https://www.listennotes.com/e/fecae6717db84c6bb95f8039be87cf3a

Hey guys, what's going on? It's Daniel and Tommy and we are here in the LEAFFAST offices working on a podcast with this cool guy right here. His name's Alan Crispin. He was our guest last week on the podcast that you're about to see. But he is a law enforcement officer and for safety and protocol sake, we are going to take out his rank and the organization he works for. It's because the story is really cool about how he started his business on the side and what's going on with that right now. And we want to share that with you. The way we met was he was the arresting officer for the one and only I've ever been arrested. And so that story's good. We're gonna tell you that story and how that chance encounter led to some business coaching that changed his life. Daniel loved it. He loved to laugh at me the whole time.

So this is one of the better podcasts. We hope you enjoy it. We'll talk soon. But yeah, so today's gonna be actually really fun because we have a special story for people.

Yeah, it's gonna be, I don't know if fun is the word.

No, it's gonna be fun. This is a Tommy story that a lot of people don't know. And I'm not going to, I'll let you tell the story, but I'll just say this is a story about how Tommy and Crispin met. And it is not the typical meet cute you see in romantic comedies, I'll tell you that.

It's not a meet cute.

Now, it could be, depending on who's directing it.

So there might be a place for Quentin Tarantino. It's a Tarantino film.

Michael Bay or something like that. But anyways, no, so this is a good story. Why don't you tell us how you guys met?

Yeah, okay. So, I managed to be 40 before I got arrested for anything. But I did get arrested. And in here is my arresting officer. He had the privilege of putting me in handcuffs for the first time.

Which I don't even have that privilege.

Yeah, yeah, I know. So that's, it's been, but I did, I managed to be a 40 year old grown man with three kids. and a wife in a couple of careers at that point before I'd ever got in trouble for anything. I'm impressed. Yeah, I mean, I could have gotten in trouble a long time ago.

Oh, I know you could.

I heard the stories your mom told on a previous podcast. Yeah, we've done a lot of dumb things, but yeah, so I was 40 years old, but I was in one of our career after I'd sold my first two companies and was doing some stuff and I was traveling a lot for sales and doing meeting customers and things. Excuse me. And, was traveling back home in my car from, like, North Florida, coming through Southern Georgia. And when I travel in my car, in general, I have a firearm on me. It's locked in my glove box and all that stuff. But just in case I break down in the middle of nowhere, I don't want to get, you know, run up on banditos or anything. Somebody come up and, you know, get me in the middle of Georgia. And I've seen those movies. I know it happens. Typical Georgia stuff. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. You can't be down, like, around Albany without a firearm. It's like, it's state law, actually. Right. State law in Georgia. If you're in that County, you have to have a on you at all times. So it's not state law, is it? It's not.

I'm looking for somebody.

But he knows, 'cause he's got a gun now. So anyways, I was coming home, and when I came home, just random coincidence, my kids were in the yard, so they came running up to see daddy 'cause I'd been gone for a week, and hugged me at the car. And so when I got my gun out of my car, I just put it in my book bag and walked in and set it down in the closet and locked everything up. went out, you know, evening with my family. So the next morning I woke up very late for a flight, grabbed my bag that was already packed, grabbed my book bag and ran out of the house. Wasn't thinking anything about it because I was getting on a plane and accidentally forgot that in the bottom of my book bag was my firearm. And so I went through TSA with a loaded nine millimeter.

Would you recommend that?

No, they frown on that actually. It's really funny. They do not allow that to happen. and, and I was traveling, like I said, a lot, you know, three, four times a month. And I knew all the, I mean, the airport security people knew me. Matter of fact, when I, I, and, you know, I've got gray hair, and you guys know, and, and so I walked up, the TSA lady said, there's my distinguished gentleman. Where you been? Like, you know, everybody knew me and whatever. So, like, so we were, like, cutting up, and if they didn't, they do now. Yeah, they do. They absolutely know now. And I'd taken my laptop out and, you know, whatever, and just didn't see it. And, and, and ha. And the funny part is, is had I seen it before it went through x-ray I could have just grabbed my bag and walked back to the car. You know, I live in South Carolina, and, you know, we can see, like you said earlier, we could see Georgia out the window. If, if I would have had my Georgia and the airport happens to be in Georgia, if I would have had my Georgia carry, I could have walked it back out to the car.

I mean, it's not, it's a weird.

It'S a weird, like, misdemeanor on the books. Even if they catch you. Right. As long as you have your license, you get a chance to take it back to your car or get somebody to get your weapon and it'd just be a report.

That's crazy. I didn't know that. Yeah, I mean, still, I wouldn't recommend that, but yeah.

But unfortunately for me, unfortunately for me, I did not get either one of those privileges. But they did. I was standing there just chatting with one of the TSA agents waiting on my bags to come through and I hear, I need a supervisor. And I mean, like, Spider Sense started tingling. Oh, gosh, it was the worst, man. Like, my skin was all clammy. I knew exactly what it was immediately. It was like, ah, crap, my gun's in my bag. And so I told the lady, I said, you,'re gonna need a marshal over here. I think my-- I think I'm gonna-- you- start telling on yourself. I've never been in trouble for anything, and I haven't because I know I'll tell on myself. I can't ever get arrested. I'll rat myself out. And I was like, you,'re gonna need a marshal. And then walked around. the corner. He was working at that time and walked around and I was like, and I think I was the first one to tell him. I was like, hey, I think my, I think my firearms in my bag. And he was like, stand here, don't move. And he went over and looked and sure enough. And I was like, can you do, I was like, I don't know. You don't, I don't know if you know me, but people here do in Augusta. It's a very small town and I don't mind standing here. Could you just turn, because they have the like, like 37 inch, like flat screen facing out to the public and.

You can see all those.

Oh, there was people there. Oh, there were people in line and like, They have the X-rays pointed out to the public and I was like, bro, can you get them to turn that screen around? I mean, my God, I mean, people are walking by that know me and.

I'm standing there looking at you like you're a terrorist.

Yeah, yeah.

So, you just like, oh, is that a 4K?

You're just trying to deflect. Yeah, I didn't, you know, my shoes didn't have fuses on them or nothing. I was clean. But no, but it was, and then, you know, obviously he secured the firearm and walked me out of there and put cuffs on me and put me in the, in the in the Marshall's office there at the airport. And, you know, we're the Marshall's office. I think they could tell pretty, pretty much because I was shaking that I'd never, you know, I'm not, I wasn't trying to do anything. It was an accident, but they, you know, followed protocol and took me to their offices and everything. And, and I got arrested. I didn't have any of the prerequisite paperwork to not get arrested. So I got arrested at 40. The single most embarrassing thing. Google me. You can see my mugshot. Do we tell the TikTok story? Oh, yeah. People know, like, I've got one. I have a TikTok account. I have one TikTok on it, and I have one TikTok on it because somebody commented the first, the very first thing, like, oh, yeah, this is great except for his arrest record. So, like, who Googles? I don't know, bro.

I don't, I don't know. I don't know. I want to find it out. I want to know what your first impression was of Tommy because I know people do get nervous. Like, when you realize you're like, oh, God, this is happening. People get nervous or, you know, but when you have Tommy, they're pleading his case and I wasn't there. I would like to be there. But what was it like?

Like, what did you think?

Oh, this guy might be crazy or did you realize it was a...

I actually feel like, I felt like it was accidental. I can tell just based off what he was saying, how nervous he was.

Yeah.

Okay. I just wondered if Tommy was making his case worse or, you know... No, no. 'Cause I feel like I would. I would be saying some of the stuff you were, but with like a really, you know, anxious like tick to it. And they'd be like, okay, code whatever, we got a crazy right here.

No, I mean, I was. I mean, I was so apologetic. Like, guys, I understand you gotta do what you got to do, but, God, dog, I'm so sorry. I hate to put y'all. I was apologizing to them. I hate. I put y'all in that position. I can't. I think. I think I came back up, like, the next day with Donuts or something. It was like, I'm sorry I did that. Yep. And just apologize to the whole crew, like. But it was. It started a long 14 hour day for me, so. But in that first couple of hours, instead of. me having to go to they had to work on a lot of paperwork anyway. And so they I set the marshal's office handcuffed and during that time they were sort of like and we were talking but really they were interviewing me. Yeah, but profiling. Yeah. For sure, 100%. But but it did come up that I was like, you know, what I do now is I coach people with businesses and help entrepreneurs and startups and stuff. And then I think as part of that interview process, well, I have a business that I'm trying to start and this is what it is. And so through that process, I got to know a little bit about his business. And then a couple of, you know, an hour went by or so, and then they had to, like, do the perp walk. So I had to, like, you know, get my handcuffed and walk out of the airport and get in the back of the Marshall's vehicle and all that stuff. But me to County and on the whole way up there, the whole way we talked about his business and about how he could expand it and get it going and what he needed to do. And here's how I thought about business. And then Got to the end of the, got to the end of the trip. And I was like, well, hey, look, here's my, get my contact info. I wanna make sure we stay in touch 'cause I wanna help if I can with your business. And we did, we were able to do that. And so he's got a cool business story. So that's, you can always use every opportunity to help someone else, even if you're in the worst moment. And I will say, I'm gonna tell this story because it makes me feel better about my life. But we got to the jail and we were walking and we got two steps from the door and you know, you're not allowed, he's not allowed to take his firearm into the jail. He was supposed to secure it in his car. We got two steps from the door and he was like, oh wait, my gun. See, so even the pros forget sometimes. That's true. Even that's, yeah, I remember that distinctly because I felt so vindicated. I was like, oh, okay. Even he, the professional, can forget his firearm is on his side from time to time. but, yeah. So. So tell us about Leo Customs, Law Enforcement Officer Customs. Because I always thought it was a cool idea when you heard, I didn't.

Realize that that was a need. Right. Said when we started Leo Customs, we used to make our, our Leo stands out of wood, hence the custom. We used to paint them. I used to build them. My wife would paint them. We would put custom work on it, you know, put your name on it, unit number, whatever it is you wanted on there. And we did that for a little while, but. While we were doing that, people were asking whether or not our Leo stands could be a lock box or if they were wall mountable, which they weren't at the time. And I got enough of those questions to the point to where I actually stopped production of the wooden stands and started looking into converting over to creating metal stands with a lock box that were wall mountable. Looking into the market, nobody else seems to have a product like our Leo stands, which is a two-in-one wall mountable stand. one location, organization, everything. Lock your guns up. And what it is, is it allows you to put all your daily duty gear on that stand. You can take your ballistic vest off and hang it on there. Like you said earlier, you know, you come, you get home from work, you've been working 12 hours. Your vest might be a little sweaty, so you just hang it up. You can safeguard your weapons in it, keep them away from your children or any other unauthorized persons.

Right.

Hang your duty belt on it. your radio, charge it, anything, really. Everything that you would use for your everyday use at work, you would put on your Leo stand. That's so cool. And what's awesome about it, I thought was, I thought it was, you know, police officers buying it primarily, but really is the spouses.

Oh, yeah. Tired of picking crap off the floor.

Basically. Basically. Here's the bass and here's that and the guns up here. And so they're the ones buying it, you know, for the most part, but. We have a pretty cool story. It took a little while to come around to finally getting mass production in.

That's awesome.

And so, you know, that wasn't even the last time. So, you know, it was a couple of, maybe a couple of weeks later, like, so we owned Garden City Social, this like hot spot in our city. And I told him, like, Hey, man, come down, like, bring your wife, come hang out. And he took me up on it. I get a text and it's, almost did.

Yeah, I was gonna say you really have to trust somebody that you arrested. to now, like, either call them back, let them know your number, bring them your family around them.

Yeah. And that was brave, man. That was super brave. But he did. He showed up at Garden City Social and, like, got a drink and just hung out and, and he, you know, was telling about, talking about, like, financing those things. And so I just tried to, like, along the way, be a source of, like, well, you know, you could do it this way and then maybe not Source. Or you could go here and get information and, like, here's where you, where you could produce things and stuff like that. but he figured all this out on his own. And now we'll show the video, but, like, Leo Customs is, like, now getting mass produced and all this other stuff. And there's two models. There's the floor stand and the wall mountable model and all this. It's incredible to see you go from, like, concept to, you know, having a real business and not just the business, but, like, you and I have talked a little bit, but tell me about the impact on your life, like, with your wife and everything.

Well, it's a, it's a good feeling. It was a lot of, it took a lot of, which is three years in the making, three plus years in the making, a lot of roadblocks, a lot of trying to get lending from banks and this bank and that credit union and SBA and everybody possible.

Right.

And it just got to the point to where everybody was pretty much saying, hey, well, unfortunately we can't because you don't have any proof of sales. I'm like, well, I I need inventory to be able to have proof of sales.

Sir, that is why I'm here.

Right. But eventually I actually came home one day and we were doing really good financially for once, you know, and I told him, I said, look, I need X amount of dollars from our savings account. And she's like, why? I said, for Leo Customs. Give me X amount from the savings, I can flip it and make this. And after this flip and that flip and that flip, I can make X amount of dollars. And that's what we did. We pulled from savings, we opened a bank account for the business. stop worrying about getting lending from the banks.

Yeah.

And went to, we ended up going to Mexico for production, which actually, after research and research, like, trying, you know, trying to find a manufacturer all around the world, I found out that Mexico was a ranked number two for producing metal goods into the United States. So that means everyone else is using them. So me, too.

Right.

And, and that's where we're at with that, so.

How.

How much is it grown? Like, are you. Is it pretty, like, Nationwide right now?

Or are you actually, yeah, I was just. I was telling Tommy the other day, I just realized your.

Your.

Your spot was here. I actually come to the UPS right down the road, right here in the same Plaza to drop off my packages for shipping. Oh, wow. And when I was getting back in the truck, I'm like, what? Okay.

I text them right away.

I'm like, yeah, I'm right outside, you know? and that's how we ended up here today. But I was, I have orders in, you know, Utah, California, Arizona, Boston, Puerto Rico. That's so cool. Some local orders, but majority of my orders are from just all, all around the United States right now. I had a place in, had somebody in Canada order. Wow. And a guy reached out from South, South Africa on Tick Tock. Wow. He's like, hey, would you guys ship internationally? I'm like, we do, but that's It's on you.

It's on you, but we would be glad to send you one.

Absolutely. But everybody seems to be buying them.

That's crazy. That's so cool.

Yeah, and it's one of those things where an entrepreneur, somebody, I mean, a million other people in law enforcement have said, Man, I wish I had this kind of stand, right? And have thought, and you're not the first person to have this idea to create a stand for your duty gear, but you're the, you know, one of the first people that had an entrepreneur spirit and said, I can not only can I do this, but I can mass produce it, sell it and make my life better.

Right.

And like that, me one night, I was sitting in the house and it's another one of those moments that I won't ever forget that and him almost taking his gun into the jail. But he called and he was like, Hey, I just want to say thanks because some of those conversations helped me get here. And now we're like, we've, we've, we've changed houses, and I've been able to, like, change positions at, like, my job and go here so I can have more time to focus on the business. And, like, being able to have some small part, because he did all the work. Like, you know, I just said some things, but have some small part in his life getting better is really kind of like the whole thing about lead fast. And so when he told me that, I was like, bro, you've got to come on the podcast. Yeah, we've gotta. Because this is the, this is the stuff that, like, we live for. Like, it's not, you know, we, we talk a lot about, like, Hey, if you lead big teams or if you are, you know, the corporate CEO and you want to get to the next place and all these other things, but like really the principles that we teach and the and the and like the encouragement that we give and some of the advice that we kind of pass along the way, they're really meant for for guys like him who have a dream and are just like, Hey, you know what? I'm just going to bootstrap it because our first company, it failed miserably, but and we almost lost everything. I mean, literally our entire life savings because we were doing what you did. We bootstrapped it. We believed in the dream. Nobody would give us any money and we just went after it. And that for us was a big, big deal because it taught us that we could do it. You know, like you'll never, I can't foresee a day where you're not a business owner now because you'll, because now you know you can. Now you know you can generate dollars out of thin air with an idea. And I'm sure there'll be iterations on, like you've already went from, I can sell this on a pedestal, so I can also sell a wall mountable unit too. And now there'll be some other iteration.

That we have some up personally.

Yeah, I'm sure you do. And so like that's that that part of the story for me is the best part of the story. Now, did you did you grow up like with any business like you having family members your mom and dad really into business or anything like this is just like are you first generation entrepreneur?

Yes, I'd like to say so. We grew up really poor in Puerto Rico and coming over to the states and you know, it's just a hard life. Yeah, I feel like we had a lot of similarities in some of the the stories that we shared on the way to jail.

On the way to jail, man.

It felt like that was like a two-hour ride, but it was just a few minutes.

Oh, I know how that goes. I have a six-hour ride with him tomorrow, so you can imagine.

Have fun.

Yeah. He looked you in the eyes and said, have fun. Oh, man.

But, no, I would say I'm one of the first ones to come up with a business idea and actually put it into play like it is.

Let me ask you this, when you first started out, I mean, you had the idea, I know you said you took some savings and you were like, hey, I can, you had the math down, like, if I do this, I can get this, and if we get this, we can turn that into this. I imagine that starting that is probably scary in some sense.

It is. It is. But once, I mean, after three years of just crunching numbers, I was telling, I don't know how many times I've told Tommy, There's not a number I haven't crunched. I literally have a spreadsheet where you can change into one number and it's gonna change all the numbers across the board for the next year or two. Like it's there. I know it's there. I believe in it.

I just need the funding. Right. So that's what's getting at. So that's what's important, I think, for everybody out there who's listening, is that you crunch numbers and I'm sure you hit numbers that just didn't add up or didn't, you know, well, I can't do that because, and I think a lot of people stop at that point. and they don't push past that or they don't pursue that. But you said you crushed them for three years. I did. So that's a dream that you didn't give up on. So that tells me that you not having time to do this full time didn't stop you. It took you three years to get there.

Right.

But you got there and the numbers not adding up didn't stop you and this other stuff. And so that's what I was getting at. I was wondering if there were any setbacks, but it was the mindset. I was gonna ask you what pushed you through that, but it seems like it was the mindset of that. That's so cool. that's awesome. And now you're Nationwide, worldwide, South Africa.

Yeah. Awesome. Canada. That's so cool. Yeah. The, the numbers were, you know, like, so I'm a, I'm a shark tank junkie. That show on TV. Right. And so that's the thing that they get entrepreneurs for all the time. They don't know their numbers. They come in, they don't know, like.

What their carrying cost is and all this other stuff.

And so that first, that first meeting at Garden City, when he came in for a drink, I felt like I was on shark tank with him. That was funny. But we were sitting there and I was like, so, so, you know, what's what's your call? And I was drilling him like, you know, like, what, what does it cost you to make it? Where are you getting it manufactured? How can you get your cost down, all these other things? And he, like, didn't skip a beat. He knew, he knew every number. And, you know, and I just, I I knew then that, like, well, one, he's probably gonna, he's gonna do this. Like, this is like, it's a for sure thing. I knew how long you'd put into it. It's, it was a great idea. I talked to some other people, and they were, they thought it was a great idea. And then on top of it, like, he knew, like, he just knew exactly what he needed to make it happen. And, you know, being able to bootstrap. That was the, I mean, just the best thing that he could have done, because, you know, if you've taken, taken money and not returned it, you would lost Equity, but now he owns all the company and he still has the success. Yeah, it's, it's amazing. And, you know, again, that's like, like, I don't know if there's a way to, like, put Crispin up on a trophy shelf. Like, that's like, oh, yeah, like, this is lead fast. No, it's for sure. This was its first win because you guys didn't even exist when this happened. Right. You know, This was pre like us joining and making a team and, and this is just me doing LeadFast by myself as like a side, this was my side hustle was helping and training entrepreneurs. And he was the first person that really took some of the advice and ran with it and, and turned it into something tangible. And so, yeah, I look at his success like, oh man, I had a part of that. And it makes me super proud to see him do all the things he does. that's a full circle moment. Yeah, it was good. And now he's, now he's on our podcast telling the story about the day he arrested me. There's no love at all. But, yeah, it's been, you know, congratulations to you, man. And there's a, there's a company that has these shirts that says, uh, first generation millionaire. And, I mean, I think that's you, man. I think that, like, not only are you, like, did you get a business together and you're a first generation entrepreneur, but, like, this is, this is changing your family history. You know, like, you, you know, had it rough coming up poor from Puerto Rico and being an immigrant and first generation, not first generation American, because Puerto Ricans are American. I'm not stupid. But, but there's a higher Road when you come over from anywhere into our, into the mainland, into the country, into the states. Like, it's, it's just a harder and a higher and a longer ladder. and you've done it like you got into law enforcement and then you found a need and then you had the entrepreneurial spirit and the grit to say, I can do it on my own. And I mean, you're a family man, you've got kids, you know, and what you've done has forever impacted how they'll view success and what's possible for them. And now they'll go do more and, you know, who knows 15-20 years from now, they're taking over Leo Customs and it's the largest manufacturer of law enforcement by product and auxiliary and accessory products on the plan. So, I mean, it's crazy because that's.

Not far-fetched like that's something that can remember today.

That's the plan.

Yeah, no, so, hey, leave fast. Write that down. When Leo Customs is like the largest trade show, you know, trade show exhibitor at all the law enforcement trade shows and they're doing all the stuff. It started with my arrest. No, it started with a heck of an idea and the willingness and the grit to see it through. I'm glad you cleared that up because it'll be more police officers want to.

Arrest you so they can get some good ideas out of you. So that's some free lead fast time right there. What are you dropping now?

It changes a lot on purpose.

It does a lot. That's why you do it. That's why you do it.

I just figured it out. Okay. That's so cool. So what's, do you have a website right now?

I do. The website's Leo Customs, Leo hyphen Customs. .com. Okay. And then I'm on Facebook as well.

Leo Customs, LLC. Okay. And it's, and it's not just law enforcement. Like, if you're in the military, you know, or, I mean, heck, if you're an avid Sportsman and you've got, you know, you're coming in with your firearms and you want to put up your orange vest and hang everything up and.

All those other stuff that you've got, it really is a great gear rack. It just is. I would have killed for one of those in the military. Just a wreck. Because I, I'm world's worst of losing my stuff. And, you know, all the little Molly attachments that go in your vest. Absolutely. you're. Then they want this back when you leave, like, to go to another state. And if you leave, you leave that one pouch that gun, this little bitty tiny pouch that Clips right here, whatever.

Right.

They're not letting you go. And it's just.

Oh, man, it's for them, too. Yeah. So I'm spreading about that. Yeah, no, for sure. And we've got, we've got some connections there, so we'll put all this stuff on our website. But, hey, thank you guys so much.

For joining us today.

Thank you for coming in and hanging out and telling our story.

Yeah.

Thank you for having me. Yeah, man proud of you dude super.

Proud of you proud of both you guys well, I was the one getting arrested so proud of you. You got a podcast now. That's right. There we go. Hey guys, we'll see you next time.