yeah, I agree with that. Because every business that's open every single day is creating some level of inherent risk.

Of course.

Yeah, I mean, it's, it's. Something can go wrong if you're not paying attention to it. And if it's just muddling along, it's not going to muddle along forever. It's. No, it's dying a slow death. It is.

And, and that's exactly it. It's a slow, slow death. You know, it's like you're, you're, you're covering the bills, but then the odd, unexpected, you know, chunk of money that has to go out, you might not feel it really badly, the first one, but you add that up over a year or 18 months, you're looking at, in two years going, oh, you know, I've got, you know, I'm in the hole.

So, yeah, it'll take a chunk of you with it when it goes, and it will.

And I think that that's, that, that's half of the reason why it's vitally important to do as much as you can to stay on top of what you're doing and make sure you always have your finger on the pulse. You don't necessarily have to always be involved in the daily operations, but don't become too far removed from the operations either.

Agreed? Agreed. So you've been in the business for six years now and in the industry it's 2015, and it seems like that was a point where you started looking at manufacturing, I think, expanded the product line. You really started doing lots and lots and lots of volume and stuff. What changed in 2015 in you or what changes did you make in the business to really facilitate that growth?

Yes. So it was more about, you know, really what was required when the company started to move from six to seven figures versus, you know, seven figures to mid to high seven figures to eight figures. Because there had to, there was changes all along the way. When it was high six figures, you know, you were doing everything yourself. You were hands on, but Your lack of resource and availability, you became the bottleneck of the business. So you had to hire people, train them. And then what you realize is that when you train them and, and you start to grow, you just need more of that same thing. That, that's what happens when you enter the seven figure mark. You just need more of the same thing. And what happens then is you've got to train all these people or train people to train people and you kind of. This is something I wish I would have known much earlier on how important operating procedures were to a business. You know, it took, it took us to about mid seven figures before the light bulb went off there, which was way too late for us because we had a severe amount of pain in figuring that part out. But you need to be able to document your procedures in a way where, you know, you can just search them on the paper and it's a repeatable process that saves you time and buys you, you know, buys you back an untold amount of headspace. When you start to move from the mid sevens to the higher eights, then that becomes about you as a person, as a leader, it becomes about, you know, what are what, as cliched as it sounds, I don't, I don't always buy into the term culture, but what is the culture you're setting in the company? What are the beliefs of the company? Who are, who are the people and the team that you're building around that? And do they buy into you're doing and what you're trying to achieve? And does that align with their own personal wants? And you know, some people are just there to do a job, but other people really genuinely want to do something and they want to work as a collective to do it. So the only person that can lead that is you as a leader. So you need to be much better at helping people achieve the goals they want for themselves rather than, you know, what the company always wants. And I think that's the difference between a good leader and someone who's just at the head of a company is that, you know, you're approachable and that you understand people and that you're empathetic. You know, look, you two ways to run a business. You can either be the hardcore quotations boss that, that, you know, that that just drives everything into the ground, or you could be the person that nurtures people and brings them up with you and actually helps them achieve what they want. And I, and I think the latter is much better. Ultimately you can't keep the right people, you know, Helping you move forward. If they don't feel like they're valued or they're, they're. They're contributing to something positive. Throughout that process, look, we learned a lot of lessons. So when we, we started to grow, our systems needed to be automated. That came through, you know, e commerce professional stores that we built out to automate the whole ordering process, the application process. And there was a whole lesson even in that, you know, I built out the, the original application process for the company and like it was, it was like bread and butter leads through all day long. We invested heavy, heavily in SEO at the very beginning, and as the marketplace became more competitive, we lost a lot of that space. We had to start advertising. And then we realized after a period of time, the application form wasn't as effective because consumer expectations changed, our customers expectations change. So we simplified the process. But what we realized is that our, our, our lead conversion went up 60%, but our first order value conversion went down by about $400 per transaction. So there was a whole shift in the way people were interacting with the company, which we had to figure out. And now the communication channels are being built out on top of that to nurture those clients because they've come in, they want a quick buy. It's not as valuable as the first order as they used to be. So we need to communicate with them throughout the whole process to make sure, number one, they got the products, they're using them right. We get feedback, we follow up for that second order. So everything changes and it all becomes about operating the systems, you know, and leaving the people who are operating them.

Yeah. I'm interested to know your thoughts on this, because on the home front, we've got business owners that are $3 million all the way up to $8 million businesses. But one of the fundamental responsibilities of a leader is to be accessible.

Yes.

And accessibility, availability, sometimes vulnerability, but really just from an accessibility perspective and something that I've observed, and it took me a few iterations of, of, of scaling and then retracting early in my career to realize that when people are in direct privity with the founder owner, there's a certain level of communication and synergy that happens because they're hearing it directly from you. They hear your vision, they're connected with you. They believe in you. They want to do well for you.

Yeah.

And then as you move up into the millions of dollars, there has to be some layering of middle management and things like that to where, you know, you're now, you're no longer directly Connected with some of the employees, such as you were before. And that's where a lot of things start to fall off the rails. And I've heard it said that a million dollar business is the hardest to run because it's too big for you to do everything. So you need to start laying your middle management, but you don't have enough real revenue to hire all the talent that you need. So it's almost like you got to push from start up to a million and then you got to get up to 3 million really, really quickly. You know, what were the bumps in the road around, you know, your ability to be accessible to your team as your business grew so much?

Yeah, so it wasn't really about how, you know, how, what the challenges were. It was about me actually just committing to doing it. And that entailed me working 12 to 15 hour days, you know, five, six days a week, all like, for, for years. And I, you know, look within that there's things that I regret because there was sacrifice that had to be made to do that. But it was my lack of experience and knowledge and lack of people around me that, that, that, that, that led me down that road because I didn't have the sounding boards to get the advice that I needed. So, so I always believe good mentors are an absolute necessity at all stages throughout your journey. But how we, how we ended up kind of combating that was we automated a lot of our fulfillment, then we invested a lot of our money, if not, I'd say probably 70 or 80% of the available cash flow that we had into automating purchasing machines to automate the fulfillment of the bottles because we were doing everything manually. But then when we automated that process, things like the actual supply issue started to dissipate. And what we were able to do then is we were able to then hone in and focus on the operation or sorry, the kind of marketing and sales side of things to, you know, optimize that process. Then we had to just hire better people for that as well, more experienced people. And then when we got those people in those roles, a lot of, we learned a lot, you know, because at the end of the day, that's the whole point of growing a business. You need to hire, you know, people better than you to do the job so you can learn from them and they can do what's required for the company. But availability is the key part of that because there's so many aspects of the company and the industry they don't understand and they're learning. So it's, yeah, availability is 100% the key point. And I even still believe that to this day. It's like, you know, my door is always open. You know, I like even, you know, no matter what's going on or what I have on my plate, if somebody needs something, you know, just come in, knock on the door, and let's, let's get it knocked out and move on. So availability is definitely key as a leader.

Ryan, you mentioned mentors. How do you intentionally find people to put around your table as a sounding board what's worked for you and what does that look like today in your business life?

Yeah, so it reflects in both personal and business. I mean, look, at the end of the day, there's nobody that, that, that that gets a look for me that would not have either at some point in the past, you know, built and exited, or, you know, or is currently, you know, has a business that. That is succeeding and can contribute, you know, at a much higher level than even I, to help me, you know, achieve what I want to on a personal level. Fortunately, some of the mentors I have are actually good friends of mine now as well, and they've been able to, you know, look, share with me. They're a little bit older than me, some are 10 years older than me, some are five years older, some are 15 years older. But they're able to share with me some life experiences that in, in times where I'm struggling, where they could be like, listen, this is cool. Like, you know, this is, this is the advice that I'm going to give you here and take it or leave it, but 99.9% of the time, it's always taken because it's right. And I just think, you know, the key thing is, is that a lot of people can talk a big game, but, you know, where is the proof of what you've done? And also, you know, one of the big things you have to really pay attention to when you're, you know, when you're working with mentors or, you know, you're building relationships or friendships, is that, are you going to fall into that competition trap with people where, you know, you're looking at the things they've achieved and you want to achieve it yourself. That's natural, that's normal, that's okay. But the question is, are they going to those. Those people going to leverage that against you and make you feel kind of less than? Because, like, that happens a lot. You know, people's ego, you know, they make you feel like worthless and, and look, it's even happened to me before, you know, when I, when I was very unconfident and unsure of myself, I actually had people around me that were like that. And very quickly when I realized it cut it cut them out. You know, you don't have to apologize for people for cutting them out of your life. You, doesn't mean you don't like them or you don't, you don't have time for them. It just means that, look, you know, I'm just not giving you a space at my table. You know what I mean? It's just, I don't think it fits.

No. Envy. Envy is the enemy of enlightenment. It gets in the way of everything it does. It, it slants people's advices or experiences. And the other thing I just like to say is my advice to mentors is share experiences versus advice. And if you don't have experience to what, whoever you're working with, if you don't have direct experience, I would then seek to teach them how to think about it, but not necessarily what to think about it. So if you can say, well, this is, this is how I would get the information that you need. But I don't have specific experience. So if I'm going to, I don't want you to act on something that I'm guessing on. But, but if I do have direct experience and you share those stories and how you thought about it and what happened, that's usually the best way to help somebody 100%.

And I think then that, that, that, that logical approach to it is, is exactly, you know, I suppose it's the difference between somebody giving you a piece of bad information that you act on and it ends up causing more problems and actually allowing you the opportunity to take ownership of your thoughts, but showing you maybe how to think about it and what to look for.

Just a couple more things for you, Ryan. Where does the story end for you? What's next and where are you driving?

So look, I mean, we've heavily invested. Last year we invested about 5 million euros into the experience expansion of our manufacturing operations. We've, we've gone, you know, to 50,000 square feet. And this August, September, we'll be transitioning there. My aim is to be, you know, to contribute to the cosmetic space, providing high performing, safe products to the best of our ability. And where that actually leads me to an end goal, I'm not quite sure because, you know, look, this business that we have now was, you know, there was a succession plan put in place and you know, you know whether that succession plan continues on is solely up to our children. But I'm, you know, look, I'm, I'm kind of open to whatever that journey is. I don't really have an end game. I just know I want to be in a position, you know, over the next five, maybe 10 years where I can, you know, I can take a good step back and enjoy, you know, life while, no, not saying I'm not enjoying life now, but where I can actually fully, you know, immerse myself in, you know, all the things that I'd love to be able to do while my body is still able to do it. So, you know, it's that, that for me is a win. So that, that, that, that would be the end goal where I'm able to take, you know, extended time off and enjoy the, the, you know, the, the kind of benefits of the sacrifices I made at the beginning. Because, look, they're all familiar sacrifices and sometimes you wonder was it worth it? But ultimately, I think, you know, look, ultimately I think it comes down to, to who you are as a person and what you want. As to whether you, you decide that.

Ryan, if you had one sentence to make an impact in someone's life, maybe a piece of advice that you personally use with your kids or yourself, what would that be?

I think it is the one sentence is we as humans tend to overcomplicate things and the simplest solutions create the biggest impacts. So no matter where you are in your life or what challenges you're facing, it's usually the simplest solutions that solve it. So don't try to overcomplicate it.

Wonderful advice. Where can people reach you if they want to get in touch with you and maybe have a need for your products or anything else?

LinkedIn, that's my main hangout. The company has social media on Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, all the usuals. But my main hangout is LinkedIn. That's where I do most of my business transactions and, or, sorry, communications, not transactions. So that's where you'll find me.

All right, so that's Ryan Margolin. M A R G O L I n on LinkedIn. Check them out there. Ryan, this has been a really good time. I really appreciate you jumping on. I wanted to get into talking about Ireland, but maybe we'll just have to do that.

Let's do it on a follow up.

Yeah, man. Because I love it there. I know it's a tech hub. It's a beautiful country. There's just so much going on there. But we'll do that when I launch my travel podcast.

Sounds good. You let me know. You let me know. All right, thanks, Jeff.

I will. As always, this podcast has been brought to you by Homefront Brands, delivering enterprise level solutions to local business owners out there on the home front, where it counts. So if this sounds like you, check us out on homefrontbrands.com today and start your next chapter of greatness, building your dynasty on the home front. I will be looking for you here. Thank you.