Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Power Center Weights
158 Plays2 years ago
Mike Bartos, owner of Power Center, shares his uncommon journey in the strength training industry. From starting as a gym owner to creating and selling his own equipment, Mike has faced challenges and taken risks to build his business. He emphasizes the importance of passion, perseverance, and gratitude in achieving success.
With a loyal customer base and a focus on providing high-quality products, Mike looks forward to expanding his product line and continuing to make a difference in the strength training community.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to the Uncommon Wealth Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
Everyone dreams of living an uncommon life and the best asset you have to achieve your dreams is you. Welcome to the Uncommon Wealth Podcast. We're going to introduce you to people who are living uncommonly. We're also going to give you some tools and strategies for building wealth and for pursuing an uncommon path that is uniquely right for you.
00:00:26
Speaker
Hello and welcome everybody to another episode of the uncommon wealth podcast where I'm your host Philip Ramsey and I'm Aaron Kramer.
Meet Our Guest: Mike Bartos
00:00:32
Speaker
I can't wait to get into this one. We have Mike Bartos in the house today. You're a meathead party. And let's be honest. Aaron is the one who got this guy. He couldn't be more excited. I've talked to him a little bit. I can't wait to unpack his uncommon journey. But if it's the first time you're listening to us because of the one and only Mike.
00:00:49
Speaker
we're financial advisors that believe you're your best asset. And so what we try to do in this show is to unpack Mike's specific uncommon journey on how he's gotten to where he's got, maybe the ups, the downs, the ins, the outs, maybe some mentors along the way. So we're glad you're here. We're glad you're here, Mike. Thanks for joining in, man. Yeah, thanks. Thank you very much for having me. I appreciate it.
Mike's Journey into Strength Training
00:01:10
Speaker
Yeah. So tell me this, you've, have you always had a passion for lifting and this stuff or look at them? Yeah. It seems like you do. Well, I'll tell you what, I was a really overweight kid growing up.
00:01:23
Speaker
and came from an athletic family. I had a brother that played Division I football. My dad was a Division I football guy. I eventually got to that point where I was about 12 or 13 years old where I was enough is enough. It really started out like just general exercise for me that I became interested in. I lost somewhere in the ballpark of about 70 or 80 pounds on my own when I was a young kid. Then going to a high school where football was a very prestigious thing,
00:01:53
Speaker
You show up on day one and you look around and you're the smallest guy in the room now. And you feel like you need to fix that. And then you start going the opposite direction. But I will say this with strength training, it hooked me the second I started, probably about 13 years old or so after the first time I trained, I said, this is absolutely what I love to do. And this is
Creating Power Center: The Business of Strength Equipment
00:02:15
Speaker
it. You started competing at a pretty young age, didn't you?
00:02:18
Speaker
Yeah, I did my my first power left to meet at 15. Yeah. All right. Yeah, that's awesome. Let me just stop for a second. So your business is called Power Center. Am I right? And you create and build and help like equipment for big dogs like Aaron Kramer, right? Like how would you describe that? And you tell you tell our listeners. Yeah. Well, I mean, we cater to people that are really heavily invested in strength training.
00:02:45
Speaker
And we've been very fortunate that strength training is a field that's growing. And it's really multifaceted because it's part of athletics, part of general fitness, but also part of strongman and powerlifting. So we started off as a business that had a few just very unique tools that were unique to us. And then we kind of used that momentum to just continue to build over the last several years. It's been a slow process, but we're here for the long haul.
00:03:14
Speaker
I would say that if you really had to get down to what the business is, we're a business that caters to people like us, people that really value strength training as a part of their life, whether it's for sports or general fitness. I'll tell you, as strength training continues to grow, there's a huge competitive base
00:03:40
Speaker
being is continuing to grow. There's never a plan to compete or anything like that, but it's still a huge part of their life. And I think it's a useful tool. It's not the only tool that could fill that gap for people, but I think everyone should have something in their life that they do purely because they love it.
00:03:58
Speaker
where there doesn't necessarily have to be a monetary reward for it. It's not something you have to do, but it's just something that you enjoy to do. And by putting a lot of effort into that, I tell you, it permeates into other areas of your life. There is a direct correlation, and I think Aaron could attest to this, for people that are really into training, when your training is going good, your business is going good.
00:04:22
Speaker
When your business is going good, your training is going good, your personal life is going good. So it's all intertwined.
00:04:29
Speaker
That's really cool. That's true. Is this always something that you wanted to do?
Early Entrepreneurial Challenges & Lessons
00:04:33
Speaker
So like when you're 15, you obviously kind of got the hankering for lifting. And then when did you're like, listen, I think I can do this better. Like this machine right here is not doing exactly what I want. We need to make it. How is that transition? I love this question because I mean, the things that you built are so amazing. And like you can tell somebody has to know a lot. But the fact that you put it together and built it,
00:04:57
Speaker
Quick, I want to put Aaron on the spot. Give me three things that he has invented that you love.
00:05:02
Speaker
Me? Yeah. Okay. PR platform. That's amazing. The stone of steel is absolutely amazing. Uh, what was the first piece of equipment I bought was the, um, pull pulling thing. Yeah. Mike, what was it like where you're staying on the platform? Yes. Contrast platform. And then the next couple of things I, on my list to buy from him is the F U bar and the, the chain yoke. What's that called?
00:05:29
Speaker
Yeah. Just, that's just chain yoke. Yes, sir. Chain yoke. Yep. Those are my top ones. I'm like, ah, game changers. Okay. He obviously is a believer, loves your stuff, but tell me how your process was like, okay, I can do this better. Tell us Mike.
00:05:45
Speaker
Well, I started out, you know, I was a gym owner pretty young. So I started saving money actually about 14 years old to open up a gym because I knew it's what I wanted to do. So just stashing away birthday card money, Christmas card money, stuff like that. And then I've always been somebody that enjoyed working. So
00:06:03
Speaker
through college, you know, typical jobs that college guys who do work on a warehouse, uh, weight tables, things like that. And, uh, I was doing that regularly, but I was also the strength coach at two different high schools for their football team. So I was like the 19 year old guy that just had a coffee in my hand constantly and was just running from one thing to the next, but I was able to save up enough money where I was able to, to, to make the initial investment to start my gym.
00:06:30
Speaker
It was shortly after I turned 23 years old, just a small facility about 1250 square feet minimum equipment. Really, the biggest asset there were the people. I mean, I'll tell you what. I mean, to this day, I'm no longer a gym owner, you know, we could talk about, you know, kind of moving on from there. But I feel genuine love and appreciation for these people because they came in, I opened a gym with seven people.
00:06:58
Speaker
uh you know which is a jump that's a pretty big deal right right yeah and so i was training them on the side you know doing some personal training with them and uh they were bought in 100 young kids country kids from the area that were just born and raised to work hard
00:07:14
Speaker
and they just kept bringing more friends. And they'd bring kids from different schools and then they would bring more kids. And pretty soon we had a facility that was just about 4,400 square feet. There were about 120, 125 high school athletes that were training there. And that was over the course of a couple of years.
00:07:35
Speaker
So being in the gym business, I think it actually gave me a pretty big advantage when I wanted to start developing equipment because I was really locked in on what the people in my own facility needed and I have a fairly obsessive personality. So if I if I saw a client that I was working with had a problem and there wasn't.
00:07:55
Speaker
a solution to fix it, I would just start thinking, what can I do for them? And so when we initially started making equipment, I did not have the intention of selling it. I just wanted to make some stuff for myself. And then as we began to build, I thought, well, there's quite a few people out there like me, so let's give this a go. And that was the next stage, which took several years of saving and planning to be able to take the next jump.
00:08:21
Speaker
Wow. So did you?
Innovating with Equipment: The Stone of Steel
00:08:23
Speaker
Yeah. So obviously there's saving involved. There's also momentum that you're seeing, like you're, you're becoming successful. And then is there like patents that you have to go after? Like that's a whole nother deal. Like there's one thing to train an individual. There's another thing to like create something, right?
00:08:40
Speaker
Yeah. And so we went through the whole process of patents and everything with patent lawyers, which gets very expensive, very fast. And then they, they, they get all the paperwork underway and they're like, you know, to go to court and defend this, it's going to cost you about 400 grand. Do you have that on hand? I'm like, yes. I've been saving my money from Christmas. Okay. Like, I don't know if that's going to be the big, yeah.
00:09:05
Speaker
Yeah. And so, I mean, it's really, it's a, there was a whole process of, of actually learning the ins and outs. And I think the natural progression of life should be, at least in my opinion, about every 10 years that goes by, you realize how stupid and naive you were 10 years before. Amen. I mean, like, I look back on this, I tell my wife this very regularly, like, like we were wild.
00:09:30
Speaker
like like I was never here yeah like I was never a drinker never a partier I've always really like always thought about you know training is the center of what I wanted to do and also training high school kids I mean I don't know if this could be just me it's not like it makes you a bad person but everywhere I went in public
00:09:49
Speaker
I saw people through the hundreds of kids I coach in high schools, kids that were at my gym. So like if coach Bartos was drinking a beer at the restaurant Friday night, you know, kids would be like turning their head sideways trying to figure out what is this guy doing? So I've lived a pretty clean life. Uh, but as far as some of those initial decisions, looking back on them, I mean, there was definitely a risk involved and, uh, and jumping in and, and I think,
00:10:17
Speaker
I think taking those risks early in life is probably the best way of going about it. Luckily, that's where we were because if you lose everything, you didn't lose all that much. And you got time to then recoup that. It's funny because in financial services, we would always say no matter what, your age is probably your biggest indicator of what your risk tolerance is when you're talking about putting your money in the market, the stock market or this, that, and the other.
00:10:44
Speaker
but I don't think advisors do a good job of saying, but like you can really be risky and just betting on yourself at a younger age. And that's exactly what you did. Maybe not without inherent coaching, right? Like you just kind of inherently knew this, but like that's, I feel like our job as financial advisors, when we say that you're your best asset, sometimes it's to really think through the risks involved and making sure you're okay with maybe if it goes south, right? But for you, you were like looking over at your wife now thinking, man,
00:11:14
Speaker
I can't believe we got through that because there is inherent risk, but you had the age on your side to be able to weather that, right? Absolutely. So the, the initial investment for our equipment business was actually made on our wedding day. So we got married on Valentine's day because it was the only day the hall wasn't booked and it was half off. So everyone was like, Oh, that's really romantic. And I was like, well, it was the, also the cheapest day of the year. Yes.
00:11:41
Speaker
That's romantic. And so we got married on that day. And so we had saved money for the equipment business for a fairly long time at this point. And we just made the decision. We said, hey, we had a pinch pennies for a little while.
00:11:58
Speaker
I mean, like anniversaries, birthdays, we'd go out to eat, but there was no eating out. I wouldn't even let myself like get a coffee at the drive-thru somewhere. It was just, everything was just put it away and planned. And so on our wedding day, we left enough money for, I purchased a duplex in my hometown about a year and a half before that. And so we were living there, which was nice because we had a renter on the other side.
00:12:25
Speaker
But we left enough money for our mortgage for two months, our cars for two months, and a couple odds and ends as far as expenses went. And then on our wedding day, we actually wrote a check for about 95% of everything we had. And I actually gave it to my dad because we were going out of town the next day and told him, hey, drop this in the mail for me on Monday. And that was the initial expense to be able to start up our business.
00:12:56
Speaker
came back from the honeymoon and back into reality and it was time to dance. What was that investment for? Exactly. Well, I'll tell you what, like with our stone, uh, which was the first product. So our, our initial business was just going to be stone and steel.com. Like I didn't think we were going to get another product. I thought that was kind of going to be the one that we sold. And, uh,
00:13:22
Speaker
But I'll tell you what, like the money that we put into just making prototypes. So you're, you're buying low quantities of
00:13:31
Speaker
of raw materials that are custom formed that cost a lot of money just to set up. You contact these places and they're like, well, we have a $1,500 setup fee. And then the materials on top. And then there's the initial investment for the initial inventory, but also things like tooling. So nobody had the tooling that we needed to be able to produce these things. So we had to pay upfront for that, which
00:13:56
Speaker
Just for the two stones was, you know, in the ballpark of like 25 or $28,000. Oh, sure. Just for the tooling to be made for those two things. Wow. Wow. And then away you go on your honeymoon.
00:14:08
Speaker
First off, I want to talk about it, but I think Aaron has a question, but we have to talk about how supportive your spouse was. There's not a lot of people out there. Yeah, babe, I love you. Let's go ahead and drop that in the mailbox, right? Like how amazing is that? And I would say that's a common theme of what we've done 182 actually episodes of our podcast.
00:14:28
Speaker
And that's a common theme that we've seen, Mike, is the house. If your spouse isn't supportive, don't even go down this route, because that is almost the only one you can look over to when things get dicey and they're still like, I'm right here with you. Like versus if they ever have a flick of doubt, no matter what, when that when the waves come, they're done, you know, but obviously your spouse, your wife is supportive and such that she's looking.
00:14:55
Speaker
Absolutely. I think there's another side of that too. Some of the girls that I trained over the years got older and they were either at the very talent of college or leaving college and getting into that age where they're talking about getting engaged, the long-term boyfriends and stuff. I always try to get this point across as well. I've been fortunate to have a lot of really good men in my family and in my life.
00:15:21
Speaker
And if you're a female and you do offer that support and the guy in your life is trying to do something and he feels that he will work himself to death to not let you down. Yeah. And I try to communicate that to young girls all the time. Like your support is literally like a superpower.
00:15:41
Speaker
You know, it will make the guy in their life do things that he's probably not even capable of fricking. Just because he doesn't want to lay you down. I mean, I had this extreme fear of, you know, we dumped everything he had into this. The conversation that it didn't work out, like the disappointment in that, you know, I did not want to let that happen. And so.
00:16:03
Speaker
It was pretty much do whatever needed to be done. Gosh, I love that. I always tell people like when the whole world's against me, but my wife is with me, I'll conquer the world.
00:16:14
Speaker
But when the whole world's with me, my wife's against me, like the whole world's upside down. Like what's happening? Where's every, it doesn't matter. So to edify your point. I love that. All right, Eric, go ahead, buddy. I'm going to get this whole, you're totally good. So sorry. I got to know, like, how'd you come up with the stone of steel? Cause we, like being, I competed in strong man, not near as much as you, but I like babbled in it and it's like stones are amazing, but it's a freaking event. Cause you know, you got to put on tacky and all that stuff. And then you come out with the stone of steel. I remember when you, it got released, I was like,
00:16:43
Speaker
Mind blown and just my small group that we did strongly. We're all like drooling over it. So how'd you
00:16:52
Speaker
It actually happened because I was training with some guys at my own gym in the morning. And you know, we had a good amount of stones, but the stones went from we had some lighter ones in the hundreds, we had an 18 inch that was 240. And then it jumped like into the 330s and 350s. So the one guy that was training with us at the time, he picked up the 240 stone kind of twisted sideways with it dropped it and it broke in half. And he wasn't strong enough to pick up the
00:17:19
Speaker
the heavier stones. And so I kind of came across this thought where I was thinking, well, I'm going to have to make more stones now, obviously, for this guy. And that seems like a fairly big inconvenience to bring seven or eight more of these into play at the gym, just so we have some things in between. And so I just had the idea of thinking, hey, get some steel hemispheres, put a shaft in there, load plates on it. This is going to be easy.
00:17:46
Speaker
In my mind, I thought that was going to be a process that lasted about two weeks until it was finished. Then I went down a rabbit hole that ended up being about two and a half years to actually get the first prototype made. Expense was a factor in it initially, but also just finding the people to actually form hemispheres for us and get the materials that we needed.
00:18:14
Speaker
probably a couple hundred people that have the capacity to do that type of custom forming.
00:18:19
Speaker
I didn't really know anything about the process. So I just started cold calling people and I kept a notebook and, uh, just so I wasn't calling people twice.
Growth, Profitability, and Future Goals
00:18:28
Speaker
And I didn't have like, some people hung up on me. People are like, what are you trying to do? And just, no, we don't do that. And, uh, you know, but, but in the end it was just eventually got there. But, you know, it really just honestly, like a lot of the stuff just came out of necessity.
00:18:46
Speaker
that I just thought it would make my gym better. And so, you know, I made one for us and, and, and other people ended up enjoying it. Yeah. I mean, the things like life giving for one, because I know when I was doing stones here, you want to warm up, you know, it's like anything, you don't want to just jump into a big weight. It's like, but with stones, like actual, like the stones, it's hard. Cause you know, you would say you want to warm up with a hundred pound. The form completely changes as the diameter changes.
00:19:15
Speaker
But with yours, as you're putting weight in it, the diameter gets to stay the same, but the weight changes. And so then you can like really warm up into it and they'll help prevent injuries. I got to just talk about it because I'm not that guy. So are you the one that used the stones to then put it like on something? Is that what you do? Okay. All right. Thank you.
00:19:35
Speaker
Yeah, but also for our listeners like to know like what we're talking about like and what Mike's accomplished because if you're not a meathead This is like kind of hard to follow. Yeah, right like this stone of steel has been used at the Arnold It's been used at like major competitions like
00:19:50
Speaker
for other guys like in the things, right, Mike? Yeah. Yeah. And I tell you, and it's been used in a lot of, you know, very large contests, but I really, I, you know, you were talking about even the training aspect of it. Uh, you know, that consistent diameter is, is one thing, but I almost say it's almost like the marriage of a stone in the barbell, you know, uh, there's the, the constant, the constant size for as far as specificity of technique, but also, uh, incremental loading.
00:20:20
Speaker
And, uh, you know, just being able to make a long-term progression, a couple pounds at a time, rather than have to go from lifting the 300 pound stone to the 360 pounds stone. Uh, you know, it kind of allows you to bridge that bridge that gap. So from a training standpoint, uh, you know, you hit the nail on the head, uh, the consistent size and the incremental loading has been, I think the thing that's made it really popular from a training standpoint. Yeah. So I didn't get to this point in my career because I remember emailing, you know, I don't know if you remember this one, but like, this is a while ago.
00:20:50
Speaker
But like, I struggled, I couldn't get the 400 pound stone because it jumps up from like, is it the, is it 21 or 22 diameter? Is it four pound mold? Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's, yeah, I think it's 21 possibly. Yeah. Yeah. So like we had a stone of steel and I can load like no stickiness. Like I could do like a 380 and I was like, sweet.
00:21:11
Speaker
can't get the four, oh, the 400. Cause the diameter, I don't know the squeezing power. So like, I remember emailing, he was like, can you do a custom one? Like I don't have the money yet, but like, Oh, and you said, yeah, I remember that email. Yeah. Cause I was like super excited about it. And I was like, okay, when I get the money, I'm going to do this. Well, all the injuries happened. I was like, I never got there, but like I was super stoked about cause it was going to help with that. So let's talk about, I want to kind of pull back. So,
00:21:39
Speaker
What at one point in your life and career, I should say, did you feel like, oh shoot, like this isn't going anywhere. Like, and I'm kind of hyped up on this and we're going to do a podcast, a whole podcast on this, but there's a book called chop wood carry or chop wood, carry water. Um, and it's by, I don't know.
00:21:57
Speaker
Joshua, it's. McCaff. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, it's it's brilliant. And because it's like just keep doing the small things and in that produces greatness. But enjoy the small things because that ends up being the best part of the experience. It's not the top of the mountain. It's this. So at what point did you feel like I've been watering this bamboo for God knows how many years and I've not seen any growth. Did you ever have that experience or we just like a cakewalk?
00:22:27
Speaker
Yeah. Like the first few years, you know, on stop every, every day for three or four years. Right. Yeah. And, uh, you know, I would laugh, you know, my wife and I, sometimes we joke about this, but you know, to help promote the business and also the sport, you know, we sponsored a lot of events early on.
00:22:46
Speaker
And so we pretty much traveled around the country constantly. Even being a full-time gym owner, we were doing like 20 to 26 cities a year. And most of this was done hauling equipment in a box truck. We would just sleep in the back of the box truck in a Walmart parking lot quite a few nights and just kind of travel along. But we would go to these shows and people would say things to my wife, like, what do you do for a living? And she said she's a nurse. And they're like, why do you work?
00:23:13
Speaker
Like I'm like, cause we have like a mortgage and kind of like, you know, and the perception of the way business begins and the reality of it are two entirely different things. Yeah. And so I tell everybody this when they're starting a business, you know, business isn't a vacation. Uh, it's not a trip. It is an adventure. And inherently what the difference between a trip and an adventure is, you know,
00:23:42
Speaker
When you go on an adventure, there's going to be some hazard along the way. When you start a business, you face the reality that you could lose everything every single day. There's going to be speed bumps in the beginning just because you don't have a wealth of knowledge and experience and wisdom that's earned over decades. I don't deter people from going into business. I don't tell them that to try and scare them or make them go the opposite direction, but it's just a bit of a warning.
00:24:09
Speaker
Most people that end up doing well in business have an adventurous side to them where they're okay not knowing that outcome all the time. Just kind of set off and figure it out as it goes. The first few years were certainly quite a few ups and downs.
00:24:27
Speaker
You know, I think if you don't have the stomach for that, uh, it could get, you could just pack it in fairly early. Yeah. So how much did like in your few years, I know I warned you would ask these questions cause it really helps our listeners. You, we got how much you took you to get going. What that check you had to write, but like.
00:24:45
Speaker
When did you actually start making money? Like profit, like not dumping money into the business, but you actually like, Hey, we're paying ourselves hemorrhage. I say this very proudly. I wrote myself my first paycheck at month 50. Oh, nice. Yeah. So it was a four years and two months until I got the first paycheck. It was for a $400 paycheck paycheck. Number one.
00:25:11
Speaker
And, uh, you know, and so it's one of those things where, you know, it definitely took some time. I mean, I was really, I was training people at the gym full time. That was my source of income, but I was probably also investing about 25 or 30% of that income back into the other business. Yeah, right. Okay. So how long has it officially been? I was going to look at this and I didn't get to it, but like, how long has the business been open?
00:25:37
Speaker
We just had eight years, eight years. OK, eight years. So like, where are you at now? Like for paying yourself? Like a rough estimate. You don't need to get like this is like it's personal. So like for your success, because like I am like over here with goosebumps, like so happy that you've done all this because one, I benefit from your success. Like I get to buy your equipment. But like, so how's it now? Like out of like eight years, I love this because like our industry is so similar to this.
00:26:04
Speaker
and growing. And I love the struggle because like you get people like you that are so real about like what it takes to be successful. Yeah. So are you like, yeah, so did you're like, I guess a good question. Could your wife quit her job and be a homemaker if she wanted to at this point? I mean, if she wanted to stay at home, she could stay at home right now. I mean, we would definitely have to be
00:26:26
Speaker
you know, a bit more careful with things. You know, Amazon would have to slow down a little bit. Yes. And so, I mean, my goodness, what a business model they got. But I mean, if you wanted to do that, we could certainly do that. You know, I say we're a long way from getting to where we would eventually like to be. There's definitely been quite a bit of progress
00:26:50
Speaker
You know, the big turning point for me was because I had success at my gym. So from going where I was having a really good income at the gym to, you know, down to probably, you know, at some points, nothing, but, you know, for a few years there, you know, 50 or 60% of that, you know, it felt good to kind of break through to where I was earning
00:27:13
Speaker
a good amount more than I was earning at the gym. And that was kind of like a breakthrough where I felt like that it surpassed what the last stage of life was. And so that was a good moment. So there's definite progress. And I'll tell you what, when a business owner says money doesn't matter to them, I find that to be extremely either crazy or disingenuous. I mean, money definitely matters. I'll be the first person to tell you, I mean, just from
00:27:42
Speaker
you have bills that need to be paid. So to say money doesn't matter. But I mean, everybody wants to have a nice life and everybody wants to be able to. Yeah, it's like like points on a scoreboard. Yes, you know. And so.
00:27:58
Speaker
Yeah, there's a way of looking at that and everybody wants to be able to provide a nice life for their their family. But like, I wear sweatpants and a t shirt every day. I'm not like, I don't need extravagant things. I mean, my home gym is like the extravagant thing I have in my life. And I really don't need that. And so I will say, you know, being able to provide a better life for my family is a huge driving factor for me. But
00:28:26
Speaker
You know, as far as having like a goal saying I need to make X amount to be successful, right? That's not something that really crosses my mind. I just like to see that we keep moving forward. Yeah, I will say that there are in my mind two phases of a business and the first phase is like when is that first paycheck come?
00:28:44
Speaker
And that was 50, what was it? 50 months for you. And then the next thing is I think of like, okay, but when can I like feel good about quitting my side gig? And you found that, right? And then the next thing after this, like there's always phases I feel like I have, I know Aaron has and all the other businesses I have that are kind of just like points on the scoreboard, like you say. And it's helpful to have those things be accomplished. And there's also helpful to like, okay,
00:29:14
Speaker
Here's the goals. This is how we're going to track it to get there. How many employees do you have currently? Do you have any?
Customer Gratitude and Business Ethics
00:29:20
Speaker
Yeah, we have, we have five people that work with us, but my wife does quite a bit of, of workforce too, as far as, you know, paperwork and things like that. Nice. Did she get paid for that?
00:29:31
Speaker
Okay. Usually they're like, Oh yeah, she did a lot of it, but they don't get paid. That's a phase. So I think there's just like, that's the way business owners think when they jump into this. Okay. The first phase is this, then the next phase is that. Um, so I think it's kind of neat to see that way and just see how a business owner thinks. Cause I think that way too, it's not like I want to make as much money in the world. Like there's never enough money. Like, but there are phases that I feel like we can directly give us indication of how the health of our business are going. Right.
00:30:00
Speaker
Absolutely. And I mean, it's like anything else, even with training, you get 10 more pounds on the bar, that's the incentive to keep moving forward. I mean, you get that little taste of progress, and it makes you want to keep moving and moving. And, and I think business is exactly the same. And that's, again, one of those things that I think are mirrored between the two is, you know, really with strength training, you know, the PR, the personal record is what keeps everybody coming back because
00:30:28
Speaker
I was told once when I was a young kid, a guy told me, he said, don't ever let your head get too big. Because unless you broke an all-time world record today, the only reason you won that meet is the stronger guy didn't show up. Amen to that. And I think business is the same. You can do really well, but I don't think I'm ever going to be Elon Musk. I'm OK with that. There's always going to be someone out there earning more, and that's OK with me.
00:30:55
Speaker
Yeah. I also got sick because I can tell just talking to you like, and I think this looking at this for other business owners that we talked to and we get, you know, learn from is that you're not chasing money. Like you're, you're chasing to help people and you're chasing to make a difference. And.
00:31:10
Speaker
I think money shows the success of what you're doing, because people find it valuable. Myself, I gig out to go on your website and start adding things to my list of things I want to buy, because you're producing things that other people truly and other meatheads truly value. That's the ultimate reward, and it's measured by the fact that people are willing to buy it and utilize it for you. But you're chasing it. You're chasing and making a difference in people's lives.
00:31:40
Speaker
And it just happens to the fact that like you get rewarded with it financially. Yeah. I mean, I, I feel incredibly blessed. I mean, I realized that I'm in a situation where not everybody gets to do what they love for a living every day. Uh, I mean, I tell you what, I mean, I feel genuine gratitude for that. Uh, one thing I started when we were young and I, you know, the business was young and I continue to do now is, uh, it doesn't matter who orders off of us. You could spend.
00:32:08
Speaker
you know, $18 with us or $5,000 or $8,000 with us. And, you know, I write every person a thank you card. You know, it takes me a good amount of time in the morning. I'm a up early kind of guy. So I spend my first hour and a half or so every day doing that. And
00:32:26
Speaker
You know, because it comes from a truly a place of gratitude, one, for allowing me to get up every day and do something that I truly love doing every day. But also going back to those beginning years of business, I tell everybody that one of the greatest gifts you'll ever have in your life is experiencing poverty. Like, you know, when you're nervous, like, I mean, there were years in our business where I was going to the scrapyard on Friday, so I had grocery money on Saturday, you know, on Friday, so I had grocery money on Saturday.
00:32:55
Speaker
And when you experience that and somebody chooses to take the money that they had to work really hard for and invested in something, and you realize that, hey, that in 2023, there's no lack of options of where people could buy strength training equipment from. And they choose to invest with your business. That's something I promise I'll never take for granted because being on the other side of that, it's a stressful and a scary situation.
00:33:24
Speaker
But I do think that is something that if you really pay attention during that period, that could be an asset and a strength for you for the rest of your life.
00:33:32
Speaker
Oh, yeah. I can tell you being on the end of you like writing a card, your card came in the mail. And it was funny because I remember sitting at an old island. I was reading it. And when I was like, damn, I bet I can guess that Mike actually wrote this. I see it. And also because like and I say this because I my your handwriting will make mine look like I mean,
00:33:54
Speaker
My handwriting sucks. Okay. So yours looks way better than mine, but I know when you got me big meat paws, it's really just hard to have beautiful handwriting first. I'm like, yeah, he wrote this. Like I looked at my wife. I was like, he actually wrote this and I just bought one thing. Yeah. You know, I've kind of fascinating right now in the first generational business owner, because a lot of times they've had a story about the scrapyard.
Reflecting on First-Generation Business Ownership
00:34:19
Speaker
Like they've had to sacrifice in a way that the second generational person that takes over the business maybe didn't have to sacrifice for that make sense and i feel like there's a something that is inherent gift in being the first person that create something because we have found out like what rock bottom is.
00:34:39
Speaker
And there's a value there that like we can look at across the room and see like you have the same thing. And then I almost I'm like to truly it's a gift. And I think a lot of people like I will avoid that like the plague. And again, those aren't the people who are going on adventures. They're going on vacations or whatever you said. Yeah. So yeah. And when you look back, you know, honestly, a lot of the most difficult times end up being the best times. Yes. Most character building. And when you look back at it, you know, it's
00:35:07
Speaker
I mean, really, I wouldn't want it like, I think if we just started a business and it just blew up on, you know, the first year, the first six months, and we didn't go through the same things, I would have a completely different perspective. I mean, even at the gym, I had a tremendous gratitude that was a little bit different, because I saw these people and I interacted with them face to face, you know, not through the internet. And so, you know, you build relationships, you end up at graduation parties, weddings, things like that.
00:35:34
Speaker
Um, but I'm going to be honest with you, uh, like it's from a coaching perspective, uh, not to sound like egotistical. Like I'm, I'm, I'm good at working with kids. I still go over. I'm a, uh, it's nice. Now I'm a volunteer strength coach at a local high school right now to kind of get my coaching checks. And it's one of the schools that I coached at when I was young and we have a great football program and really good kids, but, uh, you know, it's one of those things where it's like,
00:36:02
Speaker
being face to face with someone and seeing them every day. Uh, and you're, you're pretty good socially, especially with young people, not to get them really into things. I had this kind of perception with like business was super easy because it started out and I had great kids and I was aware of that, but it just, everything happened so fast. Like I went from, I was training like seven people to in the 50 to 60 range in the matter of a few months. And, uh,
00:36:30
Speaker
And so this business gave me a completely different perspective and I'm thankful for that. Yeah, that's awesome. Let's talk about this. So we talked about phases. What's the next phase for your business for power center? What are you thinking?
00:36:43
Speaker
Well, I mean, I want to keep just getting really high quality, useful products out there. There's, you know, once we, we kind of went through a really great stage this year where we were able to ramp up the inventory quite a bit. You know, everyone was always really happy with the quality of the products. We always had respectable lead times when COVID hit like everybody else.
00:37:06
Speaker
lead times went through the roof and that really bothered me, you know, just having people wait excessive times for things. I mean, I will tell you, there were plenty of nights where I laid in bed with anxiety and just didn't sleep, you know, just wanting to be able to fill orders and material getting delayed for three or four weeks.
00:37:22
Speaker
So my main priority kind of over the last year and a half or so was to bring the quality products that we have already to the consumer as fast as possible. So a lot of our products shift the next day now.
00:37:36
Speaker
And even things that have a color option that got to get powder coated, generally those ship within about a week or a week and a half. So that was kind of the stage that we went through this year, and we were pretty successful with it. I have the direct numbers, but it's close to 95% of our orders that we're supposed to ship in one day or less ship the same day, which was a big jump.
00:38:01
Speaker
So I think the next stage is going to be able to just keep increasing the product line. I mean, we're extremely fortunate to have a really loyal customer base, even looking at the analytics, about 65% of our business is repeat business right now, as far as customers that continue to come back. And so, you know, there's just, again, being able to provide more for them to be able to meet more of their training needs. And then,
00:38:28
Speaker
Be able to replicate those fast lead times and and quick shipping on on a larger product line. That's good. That's awesome. That's good, man
00:38:36
Speaker
Well, Mike, I can't thank you enough for one, just like impacting other people like you are taking the risk on yourself. I won kudos to your wife. I hope that you're going to take her on another honeymoon one of these days that you can actually like fully engage it. That's it. Well, we're going to dinner tonight at seven. So that'll be, uh, there you go. So yeah, man, I got to ask and I got a listeners need to know, um,
00:39:00
Speaker
What are your, what's your PR? Isn't that right now? Cause I, since I follow you, I've like, did you officially hit 800 on cause I know you were going for 800 on deadlift. Yeah, I ended up pulling eight 40 on that. And so, uh, eight, eight 40 on the deadlift. And so, uh,
00:39:19
Speaker
right now I've actually I've had some hip like adductor issues for for a while and I've kind of worked through that and so I'm hoping to get the squad up into that 800 pound range here real soon uh after about just uh
00:39:33
Speaker
It was seven weeks back from taking quite a long break from squatting. I hit a fairly easy 730. I saw that. Yeah, so I'm hoping to be able to break into the 800s on a squat. And so my bench has been a work in progress, just elbow issues, shoulder issues. The best bench I've ever done touch and go was 475. That was a few years ago. And but like, I'm pretty much in a rebuilding stage with that right now.
00:40:00
Speaker
Okay. Dang. That's so awesome. I'm just like dreaming to like hit 800 one day on deadlifts. That's all I want. Well, listen, if I pulled 800, you can pull 800. I promise you that you're a big guy. Well, I got it. Like, I don't know you're bigger than I am, but I like that. Uh,
00:40:20
Speaker
For us, it's like the sitting out, sitting all day. I was texting you this, but like sitting all day sucks. So, yeah. Oh, it beats up. My, my training partner, Zach was a, he's quite an 843 pounds raw as a really like 242. He weighed 227. He was only 23 years old. Oh my God. And you know, young, young guy. So.
00:40:43
Speaker
Uh, really gifted, you know, he's, he's entered a different stage of life now, you know, working like crazy and everything. He still, he still comes and out squats me every Sunday. And that's like the day he shows up and I'm like, you do nothing else and you're still stronger than me. But, uh, you know, really gifted guy, but I'll tell you what, when he took his first office job and he was sitting 50 or 60 hours a week.
00:41:08
Speaker
He started having knee pain. He started having hip pain. He started having back pain. Like he came fresh off of college football with no discomfort whatsoever, no injuries. And then six months of office work and he has knee and hip pain. Yeah. And, uh, you know, it definitely will. I'll tell you, it definitely beats you up. Just the sitting all day. They can like, I think get into your thirties, they can end your career. Like, yeah, I think I told you, like, I mean, I blew out my pack.
00:41:36
Speaker
So I mean like clean off on the way down because you know most guys tear their pick on the way up But mine was on the way down like I think I had I had 535 on there but with bands like On the way down just like pop pop pop and it's like it was done. I'm done. You know, it's like yeah That's a frustrating experience. Yeah, no big setback like that. I
00:41:59
Speaker
So, but dude, that's awesome. I'm so happy. Like you, you, you transformed me. You do a big thing. So I, but I had to have a little listeners know that like, yeah, you, you throw big weight, big weight around. Thank you. So thank you, Mike. Thanks for being on, on Commonwealth podcast. I've been your host, Philip Ramsey. And I'm Aaron Kramer. Until next time, go lift something heavy and go impact somebody. Yeah. Thanks for listening.
00:42:22
Speaker
That's all for this episode, brought to you by Uncommon Wealth Partners. Be sure to visit uncommonwealth.com to learn more about our services. Don't miss an episode as we introduce you to inspiring people who are actively pursuing an uncommon life.