Dale Majors: Seeing Value Where Others Don’t

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Hey listeners, it’s time for a, another podcast on learning from others. The sustainment from SEO national with Kyle. And today I have a new friend, Dale majors, uh, Dale he’s from Utah as well, and we ended up having some mutual contacts and we got a little background together. So I’m excited to have Dale on the, on the call.

He’s got a rich business background with some nice stories. Welcome Dale. Hello? Hello. Thanks. So you are from originally from salt Lake Rose Park area. Yeah. Cool. Um, and you’re a big traveler. I’m a little, I’m a little jealous of that. I have the freedom to work from wherever and I don’t do it as much as I should.

So you’re more adventurous than I am. So why don’t we kind of start with some of the fun stuff? Um, actually let’s, let’s give it, give a super condensed background, uh, tell us, uh, the company that you’re most associated with and kind of the 10 seconds spill of what it is. And I think that’s a good segue for us to start talking about your, your adventures.

Okay. Cool. So I’m in the middle of starting a few new things. Um, we bought a little product brand named bright lab lights, and I’m also doing some CEO, executive coaching and, um, investing. So, but the company I had was called bike wagon.com. Yeah. So bike wagon, I’m familiar with, um, I cycle and I had a, quite something I would buy from bike wagon, um, through, through their Eva, Eva channel.

So interesting. I ended up meeting with yeah. With Dale later and find out he was the one that started backpacking. So, um, why don’t we start there? Why don’t you give me the background and we’ve kind of talked offline about, uh, what brought you to the point where you said, Hey, maybe I, maybe I should jump into the entrepreneur world and do my own thing and give us, give us, give the listeners your travel story that you had shared with me the quick two minute version.

Oh, no, we can go the whole thing, whatever you want to do. Here’s the overall here’s the overall story is, so I grew up in Rose Park. I’m one of nine kids. And, uh, when I was in high school, let’s see my junior year, I stumbled into a store called NPS and they’d sell salvage freight. Did you know, do you know about NPS?

You were Kyle. I haven’t. Okay. So if I send you something in the mail and the label gets ripped off, or it’s hard to identify, it’ll go to this place called NPS. And then they will try to recover some of the money for ups by selling it. So I go to this store and I started buying, um, bike parts, or really any, anything and everything.

I even bought a serving scope once for 80 bucks until the per 600. Right. So I’d buy things there and then resell them on eBay. And that’s, that’s how I got into selling online. And, uh, so I did that for about a year. I went on a mission for the Mormon church. I got back and some friends and I rode our bikes from Canada to Mexico.

Um, it was kind of an ambition we had when we were I’m in school. So we took a grade that’s up to Seattle road, up to port Angeles and then wrote down the coast six weeks. Um, when I got back. I kind of had an epiphany that if I didn’t become an entrepreneur, I wouldn’t be able to do that again. So I was really motive to be in business for myself.

Yeah. And that was in 2004 and that’s when we started by collagens. So I actually, I got with my dad, um, who had a job change at the time and wasn’t too excited about what he was doing. And we just became partners, you know, no partnership agreement. We just said, Hey, give me a credit card, you know, with a $20,000 limit on it.

And let’s just be in business together. Once we can replace your salary, you can quit your job. And, um, he wasn’t making too much at the time. So, um, you kind of had the job changed and took a big pay cut. He still had six kids at home at the time, and that’s when we, uh, started bike wagon and we ate the eventually.

Um, grew that over about 11 years to, um, 10 million in revenue in 2015, and then we sold it. That’s cool. Um, you had, uh, you know, the, the part that I found interesting, where we talked about offline was, um, how I found it. Interesting. You know, it’s hard for any business owner to find balance where they can.

I have a personal life, let, let alone leave for an extended period of time. And I think there’s some value in there for our listeners. Maybe you can share a story. I think you left for two months. Is that right? Yeah. Okay. So, so tell us, tell us a story about, um, what you did for two months and how you think your, what.

Contributed to your ability to successfully be, and not like to have your business function efficiently, but, uh, to actually grow to in your absence. Okay, cool. Well, so what I’ve taken away, a lot of trips, you know, whether it’s for a week or two weeks or, you know, a month, two months. And, um, so I think that.

I talk about the two month trip. Right. You always talk about the coolest thing you’ve done, but yeah, I think everybody needs to realize that that, um, for every two months trip there were, you know, 10, 10 week long trips or small, smaller things that you do. Right. So, yeah. Um, the first, uh, was it, so last summer we went for two months, but that I had sold my business and I wasn’t super busy then.

So three years earlier, um, I had about 28 employees and. And I left for two months and that time, um, I’d really been working out for, um, I’ve been working up the whole time to get back to that. So I guess it’s important to have that a lot of times people don’t even have that in their window of opportunity.

Thinking about thinking about that. They don’t think I want to leave for two months. We just get satisfied with the occasional week long vacation or two week long vacation. So I think it’s important, you know, when starting a business to just, uh, there’s the philosophy of, you know, the E-Myth creating a business instead of creating a job.

Um, and I think it’s important to have that in your mind from the very beginning that you want to create something that operates independent of you so you can leave it. So it’s, so it’s not, um, Yeah. So if you leave that, it doesn’t just go away. Yeah. What was, what was the hardest part about setting that up?

Was it logistics with your inventory? Was it finding a team that you can trust to manage the responsibilities? I’m sure. Sure. Yeah. Well, I think it’s all the team. A lot of Amazon businesses now are much easier to leave because you have fulfillment, but you know, you have fulfillment centers. And you have FDA handling the FDA handling the, the, uh, customer service.

So for me, it was building a team, the people cause we had at the time we had, you know, like I said, 28 employees, we were selling on eBay, Amazon, you know, Walmart, other marketplaces, our own website. We had, you know, tens of thousands wires that we were ordering from every week. So there’s a lot of, um, A lot of ordering new inventory and receiving new inventory.

Um, so it really had to do with training and getting good employees onboard and keeping, keeping a good team. So, um, question, um, kind of backtrack a little bit to your, um, like trip takeaways from that six weeks. I’m assuming you said you returned to about 2122. Say that again. About your bike trip, just wondering, you know, six weeks you’re about what?

21, 22. I was 21. Are there any big takeaways from that life lessons you learned? You know, I think what I learned is that, uh, um, you can just make things work and that, you know, especially a big trip, like, uh, something that’s. You’re having to travel 2000 miles. There’s a lot of things that can happen, whether it’s crashing and ripping your rear derailleur off and being stuck outside of the story and then having to, you know, fix your chain and right over the bridge in a, in a, on a single speed bike and, you know, in a rainstorm or, you know, uh, just improvising.

I think the biggest thing that came for me was more belief in self. And I think my, my, uh, uh, Yeah. The locus of control, the ability to which you kind of control your life’s outcome. I think that was helpful for me to go on a trip like that and realize that you just have to keep going and India you’ll end up where you want to go.

If you just keep trudging along long enough. So I’d say self-worth was probably, um, something and then, and then a. I just listened to motivational books the whole time, you know, on a cassette player. So I was still in pretty jazzed about my abilities, you know, achieve anything I wanted in this world. So, and a lot of the, a lot of the ideas that I, you know, of what got me to travel for two months when I was older with that belief, it’s an idea that, that, um, I wanted to build a business, not a job.

I didn’t want to just make a bunch of money that I had to be at, where I had to be involved in the day to day. Um, I did multilevel marketing for like 10 months when I was 21. And what I really loved about multilevel marketing. I hated most things, but what I really loved was the focus on residual income and building systems that make money without you.

So they they’d make fun of, Oh, you don’t want to be a lawyer cause you have to build by the hour. You don’t want to be a surgeon, because if you break your hand, you’re done you’re toast. You want to build something, you want to build something that’s independent of you that will make money. Um, even if you’re just sleeping or if you’re gone, or if you have nothing to do with it anymore, it’s something you own that makes money.

So, um, that, that, yeah, time 21, 22 years old, it was pretty formative and kind of created the bedrock for me to do everything else I did because I was always trying to satisfy that. Requirement of creating something that would work without me. I agree with all of that, but I think that’s the first time I’ve ever heard anybody say anything about MLS.

Oh, I love it. Well, they’ve got to get the, that self-help element of it is really good. Cause you’re just listening. They just hired good motivational speakers, right? Yeah. Yeah. So how do you, um, so we’re talking a little bit more about bike lag, and then we’ll get into some of your new stuff. Um, how did you get from buying from NPS to doing, uh, you know, structured inventory buys, like walk me through, I mean, that’s a pretty big transition to go from just random inventory to reoccurring inventory demands.

Yeah. Well, okay. So this was in 2005 when I was going to a NPS. Mmm, the next, uh, the next, uh, step from that was, um, going to bike swaps. I had a friend of mine that invited me to go to a bike, swap with him, cause he just wanted help. And I thought, Hey, that’d be, you know, interesting. Let’s check it out. Um, I’ve always been pretty willing to try new things out, you know, to my benefit and maybe detriment sometimes.

But I went to a, um, Um, and I say detriment just from the lack of focus, right? A lot of times, if you’re, if you’re always willing to look under every rock out of curiosity, um, it can, it can, uh, heard the things that you just need to focus on. But I went to a bike, swap all these, all these bikes, all these different, um, shops and bike manufacturers and everybody we’re, we’re bringing products there to liquidate them to consumers at really cheap prices.

So I would, um, after that first swap, I started driving a minivan to all of them. Um, you know, Arizona, San Francisco, Los Angeles, you know, anywhere I could drive sometimes I’d fly. And just fill a minivan full of bike parts to bring him back. So I’d spend, I had a Fanny pack that I put like 10, 15, $20,000 then, and spend money, um, at these shows on the weekend, because when we were first selling online, I’d go to trade shows like Interbike and nobody would sell things to me because we didn’t really have much of a business.

So I went for years and they would just, um, and I would just get turned down by, by vendors to sell their new products. And at the early days of the internet, if you had good product to sell, then it would sell. So there was, so there were, um, there weren’t nearly as many sellers back then. So if you could put product online, it would, it would move.

So we moved. So we did NPS. Then we did bike swaps and then we’d go to different trade shows and convince vendors to sell us their closeout out products. And then as we, as we got a bike shop and, and develop them, our website, we started selling new product as well. And it just kind of, it all kind of snowballed.

What do you think? And I saw Kyle dyes get our big about the Fanny facts. Carrying around all that cash. Yeah. So what do you think contributed most? Um, you know, did you have any continuing education that you think contributed to this, or do you think it was really about, um, you know, qualifying your team and building a network of people that you work with that contributed the most or.

Yeah, well, I think, um, a couple things continue, you know, continued education. I went to school for all, but seven, seven classes for my bachelor’s at the U university of Utah getting a business administration degree. So I got, I guess, three years of college done. Um, I had some good professors that, um, especially in junior college that would help me.

It would let me bounce ideas off of them. So I thought that was really helpful. Um, I had an older brother who had, who got an audible account when they used to send out free little MP3 players. And so we’ve had an audible account for like 15 years and I’ve listened to probably 250 books on, on that, um, audible account.

So I love audible is probably. Mostly, I would attribute a lot of my mindset to just different books that I’ve read. And, uh, and even my team, like I think, I think it was working with and developing my team, you know, we really felt like we were on a journey. So it wasn’t just me reading the books. I have several employees that have read 50 plus of them, of those books.

So we’d, we’d read a lot of books together and we. You know, we were pretty motivated to, to be good business people, uh, on, uh, do you have any books that stand out that you’d recommend as kind of maybe top one, top two, top three kind of thing? Yeah. So from a, uh, one of my favorite books that I listened to on that bike trip, and I’ve probably read it 15 times, um, is goals by Brian, Tracy, and it’s only three hours.

It’s quick. Um, That’s a favorite and then a new favorite that I’ve listened to a few times is, uh, by Clayton Christianson. He’s the one that wrote an innovators, the innovators, dilemma, and innovator solution. He’s the Harvard, uh, um, professor, so teaches business strategy and he has a business strategy book called how will you measure or it’s a personal strategy book called how will you measure your life?

And that’s a short, really good book too. So, and I love the power of habit. Yeah, I haven’t heard about, um, first two, I’m making notes. I’m gonna go check them out. Cool. So, um, we talked about, you had mentioned that a fine. So you did, uh, the, the two month trip and then you did it again recently, right? With your kids.

So this time, right? Yeah. Yeah. Well, so I did it, we’ve done it twice with our kids. I’ve probably done my eight year old has probably been on seven months worth of bike tours. Wow. That’s an exaggeration. That’s not it. Two and two, one, one six at least. Oh,

is it, um, so does he still get amped up about going or is it becoming kind of normal for him? You know? Um, our youngest has been to like 15 countries. Um, but he, yeah, he’s into it. Yeah. They like it. It’s it’s uh, Whenever you can, uh, whenever you can just spend 24 seven with your family and see new things and, you know, check out new places and be busy and exercise, you know, it’s, it’s pretty awesome.

And he rode, he was eight last year and he wrote a thousand miles. So he rode his bike a thousand miles. And one of the days he did a 55 mile day as an eight year old. Wow. So from, you know, personal. Accomplishment standpoint. I think it’s, I think it’s a good thing for him. So what made you decide to sell bike wagon?

Good question. Um, so we, the people that we sold to actually level nine sports, I’ve met them two years before we sold two or three years before we sold. Um, cause uh, we were actually considering purchasing them and um, I met the CEO. And, uh, who was kind of tasked to sell the company and got along with him really well.

I thought he was a good dude and I stayed in, we decided not to buy, but we stayed in touch with him. Um, we stayed in touch with him over the, uh, um, over those next few years they ended up selling to somebody else. And when they came back and made an offer, it just. Really felt like a, like a good time.

That’s interesting for you to get out. Were you looking to get out of the business or just, well, you wanted to move on. So I worked with all my friends and family. Like I had three family members. Um, a lot of the guys that I worked with, I was really close to and, um, a lot of people had kind of built their, you know, I don’t wanna say built their lives around it, but we, uh, Um, there were a lot of people closely connected to the business.

Right. And, um, so I wasn’t, no, I wasn’t planning on selling it. And, uh, but this new company, um, we have, we needed more and more cash to really grow it. And with Amazon coming on and with, with, with the market changing, like it was, um, we needed to keep growing in order to stay relevant, you know? It really, at least in our mind, it was the grower dye type type thing.

Um, and the, the company that bought us level nine, they were located two miles North of us. And they were, and they could, they hired every single one of my employees. They actually retained the whole team for 18 months, you know, and then, and then certain people left and it’s the diet. It’s definitely. I think selling a business things, even if you don’t think things will change, um, a lot changes.

Yeah. So we’ve had a, you know, we’ve had a lot of bunch of doors on the show and, and with clients and, um, I don’t think I’ve ever talked with anybody that that’s exited their business. That’s said that things went the way they thought they would. And that there’s always something that changes. It’s more often than not pretty quickly after the cell.

Um, but, but if anything, at some point, if it’s not quickly, well, and I heard that too, but I even naively, and maybe I’m just not smart, but I very Nively thought that like I had it figured out and that, that I could better predict the outcome based on the relationships I had and based on all the conversations and how it came about and everything, but it’s, yeah, it’s really hard.

So, do you have any advice for listeners that, um, may have the opportunity to sell their business, uh, something that they should consider during that process? Yeah, so I would just make sure that, that it works in often areas, you know, plan for it to work plan for it to go really well, but make sure that the purchase price and the amount of cash you take works, even if it doesn’t go well, was, um, What was it?

And you don’t need to talk numbers, but was yours a cash buy or was it part cash part stock part now it was mostly cash. Okay. Um, so I got an awesome thing here. You said you built an amazing half pipe as an eighth grader. That’s a pretty nice accomplishment. Yeah. It’s probably my, probably for, for how old I was.

It’s probably the most impressive thing I’ve done in my life railing, you know? So, um, I don’t know how many other eighth graders have pipes that you met, but there’s one man. You did too. Nelly. Yeah. Yeah, I, uh, uh, I went to Fairfield junior high and we were right on out enough to know, um, Fairfield road it’s, uh, you know, for the listeners.

Um, it’s, uh, it’s right in the middle of like, you know, a hometown kind of city, but, um, it’s a pretty busy road on there and yeah, you could see it clear as day just right there on the road. Nice. I thought I was the only one. I’m kind of a little let down. Like I said, that’s my claim to fame. That was my claim to fame.

I can’t really have that anywhere. I just burned that bridge. I’m trying to bond with. Yeah, there was no bonding done that wasn’t bonding.

Well, your Dale years was probably bigger. Well, it was so mine was eight feet, high, 34 feet long and 12 feet wide. Yeah. Yours was bigger, but I know a kid down the street that was bigger, but I won’t tell you about them. Yeah. Probably way older parents probably did it. Oh yeah. Probably this thing was 15 feet off.

Yeah. His parents did it. How old was I that you said Kyle? Yeah. Eighth grade. Oh, you right? Yeah. Yeah, no half pipes are awesome. I actually, so the way that that came about, I’m not naturally very deliberative. A lot of times, you know, I’ll, I’ll be willing to just try something dumb. And one day after school, I went to the side of my house, got a few flat pieces of wood and positioned them over firewood on the side of my house to form a ramp up and down with the transition in the middle.

Very stable there. Oh yeah, it was, it was just. Plopped on, on wood. And, but from that a few weeks later, I thought, dang, maybe I could make like a legit. No. And then that summer I started raising money and, and knowing lawns and selling candy and everything else. And that summer, that’s what we did. Did it attract all the attention that you desired?

Uh, I don’t, I don’t even know why I did it, but I just wanted, I really wanted to have bites and it worked well. Alright. Okay. So I have five. Okay. You got, you got a bigger half today. Um, so, so back to business, um, I had asked you, you know, if there’s anything you’d tell your younger self or lessons learned that you could tell to people, and you had mentioned develop a process for success and trusted them enough to have some life balance.

Uh, you want to elaborate on that a little bit? Yeah. So I love the idea. Of, um, and I learned this in multilevel marketing, by the way, they’d say success leaves clues. So look at, look for successful people and then find out what they do and just do those things where, um, I would say, so I think it’s really hard before you’re successful to trust any sort of process.

So you just stress and you work and you keep going and, and just really dig into work and, and really live an unbalanced life until you’ve made money at the expense of other things where the idea is you say, okay, great. What are the types of things that I should focus on that would eventually give me what I want?

And then, and then once you have that list, just stick to it and do those things and trust that they’ll create. Six that’s long term. I like to think of it’s a law of the harvest, you know, it’s, it’s making sure that all the conditions are right in the garden. When you plant, you know, you can’t plant the tree sapling in the cement.

Um, it’s the idea it’s like dieting or losing weight. You know, we know enough about nutrition that we could, we could very confidently tell a 350 pounds man, some register and have a very high degree of certainty that if he were to follow it, That he would, you know, that he could lose a hundred pounds. We have a recipe for that.

And I think for success, I think we have similar recipes, but we do, I just don’t trust it enough. And then that’s where I think entrepreneurs get frantic. They avoid their families. They work all the time. They throw away the good, useful years that they have, um, in, in search of money. And then when they have it, you know, a lot of times it’s too late to really go back and.

And live some of those good years. So yeah. Yeah, there was, I was listening to, um, Russell Brunson who developed ClickFunnels and he did a podcast with Tim Ferriss and Tim Paris was saying, um, you know, here ends up this closed door mastermind get together. And somebody said, uh, a woman asked him and said, what’s your daily schedule.

Look like. Um, and the way that she positioned the question was she was expecting this big elaborate answer and you’d have this big structured day and he replied to it along the lines of, you know, if you looked at my calendar or watch me throughout the day, it would be super boring. He goes, I don’t structure as much as you would think I do.

And in fact, I’ll go two to three weeks at a time doing it, nothing other than spending time and just thinking, and what he says is he tries to think of the big domino. What’s, you know, what’s all the things I want to figure out and accomplish. And then what’s that one big domino that if I just hit that one, it’ll knock over the other 20.

So he doesn’t focus on the 20. He just spends a lot of times. So it’s like the eight Lincoln thing, you know, I’d spend the first while sharpening my ax and then the last hour cutting it down kind of thing. So it makes a lot of sense. Yeah, no, I liked that. I actually read that. I don’t think I listened to podcasts.

I think I read something or that response on his routine. Yeah. A couple of weeks ago. Yeah. Yeah. So on the, on the comment about building a process and then, you know, you have to bring people in your team in, and you had mentioned trusting people. Um, do you have any advice, um, hiring or trusting? And when you and I went to lunch, you talked about, you know, there was some humbling experiences about how you have to remove yourself from, you know, a few hats.

So can you talk about any. Advice you have for going through that process. And how do you not expect yourself to be the expert on anything and how do you pass on some of those responsibilities and how do you know when you trust somebody or, you know, any, anything along those lines? Yeah. Um, you know, I really liked the author, Patrick Lencioni.

Um, he writes, he wrote the book, um, the four obsessions of an extraordinary executive, you know, death by meeting the five temptations of a CEO. You know, um, the, uh, he, I just read a book called the ideal team player and they talk about how, um, the perfect team player will have humility. Um, they’ll be hungry, hungry for success, and they’ll be smart and it’s not just IQ smart, but it’s smart with people and Dutch.

And I really think that, um, in order to, um, to build and scale teams, you need to be. First and foremost, I think you need to have some decent sellers and, um, and yeah, I have a check digo and have some humility. And then, um, from there, just so not worry of just, just know that your values are solid and that your, your, um, you’re not going to be worth any less as you have other people do other do other things.

Um, So from a trust standpoint, um, Oh, I had two thoughts in my mind and I kept going down one path. So hold on a second. Go ahead. So with, with trusting people, you know, from, from my experience, there’s a little bit of trial and error. Um, kinda, kinda like you, you talked about how, when you exited the business, um, you thought things would go one way and they went another, and that’s kind of my experience with trusting people that sometimes you, um, think, you know, somebody and then, then when, when it comes time to.

To see what, what they produce and the results that they deliver. Um, and the expectations you had sometimes that’s different. Uh, have you experienced the same thing sometimes? You know, it takes 10 people to find that right. One kind of thing. Yeah. Well, I think a lot of times we, uh, um, and I’ve seen this, I saw this in my company, then I’ve seen it a lot as I’ve done different consulted with different companies is a lot of times we trust way too much.

Until we don’t trust. And then we reel in way too tight and, you know, and end up having to cut the leash and it just doesn’t work. So I think instead of, instead of just from the get go, um, trusting fully, and until you, you don’t trust them, then reeling people in more and more. Um, there, you should verify from the very beginning, have a very candid, you know, um, open relationship where you’re.

Where both parties are willing to be followed up with and there’s high accountability. So you find if it’s not working sooner than then, Oh, you know, six months, six months too late. So there’s a really good article on Harvard business review that talks about, um, it’s an old management consultant named, uh, I forget his first name, but it’s Anakin AAO, O N C H E N maybe.

But he wrote, if you look up monkey on your back, Harvard business review. There’s an article that talks about his book managing management time. And it talks about this. He uses it, this kind of analogy or story about, um, when you have a monkey on your back, which is really just an employee with a project that brings it to you.

And in that he talks a lot about following up frequently with employees. So when you first have a new employee, you may be following up with them every day and they return and report to you what they did. And, and where they are, but they’re always taking the problem back. They’re never just leaving it on your desk.

Um, Dave Ramsey talks a lot about it in his book, entree leadership, where he has a little chapter about that, but I’d really recommend that, um, read it’s not on audible, it’s like 30 or 40 years old, but if you want an interesting story about management, um, that managing management time, that’s really good.

Speaking of management, that’s a kind of a new project. Why don’t we get into that and transition our bike lagging. Um, tell us what, uh, tell us more about the new projects you’re getting into, you know, so I don’t even really consider the management stuff like a new project, but once I had more available time, I started.

Meeting people that, that, um, had different needs and I agreed to meet with them. And then it turned into, it turned into regular things. So which isn’t where I’m going longterm. I don’t, it’s very much counter to the type of business that I want to do. Um, because really you just get paid like a retainer by the hour or whatever.

Um, and it’s cool for now. And I honestly see it more as a. Like a, it’s like an MBA that I kind of get paid for. Um, because I can, I can get involved with these companies too. It’s smart, you know, with smart executives, smart CEOs, work with them and work on projects in their company, um, and basically learn lessons.

So it’s kind of, it’s almost like me maybe going back to school. Um, it’s, it’s been really interesting, but in the back of my mind, I don’t want to be doing that longterm. So, um, It’s uh, yeah, it’s, it’s been an interesting, I think transitioning from, if you do something for 10 years and then move on from it, it’s kind of bound to be a little messy.

Yeah. That transition period. What, what do you want to get into since this is just kind of a temporary thing, it sounds like what, what’s your longterm interest? Yeah. Well, you know, so I want to build other companies, e-commerce product companies, um, private label stuff. So private label brands that will sell online, maybe push into wholesale as well, wholesale channels.

Um, that’s a project that I’m working on. I’ve got a partner that, um, Matt who lives in Georgia, who’s working on those. Um, I like the idea personal productivity and, and building some software for that. So there’s some different, um, I’m curious there. And then I’ve got a couple other guys that I’m helping with other, uh, with other companies.

A lot of I’m spending a decent amount of time right now on a, um, an outsource marketing company as well, um, called Tom mine with a partner of mine. So tell me, Tom, I really recall mine, but tell the listeners what, what you offer through that company. Yeah. Well, what we do, we actually set about to be an, when we started six months ago or last October, but as we started meeting with clients, we found that there was much more of a need for, um, high level strategy and to, to oversee what all of their different agencies were doing for them.

So, um, we have, you know, let me okay. Run through the story of one of our clients, um, to let you know what we do. Uh, they sold a, it was a manufacturing company. Um, they’d manufacture product, sell it, sell it online. They had a, they had a from managing their, their storefront Magento. They had a paid search firm.

They had a retargeting that’s. They had a company managing the retargeting and, uh, um, their SEO as well. And the. These agencies, um, had gotten pretty comfortable and this spend what it just wasn’t very efficient. So we actually, we took over all the agency relationships. We started meeting with all the agencies we replaced, um, each one of them and were able to, to cut the spend, um, the management fees nearly in half.

And we were able to say to really optimize the paid search campaigns as well and the retargeting. So. We’re basically taking over the, managing, managing the agency relationships and working with the companies to develop their strategic marketing plan. Do you see any sort of recurring problem that businesses face as you meet with them via timeline?

Is there a common trouble across the majority of small businesses? I think the main problem that I’m seeing is the lack of the lack of strategy. So they get a, they get a very persistent salesperson that says you should do, you know, PPC and be doing this more. Or you should be doing Facebook ads, or you should be doing this or that or the other, and whoever’s loudest wins.

And then they start working with that company. But it’s not part of an overall global strategy. And I’ve seen that. Um, much more than I thought I would. Yeah. I liked the quote, you know, what is it? Um, I think it was sunsuit that said tactics without strategy or the noise before defeat. So just that idea that, um, that idea that we want to have our tactics all roll up and do a strategy for a, for free, you know, for a purpose, right?

Yeah. Some consistency across all of them. Yeah. So, um, let’s kinda, let’s kind of start to wrap up here a little bit outside of business. Sounds like you’re pretty big outdoors. You kinda guy. What do you like doing in your downtime? Uh, you had mentioned biking. What else? Yeah, so one of my favorite activities, I’ve got a two, four, six and eight year old.

And my favorite activity is longboarding to the store with them, you know, or rollerblading, or just getting outside on adventures with family. So. I’m like right in the middle of a busy family time. So I just enjoy doing anything with them. How, how many, how do you split your day up? Um, you know, are you averaging half business, half personal life or 75% personal life?

25 now. So I’m probably 5:00 AM to 8:00 AM. It’s more like me time. You know, this morning I woke up, I went on a, you know, a two mile, a little jog. Worked out a little bit, you know, did some reading, whatever. So five days personal time, you know, eight to five is more work time, but I’ll try to throw in, you know, it’s a day or two week, you know, go on a bike pride or two other things.

And then in the evening it’s family time. So however that’s, what’s up. Do your kids, I’m assuming your kids like are sometime around seven or eight. Do they know that you’re kind of doing your own thing during that time? Or is there a lot of interruptions? Uh, I can get most of my stuff done before seven and then when they start waking up, I’ll go down and have breakfast with them and yeah.

Um, All right. So as we close out, you want to give yourself a plug or a humble brag about anything, share your website, phone number, social media, anything you want to put out there. You know, I think with Tom mine, if you know, if they’re, uh, listeners of yours out there that, that need marketing strategy and some help with that, then definitely reach out to me that way.

Let’s talk about his website, Tom mine did.com. Cool. Alright, well, Dale, I appreciate your time. I’m a little jealous of the travels and family balance. I’m getting there. Um, I appreciate the, the booklets too. I got three or four here. I’m gonna go check out. So. All right, thanks. So cool. Thanks guys.