He Inherited a 79-Year-Old Business… and Lost 70% of It

Clark Dane inherited a 79-year-old American manufacturing company and immediately watched it lose 70% of its revenue.

Most people would have folded.

Instead, Clark kept the business alive, rebuilt the customer base, and shifted from an old distributor/dealer model toward direct-to-consumer and commercial rental channels.

But after sitting down with him, I realized the biggest opportunity was not just operational.

It was mindset.

Clark is sitting on a legacy American-made brand with real manufacturing capacity, a durable product, and a massive amount of low-hanging fruit in e-commerce, Amazon, Home Depot, and direct-to-consumer marketing.

In this episode, we talk through the financial reality of running a small manufacturing company, why depreciation and equipment planning matter, how legacy distribution models create customer friction, and why building a modern brand requires the owner to become the chief evangelist.

Clark is running a million-dollar company today.

But the real question is whether he can start thinking like the owner of a much bigger one.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

We lost about 70% of our revenue year one of me taking over.

SPEAKER_01 0:04

That's a nice surprise. Thanks, Dad. Clark Dane inherited a 79-year-old American manufacturing company and promptly watched it lose 70% of its revenue. But after my conversation with Clark, I saw a gold mine for him that most people overlook. You're getting lost in a in the weeds when we really need to talk about strategy. Your energy is so low. I want to get you excited about something, but I don't get excited talking to you about going down any of these paths.

SPEAKER_02 0:31

I'm trying to figure out where to start, um, how to get you're trying to figure out how to start to get focused.

SPEAKER_01 0:39

The biggest lesson from this episode is that you don't have a business problem, you have a mindset problem. I'm David. I own a boring air filter manufacturer that makes $23 million a month. And I'm on a mission to show the world the boring opportunities hidden right in front of us. Clark is running a million dollar company, but after this episode, you'll see how he can run a billion-dollar company. You have a tremendous amount of low-hanging fruit. This is why you're not a marketer. India things, things can work. It's going to be about execution to make it happen. Well, Clark, thank you for joining me on the boring business podcast. I guess this is episode number three. Absolutely. I'd love it if you if you would um introduce your business and um give us the the short overview of how you got into it, where you are, and we'll take it from there.

SPEAKER_02 1:27

All right. So um I run McKissick, which is a manufacturer of specialty lawn and garden equipment, shredder chippers, leaf blowers, rototillers, stump grinders. We bring in the raw material and we put out a finished product. We have a fabrication department, welding, uh, powder coating, assembly, warehousing, shipping. I kind of grew up around the business. Um my father was involved ever since I was uh little and um uh went off to college and uh one day he called me up and said, Hey, it's time to make a decision. Are you coming in or are you doing your own thing? Basically, he wanted to retire. He was ready to retire. And uh and he gave me a five-year plan and said, All right, you're you're starting today, and in five years, um you better be ready to take this over because that's the timeline. So um I ended up taking over at the end of uh 2018, beginning of 2019.

SPEAKER_01 2:22

Aaron Powell So what did that five-year transition period look like? Like how did how did how did he go about teaching you the business?

SPEAKER_02 2:28

Uh I spent a lot of time in production. Um I learned every uh aspect of our production, um, ran every single part through um all the different machines. Uh we have a lot of different machines in our fabrication, um, learned the robotic welding, learned how to weld, learned the powder coat, and a lot of the nuances there. Really again started at the bottom, swept floors, did everything, and then um over the five years worked my way up to really running the production side of things. And then um at the end of the five years, um, I kind of moved into that uh president role and we worked a little bit alongside of each other, but uh it was a short stretch there uh with 2020 coming around with COVID.

SPEAKER_01 3:17

So you effectively took over the business in 2018. What did the business look like then? Like what kind of revenue, how many employees, like what are the characteristics of the business when you s when you took it over?

SPEAKER_02 3:28

Sure. I think we had about 25 employees, 25 to 30 employees, depending on the year. Um first year, um actually coming through 2018, we had a large private label customer uh pull their business. Um they had gotten bought by a large uh publicly traded company, and that company had excess capacity and also had a lot of manufacturing in China. So we lost um about 70% of our revenue um year one of me taking over. And um that's a nice surprise. Thanks, Dad. Yep. So that was that was fun. Um during that same time frame, uh, we had a lot of uh long-tenured employees. I think we were around the 20 to 25 year tenure um on average, and um a lot of people just started retiring off. So um a lot of the tribal knowledge was going out the door, and um we needed to still be able to produce the um the equipment and run all the machines.

SPEAKER_01 4:31

So 2018, you start like roughly how much revenue was the business doing, and then you lost 70 percent of that.

SPEAKER_02 4:38

Right around five million, plus or minus.

SPEAKER_01 4:40

So right right around five million, and then you go down to what, like two and a half?

SPEAKER_02 4:43

I think we were around two, yeah, two, two and a half that first year, and then uh COVID hit, uh, and that was a blessing and a curse at the same time. People started staying home. We were actually able to boost our revenue uh up to three, three and a half um until the spigot shut off uh about uh 18 months after that. Right now we're sitting about um 14 employees, and we're we're really looking to revitalize the brands that we manufacture for ourselves, um, not necessarily the product uh the private label brands um and and really work on our brand awareness and um and building that back up.

SPEAKER_01 5:23

I want to go um really it's the last eight years that you've you've you've been you've been running the um seven or last seven years. I 2019, beginning is 2019 as well. So you've been running the business business for seven years. So it's been and it's been a and you you had a rude awakening losing losing 70 percent of your business more or less on year one. Correct. Not what I signed up for when I started when I joined five years before that. So how are you able to navigate that financially? Why don't we talk about that? Like what what did that look what did that look like? That's a huge that's a huge pivot to have to make. Um how how how were you able to weather that?

SPEAKER_02 5:59

Um, you know, I'm gonna say there was probably some luck and uh maybe a couple prayers said. Um, you know, I I really kind of got tossed in there. Um I don't know that there was a great transition and um I I sh I kind of struggled through that. Yeah, financially it was uh it was it was wild. Um there was inventory that we were able to use up and that helped to replenish some of the cash. Yep. Um there was a little bit, but um it was enough that we were able to kind of sustain ourselves um on for the first couple years um through the operations, really. Um with people retiring off, labor's a big expense in manufacturing, and um a lot of the other uh variable um expenses were able to come down as well. Um we weren't using as much electricity, we weren't running the machines as much, we didn't have as many people, uh all the lights still stayed on, but um, you know, we uh we we were at a decent level that we were still um uh able to sustain ourselves.

SPEAKER_01 7:13

So were you able, even losing 70 percent, were you able to still remain profitable that year, or did it did you take a big hit?

SPEAKER_02 7:20

Year one, um it was a little bit above break-even. Um you know, I'll I'll say it was almost arbitrarily above breakeven as well. Uh that first year that I took over, we also implemented a new ERP system. Um so we're comparing old numbers to new numbers, and um, you know, it's that's a little bit of a challenge as well to say, yeah, these numbers are exactly the same or not. What are ERP? Did you move to we moved to GlobalStop Solutions and um they're based out of Woodland, Texas, um American company, real good guys. Um they just came in and had took a tour and uh gave us some ideas on how to better utilize their systems, but also um improve some of our manufacturing. So um there's a a shortcut method in their financial accounting, um and it's called simple inventory. So it's not a transactional base inventory um calculation. So your cogs aren't necessarily actually directly what your cogs are, and um that has fluctuated our numbers throughout the years.

SPEAKER_01 8:32

That's actually what I was gonna dig into um why I asked the ERP question. So um how confident are you in your financials and how like how are they actually constructed and who's responsible for it?

SPEAKER_02 8:45

So we have an independent uh CPA that will come in and review them. How often? Um this year we're gonna do it once a year. Um they used to come in more often. Um you say review them, are you doing an audited financial statement or just a review? Just a review, check the numbers, check the GLs. Um, does anything look goofy? Did we miscategorize something? Um last couple of years we've done uh just done it on the uh one time a year basis. Um I'm responsible for doing them internally. Um I'll prepare uh the the month ends and um I have another uh individual who will help out with some of the more mundane uh items for the the month end close, and then I'll run those numbers and and verify them and see if everything looks pretty good. How big are your adjustments month to month? Small. Um we really don't make too many adjustments. Um I don't want to arbitrarily mess with the numbers. Um but like your inventory variances, that's really what I like. Yeah, so our inventory based on how it's calculated, there's not much that we can do about it. Um but it has certainly fluctuated our numbers over the years. Um after COVID hit, we had a lot of inventory coming in, so our inventory continued to rise. When our inventory was rising, it was actually um understating our cost of goods sold. And then when that stopped and our inventory started to come back down, we actually were overstating our cost of goods sold. Um so you have big fluctuations, I guess, is by issues. COVID year, we looked fantastic on paper, and I'm looking at the numbers and looking at the bank statements and going, something isn't adding up. One plus one doesn't equal two, it's equaling three. Um, and then year two after COVID, um, it kind of flipped. And I go, okay, well, I don't think that's correct either because we're not one minus one equals zero, we're one minus 0.5, and it should be 0.5. How often are you doing physical inventory counts? Um we're not really doing site-wide physical inventories. Um as things are coming through, people are really saying, hey, this number's wrong, and they're turning in physical inventory corrections. This past year, we really changed our manufacturing method um from a batch mode to really what we need to um produce for our actual sales. So we will put certain items into stock as a finished good, but we don't have a lot of the whip that we used to have in uh the facility anymore. If you've ever read the book The Goal, uh, that's really kind of what it's based off of. You know, you have one person leading and they're the pace setter. And then every other uh work center or person behind them has to match that pace. So that's really what we're trying to do through our fabrication. Um, we have a work center called Kitting where we'll put our uh manufactured items with our purchased items, then we'll send it to anything that gets assembled. Um so that goes to welding first and then powder code and then the physical assembly of it uh and then packing and then go to warehousing. So we will warehouse the final finished goods, but we don't really have anything in process in the middle. Um so that has actually really reduced the number of times we've had the physical inventories turned in and then also uh reduced the number of times I hear the question, I don't know if I can make this, I don't know if I can do this.

SPEAKER_01 12:21

Um that's why I was asking about the physical, physical inventory, because that theoretically would fix your um your problem. If you did a physical inventory every month and you know exactly what inventory you have, um, and as long as you're valuing it correctly and you have the right, you know, cost in there, then you would reduce your month-to-month fluctuations, or at least it would be more accurate. A lot of times when people do this is because they're relying on bad data. That's why I was asking about it.

SPEAKER_02 12:48

Oh, yeah, for sure there's bad data. Um, I think there's been three or four months that I've actually had uh negative costs of goods sold, um which is fantastic. I'd love my yeah, but it's a huge red flag, right?

SPEAKER_01 12:58

Because you because um it tells you that you've done something wrong. Um, and I just think having clarity around that really allows you to make much better decisions or actually shorten your reaction time when something is off, I guess. Yeah. But like getting out of the weeds a little bit, um at a macro level, how do you think about pricing in terms of like gross margins? Like, do you have a net income target that you're targeting? Like, how do you how do you walk me through how you think about your financial statement?

SPEAKER_02 13:26

Yeah. So going back to the goal, um, we've really changed how we think about our financials. Um, it's not the typical revenue, cost of goods sold, and your direct labor equals your gross margin. And then you have all your other ancillary um SGNA, your overhead, your um oddball expenses and incomes, right? Um so what we look at it is from a throughput perspective. And throughput based on the definition is your selling price less your material costs. Um so it's all built in there, it's the exact same. You can take your existing financial and just rearrange it and you can get the the number. But what you can do is you reduce the um the question, well, was that direct labor on this part or that product, or was it here, or was it there? So um it almost doesn't matter because our our labor is about the same, right? So whatever we're doing, it's about the same every every month, and then it's just allocated on the the higher level.

SPEAKER_01 14:29

Um you're just looking at it at a holistic level rather than trying to do it on a per order basis is what um yeah, I I I think that makes sense. I mean, that that's largely how I how I think about it. But do you have targets for like like if you're thinking about the target for say the year of 2025, like do you have a target for what that you know gross margin or contribution margin or whatever, yeah, whatever it would be?

SPEAKER_02 14:53

So on an hourly basis, we want our throughput to be $750 an hour. And then based on that, uh, we can extrapolate where our rev our throughput needs to be, which is already below our material, and then um what our labor cost is gonna be.

SPEAKER_01 15:10

And then we can um but could we not simplify that for I mean that sounds very that sounds almost too detailed to me to be ever to be able to get right, because that's gonna have to fluctuate so much on a day-to-day basis.

SPEAKER_02 15:24

So the the revenue that you get um is the revenue, right? And then the material is the material. Yeah. So those two are actually are pretty fixed. Yep. Um, and that's where I actually like the throughput number. Other people call it real revenue, right? It's the exact same thing. Um the throughput, you can it's a true number. And then off that throughput, we can actually back into what do we want as a a bottom line profit, not a gross margin, but a bottom line profit. And then we can take that, reduce it just like it's just that that throughput times number of hours kind of thing. Yep. Yeah, yep. And then we take our our throughput and we say, okay, well, off of that, we want to we want a 20% margin or 20% profit or 15% profit. And then we take that number and then we reduce the throughput and say, okay, everything else that we spend, um, operational expense, all our other overhead, uh, turning the lights on, electric, paying uh salaries, paying the government, um, has to be covered by what's left over there. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 16:30

Every business, and one one one theme that will be will will be in every interview that we have is understanding like what are the financial realities of the business. Because before you can start to scale something, you have to understand what your structure is that you're looking to scale. But if you're looking to if you're looking to scale crap, then crap at scale is way more crap. You don't want that. Uh we only want to scale something that is going to that that is um ready to be scaled. And so understanding what our starting point is, what our framework, what the baseline is is important is important. Um, and you've obviously put a lot of thought and structure into that and have followed uh you know, followed a process. And and the beauty of it is that there are lots of ways that you can look at these financial numbers, and and there's no right way or wrong way. Like I've never looked at them in a throughput level as you are, but it makes sense. I mean, it's just another way of of putting the number in a way that you understand or that your team understands. And the key is to having having structure to that to know where your what your starting point is.

SPEAKER_02 17:34

So that that's the team is the the really important aspect for that. And a team can understand, well, this is what we sold it for, and this is what our material costs are. When you start getting into that overhead, it gets it gets gray. And people kind of go.

SPEAKER_01 17:48

It's like in the e-commerce world and a lot in a lot of businesses, like contribution margin is really like which which is basically your um you know, gross margin less less your variable costs, like shipping and this kind of stuff, and how much money is left over before your um, you know, your overhead expenses um and non-direct marketing expenses. So like contribution margin is how at least I I oftentimes think about it. But you're looking at it, I guess, because you're in manufacturing and this through throughput number, um, which because you're just looking at it on you're taking that and looking at it on an hourly basis and then saying, okay, well, what is left over? Like what then what is left over for me to pay after that? How much money you have uh um five million dollars of revenue. Okay. Do you have a target for how much is left over after all expenses are paid before taxes? Um so like 10%, $500, maybe $500, $500,000 in that.

SPEAKER_02 18:39

Right. So going back to the throughput, that's actually where we put our profit up top before the other expenses.

SPEAKER_01 18:46

So you're you're the they're the um Profit first. They're profit first. That probably there was a book written about that. So you basically you basically everything that your whole business, you you set the profit number, and then you you make everything else tie out to that. Correct. So profit first. Yeah, which is it which is a model that works for a lot of people. It makes a lot of sense.

SPEAKER_02 19:04

Yeah. So um that's at um 20% or 15%, uh, depending on the year that we're trying to put into that. And then uh we'll calculate the taxes that are due off of that, add that in, and then that's after the profit and the taxes is what's left over to cover our rest of our stuff.

SPEAKER_01 19:22

You have you you have uh you have a it's a little bit different. Yeah, but you have a strong framework for it, which is really what I'm looking for. There's no right or wrong answer. But before we get off the financials, um in manufacturing, one thing that we all have to deal with is depreciation or your cost of equipment. I would imagine. And so how big of a factor is that for you and your business, and how do you think about how do you think about that and how do you fund it?

SPEAKER_02 19:46

So um I will be honest, I haven't been great about it um over the last few years. And um What when you say you haven't been great, what have you not been great at? Uh I've never really looked at the depreciation or how to allocate those funds and then put them back into the business to um either extend the life of the equipment or replace the equipment. And um this last year uh coming into 2026, I've been really looking at our finances heavily and trying to follow a really good um structure, uh, put that in place. And if we're not hitting our goals, well then we need to reallocate or we need to rethink our expenses and how we're going to make sure that we are successful uh at the end of the year. Um if we're ahead of our goals, then what do we need to do that uh we'll be able to be better with it? Yeah. So part of that profit first portion in the beginning is um is also broken down for some of those capital expenditures. Um it's not just purely profit, right? As a business owner, you know that you don't just necessarily walk home with that profit at the end of the day. There are other things that it goes to. Some of it goes to taxes. Um there's a lot to go to taxes.

SPEAKER_01 21:07

In manufacturing depreciation is is a big thing. And just so we're clear, ultimately, like if you um buy a million-dollar piece of equipment um and the tax code says you can um that are sorry, not even the tax code, the useful life of that equipment is 10 years, um, then um you have a hundred thousand dollar a year, even if you're paying a million dollars up front, you have a hundred thousand dollars a year of charge against um you know, against your income ultimately, um not from a tax perspective, but just from a you know accounting perspective to to know that like you need to spend a hundred thousand dollars a year on average to have the equipment that you need to operate your business. So that's a real cost in a manufacturing. And in some a lot of other businesses we talk about, service businesses generally depreciation is irrelevant. So like the EBITDA number that we talk about, um Is going to match your cash flows quite well. But um in in the manufacturing world or the fabrication world, if you have very expensive equipment, even if you have a high profit, your cash flows can be negative in some cases because you have to pay that equipment. Um and so that's and that's a real cost. And that's what I'm trying to understand how you think about that and how you think about investing in the business for future opportunities, but you're not going to have future opportunities if you don't spend money on equipment. Right. That's what I'm that's what that's what I'm trying to get you to articulate.

SPEAKER_02 22:28

Yes. Um so and that's where I'm going with that profit, right? I'm trying to break that profit down and go, okay, this is needs to be allocated to capital expenditures for the next year. This needs to go to that bucket, this needs to go to that bucket, um, and then a portion for uh an owner's return as well, right? Um I guess taking that depreciation expense and putting it to that bucket, I haven't necessarily correlated those two at this point.

SPEAKER_01 22:56

Well, the reason why this is if this is ultimately going to be homework for you, and and I'll tell you why it's gonna be homework for you. I need to take notes. Um we can we're gonna have it's all recorded, so you can go back and you can go back and rewatch it. So you don't no need to take notes. Um, but when we talk about the next thing, which I'm excited to talk about, which is how do we grow this business? How do we how do we um you know you know build it into a to a more successful business, then the more you grow, the more equipment you're going to need, the more infrastructure you're going to have to have. And so this becomes you have to have an understanding of what that roadmap looks like to be able to unlock what the next step is. And that's why this building block is so important. Um understanding like it's what if you're running a business just to survive, then you can kind of ignore depreciation, but maybe you're just replacing um parts on machines as they go as they go down, um, or not really having to plan for adding new machines because you're just trying to keep the lights on. But if you really want to grow, um, then you're gonna have to really understand the equipment and depreciation portion of your business because otherwise um you can't have growth if you can't produce the product. And so that's why in a manufacturing business, depreciation is so important.

SPEAKER_02 24:05

So I guess one of the reasons why I haven't had to focus on it is that we were already a much larger uh business when I took over and we've come back down. So we actually have excess uh capacity equipment capacity right now than um than we actually do have demand.

SPEAKER_01 24:23

Yeah. So okay. So then let's move on to the to the gross stuff, which is fine, which is the fun part of this. Yeah. So perfect. Like the um so walk me through um what your customer base looks like today. Sure. Um and yeah, walk me through what your customer base looks like today. Let's start with that.

SPEAKER_02 24:40

All right. So um being a 79-year-old company, um, we've we've got some baggage. So we'll take it back a step and then we'll we'll uh go where um uh we're at and kind of going to uh look to grow. Yep. Um historically we've been a distributor, uh distributor dealer consumer uh model. Um and that's been a challenging model uh the last few years, last maybe decade or two even. Um and that's dwindled away. So uh a couple years ago we opened up.

SPEAKER_01 25:13

Just to be clear, just so we everybody understands, you you're saying you sell to distributors who then who then supply dealers who then sell it to the in-customer. So you have you have um two two layers in between you and the in-customer. That's what the that's what you mean by distribution, dealer, in-customer model. That's that's that's how you that's how you you sell, that's how you sell your product. That's how you distribute your product. So I just wanted to make sure that's the right.

SPEAKER_02 25:36

And it's very confusing for the customer as well. Um, right? So the customer walks into the dealer and says, Hey, I want to buy this piece of equipment. And the dealer goes, Well, I don't have it on the floor, being a niche product. Um, you have to go call the uh distributor. The customer goes calls the distributor, the distributor says, Well, uh, you know, we'll have to find out from the factory what the lead time is. The customer actually calls us at some point and says, Hey, what's going on? I want to get this. And um we would give them the information, talk to them, they'd figure out the product, they'd go back to the distributor, say, Hey, this is the product I want, you need to go order this. And then the the uh distributor would go, No, you have to go back to the dealer. They'd go back to the dealer, say, Hey, this is the product I want. And it was really uh putting a lot of legwork on our co our customer. And a lot of friction. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 26:22

A lot of friction. And a lot of places don't have to do that. And any time in business, if you increase the friction to buy your product, you're going to sell less of that product. I mean, that's just rule number one, and one of the major rules in business is you want to reduce as much friction as possible for the customer to purchase your product. That's why Amazon is so successful. One-click checkout. It's pretty easy. That reduces reduces friction, right? Yeah. Um, and so you have this is so this is a very interesting challenge that I do think other people ultimately will deal with. Um, you know, I was recently looking at a business to acquire, for instance, that had a somewhat similar problem in that um they have a legacy direct sales model where like basically going like door-to-door sales in people's homes, COVID really took that out and it's antiquated and like the, but then how do you transition to an e-commerce first business? Um, because if your revenue is is reliant on the old model and you can't alienate those customers, how do you make that transition? So I think that is that is that is the problem that you are faced with.

SPEAKER_02 27:21

So that's so that's currently where we're at, yeah. Right. So a few years ago, I looked at it and going back to the friction, I said this is absolutely crazy. We're putting a lot of legwork on on our customer, and by the time they actually get to us, they really want that product, which is fantastic. We're gonna have a happy customer, but we're losing a lot along along the way. Let's make it easier. So we opened up e-commerce, we opened up direct, and um with that we kind of paralleled you can go to the dealer and get it, or you can come straight to us. And I think there was about a 50-50 mix there. And over the last couple years, I think the distributor dealer model has continued to wane. Um outdoor power equipment dealerships continue to close um pretty much on a daily basis just because nobody else wants to run them. So um we're looking to grow that direct business.

SPEAKER_01 28:13

Okay, so like let's talk through today. If you're doing just first numbers, five million dollars of revenue. Um, what's the split between direct and and dealer?

SPEAKER_02 28:23

It's probably actually gone more towards the uh direct uh just so we're clear.

SPEAKER_01 28:29

7525, I'll say. 75 direct. Yeah. So you've already made the transition. But you should know that number exactly, by the way. I mean, like that's that's a pretty that's a pretty important yeah. That's that's a pretty important shift. But if you've already if you've already made that big of a shift, you're significantly de-risked going forward. Like if you were sitting here telling me that it was 75-25 the other way, I'd say that that you have you have a lot more um volatility ahead of you. But if you've already made 75% of the switch, you've already largely gotten through the volatile period. Yeah. Is that how you feel?

SPEAKER_02 29:02

Yeah, for sure. Um, and that's where we were going. All right, this is a good uh area for us to grow. We can grow that direct to consumer.

SPEAKER_01 29:09

Okay. So that's that's so I'm like the the model going forward is basically 100% direct to consumer.

SPEAKER_02 29:16

So that's half of our comp our our business. Oh the other half is a couple different B2B. So we do have the distributor still. That one I'm not really too concerned about. That's on the consumer side. Um then we have a con commercial um rental market that we also uh I was actually going to ask about that.

SPEAKER_01 29:34

I was thinking of that as a potential growth, but that makes a lot of sense.

SPEAKER_02 29:37

So that um that this past year was probably 60% of our um our revenue. And um we we just um acquired a really good customer and we have the potential to really grow that business.

SPEAKER_01 29:52

So the customers here are rental companies. Correct. So people that are doing like like um that operate in local markets for somebody that needs to rent a wood chipper for the day because they don't need to buy it, correct. They they these companies rent it to it and you're selling to those rental companies. Correct. That's your customer. Yep. And that's 60 percent of your overall business today. That yes. And and can you just like compare it to 28? So if it's 60 percent um commercial rental companies, 40 percent um let's just call it direct consumer for now. Um in 2018, what did that make when you bought the business, what did that mix look like? Has it shifted?

SPEAKER_02 30:29

So in 2018, we had the private label customer. So that's another B2B um, that's really well like ending up in a consumer in a consumer. Yes, it was it was on the consumer side. Yeah. So we were probably uh eighty to twenty um on the consumer side of the business.

SPEAKER_01 30:47

So so you really so the the the commercial is really what has been keeping you alive the last couple of years, yeah. In the last few years. Yeah. What does your sales infrastructure for that look like?

SPEAKER_02 30:57

There is uh a sales individual and then myself um that really do all the sales. Um he takes care of the day-to-day, he'll work on the um kind of the the drip uh out to the customer, um checking in with them. How are you doing? Anything you need, what else uh would you like to buy? Um hey, just reminding you we're here. And then there's also a large trade show that we'll go to on an annual basis.

SPEAKER_01 31:26

Okay, so then and and in in your 40% of your consumer business, yeah um, what are the sales channels that you're utilizing there?

SPEAKER_02 31:37

So we're really um we've got two. We've got uh our website, e-commerce, and then we have um phone sales. Um and then we have some other e-tailers that we're working with as well. So you don't do anything on home with Home Depot, for instance? Not on the consumer side. Yeah. Um rental side, yes. On the what? Rental side, yes. On the on the rental side. Yeah, that's where our growth really can come from on the the B2B rental side of things.

SPEAKER_01 32:04

Um meaning they they're they're purchasing them from you? Correct. Um, but is them is them purchasing ultimately or a rental customer?

SPEAKER_02 32:11

No, they are purchasing it for their rental departments. Okay. So if you walk into a uh Home Depot and they have a rental department, yeah, um, there's a certain portion of the country that we have for some of the product, and then there's other products that they've replaced um with our products, and those will be nationwide.

SPEAKER_01 32:28

So you sell on a website, but you don't sell on Amazon or anything like that? Correct. Why is there a reason why?

SPEAKER_02 32:33

I I think there's been uh a historic stigma, probably within our company, um, to stay away from Amazon. Uh there's uh been a couple quick times that I've looked into it. And um maybe I don't know all the ins and outs. Um I'll actually know I'll rephrase that. I don't know all the ins and outs to Amazon. And um so the couple times that I have looked, um we probably haven't looked at the right avenue to actually sell with them.

SPEAKER_01 33:02

Yeah. It's like on your consumer business, you're doing all the shipment direct yourself, correct? Correct. And what carriers do you use to do that?

SPEAKER_02 33:09

Uh it depends um on the part of the country. It's not like we have a carrier for the part of the country. Um a lot of times we'll go to a a broker and uh but it's going like an LTL type ship.

SPEAKER_01 33:21

LTL, yeah. So they're big enough that they have to go LTL. They can't go like in a package. Correct.

SPEAKER_02 33:26

Some of our replacement parts, they can go UPS, uh, FedEx, um small pack uh style. But um no, all our uh our whole goods, our equipment will need to go LTL. And then if it's going to a residential um consumer uh individual, then uh there's also a Liftgate possible service that would be necessary.

SPEAKER_01 33:48

Got it. For Clark, what does success look like 10 years from now? Like what is it that um if you're putting a vision board for what you and your business look like 10 years from now, what what does that consist of?

SPEAKER_02 34:02

Um so our e-commerce, our direct sales, um our uh we we've regrown that brand and people know the name Mighty Mac. Mighty Mac.

SPEAKER_01 34:16

Mighty Mac is an is uh and is is that all-encompassing or is that one particular product? That's our consumer line.

SPEAKER_02 34:22

Consumer line of all wood chippers and uh wood chippers, um, walk behind leaf blowers, uh shredder chippers, uh power sprayers. Um I'm probably missing one. I think I'm missing one. I know I should know this, and I just blanked on it.

SPEAKER_01 34:42

But that that that uh makes sense. So m Mighty Mac um becomes a well-known name in that category.

SPEAKER_02 34:49

It's been a household name in the past. It's a good name. Yeah. Very brandable. People people recognize it. Um there's been a lot of times that we've had uh customers call up and say, hey, you know, I need to get this part. Um my grandfather had it in his garage. He handed it down to uh my dad. He had it for five, ten years, and now I've got a place and um you know I'm gonna fix that one up. They've all replaced it. What else is in your um decision boards? We're in talks right now for a fairly large private label um deal. We're trying to figure out that. Um if that falls through, then um I think we shift our uh focus to some of the retail, bigger retail stores to get our um our products in. Maybe the Home Depot merchant, um Amazon, yeah. So TSCs.

SPEAKER_01 35:39

But let's let's take maybe a bit of a step back. Like let's talk about money. Sure. Um 10 years from now, what do you think this business looks like?

SPEAKER_02 35:49

10 years from now, I think we're doing about 35 million. Ultimately, I think uh I'd like to be able to grow this to 50. Um, I think that's probably more in the 12 to 15 year range.

SPEAKER_00 36:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:01

Um definitely doable from where you are. But but that's but basically that's that's you want to times 10 the business in the next 15 years.

SPEAKER_02 36:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:09

More or less. Yeah. Um, or quicker, I I I would imagine would be okay. Absolutely. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:15

Um as long as we stay profitable.

SPEAKER_01 36:17

Yeah. Well, I guess um you've obviously had a lot of success in growing your commercial business over the last seven years. If it went from 20% to 60% of your revenue, how do you see that evolving?

SPEAKER_02 36:28

We have a a really good opportunity with um with Home Depot to grow that business. Um we we have a really good relationship with them. Um we've been easy tried we try to be easy to work with, and I think they appreciate that. Um we have a really good strong product. And um so I see that business um growing to probably the five to eight um over the next couple of years.

SPEAKER_01 36:57

So it and is that a different product line altogether, or like how do how does that break down? Like is it a more heavy duty? Sure.

SPEAKER_02 37:04

So that's on the uh the con commercial rental side of things. So they they really just said, hey, we like this product. Um maybe they came and said uh we're concerned about this safety feature or uh this item. Can we make some modifications? We've we've done those things. Um and then we've also painted it their uh their orange. Same exact product, pretty much. If we make a modification on uh the product line for them, we pretty much push it back to the other product line, keep all the safety features the same.

SPEAKER_01 37:35

Let's talk about competition. How do you stand out? Like you're a made in America, yeah, um, and you make um, I believe you told me last night, products that are durable and last forever, which I think it's too long. Too long for you, but but it's something that's been lost in a lot of um consumer products for sure. The skeptics would say that um big businesses have made their products more likely to break because they don't they want to be able to resell them, but you haven't taken that shortcut. How but how how does that how do you stack up in the competitive environment for this this type of product?

SPEAKER_02 38:09

Yeah, so we're a premium product, um, premium priced, premium product, uh heavier duty, American made. Um you know, uh we're not just stating that we're heavier duty. Uh if you take even just a basic uh shipping weight and you compare our products together, we have a heavier product.

SPEAKER_01 38:28

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 38:28

And that's based on the materials that are going into it. Heavier components, heavier steel. Um so that's really a big uh aspect of Yeah, but like from a price perspective, like how problematic is that for you? Well, we have to be able to prove that our product lasts longer or is um on the rental side, uh, we have a better uptime. So, you know, you're not in the the shop fixing it, it's out there renting. Yeah. Um we also have very simple products. So while not anybody can come out there and just start making the product, in the industry they're simple. So if something does break, it's not a catastrophic failure. Uh, you don't have to go and replace the entire machine, you don't have to go and replace the entire engine. There's built-in fail-safes that will be um you replace a belt or you replace uh a pulley or you can replace a gear and a chain. Um, so even on the maintenance side, uh it it can be a lot less expensive when something does break.

SPEAKER_01 39:29

Yeah. Okay. So the the commercial side, it sounds like you have a plan and you're comfortable with like you believe that that's going to continue to grow. Yes. Um, that's where you put a lot of your energy. But like really the the area that you think will be the most impactful on that 10-year horizon is ultimately building the brand around direct to consumer. To direct consumer. Yeah. Um, so what are the bottlenecks keeping you from in igniting that?

SPEAKER_02 40:01

Um we need people to know about us. Um all too often we have been uh shy about uh telling people what we do or where we are or how we do things. And so what kind of marketing do you do today? Um we don't do do much. Um this past year. I've really tried to start focusing on it and just really at the end of the year. Um we've had um some different agencies work on our SEO over the years. And I think um with the focus not being there, we haven't properly uh structured that. So I'm getting into looking at the SEO, looking at what we have on our our website, looking at the friction points uh for the e-commerce. Um how many people do we have coming to our website? How many people are going to the product page? How many people are do you do any pay-per-click at all? We do have some pay-per-click. Um how much are you spending on pay-per-click? I think it's about fifteen hundred, two thousand a month right now.

SPEAKER_01 41:02

And like how are you determining that budget? Do you is it is it based off of any sales or or is it just No, not not at this point. And who's managing that?

SPEAKER_02 41:12

Nobody was for quite some time. Um, I have been working on that the last uh three two, three weeks.

SPEAKER_01 41:20

If you want to build a consumer, it sounds to me, having done no research into your business really before today, that you have a tremendous amount of low-hanging fruit on the direct-to-consumer brand side. You're sitting on a legacy brand that um is very strong. Um, and um, you know, there's a lot of blocking and tackling that can really ignite growth in your business if you're willing to take it on. Um and you know, I think that you know, getting on platforms like Amazon, in my opinion, you know, 60% of product searches originate on Amazon, whether you like it or not. And um, you know, I would imagine even for your category that there is a lot of opportunity there. Um, you know, and that also opens up a lot of advertising opportunities in a marketplace that that um are very high intent, that would probably be good ROI for for a business like yours. Um and you know, would start getting the the brand to be known. But then you know, Home Depot has a like as a big marketplace um that also seems to me would be would be perfect for you. But um what about selling to retailers um for them to sell that to resell your product, like getting into Home Depot stores, for instance? Have you gone down that um at all?

SPEAKER_02 42:52

We've we've broached the subject um being on the rental side. Um we've mentioned it to the that's a completely different part of that business, though. Right. So we were looking for that introduction. And um, you know, I think selfishly they're trying to keep us to them so we can support them in a better manner. Um, grow that side first and then uh look at the uh the Home Depot retail. Um about like a tractor supply or yeah, I I think that's a good opportunity for us as well. Um we've been trying to get a contact uh in in tractor supply over the last 18 months. I'll say there we've had a contact, we lost a contact, we got a new contact, and you're sitting on a lot of potential.

SPEAKER_01 43:39

Yeah um and the trick for you is going to be to focus in on one area that should have the highest impact. And it seems to me the the direct to consumer is is the uh the obvious choice, and I think you you um seem to be. At that, but you've built you have no infrastructure or no real commitment to building that um unless I'm missing something.

SPEAKER_02 44:11

No, there hasn't been. Uh only since uh this past fall.

SPEAKER_01 44:26

But your production has been the focus, but the biggest problem you have is sales. Now so yeah, but it but it sounds like it has been since 2019, or I guess since the beginning of COVID. You had a co you had a COVID bump.

SPEAKER_02 44:38

Yeah, we had uh we had a big bump uh during COVID and then um the the the funnel shut off there. Um so we still had production issues, uh personnel issues.

SPEAKER_01 44:50

So we've done those one those will never go away, but if you have a tremendous amount of excess capacity, then you have a sales problem more than a production problem.

SPEAKER_02 44:59

Right. Yeah. Yes. We really do have a sales problem. So this past two or three months, that's where my focus is has really been is in the sales side of things.

SPEAKER_01 45:10

So how how have you been what walk me through what focus looks like?

SPEAKER_02 45:15

Um I'm trying to figure out where to start, um, how to get so you're trying to figure out you're trying to figure out how to start to get focused. Uh sure. Um how to start and what things to work on on our website. Um the it had really been neglected. So we had some basic maintenance that we had to do, um, updating plugins, get things working properly, lost. Are you doing all this yourself or do you have any any help? So we had somebody that we were working with, and um, we really didn't feel like that we were getting a a return. Um, that things weren't getting done. And I think that also allowed us to say, okay, well, it's their responsibility, they're gonna get it done. And it kind of got pushed off to the side. So we want to bring it in and we're working on it ourselves. I'm working on it myself, um, correcting the plugins, correcting the links, um, correcting the the verbiage. Um, there's been some some bad uh usage of uh I'll say SEO lingo that hasn't really been accurate for our our company. So trying to um bring the right audience in with the right terminology.

SPEAKER_01 46:32

Um Yeah, I mean the the problem is it sounds like you're getting lost in a in the weeds when we really need to talk about strategy and like what we're really like where we're really going to have the biggest impact and ultimately what you're gonna probably financially commit to bringing help in to start to attack that. Right. Um the um like you know having a functioning website is kind of table stakes to surviving in 2026. So you've got to have a a strategy to that. But um you know, picking a um like Google Pay-per-Click, for instance, um like you you should um be able to spend money against um people that are in market for a wood chipper and have a CPA that uh just cost per acquisition terminology, um like where you're you you should be very you you would be willing to spend you know as much money um like if you if you could get a new customer for say a hundred dollars every every time, um I'm getting just guessing based off of your selling price that you should take that trade as many times as you can. Yeah. Um and my suspicion is that there is um a agency that can help you to do that. Perhaps you're watching this podcast, but that can help you to set that up to where you could have a consistent you know set of customers coming through um something basic like that. That would be a strategy that you almost certainly should have turned on. Um, and you know, it it's definitely as you know competitive as any of these things are, but when you have a strong brand and have done none of this, that's still low-hanging fruit. You absolutely should be doing. Um, do you do any um Facebook, TikTok, any type of videos in that?

SPEAKER_02 48:39

Yep, we've been posting um on Facebook and Instagram um a couple times a week. Putting uh either a short video of a product or um couple couple uh photos, maybe some accessories or something like that. Um again, in the last couple months, that's what we've been and do you put any advertising dollars against that? Not recently. No. Um you know, I it's one of those areas where we're kind of getting our feet wet and you know, trying to not go too many directions. Um did a little work on the pay-per-click uh uh campaigns that we have out there.

SPEAKER_01 49:21

It just doesn't mean like you don't believe in any in any of these things or anything. Like you sound you your energy is so low when you even talk about it. So it's like like I want to hear, I want to get you excited about something, but I don't get excited talking to you about going down any of these paths, right? Because like like what I know in my bones is that you can be successful. You you could build a big business doing Facebook in Facebook ads selling your product. You could build a big business, um build build a big business on Amazon selling the consumer product, your mighty, mighty Mighty Mac, mighty, mighty Mac. Um, you know, you could um certainly grow your business significantly using Google ads to get them back to like any of those things would work. Like one thing I was sitting here kind of workshopping with myself in the background was um, is this the kind of thing that um you could do TikTok shop type ads, ads against like um, you know, funny, you know, or useful, you know, um ads with this type of equipment. I'm sure that there's a way to do that. I'm not the guy to do it, probably, but there's certainly a way to do that. But you have to believe in in any of these. And I think it kind of goes back to what we were even talking about last night. Um, like if you want to get uh like we we had a conversation about um recruiting people and how do you get how do you get people to come be bought into what it is that you're doing, right? And it and the way you're gonna do that is you have to be bought in yourself because people are gonna understand if you're bought in, if you really are um if you really believe in whatever it is you're doing. And I I think that the what I what I um challenge you with and what I'm like is to to to pick a path that you actually believe in and come and and kind of go all in on figuring it out. Because any of those paths would work as a great starting point for your business. But if I sit here and tell you to go down one path and you don't believe in it, then it's not your then you I know you're not gonna do it.

SPEAKER_02 51:25

Yeah. I I think it's kind of that unknown, right? And where what path do we need to go down? Where where do we start? Um and I think there's a hesitation.

SPEAKER_01 51:38

In any of them would work, but you'd have to commit to seeing it through. Right.

unknown 51:44

Right.

SPEAKER_01 51:44

Like you can grow your business starting on Amazon, you know, have a price strategy that I believe in price parity across all platforms, but that's more in the weeds topic. And we kind of mapped it um a few years ago. Yeah, but like I think I I I think it I personally think a consumer should be able to buy the same product, have the same price across all platforms. It's just the um like consumers get to choose where to shop, but you but you so you want to be everywhere uh that consumers in your market shop, um, but have a um consistent pricing strategy. Um that's that's my philosophy on it. I think it makes life a lot easier. Um but if that's what I would do if I were you.

SPEAKER_02 52:23

Yeah, so that kind of goes to the map, right? Minimum advertised pricing. So, you know, we we kind of yeah, it does, but like if but a lot of times shipping and everything else will get a little bit different.

SPEAKER_01 52:33

Yeah, shipping shipping can make it different, or you can run specials on one versus the other, or if you give it a few.

SPEAKER_02 52:38

Oh, I don't we don't do that.

SPEAKER_01 52:40

Yeah, well, maybe you should sometimes. Maybe we should. And um that that um like on like funny aside, I used to be completely against specials. We never did it, and then like three three prime days ago, I believe, um we had a we had our biggest, like we decided the first time we ever ran a special, um, and we did three million dollars in a day. And I had I shut off the advertising, I shut off the d at the special at 11 o'clock that morning because I panicked because I realized we weren't gonna be able to fill it all. That's when I realized the power of specials, of specials and being able to create um momentum around an event. And so I completely switched my like I completely switched my mindset on on that. And now it's actually an integral part of our marketing strategy is um we do run promotions on a regular basis um and um find find that the momentum created around that more than pays for the discounts. And it's just how consumers have been trained, and so it's like one of those things that I was very vehemently against, and I've been in data proven proven wrong. My team would fight me on it, um, and I refused to do it, and then finally I gave in, and they were right, I was wrong. Um, and we and it's become it's been become a key part of our our strategy ever since. So, but okay, but the reason I know that is because I experimented, right? Right. Um, and I'm trying what I'm trying to read is like like where do you want to go? And it and it's like as I that that's that's the where I'm that's where I'm struggling a little bit, is like um if I can't get you excited about something, then I can't get excited about helping you build a team around it, you know. Like if I tell you to build a team around TikTok and you're like that's never gonna work for my product, then you're gonna be right, it's never gonna work, you know. I mean, so it just doesn't um a big a big part of this and anything is and if I get anything across to you or to to anyone, is that any of these things can work. I mean, like I I I know any of these things can work, it's gonna be about execution and the patience you have to tinkering with to make it happen. I mean, that's ultimately going to be the X factor. Um, but like if you don't believe it's gonna work, then you're gonna be proven right. I just know I know that. So I'm trying to kind of get from you like where where you really believe you there are signs of life that you want to and then I want to push you to kind of go all in on that. Like that's where that's where I'm trying what I'm trying to dance around.

SPEAKER_02 55:09

Gotcha. Yeah, you know, I I do believe that um if we find a uh an avenue or we we have a strategy, we can do a b testing or whatever, and and we can go after that. And um we can be successful. I don't want to throw just dollars out there, right? And I think that's the the hesitation.

SPEAKER_01 55:28

But you're gonna have to take but you're going to have to come up with a plan and then be prepared to invest in that. It's not gonna happen overnight. And 2026, unfortunately, you can't just put up a website and SEO optimize it and expect customers to come find you in mass. I mean, like those days are over. It worked one day, but like nowadays you're gonna have to have a plan, you're gonna have to build somewhat of a team and investment around that plan. Um, but we kind of have to pick a pick a lane to commit to because you can't if you if you if I tried to help you do it on all of these things on one at once, you're gonna get overwhelmed and you're gonna tell me none of it works.

SPEAKER_02 56:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 56:03

I'm not opposed to any one of those. Um But but like is there any is there anything that you're like, I think this has the highest chance of working? Do you have any insight into that?

SPEAKER_02 56:14

Uh I mean, I guess if I had to say one over the other, it was it would probably look at uh either Facebook or the Amazon. Um I think Google's saturated. You can do it, but I think there's a lot of nuances. There's probably nuances to the other.

SPEAKER_01 56:31

It's more expensive, but it's also way more trackable. Um, you just answered my question for me. That's what I was trying to get. You don't believe that's which is fine. Um, you know, I we have we have people clicking, but we're we're dropping them off.

SPEAKER_02 56:44

Right? And yeah, we're not paying a a lot. We don't have a great strategy in in place. So if we we understood the strategy. Why do you have a custom built website and not a Shopify storefront? The individual that we hired uh looked at both. And when we were going between distributor to uh launching the e-commerce store, we wanted that softer touch. And Shopify didn't allow the functionality at that point. I think it was four or five years ago.

SPEAKER_01 57:17

Yeah, like my my my instinct, we're not on Shopify, so that's like and I could argue like why we're not, but um but my instinct for you is if you really are serious about e-commerce, that you know paying for a proper Shopify e-commerce experience would be a starting point because then you're going to find that maybe your Google ad both tracking and success shifts quite meaningfully. So that would be a step one if I were you.

SPEAKER_02 57:48

So why why the the the would the website have that change?

SPEAKER_01 57:52

Well, I've not looked at your website, so I I'm I'm I'm just kind of shooting in the dark a little bit. Sure. Um, but consumers are like consumers um have already given Shopify their um payment information oftentimes, and they can just pay out, you know, check out with uh with um the one-clicker with the one-click or with the text, more or less. Uh-huh. Um, and you know, every major e-commerce brand is on Shopify and consumers can feel it, and it's just a more legitimate shopping experience. It's you're not your SEO problems are going to largely um be taken care of because they're optimized for that. Um, it's just going to create a modern shopping experience that I would bet if we looked at your website right now and you can go check me that we're gonna find you're lacking. Um and you know, you don't want to present yourself as the 78-year-old brand or whatever it is, you want to be a modern, um uh a modern wood tripper brand that um has a has a best in class product. If you want to be a premium product, then you need to present a premium feel. So it's just a better user experience. Yes, and and also just like I I I think that you can pay a someone, um, I'm just gonna throw out a number, I don't know if this is right, $20,000 or something like that to have a very good Shopify experience for your type of product very quickly and and get that off of your plate. And I think that would be an investment worth making. Okay. Um so you know, that would be probably like I would like I would stop tinkering with plugins. I'm guessing you're using WordPress or something like that.

SPEAKER_02 59:32

WordPress with Boo.

SPEAKER_01 59:33

Yeah. That Woo WooCommerce. Uh I I'm I'm haven't lost it. Um, I um I I would I would bet um my my first thing would be to really invest in a in a refresh, maybe uh uh rebrand for what your um Mighty Mac brand is going to look like and have a do you have MightyMac.com?

SPEAKER_02 59:56

Uh McKissick.

SPEAKER_01 59:57

McKissick.

SPEAKER_02 59:58

MacKissick.com.

SPEAKER_01 59:59

Yeah. Um that's where do you own the Mighty Mac trademark? I would imagine you do. Yeah. Do you know what MightyMac.com is? I don't. Yeah. It might be a trade. This is why you're not you're not a marketer. Um like that's uh a marketer would a marketer would know that. But that's a great, I mean, that's a great trademark to me, but yeah um but anyways, you're gonna have to invest in that if you really want to um succeed in e-commerce and direct to consumer.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:28

Um how much revenue does your website itself do? Uh again, you should know that answer.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:34

Yeah, I think it was 6070 last year. Um so it's so it's very small. It's smaller, but it's it's driving uh people to call us and we're taking those sales directly.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:46

Well, see then but then you just answered my question of why you need to go to Shopify. Okay, like there's people in 2026 do not call you except for la even in your product. I know it's a high, high dollar value product. What's your average order value? Uh about 2,000. Yeah. Even in that product, people do not want to talk on the phone. Nobody on the age of 50 is going to call you if they have any other option. Right. So to me, you're going to have to, I would commit to doing that brand refresh and making that website the best representation of your company and your brand that you can. And that's a project you have to take on because it's your brand. Um, and you know, you know, building out the you know, video content about like showing like like when we when when I when you um pitched coming on here, you sent me a nice video. You should be doing videos about all of your products. You probably should be the the the face of it. Um, and you know, you want your goal should be to get the number of people calling you down to zero. That's what I would be doing. I'd be saying, how can I make my website so good that nobody's gonna call me. They're just gonna they're just gonna hit buy. You're not gonna stop them from calling you, but I'm saying success for you looks like nobody's calling you because they're buying on your website. Gotcha. Uh and so I guess I haven't asked myself that question. Yeah, but that's that's where you that's where I would start. Okay. Um, and I think I think before I did anything else, I would do that. Because you can't tell me that Google Ads doesn't work um because you haven't invested in the um tools that are going to allow you to make it work. Right. Right. Um, because then once you do that, then I would experiment with Google Ads. Then I would worry about SEO and that kind of stuff. So that that would be that would be number one. I think while you're doing that, um, I would experiment with the Amazon angle because I think Amazon is so powerful that I would be fulfillment by fulfilled by merchant. Um, you um, depending on your category, you pay between 10 and 15% fee. You may be in a category uh between eight and fifteen percent fee. I don't know what category um you would be in. Um I forget what I looked at, but but but um you don't have to put your whole catalog there on day one if you don't want to, but I would invest in a nice storefront there. But it's not not not a big expensive investment, but it's gonna be you got you want to get it right and on your new reband and and um experiment to see if there's any signs of life with that. I mean, and um I think you might be surprised. I mean, you're going to have to you're you're gonna have to um experiment with their sponsored product ads to be able to be seen on day one. Experimentation to make experiment. But um, I would I would invest in getting a good good product photos following best practices, which are pretty easy to find on all of the um you know um product detail pages. But you know, you have a strong brand and uh uh and that that's been around for a long time, I think you might be surprised at what you pick up there. Um, and I think that that's a very low lift for you to get it started. So like my if I were in your shoes, you've got to commit to starting to think like a marketer and a brand because that's what you want to do, is you want to build a brand. That's your stated, that's where you want to go. Yes. Um, and if that's really the case, then you've got to invest in that both time and money. And I think that doing a real refresh, getting a good Shopify, easy to use customer experience storefront, and figuring out a way to make it the best resource for anybody that wants to buy a wood chipper. That's gotta be what you're what you're thinking about. Making it, um, putting all your best information there so that nobody wants to call you because it's all there for people to see. That opens up the opportunity for you to go out and do the social media and do all those things. Like that comes down the road, but it's got to, but you gotta have that that portal first before you invest in any other of that other stuff because otherwise you're just wasting money. That's why you think you're wasting money on Google Ads because you haven't built that yet. But if you blow that, then you can earn the right to go spend money on everything else. But then at the same time, I would experiment with the Amazon Marketplace Um avenue and I would explore Home Depot.com revenue. And I'll tell you, we actually um interviewed a pool fence guy that um that is in a similar situation as you, and his direct-to-consumer business is all Amazon and Home Depot. So that's why I know it works. I mean, like I've I can he he and he sends LTL. Yeah he sells he sells pool fences. That's what that's what he does. Okay, um, and he does like five million direct to consumer, if I'm not mistaken. And it's none, I I I believe is little or no one on his website. It's all on Amazon and Home Depot. So when I tell you that I believe that they will work, and it's a very similar product, sending LTL from South Florida all over the country, it's what he does. Right. Um and the only difference I will say is he does first party Amazon, which I would not recommend for you. I do think you should stick with the with the um with fulfilled by merchant. Fulfilled my merchant. But I do believe it it I know it can work. for your your category. And I think that that's a very um like you have to commit to owning it, keeping your account healthy, you know, following all the rules. Like you got to do that. But and in the beginning, you need to to own that because this is this is a um the Amazon. This is a all this e-commerce stuff, I think.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:18

But not actually building the Shopify. Somebody else should build it.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:22

You need to hire a good design agency. I would probably look at your Mighty Mac logos, make sure that they're you're you're happy that that is what you want to build your brand around. Now's the time for you to take ownership of that. Get excited about I want you to get excited about building the Mighty Mac brand. Yeah. I would be excited about that. I mean I think that's that's a fun that's a fun project but like but that's what you got to be excited about. And but you want the your new website to be a representation of that. So you want to you want to take ownership of that right and and and get like have somebody else design it and build it but you it's got to be your vision.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:59

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:59

That you're excited about. Okay. But at the same time I would explore the Amazon and Home Depot to start building your brand on that. I mean I think that um you know love them or hate them then there's they have a lot of there's a lot of traffic there's a lot of traffic there. And um if you really want to build a $50 million brand that in wood chippers and other related access related things that that um you know you're going to need to be where the where the consumers are. And um and so you need to embrace that.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:32

So that would be my my homework for you. I mean I think um and I can build the Amazon I think you should you you can build out your own Amazon account you you will want some help in getting um great product photos that makes a that makes a big difference. And by the way I actually did do a YouTube video got no no views but um there's a guy that um run does this for me internally now I built it all up myself initially but um Jacob um um and I did an episode where he actually talks about the best practices on um how to make a great Amazon listing. And so I would actually um recommend it. But ultimately it comes down to product photos, your title bullet points um which are just basic best best practices um your A plus content which is what you're gonna want to have somebody build out just just like uh like mark like the design of um you know images and like what you want your company to be about um it's got to be consistent with whatever your brand you're building on your Shopify store. Right if you're gonna have another designer do that you could go on upwork and find somebody to to do that. You don't it's not doesn't have to be expensive but you want to get it right and you want it to be a representation of you and what you want your company to become right gotcha. I would invest in in that and and then um I would actually on Home Depot not focus on getting in stores. I would focus on getting online and then you and which I think should be easier for you and if and um if you have don't have luck I can maybe help you there a bit um and um you get online um then that can be your avenue to get in a store. Should be on Walmart.com as well by the way okay um but focal focus on Amazon first. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:17

Um so Amazon Home Depot second and then Walmart third.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:23

Correct. Gotcha. Um I mean to be honest with you for you Home Depot may be more valuable. So I would say I would put home Home Depot in the same Amazon you can start tomorrow. So like there's no excuse for you not to go do that. Because basically sign up for an account and get get started. Home Depot you have to be opted in um so it um I don't I just don't want you to have the excuse not to get started but there's no reason why you can't onboard Home Depot at the same time you're doing Amazon for this. Okay. I mean it's all going to be similar stuff right correct it's a it's similar picture similar it can be the exact same you're gonna have to build all the build all the build all those assets um and then be prepared to to give high levels of service I mean like that is going to be important um but the Shopify thing for your brand I really believe is important. And I want I really want you to take that on and be willing to invest in making that happen. Part of the reason why I was attracted to to you when you um um pitched to come on the podcast is that you're a U.S. manufacturer I'm a U.S. manufacturer something that I'm very passionate about. And you know I I really love the fact that you manufacturing all of your your products in the U.S. Walk me through the competitive dynamics of that um and with all the tariffs and this kind of stuff that like how how is it changing and what are the challenges of being a US manufacturer?

SPEAKER_02 1:10:42

Yeah um obviously a lot of uh a lot of challenges but the tariffs have actually opened up some really good opportunities uh recently um we've had some um a number of talks with um other uh equipment manufacturers or suppliers uh about supplying them um products because we are a US and that's your private label basically because of tariffs now you're more competitive on a relative basis than imported products. Yep we can react quicker the the lead time isn't there um you know if there's modifications you're not buying um container loads overseas and having um you know thousands of dollars just of scrap or rework uh sitting there um again we're manufacturing most of the metal components in our own facility specialty components aside um so we can make some modifications relatively quickly for those individuals.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:43

Do you worry at all about the fact that you've been burned by private label before so let's say you go and you do this at the expense of building out your own direct to consumer brand because you only have so much energy um and then the tariff environment changes a year from now and then that goes away how do you how do you think about that?

SPEAKER_02 1:12:05

Yeah um it's definitely on my mind uh a lot um having been burned once before um you know not only do we go and do all this work and put all this effort in build the team um and be able to supply these uh very large numbers that we've done in the past but we haven't done for 15 years um so the facility has the capacity to do it we don't have the team to what was the peak revenue of the business but we never actually asked that yeah um it was before I was there it was in the uh late 2000s um it was you know 1215 uh approximately 10 to 10 to 12, 10 to 15, something like that.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:46

So yeah and aside from the private label what would you say caused the decline? Was it export was it was it overseas competition that whole time was that would that be the big reason?

SPEAKER_02 1:12:56

Uh well 2009 the financial collapse um really changed the dynamic of the company uh from there we went to uh about 50-60 percent of uh revenue and uh just never really climbed back from that um it changed the uh percentages of the um our consumer brands and our uh rental brands more towards that private label customer as well so I think we were more on the 50-50 uh percentages prior to the um financial collapse and then after that we came out when um you know we were we were lower and then since then that 30 percent that we were um were our brands has consent to continue to erode with the distributor model um getting weaker and weaker distributors going out of business dealers going out of business but somebody is ultimately up that demand and like who is soaking up that demand yeah so there's a there's a couple different competitors out there um there's a couple that are coming in from China um and then along with the the private label company that we were doing work um they're also still out there. Are there any other U.S. manufacturers that you compete with in your space? Not directly um there's a couple that are similar but they uh will have either larger or smaller uh equipment um we're really in a a uh a niche of our own with that we're only manuf the only ones that are manufacturing in the U.S. Do you have any idea about market share like how like like how big the total adjustable market for your kind of world is like do you have any view Yeah I I looked that up recently and um it was a pretty large number uh it's hard to really dial into our specific area um but I think the total chipper market was between 1.2 and 1.5 billion dollars um on an annual basis.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:56

Yeah and if you don't have any US manufacturers and you're one of the sorry if you're one of the only US manufacturers then by definition most of that is you're mostly competing with imports.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:07

Imports yeah whether it's imports of uh components and then they're assembling here or just direct imports um yes there is a a big big market on that and what percentage of your components are you able to manufacture versus import it depends on how you classify them if you do it by weight uh and take the engine off of it um we're probably around 75 to 80 percent of the net weight of the machine without the uh engine if you take the number it's probably a little bit lower because our components are going to be larger um and then there's some specialty components that are much smaller nuts bolts um you know the those numbers will be a a a large number but it won't be um really a big impact if you take dollars same thing you know we're talking raw material dollars versus uh purchase dollars so you can't really equate those either so in that manner it's probably more like a 50-50 the thing I think about businesses like like yours though is that um you know it it's very expensive the reason they assemble them here is because it's very expensive to ship all of that stuff right for sure um and also expensive to inventory all of that stuff and so you I do think you have an advantage or I think US manufacturers in general have an advantage and certainly an advantage we have is that we're able to turn around products so much quicker and keep much less inventory um while maintaining sim um similar or faster service delivery times, which is a huge competitive advantage. Yeah. Yeah and that goes back to the the changes too right if there's a change in the product um we don't have that massive amount and we are shipping a ton of air um every single time that we ship a product. Most of our equipment is I'll say uh eighty to ninety percent pre-assembled. Um so there's only a few components that they have to put together. We try and keep our inventory as lean as possible and being able to satisfy the customers uh and we want to keep it in the raw material so we can we can make those modifications and so if you were if you were like before coming in here today um if you were to tell me like the top two or three challenges that you are facing as a person and as a business what what would you say that they are I think um people knowing our brand is definitely a a big challenge um people respecting or trusting our brand um I I think we've tried to hide uh too long and we need to come out of the weeds and tell people about ourselves.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:45

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:46

Um our people have always been a challenge um certainly won't go away um hiring the right talent having the right um mentality uh we've done some work uh recently on that and put some processes in place and um really kind of come up with an interview structure but that's still not a perfect system by any means.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:07

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:09

And then uh just our overall production delivery having a nice uh even flow uh a flow that you can scale a flow that you can scale up scale back uh modify what's going through um has always been a a challenge for us as well. So those are probably the top three.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:28

People process product basically what you just described product being brand brand more or less in this case but I mean yes every business struggles with people process and product that's kind of the name of the game. Yeah um so you're you're as an entrepreneur you're you get paid for solving for solving those problems um you know in terms of but I think the next steps would be um if and what I would like what I would like to see you do um is you know I I love your idea for 20 years from now or 15 years from now having a you know um 35 to 50 million dollar um brand in the wood cheap chipper and lawn lawn space um very achievable and I think you're sitting in a in a great place to do it um you've taken a 79 year old 78 year old business and essentially taken it through the the shift that you needed to make from being a dealer district distribution dealer model to now being a direct model whether that be to commercial um which I really think is the is a hard shift that a lot of legacy businesses have struggled have struggled to make and I think you've you've kind of gone through that storm um and come out the other side whether you can see it or not um but now it's time for you to modern modernize and become in you know to the kind of you know modern age and it's like okay well um if you want to be a brand a consumer facing brand or just a brand facing of any kind um then you're gonna have to take ownership of that and get excited about it and build a vision around that. And to me that really comes down to focus on um on building that through a modern e-commerce experience which is not that expensive to do now in a relative basis nowadays, but it's something you need to focus on um and then starting to explore avenues where customers are like Amazon and Home Depot. I mean I think that that's the um that's the kind of obvious next step but you got to get excited about it and actually take action on on building that take ownership of of building that.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:29

So you think you can do that?

SPEAKER_02 1:20:30

Oh absolutely um can you get excited about it?

SPEAKER_01 1:20:33

For sure.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:34

Yeah uh no you you know I'm I'm I'm trying to process and you know uh the everything that we've talked about here and um I graduated with a finance and marketing degree so marketing is something that I have a little bit of background. It was a long time ago at this point, but I do get excited and these last couple months actually being able to work on it has been fun. And having a few key action items I think is also very nice. Great let's go after Amazon first let's work on our website having that focus is is fantastic. I can get a little spacey and go, oh there's a there's something else oh there's a problem. Nope somebody else can care take care of that.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:16

You just have to remember as the entrepreneur of any business but particularly a small business you're your chief evangelist right and people are going to feed off of your energy your employees are going to feed off your energy your customers are going to feed off you off of your energy and what you project to the world is um the energy that they are um are reacting to right and so um that's why having your brand having your having your your website dialed in being where um modern customers are um and having a vision for that and getting excited about it that will start to that will start to impact how everybody around you behaves how people perceive you and ultimately how you're able to to grow your business but you got to really believe in that and get excited about it. But um I think you're sitting on a tremendous opportunity um and I really love these actual legacy businesses that um have have survived over this time um and and I think they have so much untapped potential but it's going to require some change some shift and like a revitalization of it and I think you're in a you know perfect position to be able to to do it but you got to take ownership for it.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:26

I can do that and yeah it is exciting. I I I do want to do this um you know it's um I'm already thinking about maybe even checking out that Amazon thing tonight when I get back to my house.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:37

But you got to stay it's not going to be the thing that solves all your problems tomorrow. Yeah but I think it's it's I'm trying to get you to focus on good long term um stable kind of kind of guaranteed win strategy. Well you said a strategy right we haven't had a strategy on on the marketing and sales side it's it's been well we think this might have worked one time so let's if you're updating your own WordPress WooCommerce plugins and trying to make it work then I think that is a signal to me that you know building on Shopify putting a modern e-commerce platform experience um really letting that be how you talk to customers um and getting excited about that and it's a lot of work it's gonna be a lot of work building out the content you're probably gonna have to do a lot of it yourself yeah um and um you know I'll tell you like and this is a long time ago now so maybe it's not so um maybe it doesn't feel so relevant but like I like I was the first person to put videos of air filters on all of our web pages and all of our Amazon pages. And that was a huge conversion boost at the time. And so it's literally um I I had a guy that worked for me and um flipping air filters just on camera and we did that you know 2,000 times or however many just a guy flipping air filters on camera um so people could see what they were buying. And that was like real innovation or that really ultimately drove lots of business and um you know it's now everybody's copied us and they do that. But you know things like that like you need to build your assets of that equivalent for for your for your product get excited about your product get excited about showing off your product and then having a a place where people that are in the market for it can say like oh I want to see what I'm buying let me go watch this video right um on this website um and then then be able to just buy it right there. That's what that's what you want to be able to present. I mean and so I I would be putting my effort on figuring out how to do that. But you're gonna but it I mean it's not easy but if you get excited about that then ultimately I think um the customers will resonate with that and it will come. They'll feel it. Yeah. Yeah. But that's that's what I that's where I would be spending every waking hour if I were in your shoes. Okay. I can do that. Um and then you fix the um you'll fix the problems that come with um more business um as as they become problems and that those are it's generally more fun to solve those problems when things are going well because you've got the um the revenue coming in and then you you can worry about the right ske manufacturing scale. But um I think that for now you gotta focus on marketing brand and growing your business. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you David appreciate it