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Episode 10- Alex Kouzmanoff's journey from Rental to Manufacturing
157 Plays15 days ago
Damn! We made it 10 Episodes! Nate and Kyle Sit with Alex to discuss his journey through different roles in the event world!
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Transcript
Introduction and Recent Activities
00:00:03
Speaker
Well I got up early, got a crew release, sitting up pulls and ropes, that's lie for me. From a wedding to a fair, from the field to the town, the one you call when you need a 10 up or down.
00:00:16
Speaker
We're back again with Under the Vinyl. As you see, we got a new intro too, so it's looking good. I've got Kyle on here with me as always. Kyle, how you doing today? I'm good, Nate. Nice to see you again. We took a little bit late of time off, but we're back to getting recordings done.
00:00:31
Speaker
We are. How's your week been? It's going, you know, we're getting busy now, so it's just getting back in the swing of things, making sure the guys are back in the swing. It's going good so far. Any good projects coming up that you are working through?
00:00:44
Speaker
I got a big 100-wide job next week. So we're getting stuff loaded, making sure everything's washed, all that good stuff. I hear you. I hear you. Yeah, we just feel like we're starting to pick up as well. And things are starting to get moving. People are starting to really book for this year. And it looks like we got our first 30 meter out for the year. And so that's looking good. And Everybody's in the right places. So let's go ahead and um get on with it
Meet Alex Kuzmanoff from Aztec Tents
00:01:08
Speaker
here. It looks like we got ah another great guest today. So we're going to go ahead and bring on Alex Kuzmanoff, president of Aztec Tents. How you doing, Alex?
00:01:17
Speaker
Doing great. Exciting to be here with the boys. Hey, we're always having a good time. So you're in the right place. I'll tell you, it's a little surreal kind of ah hearing the the voices of Nate and Kyle live, like right with me.
00:01:33
Speaker
I'm a huge fan of the podcast and I think I've listened to all the episodes. You guys are doing great stuff. So I love it. I appreciate it. We appreciate it. We're going to keep it going. And it seems like yeah we've got some good responses. So once again, anybody out there, like, rate, listen. When you're listening, give us some feedback. So Alex, you want to tell us a little bit about yourself? I know you have ah you've been in the industry for a little while and you got some good knowledge and stories for us. so Let's dive right in. Tell us about yourself.
00:02:00
Speaker
Sure. So i guess you know who I am, ah I'm a dad, first and foremost. I've got three great kids. I've got a great wife that supports the heck out of and kind of my career in the tent world.
00:02:14
Speaker
And I've got ah an amazing team of 100 plus team members here at Aztec that keep the wheels moving every day with the kind of our our company and and our mission.
00:02:25
Speaker
But I guess a little bit about maybe my start in the business.
Alex's Journey into the Tent Industry
00:02:29
Speaker
yeah How did you get involved? So I'm kind of one of the rare guys that was not born into the trade that kind of came in early. Like this is first job, only job.
00:02:41
Speaker
So when I was in college, I came home one summer and picked up kind of that going into your last year of college internship with a family friend, a guy named Chuck Miller, who operated Aztec Tents.
00:02:53
Speaker
Kind of at the time, we were not just a manufacturer of tents, but also and event rental company. So, you kind of servicing mostly the Southwest region of the United States, but we did a lot of ah travel.
00:03:07
Speaker
When I first came aboard, i was literally a jack of all trades. That's first summer that I worked for Aztec. I answered phones. I went out in the field. I was probably, you know, kind of one of the first, what we would call, eventually call a project manager.
00:03:23
Speaker
that liaison point between the crews in the field and the actual customer. I went out on several jobs and kind of was that buffer that first summer. And then went kind of back to school, finished up my degree up at Washington State University and kind of gave my three months of go at thinking about being a professional golfer.
00:03:46
Speaker
And then decided after seeing way too many guys that were 10, 15 plus years older than I was still grinding on like this mini tour stuff. I was like, I do not want to be that guy.
00:03:58
Speaker
little bit harder than it looks sure for what it's not worth money wise. Right. Yeah. And I was a good golfer when I was in college, but I was not a great golfer. And I was kind of after school playing alongside players that were really great golfers that were still struggling to make it at the next level.
00:04:17
Speaker
I didn't have it. Like I realized that I was number one, didn't have the commitment to kind of put in what I probably needed to put
Career Milestones and Mentorship
00:04:24
Speaker
in. The drive just wasn't there. So, you know, fortunately I found the Ted business. And, uh, and came back to work at Aztec.
00:04:32
Speaker
And initially I was just kind of a sales guy, but predominantly on the manufacturing side and know when I came back full time. Was that something that just stumbled upon then? It was it like a listing. How did you do, is it word of mouth? How do you, how do you just stumble upon the 10 industry?
00:04:47
Speaker
It started back, kind of i I knew the owner of Aztec. I had worked at Aztec over a summer. So I knew what the company was all about. It was a fun place to work when I was there for three months prior to my senior year.
00:05:01
Speaker
and And I really thought, I had memories of you know being out in the field and kind of working outside. And I remember kind of when I was at that stage of my life, kind of towards the end of college,
00:05:14
Speaker
you know looking towards my father, who was kind of in the the financial services business. And I saw him working in an office and I said, man, I cannot imagine going to work in an office, you know, five, six days a week and working behind a desk and looking at a computer screen all day.
00:05:31
Speaker
And now I reflect back, you know, what, 30 years later, and I'm like, that's what I do every day. and I love it. but but But like anybody else, you got that taste of being on the outside and and it probably pushed you enough to say, maybe I don't want to be setting up tents outside and I want to move up within the company, right?
00:05:50
Speaker
Yeah. I guess you don't know what you don't know. and And when I came to work at Aztec full-time back in 98, it was, it didn't feel like a grind. It didn't feel like I was sitting in an office punching numbers into a spreadsheet. It it really felt like I was part of something bigger. And there was a lot of autonomy that you could kind of take possession of things and make change.
Growth and Innovation at Aztec
00:06:14
Speaker
I know that's a scary word for a lot of people, but... Yeah, that change word. for example lot of people especially for the Especially for the older guys in this industry. So for the listeners out there that might not be on the that are on the installer side that might be coming into this business, did you see a future in the company when you came in here? Did you see this as a long-term career when you came in and you were working part-time?
00:06:36
Speaker
Or when was it that you came in that you said, okay, I'm going to continue this on. And it's not just because I don't want to be a golfer, but I see it being a career. I don't know what the point in time where that where that was. And probably when there were some some things that happened in the first five years of kind of my career here that, you know, I'd look back at like each one of these were significant moments.
00:07:02
Speaker
One of them was kind of my mentor starting out was a gentleman by the name of Bill B. And he was actually Chuck Miller's brother-in-law. And Chuck kind of ran at the time all of the rental operations.
00:07:15
Speaker
And Bill B kind of oversaw all the manufacturing operations. And so when I came to work, I was really working underneath Bill B as kind of his protege, his sidekick.
00:07:27
Speaker
And he really mentored me to learn all that I know know today about kind of the business. And I can't remember what year it was, but around 2002, 2003, he got sick and ended up having pancreatic cancer and kind of a ah short ah short battle and then you know lost the battle to pancreatic cancer.
00:07:50
Speaker
When he was transitioning to take care of his health, it kind of vaulted me into a ah position of, okay, now I'm not the only guy, but I'm like the point guy.
00:08:01
Speaker
That was like a you know, a clear moment. I remember in my history that like it clicked that I was not just an employee anymore. i was part of the bigger picture. so So you came back, you became full-time, you became part of that bigger picture.
00:08:17
Speaker
And at that point in time, where were you, where did you start back then to what, what position were you in after, you know, you did the part-time stuff and now you're coming back full-time. Is that when you kind of took on the national sales manager?
00:08:29
Speaker
Really, that wasn't until Bill B passed. okay And I'm trying to think another pretty significant moment. Academy, Tenton Canvas, who was a ah competitor out in LA of ours, also involved in rental, also involved in manufacturing.
00:08:45
Speaker
ah They had been acquired by an investment group, kind of maybe mismanaged a little bit, but they ended up going into bankruptcy. Aztec acquired basically all their manufacturing assets out of bankruptcy.
00:08:58
Speaker
You know, it was a lot of equipment, lot sewing machines, a lot of ah RF welders. I mean, just inventory, all sorts of stuff that you can imagine. But kind of what came along with that was about 80 individuals that had gotten terminated from academy,
00:09:14
Speaker
that were unemployed, that had a lot of expertise in manufacturing and needed a place to go. And hence, when Aztec picked up those manufacturing assets, we were also able to pick up kind of a lot of experienced employees, many of which are are still with us today.
00:09:33
Speaker
And so that helped you really ramp up the production there then? I mean, it was a process. If you can, i mean, you guys have all moved before. So we were operating out of our own Aztec facility.
00:09:44
Speaker
We were in transition to kind of a new manufacturing facility at the time. So it was a little bit The timing was kind of, don't know, couldn't have been more perfect, but we still had to kind of, you know, we were already moving into a new facility. Then we had to close out and an old facility facility of Academy and figure out, okay, where are we going to put all this equipment?
00:10:06
Speaker
It was a little bit of a mess that took obviously several months to implement. But once we got into our new home and got the team members on board, I mean, it was a pretty quick transition to getting back to business.
00:10:20
Speaker
Back in the 90s, what was like the main product line you guys were manufacturing? And who was your ideal? Who was the customer base back then? i would say pre pre-academy, you know Aztec was, think, more of a frame tent manufacturer.
00:10:35
Speaker
um And that's what we were we were known for. And I would say our geography was was highly West Coast. We did have a lot of customers kind of sprinkled throughout the country, but sprinkled is is is the operative word there.
00:10:53
Speaker
When we brought over the team from Academy, you know a lot of the Academy customers were caught with their pants down. i mean It was february a February that this happened.
00:11:04
Speaker
so A lot of customers had orders in with Academy for their spring work. There was a lot of doubt, like, how is this new company going come through for me? ah I know Academy, but I'm unfamiliar with Aztec.
00:11:17
Speaker
Honestly, we we killed it that first season. We we i mean did heck of a lot more business, and increased kind of our customer portfolio by double or triple.
00:11:28
Speaker
It opened up and exposed us more to a more national presence. I think that Academy had a little bit more They also had a sprinkle, but it was a little bit different of a sprinkle than our own.
00:11:40
Speaker
They were mainly poltents, correct? Academy was you know a pole tent manufacturer, frame tent manufacturer. We built pole tents, we built clear spans, but you know kind of where our our expertise was, was more frames.
00:11:56
Speaker
Academy, I think, was frame and poles. We both did clear span stuff, but most of our clear span was either built for our own rental operations or ah scattering of of West Coast operators that use that that curve beam type clear span. Yeah. yeah So when did you cease operations on the rental side?
00:12:17
Speaker
2004 is, is a really 2004, 2005. Yeah. yeah So we were part of, if you all remember classic party rentals and we were part of like stage one of classic party rentals. So I'm trying to think who else.
00:12:37
Speaker
Regal Rents was in that mix. Chicago Party Rental, I think, was right in that that same time period. but Beginning to an end. i mean it It was the beginning of kind of the last portion of owners that got paid out in cash.
00:12:55
Speaker
I think after our acquisition, there were some some additional acquisitions that occurred back East that it wasn't 100% cash. and yeah you know some people Some really good people, good industry friends, I think you know got hit when Classic went through bankruptcy one. and Then I think there was ah even a bankruptcy two, which and ceased operations.
00:13:18
Speaker
So then in 2004, you kind of see these operations. you sell You sell off everything on that side. You kind of go full force more into the manufacturing side. Where did that leave you in the company or what were you doing at that point?
00:13:30
Speaker
So I was, at the time, national sales manager, kind of right in that around that same time period, or maybe just before we had kind of changed our outlook on like sales representation.
00:13:43
Speaker
We used to just service everything from inside. Back when I started, it was myself, couple other people that were doing sales from inside headquarters. Yeah. Over time, we kind of developed a kind of a network of reps.
00:13:57
Speaker
So individuals that weren't part of Aztec, but just sold our tents in addition to selling tables and chairs and other things. One of those team members by the name of Jeff Geppner, who you guys probably know the name, yeah he was probably our first bigger rep group to kind of come on board. he had just previously left Eureka as kind of being Eureka's rep in the Midwest and came on board as Aztec's rep. It opened up a whole new sense of customer possibility, product possibility, lot of different things.
00:14:36
Speaker
and Really, kind of at that time when the classic acquisition happened, I think Gepner and his team were on board. Eric Christensen, who is you know one of our leading team members today as a regional account manager, was an employee of Jeff back then.
00:14:51
Speaker
Really? I never know. He was a rep. ah He goes back way into the Eureka days. But it was really kind of immediately after that time when Biff Gensch, who now is with Anchor, was with Anchor many years ago, but came to work with us.
00:15:07
Speaker
And Biff was a ah tremendous help in, you know, kind of building our national sales exposure. And that's probably the transition where I moved from being a national sales manager to vice president of Aztec. And Biff became the national sales manager.
00:15:26
Speaker
That was around 2009-ish. That sounds about right. I lose a little bit of track of time looking back after all these years. But it was really Biff's mission to, you know, initially was was kind of coordinating a lot of our reps that were kind of outside agents, right?
00:15:46
Speaker
But he also kind of was instrumental in taking the rep group concept in-house so that we we didn't have reps that were selling tables, chairs, and Aztec tents.
00:15:59
Speaker
You had contractors that were doing it for you, basically. Yeah. yeah i mean Yeah, they were third part they were companies or individuals that were on their own, and they sold a lot of different things. but But we decided to move all of that 100% inside so that our team members were employees of Aztec of no one else.
00:16:19
Speaker
They only were accountable to sell Aztec product, no Aztec product like the back of their hand. And it really, i think, changed our approach and what ah the service level we could provide our customers because our guys really became tent experts, like ah field experts, product experts. They were really invested in only one thing, and that's our products.
00:16:45
Speaker
Yeah. Well, can assume that it'd be a little bit rough transition trying to bring everything in-house and you know and really teaching everybody everything. But yeah, as you're saying, one product. I mean, yes, it's great that somebody can sell several products, but are they what brand are they're really loyal to then? you know So it's like bringing that in-house, it feels like now you have one loyalty to one brand. And let's be honest, if you've got one thing you're focusing on, you're going to go all in on that one thing and learn everything that you possibly can to sell to be the best at selling in that, right? Yeah.
00:17:12
Speaker
Absolutely. There's enough, I think, just within within Aztec, within you know one company of all the different products we manufacture, all of the individualized components, how they go together, what parts are used for what.
00:17:27
Speaker
I don't think anyone coming on board, even our team members that have experience in the temp world, the level of detail of what our guys know, it's unbelievable.
00:17:39
Speaker
you know like they It's remarkable. Do you feel like at that point when you kind of took over the vice president role and then Biff was kind of handling the salespeople inside, it helped you guys to kind of focus on what your next products were going to be and see for more of the future, having those people in-house so that you could get more ideas? Or and did that influence anything as far as the direction you guys wanted to go styles, things like that?
00:18:01
Speaker
Or did you just kind of stay the same as far as you knew your niche and you guys just grinded that out? I'd say one thing we never do is stay the same. I would agree with you. You guys are very innovative when you come with your stuff. So that's why I'm asking
Tidewater Sailcloth Tent Success
00:18:15
Speaker
that. I think we embrace change.
00:18:19
Speaker
We don't just grab on to the word change and say, Hey, we got to change for the reason of change. But man, like our team from operations personnel, the shipping team members to our, our sales and support team members, like everyone has a voice in the way that we do things.
00:18:37
Speaker
And yeah, whether it's the way we build something, the way we install something, the way we sell something, the way we communicate with customers. That's one thing that I've enjoyed most about this business is there's always things to work on and to get better.
00:18:53
Speaker
And I think looking back, my goal, my mission is is has kind of been all along you know, if if we run across a problem or an issue, like let's let's learn from it, change the way we do something so that we just don't have to deal with that same issue again.
00:19:10
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. Get better from it. Yeah, get better. and And I think that that constant, whether it's a process improvement, product improvement, you know that's a kind of a philosophy that just lives in the company.
00:19:22
Speaker
So that's certainly been the fun part. And I got to go back to your original question, Nate, because it was kind of wide. Just the people that you brought in-house influencing you know new products, did you guys start to move towards new products then a little bit more? was it Did become easier because now you had a team of people in-house versus maybe the team that's on the outside and they're selling all different products for everybody else?
00:19:45
Speaker
it brought a lot more clarity. It brought the communication level. It compressed the communication between kind of the ah customer and what they need and what they want to the but people that are actually going to deliver it to them. yeah um there's There's not a loss of translation there. There's not a omitting of small bits of information that end up being very important in the process.
00:20:09
Speaker
So having those team members, as employees and part of the process. I think it connected everything together. I think one of the, probably one of the first products that came out after all of this consolidation, i mean, we We did a lot of work with compatible products initially.
00:20:29
Speaker
But I would say if you're talking about a product that is like came from scratch was kind of the sailcloth tent design. and I certainly a lot of inspiration from the team at Sperry.
00:20:40
Speaker
Those guys were the pioneers, the innovators that created what we know of sailcloth tents today. Yeah, and every time I go to a job site and each somebody asks for sale call, so do you have this very tent?
00:20:52
Speaker
They have 100% labeled themselves correctly with that tent. Yeah. Oh, I mean, they have a huge, huge brand identity and they have a huge following.
00:21:02
Speaker
Maybe the one one area that you know kind of they held their guns on was they just didn't want to sell tents. They wanted to sell the concept of what Sperry Tents is.
00:21:15
Speaker
That brand is very, very strong and very powerful, but their motivation was not to deliver you know a 40 by 60 tent to every rental company. They wanted to establish kind of a dealer network, more of an ongoing relationship with the brand of Sperry to help promote the brand of Sperry.
00:21:35
Speaker
And so there was, yeah, just a difference of philosophy there where our mission was, was to help customers make money. Right. right just tell thetain away and run it Yeah. In a way, help customers beat Sperry.
00:21:49
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, compete with something that was comparable. So it it all started back on the East Coast. If you look where Sperry started, I think they're based in Marion, Mass, just outside of Boston.
00:22:00
Speaker
Their network is kind of that Eastern Seaboard. And a lot of competing rental companies that kind of are not Sperry dealers, but they're just tent and event rental companies, you know, running up against this Sperry sailcloth tent and wanting to provide a solution that's similar.
00:22:16
Speaker
And really, Eric Christensen, who is our kind of Northeast rep, was the one that brought this to our attention, said, hey, we really have an opportunity here.
00:22:27
Speaker
I think we can fact check it, but I think the opportunity was brought to you know other manufacturers in the space. And they kind of said, ah, this is this isn't going to last. And And aztec Aztec jumped on it.
00:22:40
Speaker
We came out with ah what we branded the Tidewater Sailcloth Tent. I'm thinking it was back in 2007, 2008 timeframe. And yeah, I mean, it initially was successful. But if I look back now, i mean, going on, what, 17 years?
00:22:57
Speaker
It's unbelievable what we've learned about that product. Where it started on the East Coast is now prolific throughout North America, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, it's all over the world.
00:23:09
Speaker
Well, you know, that's a good testament, the sailcloth just in general. I think a lot of people back in 08, 09 thought it was going to be a fad and it was going to go away. And I think today with all the new innovations, you guys have come out with the Adena.
00:23:23
Speaker
I hope I said that correctly. There's garden tents, all these other things. But in the back of my head, sometimes
New Products and Market Trends
00:23:29
Speaker
I'm like, is this stuff just a fad? Do I need to, you know, am I wasting money? Like, is this only going to be good for three or four years? And then it goes away.
00:23:36
Speaker
But the sailcloth one has stuck for all these years. but But I think the way that you look at it, too, is, you know, you guys started 07, 08. It really kind of took off from the other manufacturers, I think, around 10 or 11 at the IFAI show.
00:23:52
Speaker
It felt like ah the other manufacturers really started to catch on. So you guys were pushing it, but it maybe it wasn't that much then. And then everybody started follow suit. And it kind of seems like that with most products in this area, you know, where we think they're going to be a fad.
00:24:04
Speaker
But then of the you know that they're catching on and they're not just a fad when everybody starts then doing it. When one person does it, then everybody starts doing it. And they're doing it just a different way or tweaking it. and you know And you got to do that because somebody might be loyal to Aztec, but then this other person might be look loyal to Lowsbury or Anchor, whoever it is.
00:24:22
Speaker
And so I think everybody has everybody has their different manufacturers. So the way that I see it going is if If everybody's doing it, if everybody that more than one manufacturer is doing it, it's something that's goingnna stick around for a little while.
00:24:34
Speaker
And I think that's where the sailcloth went. And I love it. I think it's a beautiful look. I think it's great. I know my guys don't like it because they have to the cleaning of it and how careful you have to be with it. But at the end of the day, it almost changed the way of pole tents as well.
00:24:48
Speaker
Because if you ask me to go put up a sailcloth or a 40 by 60 pole, I'm putting up a sailcloth all day. I mean, it's light. It's easy. It's quick. It just looks better. Yeah. matter one yeah Well, it looks great. I mean, look, it's your good middle ground between your standard blockout pole tent and your structure.
00:25:06
Speaker
It's that good middle ground where and it's got all that natural look. I think the one thing that, you know, if I were to say differentiates, you know, fads from kind of things that stick around, you know, when I think of linen, colors of linen, drapery, like there's a lot of fads of of what's popular, what's creative in that space.
00:25:27
Speaker
I think what's different about like a sailcloth tent, and I would also, you know, say the Adena has that, that the A-frame style tent, and I would say the garden tent also has this.
00:25:39
Speaker
There is very significant architecture in each one of those products. And if you take a step back and you look at, know, walk inside of a European clear span structure or European style clear span, there's not, or a frame tent, right? Like there's not,
00:25:58
Speaker
a sense of architecture in that design. Not to the level of when you walk underneath the sailcloth tent or you walk under a garden tent or you walk inside of an adina. like It's different.
00:26:12
Speaker
and I think anything that's got a significant architectural presence is going to have a longer longevity and might It might come and go a little bit, but something that that has a lot of character to it, I think it's going to stick around.
00:26:29
Speaker
And I think all three of those products, you know they can stand on themselves without added, you don't need to foof up a garden tent. no It's in its nature is amazing.
00:26:41
Speaker
Although I did have somebody ask me to do a build out around it the other day and quote it. And it was like, why am I doing this structure then? yeah I want fully line yeah you know yeah a garden tent or I want to put ah a liner inside of a sailcloth tent. Like, oh, you're missing the point.
00:26:58
Speaker
But absolutely I have a client. We do an all clear top frame and put a liner in it. I'm like, what's the point of the clear tops, man? It's like, nope, I got to have clear. Okay. i Like the Adena. I love it. I think it's awesome.
00:27:11
Speaker
I wish it was a product in 2020 when the micro wedding was a huge thing. Like that would go off the shelves like hotcakes. That's the perfect micro wedding, 20 people, 10. ten I love it. One long table.
00:27:23
Speaker
I'm a huge fan of the long table at parties. think perfect. Oh, man, we botched that one up. when When we first brought that to market, well, we brought it as a prototype to ARA.
00:27:35
Speaker
Oh, man, what year was that? maybe 22? Yeah, i think so. Or 23, a couple years ago. And the design was, it didn't have duct tape and bubble gum holding it together, but it was not red already.
00:27:50
Speaker
and it And it had like the crowns, the Keter transition on the crowns were 3D printed. but They were plastic. And so it it looked awesome, but it wasn't like ready to sell.
00:28:02
Speaker
And the response that we got at that first show and how many like people were gawking at that design on the show floor. I never had been you know seen it before and haven't seen it since.
00:28:15
Speaker
But the amount of people like with their phones up at the trade show, just taking pictures of it. And was wild. Yeah. It's innovative and different. That's why yeah and this industry is slow with that.
00:28:28
Speaker
Totally. But year one, when we, when we showed that tent as as a prototype, it wasn't for sale. And, you know, we had for three days of that show, people walking in saying, okay, well, how much is it? How much is it? How, when can I order one?
00:28:42
Speaker
And we weren't ready to sell it because we, we needed the proof of concept. We needed to make sure that it was, ready to be rented, which it wasn't. And it took it took another you know several months after that show to validate that, okay, this is a product that but warrants that we need to come back.
00:28:59
Speaker
And a year later, the market had you know kind of softened a little bit. The the desire to kind of go out and grab something that's new softened a little bit. It's been successful, but nothing like what it would have been if we would launched it a year earlier.
00:29:14
Speaker
Did that design come from like a client suggestion or was that just someone's brainchild in the office? Yeah, I think honestly, honestly, yeah, it came from ah love for a frame architecture.
00:29:27
Speaker
It's a ah thing of mine that like, I look, and know I spend a lot of time in the mountains and I see these and don't know if they have them back where you guys are, but like frame chalets that were, they were built extensively kind of in the seventies.
00:29:41
Speaker
And there's kind of a resurgence of them in more a more modern approach today. But the lines of of an A-frame are so beautiful and simple, just stunning, right? Yeah, I would agree with that. and And it was something that I wanted, I looked at and said, I think this could fit in an event space.
00:29:59
Speaker
And the vision was all about that long tabled event, a farm to table with 60 people and doing it under 60 feet of of an A-frame type type structure in a wonderful setting.
00:30:12
Speaker
It's a small event tent, but we've kind of seen as it's evolved, people are using it as a bar tent, standalone, kind of along with a sailcloth or using it in it its intended purpose.
00:30:25
Speaker
So it's got ah it's got a little more application than just being a a farm to table dinner tent. yeah Yeah, absolutely. I'm going to jump back over here to your timeline, Alex. You were vice president of everything for about 10 years, and then you took on the company as president around 2020.
Leadership and Adaptation During COVID-19
00:30:43
Speaker
twenty twenty is that correct? Yeah. And then, attack yeah. so Can you give us a little insight? Tell us how that all came about and you know what that was like in 2020 for you. And did you feel like it was the right decision after all hell broke loose? Yeah.
00:31:00
Speaker
Yeah. So kind of throughout my journey, I obviously he had become more of an integral part of the manufacturing side of the business. And kind of pre-2020, in kind of the mid-teens, I had started to acquire some equity in Aztec.
00:31:18
Speaker
And Really, it was just about timing. I wanted to own Aztec. And you know my mentor, my partner, ah Chuck Miller, was not quite ready to sell the business.
00:31:32
Speaker
He was still having fun, still enjoying work, enjoying the pulse. It was 2019 that you know kind of after some probing and probing, he came to me and said, i think I'm ready to do it.
00:31:44
Speaker
And we put a deal together. And January 1, 2020, I took the reins. Chuck moved to kind of a retirement role. he He packed up his office and and left. I mean, we still communicate regularly.
00:32:01
Speaker
But as of January 1, 2020, you know, the Aztec machine was mine. And then and three months later, he's looking back on, damn, I made that right decision. Yeah, I mean, it's Three months, 13 days. Yeah. I mean, I yeah can remember it like it was yesterday.
00:32:18
Speaker
I think I was actually at ARA and at a party SIG meeting when Dolores Crum, who is the event SIG rep, kind of got news that South by Southwest, which is based in Austin, where she's from, just canceled their event.
00:32:36
Speaker
And I'm like, whoa. Yeah. That's a big deal. And by the time I got home from that trip, dozens and dozens of events had been canceled, like within 48 hours. yeah And i mean, that was the slide.
00:32:49
Speaker
And it probably took you know a couple months to to actually know what that but that meant. I mean, initially, there was a lot of customers that were putting orders on hold.
00:33:01
Speaker
That was the initial response. Let's just hold. Yeah. Let's see what happens here, folks. Yeah, let's see what happens. Let's push it back. i mean, you guys remember it was, oh, this is going to be a two week shutdown. And then it kind of felt like, oh, well, maybe it's going to be a month.
00:33:15
Speaker
At any point, did you just were you sitting there going, what did I do? Or I'm going to dive in head first and we're going to get this figured out. And I have it's fight or flight at this point because now it's my baby.
00:33:27
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, every day, every hour. It weighed you know pretty heavily on me. you know More so the commitment to not the transaction that I had just done, but for my team.
00:33:41
Speaker
It's the people. No one ever thinks about that. That's what weighs on your shoulders. I needed to survive. like I needed to find a way to you know make sure that cash flow was still positive so that I can make payroll. right How am I going to make payroll? How am I going to pay our vendors?
00:34:00
Speaker
How am I going to keep this ball rolling enough that we can squeak by through this but without impacting the core. That was tough. But I will tell you that every single team member of our company was part of that.
00:34:17
Speaker
Like they knew what we were going through. They were part of the solution. You know, we had some team members a little bit more involved in what what's next.
00:34:29
Speaker
Our sales team members who have the direct connection to our customers, you know, are out there pitching, you know, you guys need to get involved in testing sites and get involved in hospital triage. And and in the beginning, there was was a lot of that work going on, but not quite enough to kind of replace what would normally be a really busy event season.
00:34:51
Speaker
So much of that work was going to the bigger guys. So some of the smaller guys, you know, it was really hard for them. And sometimes I feel like the smaller guys spend more money with the manufacturers than the larger companies are.
00:35:01
Speaker
So, you know, there was a lot of kind of creative thinking kind of with our, our management sales team of kind of what, what to do and and thinking outside of the box was number one.
00:35:13
Speaker
And we actually did you know, a fair bit of kind of outreach to things that we were tangential with. And one of those kind of contacts that we outreach to was ah vendor in the exhibition space, Georgia Expo.
00:35:30
Speaker
We had done some outreach to, I think, Innovative, who's out here on the West Coast, and Georgia Expo, kind of started a process of building like fabric panels for isolation units.
00:35:44
Speaker
And we teamed up with a company that did Expo work because they had the hardware, the lightweight hardware to go put up like pipe and drape booths. And together we hit on a ah FEMA job I think it was in late May, where we supplied an astronomical number of like partition units to Georgia Expo, who was the ah primary on it.
00:36:11
Speaker
They, in turn, sold the hardware and the fabric units. to FEMA, its sole purpose was to kind of create a space that when when FEMA needed to evacuate people for hurricane season, they could evacuate people to stadiums, convention centers, and so forth.
00:36:30
Speaker
and isolate, like give them isolation units so that they can put a family into a 10 by 10 cubicle that had vinyl walls on it. That was their plan was if they needed to evacuate people, how do you keep people apart? Remember that whole yeah social distancing?
00:36:47
Speaker
we were part of, they they did a bunch of those through the Army Corps of Engineers as well, where they built out like triage units at convention centers. We were part of those through event rental companies that were buying product and installing those.
00:37:03
Speaker
Fortunately for for all of us, those I think many of those triage units at convention centers never got used. And I'll tell you, I don't know if the the FEMA stuff we did, did it ever get used? I don't know.
00:37:14
Speaker
But you made your money. And I mean, as the president of the company at that point, you had to make the money and figure out how you were going to take care of your employees.
Pandemic Reflections and Future Direction
00:37:21
Speaker
Yeah, more more so than anything, it was just, it allowed us to get through a very, very tough time, just from a cashflow perspective to kind of keep our team working and just generating revenue to kind of pay the bills.
00:37:36
Speaker
I feel like it's almost makes you hungrier. i mean, obviously I wasn't, I didn't own a business at that time, but I knew what it was like for me at that time. But for you, it feels like coming in, if you're buying something like that, it almost makes you hungrier.
00:37:48
Speaker
And like, now you're looking back at that thinking, man, that taught me a lot about how hungry I need to be to make this thing survive. Maybe I don't want to do that again. I don't want to be that aggressive. And that, that was tough. But at the end of the day, it probably, it probably showed you a lot of things and taught you a lot of things about what you want for your company moving forward. Am I right?
00:38:05
Speaker
It definitely brought our team closer together, right? Anytime you have to kind of struggle over adversity and the team is part of the solution, i think it just brings you tighter. So that that's something that's irreplaceable.
00:38:19
Speaker
I don't know if I'd go out and pray for another COVID situation. yeah happen, at least you know the front end. like The business that came out of COVID, all the you know social distancing, the restaurant work, the schools, the universities, the gyms, like you guys know how many how many tents you set up on long-term deals. like It was unbelievable.
00:38:39
Speaker
But hopefully, that's not something that that we have to face again. I'd rather face other challenges. But at that time, too, it probably bought you got three kids. I know. Right. That probably brought you a little bit extra time too to, you know, with the family as well. And maybe a little less time. I don't know with taking over the company. But, you know i think it brought all the families together and things like that. So how is it? How did it affect your family at that point? You know, like you taking over buying this business. Did you know how what was your wife's reaction to all this, too? Because obviously she has a big part of this, I'm sure.
00:39:09
Speaker
And you buying this company. you know It was ah little bit of you know twofold. like We never stopped operations, even through kind of the initial... And California was pretty extreme, but we were kind of deemed an essential business. I mean, we were providing tent structures, partition walls to first responders, you know people that were building infrastructure facilities for the pandemic.
00:39:35
Speaker
So like shutting off our services, what would that do? That would just shut off your ability to serve people. you know, a hospital that needs a tent and all of a sudden you can't get that tent.
00:39:47
Speaker
My work-life balance kind of stayed pretty stable through the process. But man, what I miss was during that timeframe, my kids' school shut down for, I think, a year where they went remote.
00:40:00
Speaker
We had family dinners seven days a week for like 18 months. There was no activities. There was no like, ah other than our family going on a hike or going to the beach or like doing something with our group, there wasn't sports going here and sports going there and one kid going this direct. Like it was so refreshing to just have our family together.
00:40:27
Speaker
I truly look back on that time and say, that's one thing I miss today is how much, because we're now running, you know, a million different miles in every different direction. I miss that about the pandemic and COVID.
00:40:40
Speaker
I think overall it was tough on everybody mentally with work and everything else outside your family. But I look back on it too. And, you know, I made that transition. I've said before during from Brian's being running a company for 10 years to starting over.
00:40:56
Speaker
in April with Chattanooga tent and not knowing what my future looked like, but given the ability to start over and then be, you know, be with my family and dive all in on my family time. I look back on that time and I don't take that for granted. I think that time,
00:41:12
Speaker
taught us a lot about what it almost gave everybody a reset. It gave everybody a time to sit and think and look and say, what are my priorities in life? Not in my job, but my life. What do I, what is my priority? And you know, it's your family and your kids. And yes, you have to make a living and you have to work, but now you're thinking, well,
00:41:31
Speaker
man, I've been just in a hamster wheel for so long that now I've finally had the time to sit and think. I see clearer almost because of it, if that makes sense. But it was, ah yeah, very 2020 dooming.
00:41:45
Speaker
your day So today, Alex, five years down the road, where where are we with Aztec? Where is Aztec going? how What's the direction looking like in the future of Aztec? how do you What's your guys' vision right now?
00:41:59
Speaker
I think we're continuing to just kind of be on a path of doing what we've been doing. We've enjoyed a lot of success with kind of pretty simple mission of doing great things for our customers.
00:42:14
Speaker
You know, kind of just doing what we said we would do, over exceeding expectations. And I mean, our philosophy is not to be the biggest. That's not what drives us.
00:42:25
Speaker
I think what drives us is how how can we make our customers' lives simpler? How can we make our customers more money, more profitable?
00:42:36
Speaker
How can we make you know their day-to-day businesses is easier to run? if we keep If we keep doing that and we keep improving on that, I'm okay with just growing through attrition. like I don't feel like we need to go out and dive into a different segment or diminish what we have and what core values are.
00:42:58
Speaker
Kind of staying in your lane with the product that you have. Yeah. Absolutely. And I think the more people that are able to experience what Aztec has to offer, I'll tell you, they stick with it.
00:43:10
Speaker
Like it's a good experience. And, you know, it's not driven about trying to get more people into more tents. like We want to sell tents. that's That's a part of our lives. We want to build tents. But we don't want to sell someone a tent just for selling them a tent.
00:43:25
Speaker
you know we We want to see someone buy the right product for the right application. We want to see them have huge success with it to a point that they say, I need another one.
00:43:37
Speaker
And I need another company for the future. Yeah. Building that relationship over the future and giving them a reason to come back. It is a ah longer term approach. Right. No, that makes a little bit of a slower play than.
00:43:50
Speaker
But there's nothing wrong with that at all. Yeah. Did I see a picture of you recently putting up a tent? Oh, yeah. Yeah. yeah still getting out in the president is getting out in the field still a little bit just yesterday i was setting up a 59 by 119 tidewater nice now i gotta ask did you do the center pulls by hand by hand really and we had an ox on site and the owner of the company uh market walker lewis said oh do you want to use the ox and i said we don't need to
00:44:23
Speaker
And so for everybody out there, all you installers, you heard it here first. You do not have to have the ox every sailcloth job. That's true. That's true. Yesterday was an interesting install, though. It it was their initial sailcloth install. um I mean, stuff when they brought it to the job site was like still in the packaging of the way it was when we shipped it to them.
00:44:46
Speaker
And we had a little bit of a an issue. You guys forget something at the shop every now and again. had a little snafu
00:44:56
Speaker
our kit and our pick list and realized that one of the sections had the wrong center pole like splices in it.
00:45:06
Speaker
And I found that out when we were opening up and laying out center poles at around 1130. We were ready to go up with side poles and center poles and like two of our center poles are three feet short.
00:45:19
Speaker
Well, see, that's good to hear. It's kind of refreshing to hear that manufacturers even have their issues as well and their go-backs. I love that. I love that. He just said it. like It was so nonchalant. He could have just left that out.
00:45:30
Speaker
That shows you Alex is a good guy right there. just hey man you know We messed up. and We totally did. and and you know i But you learned something. I think the important thing is that it's okay to mess up.
00:45:43
Speaker
As long as you do something about what got messed up and how it got messed up and and how to prevent that happening from the future. You know what? It was a kid issue that like we had never discovered before that this one kid had a ah wrong component. and And obviously it was, you know, in a situation where we could remedy it in some way. right like yeah i ended up sending a driver from our shop with the two parts that we needed northbound, and I got my car and drove southbound. We met in the middle of the freeway, turned around. and and it It was a two-hour trip, but we got center poles there after lunch.
00:46:25
Speaker
The tent went up, was in the air 35 minutes later, and you know fully fully tensioned probably 20 minutes after that. So The tent guys always figure it out. Somehow the the rest of the construction world can't figure it out all the time and meet their deadlines. But somehow the rental tent guy or a woman always figure it out and meet their deadlines.
00:46:46
Speaker
Yeah. I got a question. This is going to new one. No one's ever heard this before.
Hiring and Industry Advice
00:46:51
Speaker
Our big thing with Nate and I are trying to get installers to realize that, you know, there's more to this industry than just installing tents.
00:46:58
Speaker
Obviously, that's a great place to start and grow in the industry. When you're hiring a sales rep, how much do you put value on their actual experience in installation or management or being in the industry? Do you look for stuff like that?
00:47:14
Speaker
Absolutely. Although it's a little bit of a double-edged sword, meaning that if I could, i would hire tent guys, only tent guys.
00:47:26
Speaker
But I also don't want to bite the hand that feeds me. like I don't want to go to our customers and poach their best operational people to be our sales team.
00:47:37
Speaker
It's a little bit of a give and take. A lot of our team members don't come directly from event rental, but maybe they're in event management.
00:47:48
Speaker
So they've been around tents. They've been around project management for big jobs. Maybe they've sold tents for another company or they previously worked for an event rental company, but kind of moved on to to something else or something else. And they've got a ah couple of year gaped.
00:48:04
Speaker
it's tough because I don't want to go and poach, you know, if someone from the industry, but ideally that's, that's the person that makes the best representative for us as someone that already has the experience of maybe not our product, but just the mechanics of how tents go together.
00:48:22
Speaker
You know, it doesn't always necessarily have to be a poaching thing either. You know, I think that people like new opportunities and some people want to move around and do different things. And I, uh, and don't think you can fault anybody for that if they do do something like that, you know?
00:48:35
Speaker
And definitely I've heard it before kind of in your conversations. I mean, there is a path for individuals to move up. And sometimes that that does mean that someone might move up and into an organization and hit a wall yeah and they have to go sideways or they have to go in a little bit different direction.
00:48:55
Speaker
That's just part of life. And so there are opportunities, I think, just even outside of the traditional, you know, when you look at installers and managing upwards towards being supervisors or leads or warehouse dispatchers, operations team members, like there's also ways to get into sales.
00:49:14
Speaker
And I'm talking about sales for the event rental company, but also sales for for products. and service for products. i mean, I look at the guys, the team that works for like 10 Ops, a lot of the guys that work for 10 Ops. And I think, Kyle, that's on your resume back there. a few know a few yes it is A lot of operational experience.
00:49:35
Speaker
It's outside of the normal rental channels, but it's kind of in support of this rental industry, the event rental industry. There's so many different jobs. Yeah, there's so many different jobs out there that pertain to the rental industry that you don't actually think that they do.
00:49:49
Speaker
And if you really think outside the box on hiring, you can pull people from all over different industries and pull them into this and fit them into different seats on the bus within your company, for sure, within the rental industry.
00:50:00
Speaker
So, Kyle, I think we got one more question. Any advice for the next generation coming into it? It's kind of funny. I always thought I was the young guy. When I came on board, you know i was surrounded by guys that I looked at were senior and mature. And now kind of like I look in the mirror and I'm like, oh, that gray hair. I wonder if ah we ah wonder if the young guys today look at me like, oh, he's an old fart now.
00:50:24
Speaker
But I will say that kind the advice is... The next generation, is which is the current generation, you've got your hand on the steering wheel. And I would just say, you take this whatever direction you want.
00:50:38
Speaker
I mean, you guys have so much flexibility. ah You have so much power to kind of do what you want to do and do what your teams want to do. Sky's the limit.
00:50:48
Speaker
I mean, honestly, you you can really do whatever you want to get done. And it just takes a good team to kind of make that happen. To the leaders, ah keep steering the ship and just surround yourself with people that can help you make things happen.
00:51:05
Speaker
People that are smarter than us. Man, I love it. You always surround yourself with people that are smarter than you to help build the brand. That's how i think of it as. And I've done that well.
00:51:17
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. I understand. Well, Alex, I really appreciate you taking us down this journey today. It's really cool to see. what you've done with Aztec and how far you've come and you know just all the all the hurdles and obstacles that you've jumped through along the way, but still maintained one hell of a product in this industry. So anybody out there looking for and very cool product, very different with a company that is willing to stick by your side, reach out to Alex and his team.
00:51:42
Speaker
Or the best e-commerce store in the industry, i will say. you need something in a pinch tentpros.com yeah it's 10 pros love it you guys just about thank you so much uh allowing me to be part of this and uh keep up the great work this is a an awesome podcast you have going yes sir thank you thank you