Mark Bell's Power Project - The Visionary Behind Torque Fitness: Jerry Dettinger's 40 Years of Innovation || MBPP Ep. 1068

Episode Date: May 20, 2024

In episode 1068, Jerry Dettinger, Mark Bell, Nsima Inyang, and Andrew Zaragoza talk about how Jerry created one of the most popular fitness equipment brands and get a masterclass on how to run a business. Code PowerProject saves 5% at https://torquefitness.com   Official Power Project Website: https://powerproject.live Join The Power Project Discord: https://discord.gg/yYzthQX5qN Subscribe to the Power Project Clips Channel: https://youtube.com/channel/UC5Df31rlDXm0EJAcKsq1SUw   Special perks for our listeners below!   🍆  Natural Sexual Performance Booster 🍆 ➢https://usejoymode.com/discount/POWERPROJECT Use code: POWERPROJECT to save 20% off your order!   🚨 The Best Red Light Therapy Devices and Blue Blocking Glasses On The Market! 😎 ➢https://emr-tek.com/ Use code: POWERPROJECT to save 20% off your order!   👟 BEST LOOKING AND FUNCTIONING BAREFOOT SHOES 🦶 ➢https://vivobarefoot.com/powerproject   🥩 HIGH QUALITY PROTEIN! 🍖 ➢ https://goodlifeproteins.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save up to 25% off your Build a Box ➢ Piedmontese Beef: https://www.CPBeef.com/ Use Code POWER at checkout for 25% off your order plus FREE 2-Day Shipping on orders of $150   🩸 Get your BLOODWORK Done! 🩸 ➢ https://marekhealth.com/PowerProject to receive 10% off our Panel, Check Up Panel or any custom panel, and use code POWERPROJECT for 10% off any lab!   Sleep Better and TAPE YOUR MOUTH (Comfortable Mouth Tape) 🤐 ➢ https://hostagetape.com/powerproject to receive a year supply of Hostage Tape and Nose Strips for less than $1 a night!   🥶 The Best Cold Plunge Money Can Buy 🥶 ➢ https://thecoldplunge.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save $150!!   Self Explanatory 🍆 ➢ Enlarging Pumps (This really works): https://bit.ly/powerproject1 Pumps explained:      ➢ https://withinyoubrand.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save 15% off supplements!   ➢ https://markbellslingshot.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save 15% off all gear and apparel!   Follow Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast ➢ https://www.PowerProject.live ➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast ➢ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerproject   FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢https://www.tiktok.com/@marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell   Follow Nsima Inyang ➢ UNTAPPED Program - https://shor.by/untapped ➢YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/NsimaInyang ➢Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/?hl=en ➢TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@nsimayinyang?lang=en   Follow Andrew Zaragoza & Get Podcast Guides, Courses and More ➢ https://pursuepodcasting.com/iamandrewz   #PowerProject #Podcast #MarkBell #FitnessPodcast #markbellspowerproject

You've been in this industry for a really long time. If you go back to the late 70s, we were building weight benches in the garage. But with the tank, no one's made something like that. What made you come up with that? One of my good customers contacted me. He's like, hey, listen, we have people that want to push sleds, but they're wrecking the floors. Can you come up with something that we can still do that and not wreck my gym floor? How do you know if something's a good idea?

If you're talking and listening to customers and there's a problem and nobody's really landed on a solution, then you have an idea. Is there any moments of self-doubt? People are like, I am not going to spend money on buying a home gym or a piece of equipment when that recession comes in.

What would your advice be to somebody who has an idea and they want to turn it into a product? If you just believe in it and you're willing to work your ass off and you think you can execute, you can go for it. If you just believe in it and you're willing to work your ass off and you think you can execute, you can go for it. If you guys have been enjoying the concept we've been bringing here on The Power Project,

consider leaving us a review on Spotify and Apple. We've had podcasts with people from Functional Patterns to Ben Patrick to Jack Cruz, who roasted us on air, but we did that for you to bring you some of the best information in fitness. We're learning along with you and leaving a review with how you dig the podcast is really going to be something that helps the podcast move forward. So if you can leave us a review there

and enjoy the rest of the show. What's that mean on your arm there? Your don't quit ever. So that's the company tagline and we just apply that to everything. Trying to keep this a little closer to you. There we go. We pretty much apply that to everything. So first of all, we apply it to our workouts. And then next, we apply it to our products, our development, our sales process, our service. In other words, we keep trying.

We keep going after it. If you have a setback, that's okay. You'll learn from it, but you don't quit. You stay after it. Yeah. I love the products that you have. Thank you so much over the years for sending me the tank and some of your other amazing innovations. I was curious, I got an opportunity to set you up with a few people that I know that are famous and popular. And I've kind of wonder, how does that work out? Like when somebody talks about your product, do you really see like a huge hit or are things a little bit more slow and steady? Like we sent one to Tom Segura and I think he talked about it. Like, does that stuff really move the needle or

is it like, what's it like? Yeah. So it'll depend a little bit on who talks about it, where they talk about it. So if Tom, when he talked about it with Joe Rogan, then it moves the needle. With his audience, it moves the needle. We just see an immediate, you know, right into the website, we'll see an immediate climb, unit sales, everything like that. You know, the other people, influencers, people you help me with, same thing. Sometimes they're mentioning it. Sometimes they're, you know, doing some video.

But we can always see an increase just by people like that using our product. And you've been in this industry for a really long time. When did you start Torque Fitness? I'm a grandpa of the industry. I might be a great-grandfather at this point. I have 40 years in the industry, 40 plus years. And Torque Fitness is a little bit more recent. Torque Fitness may be the last, what, 20 years or so? Correct, yeah. And then what are the other businesses you had before that, and when did that start? So the first business was a company, well, originally we called it Powar Bodybuilding Equipment. So we were building pretty much weight equipment that people were putting in their garages, in their basements.

So think of Rogue. Before Rogue was around, we were building stuff like that. Wow. People had like some home gym stuff going on in early 70s? Yeah. Yeah. Well, this was late 70s. Late 70s. Into the 80s. But then we changed the name after a few years to Parabody, and we ran that company for 20 years. We ran that up to 98 and then sold that to the Brunswick Corporation, which owned Life Fitness. So that became a division of Life Fitness. And I actually ran a division for them for three years.

And Parabody, you make all kinds of stuff there, right? Cables and all kinds of things. Yeah. So Parabody, we were building home gyms, little weight stack home gyms. We were building all kinds of free weight pieces. We were building some commercial products, but then we really grew that after Life Fitness bought us because that was a big part of their business. Do you recall the first time, did you ever see Arnold Schwarzenegger or Lou Ferrigno,

or did you see someone famous or super popular with your product where you were like, holy shit, famous or super popular with your product where you were like, holy shit, like this is, this is becoming a big thing. So, you know, we probably, you know, there's nobody that jumps out like one of those couple of names right away. We, you know, we were big followers of bodybuilding, weight training, strength training. And what we did is, and we were following all the muscle magazines and we were seeing who was selling equipment and, you know, what kind of equipment were they selling? Was it going into homes? Was it going into, you know, health clubs?

There really wasn't health clubs to speak of, you know, in those early 80s. There was some, but not many. It was more like, just kind of like random bodybuilding gyms, like in the 80s, there was some but not many. It was more like just kind of like random bodybuilding gyms like in the 80s. Yeah. There wasn't really like – not what you see today. Today, you see a more finished product where they have cardio equipment.

They have a powerlifting section. It wasn't like that. It was more just a little bit more bodybuilding, powerlifting, and most people didn't go into those gyms because I think they were intimidated. Yeah, there was a lot of these, you know, you would call them hardcore weightlifting gyms. You know, the treadmills really hadn't come on the scene. A lot of that didn't. It was mostly, you know, the regular consumer, whatever you want to call, would be very intimidated going into a gym in those days. And really, you know, Arthur Jones came along and came out with the

Nautilus pieces and that kind of springboard a whole different audience into the strength training world. What got you into like the functional training side of things, like with the sled, with the rope? Because obviously your background is a lot of bodybuilding type of equipment, right? So what spurred your interest in this stuff? Well, it really flows out of business strategy as much as it does just interest at that point. Because I've been in it so many years. And when it comes to business strategy, we're always thinking about where's the opening? Where's the market?

What's happening? Where's it growing? We thought about that originally because I like to say when we first started, take the NFL. Nobody other than really the Steelers were doing much strength training. If you can believe that. This is the Steelers. That doing much strength training. If you can believe that. You know, this is the Steelers. That's why they had a dynasty. This is the Steel Curtain, Mike Webster.

You know, those guys were doing a lot of lifting. But, like, I'm from Minnesota. The Vikings, Bud Grant didn't want the guys to lift weights. Lost four Super Bowls. Steelers won four Super Bowls. Vikings lost four Super Bowls. My buddies back in minnesota they're not gonna like that i know i know let's edit that out we don't want any hostility thrown too late anyway i'm not a viking fan so it's okay and i'm a packer fan which really makes it difficult

makes things complicated very complicated but the the reality was in high school, I'll give you another example. I and two other guys strength trained on our high school football team. Wow. That's it. That's it. And you know what? We worked out on an old universal, which was just weights and you went around in a little rectangle. Oh, like a bench press on one side with the leg extension off of the bench press, right?

That kind of deal? Right. Those are legit. Did people think it would make you slower or something, getting muscle? Yeah, the belief was it was going to make you muscle-bound, you're going to be slower, all of those things. So I kind of went back to that because to me, I was looking and saying, I personally saw the benefits that I had from doing it and from lifting. So that I just saw

that, hey, listen, this is going to, this will take off. You know, we think of, you know, in business, you want to think about trend lines, you know, and you want to be on a trend line. So this is going to take off. Now, to answer your functional training question, and it probably has a lot to do with me, you know, as I age, you know, it's like, okay, functional training, this is going to take off. More people are going to want to functional train, and they're going to want to be able to do all the things they've been doing as they get older. So that's, you know, and we're in an industry where there's large companies. So you have to choose your niche and then you have to go after your niche.

And if there's an opening and try and become somewhat significant to that niche. Yeah. And I'm also curious about this because, you know, we have those tanks in there that you made and there doesn't seem to be any other, like, you know, with, with products, there's a lot of other types of products on the market, but with the tank, no one's made something like that or no one's even, I don't know what made you come up with that? Cause it's really fucking good. It's an amazing piece of equipment. Yeah. So when our best ideas come from the marketplace, from people who are athletes, who are training, and in that case, I had one of my good customers contact me. And he's like, hey, listen, we have people, they want to push sleds, but they're wrecking the floors, they're causing problems. They want to push sleds, but they're wrecking the floors.

They're causing problems. Can you come up with something, you know, that will be beneficial that we can still do that and not wreck my gym floors? So, you know, I take a couple engineers. We go down. We meet with them. We kick around ideas. And then we end up with some real rough mule prototype. And then we develop from there and develop from there.

And if it's a good enough idea and it's an early enough idea, then we try to wrap IP around it and see if we can protect the idea. So that's what we did with the tank. How do you know if something's a good idea? Well, you certainly have the ability, if you're talking and listening to customers and there's a problem or there's a big enough issue and nobody's really landed on a solution, then you have an idea. Now, how do you know if it's a good idea? You have to do some early concepts, early tests, and early demos. Show it to people. Try it. See, does it have any legs? For me, it's always been time. You know, like if I think I have a good idea, and then a couple weeks go by, I kind of look at that idea, and I'm like,

that wasn't really that good of an idea, I don't think. But it happens in the reverse of that sometimes too. A couple weeks or months go by and I'm like, no, I need to push on that idea. That's a good one. I need to go lean into that. Yeah, I think time – because the company that we have has got a group of people who are extremely experienced. So what happens is we're able to have ideas, and a lot of them bubble up from our direct sales team or from different customers who we've worked with over the years. And then those ideas get put into some kind of a list.

And then those ideas get put into some kind of a list. And then our top engineer, Tom, he takes some time and he looks at the idea and he sees if he can at least get a concept, something you can see on a computer screen and talk about the concept and then move it along. And I think because we've been in the industry long enough, we have enough experience on our team. You're able to vet the idea to a certain point. But even then, you want to take it. And we're working on something now that we're really excited about. And we were able to take it to two of our best commercial club customers and show it to them and say, what do you think? And then literally they'll say, yes, but. And then you make some changes and then you move it along.

Was the plan for Torque, this version of your company, was it always going to be, we're going to introduce the tank and then start moving into the rest of the gym? Because I've seen some of the functional trainers and they're very impressive. But in my head, when I think of Torque, my first thought is the tank or tanks and then the rest later. But was that kind of like always the idea in the beginning? Yeah, we had a lot of other products before the tank. We had a bunch of, we, you know, this is back to, you know, making some tactical changes in our business. So we had a bunch of single station selectorized pieces and we had that line for five plus years. And in the process of having that line and having marginal market success with it, and then really seeing that functional training was going to grow, we started developing

products that would work within functional training beyond just the tank. So we have a line called X-Create and we have a lot of cable stuff and a lot of storage. Storage is a huge issue for health clubs. Was that maybe a little bit after you came here the first time? We were down the road on X-Create, I i believe at that point in time not to the point we've developed it now yeah yeah that's cool because i remember you know uh when when we've gotten some communication um you know obviously i knew about a couple of the products but i was like oh i didn't know he makes everything yeah and that's one of the things you have to overcome when you get a product like

the tank, which, you know, and I mentioned to you, Mark, earlier, like in my career, you only get a couple of things that are called, you know, what we think of unicorns. It's like, okay, this is something, you know, we maybe can sell to everybody who's got some kind of a turf area and they want to do functional training. And then the question is, is how do you move beyond that and not just be this single product company? And that's what we were able to do because then we said, you know, if it's on the turf, we want to be able to develop and have the products that you can utilize on that turf. How long does it take to get an idea to the market? Like say something like the tank, like we're talking, I mean, I know you have experienced people in your corner, so it's going to be way different than somebody at home trying

to like create something, but about how long does it usually take you guys? Okay. Well, if you start with concept and then you get all the way to the first product that you're shipping out of your warehouse, and it's what we call a movement product. So that's a tank. That's an endless rope trainer. That's a ski ripper. That's an air bike. That's something like that. You're probably two plus years. Now inside of that, you've gone through some concepts. You're probably two plus years. You know, now inside of that, you've gone through some concepts, you've gone through some testing and lots of testing, especially on a movement product.

If the product doesn't have technology in it, it can be shortened quite a bit. Like if you just make a strap or something, a detachment. Yeah, you can probably, you know, we're pretty diligent about testing everything. So we're always going to have that test period in there.

Yeah, you can, you know, six, eight, nine months, maybe something like that. You know, if it's a frame product, steel, you know, non-moving, you're still, it seems like by the time you get all the way through everything, you're at least a year plus. Yeah, it's pretty awesome because with torque, there's a lot of pieces of equipment that obviously others exist, like the assault bike, right? But when you use one assault bike and then you use the torque assault bike, there's certain things that the torque assault bike just does better. It'll do everything that most assault bikes do, and then there'll be things on top of it. Like it'll do everything that most assault bikes do, and then there'll be things on top of it. So when you do make products that you see other companies make, do you – because you see companies, they just make the same thing and slap their name on it. But it always seems like you're adding something on top of that. Yeah, that's what we try to do.

But we also – we try to, again, solve a problem. The number one issue with air bikes has been durability and noise. Those are two big issues. So when we went after the air bikes, we said, let's figure out how we can make the air bike as durable as possible and as quiet. So we literally worked on making our air bike as quiet as we could. And then we took our air bike along with most of the other bikes and put it in a sound lab and tested. So then we were able to say, okay, we checked off quiet. Then we said, okay, well, what about durability? So beast. So we put on the biggest bearings we could possibly get in there. We tried to make sure all the joints were,

you know, really mechanically sound. So we really engineer all the way up to make sure all the joints were really mechanically sound. So we really engineer all the way up to make sure we get through that. So then take the, you know, recently we just launched a product called the Relentless Ripper, which is a skier. What we did with that is the number one issue for everybody is, where do I put this thing? Because space is such number one issue for everybody is, where do I put this thing? Because space is such a big issue. So that product, we built it and developed it so you could hang it on a wall. You could put it on a rack. You could put it on a rig. And you can put it on anybody's rack or rig. It doesn't have to be ours. So we built some universal ways to connect it. So the whole concept with that

product was how can we make this thing so it doesn't take up a ton of space? And then how can we make it again quieter? Because air products tend to be loud. So it runs off magnetics just like the tank does. I think what's coming next, is you know people have home gyms and they have they have gyms and stuff in their garage but i think the next evolution is to have stuff in your living room i think it really is i think people walking past like seeing this piece right here the ripper just walking past that you know from your kitchen to you know from your kitchen to your living room i can envision being like ah you know i should do 15 seconds you know i should do 30 seconds i mean yeah maybe the wives won't won't maybe love the decor but uh i think i think that's

what's uh what's coming next i mean we're you're seeing some of that stuff you're seeing like a lot of the commercials now where people are using certain fitness products um kind of like actually inside the home like if you watch a peloton if you see a peloton commercial it's like in their actual house it's not like in their garage yeah so interesting if you had mind pull up the f9 on the consumer side. So we thought about that, and what we developed was a product that it's a full functional trainer. Half couch, half leg extension. See how it closes up? That's so sick.

And then with that, sorry to cut you off, depending on how wide you open it, is it also usable at different angles? Okay. Because most of them, like the one we have here at this gym, is just one plane of motion. It's fixed. But if you have multiple angles, that now changes the entire game. Yeah. So it gives you some flexibility on the width of how wide it opens. But you can put that into a corner and it just closes up. Or you can

put that along the wall. We build a wall version and a corner version. And the wall version, it only sticks out about 14 inches. Oh, wow. That's amazing. Wow. Yeah. And what we wanted to accomplish with that product was we wanted to make a product that it's very sleek and you can have that product anywhere. In other words, maybe your wife would be okay if this is in the family room. Why are we always asking our wives? Why can't we just make choices for ourselves? I know, we're getting in trouble. But this is actually really dope because, you know, I i mean my generation has an issue with houses right now so like apartments are the game and this stuff can

fit in an apartment that's what like some really cool this is awesome for a lot of people yeah and we did another series called the anchor series which is even more sleek it only comes off the wall nine inches and it isn't got the fit and finish of this product. This is a little bit more high-end. But the Anker, what you can do with the Anker is, you know, it's only nine inches, and you can, it just doesn't take up hardly any room at all, and you get your functional training and all your cable motions.

I can hear Andrew salivating on the other side right now. I mean, you know me and cable machines. Yeah. Yeah. If I have two in my garage, if I can get a third one inside the house, like just, yeah, I'll connect them all together. Click on that anchor once, Andrew, please. Seven or three.

Doesn't matter. Either one. We'll go to the new one. Oh, wow. Yeah. You sent me one. You sent me one of these guys. Oh, wow. Yeah, you sent me one of these guys. Oh, wow. Yeah, I sent that to you, the Anchor 7.

Yeah. Yeah. And again, it's only nine inches off the wall. Jeez. Dang, Mark, why are you being stingy? Yeah, I got to hide it. It's at my house. Yeah, so we try to somewhat know some of the things you're

talking about you know people are going to want to do some exercising uh maybe in other parts other than the garage or the basement well and just uh you know again i'm kind of thinking like you walk past it maybe you don't do a full workout but you're you just make a commitment and you say you know every time i go past the skier thing, I'm going to, you know, do some reps on it. And that way you just kind of microdose some fitness into your day to day. Yeah. The torque tank is a piece of equipment that's used by players in the NFL, NBA, MLB, and athletes around the world because it is quite literally the best sled on the market. And now you can get the power of that sled in your own home or in your own gym.

You can start off with the Torque Tank M1, which is a more portable version of the tank. You can pack this thing up in your garage, pull it out easily, sled up and down the street, and then bring it right back. And if you want to go a little bit heavier and a little bit harder, you can get yourself the Tank M4 or the Tank MX. We've been using these beauties for the past five years. And going forwards and backwards, changing the resistance on these things, it's probably one of the best pieces of equipment that we get to use in the gym. And we want you to get access to it too. So, Andrew, how can they get it?

Yes, pick up your very own tank at TorqueFitness.com. And at checkout, use promo code POWERPROJECT to save 5% off your entire order. Again, that's at TorqueFitness.com, promo code POWERPROJECT to save 5% off your entire order. Again, that's at TorqueFitness.com, promo code POWERPROJECT. Links in the description as well as the podcast show notes. How did this whole thing get started? Like take us back to the very beginning. Maybe share some of the story that you shared with us in the gym. So if you go back to the late 70s, we were building weight benches, basic weight benches.

Well, we built this multipurpose weight bench. We called it a 12-in-1 bench in the garage. It was my father's garage, and it was probably 40 by 60. And we're up in Minnesota. We do cold well. So we had wood stove heat, and it was just my partner, Steve Duncan and I, and we were trying to figure out, okay, how are we going to sell it? And what I did is I went up to the bookstore. At the time, all the different muscle magazines pretty much

were selling weight benches or strength equipment. And there was Ironman, Muscle & Fitness. Dan Lurie had his magazine. It's like the cement weights with the skinny benches and the little posts. Oh, yeah. We're talking about the most basic stuff ever. But there was one magazine, Muscle Mag International, which didn't. And I'm paging through it it and I'm like, hmm, I wonder why this guy's not selling it. So I contacted him. His name's Robert Kennedy,

not related to Robert Kennedy Jr. Robert Kennedy up in Canada and got ahold of him and basically said, why are you not selling any weight equipment? Everyone else is. And he goes, I'm in Canada. It's too hard to get across the border. And so I said, hey, I have a factory, quote unquote factory. And why don't we build a product? We'll ship it into the U.S. and you promote it. And he said, well, send me a sample. So we went to work and got him a sample. And I never heard from him. Never heard from him for the longest time.

It was like, I think it was at least a couple from him. Longest time it was like, I think it was at least a couple months and he wouldn't return my calls. And so we're in the garage. My brother's house is where our mailbox was. And I go out there one day and I think there was four orders for these 12-in-1 animal benches. That's what we called them.

And he named it. He came up with the animal and it was just clipped out with a check for $249. And we're like, okay. So then I call his office and I get ahold of the gal up there and I'm like, tell Robert, he's got to call me. I'm now getting orders. And I ran up to the bookstore to grab it on the back of the magazine is the full page ad for this multipurpose bench. And it's being mailed directly to us. And I mean, that was the breakthrough for us to start to sell. And I mean, we were getting orders every day, sometimes four or six, eight orders, $249.

And I had no arrangement with him. No, you know, I said to him, how much do you want? And he's like, well, why don't you figure out what's fair? So we gave him $75 for every time he sold a bench. And, you know, we were selling dozens and dozens of benches, which was a ton for us because, you know, we literally were in a garage with the most basic tools you can imagine. We would have to go over. There was a local steel yard. We'd have to go over and pick over steel, bring it back, cut it, weld it, paint it, upholster it, the whole nine yards. And that's how we got going.

And that relationship stayed with him. He continued to promote products for us. And from there, we started to develop, at the time in the United States, there was this thing called Specialty Fitness. And we started to sell some products to the Specialty Fitness retailers. Eventually, we promoted and advertised in Muscle and Fitness Magazine. We did a lot of advertising in that and drove a mail order business. Did you know how to weld? Or just kind of like learn on the fly?

So my partner, Steve, was the welder and I did more of the fabrication and the upholstery work. So a lot of cutting, drilling, all of that. And then we hired some young guys who would come in and help us. And, you know, the garage was in a back alley and the truck wouldn't even pull down there. So we had to drag it up to the curb, load it up on the truck. What got you interested in starting that just in the first place? Well, when I— It's a big thing to tackle.

Yeah. So I come from a whole family of entrepreneurs. You know, my parents were in the motel restaurant business. They had this small little motel restaurant, which was across the street from where the garage was. And my grandparents were, you know, involved in that business. So, you know, we're just kind of entrepreneurs. And I did not want to be in the restaurant business. Grew up in it.

It's like, no, that's not for me. So this was a business I thought there's an opportunity here. Strength training is going to grow. It's going, no, that's not for me. So this was a business I thought, there's an opportunity here. Strength training is going to grow. It's going to get bigger. Let me ask you, I'm really curious about this. Because now, obviously, you have online, you have all these ways to do paid advertising, videos, Instagram, all that type of stuff. But you were selling a decent amount of products, making it, getting multiple orders a day before internet. So how did that transform the way that you did business over time?

Because I know obviously initial internet was very different from the internet now, but you have experience doing all of this when it was just magazine ads. So is your question, how did you transition from that basic way of promoting an advertisement to where it was? How did you transition, but also what type of financial momentum did you see? I'm just curious if 10x or 20x the ability for you to make money, or if you just took advantage of it like everybody else did. Well, first of all, I think we doubled our sales every year for five years in a row. Before internet? Yeah, in the mail order.

But you got to understand, when you start at like $80,000 a year, it's not that hard to double. So we were doubling, doubling, doubling, doubling up from a very, very low base. Yeah. Yeah. And then you kind of get to a level. Spoken like a true entrepreneur because $80,000 is kind of a lot for some people. But I know what you're saying though, the business, I get it. We, we, we moved,

we moved from the garage over into Northeast Minneapolis and that's where we set up our next kind of manufacturing business. And an interesting story about that. So we kind of hit the wall. We're running out of like, I mean, we're stuck like how to grow. And there was a young man who worked for me. His name was John Teipel. And he said, you know, my dad is a management consultant. If you ever want to talk to him, let me know.

Honestly, God, I didn't know what a management consultant was. Some days now I wish I didn't. And I said, you know, and I think I ran into like the 10th frustration in one day. And I gave my card to him and I said, give this card to your dad and have him call me. So his dad calls me and he says, well, why don't you come over and meet at my office? So I go over there and he's a great guy, you know, World War II bomber pilot, worked at the 3M Corporation, which is a big company in Minnesota. Learned a lot of the management system at 3M. And then kind of built his own consulting business or built around their management system.

So he said, well, here, sit down and why don't you tell me what you know about business? And I was 20, I think it was 26 at the time. And basically I talked for like 45 minutes straight. He slid his chair back and he said, young man, you don't know anything about business. And I was like, really? And he goes, really? So he, what he did for us is he, he taught us how to build a management system into our company, which we didn't have as entrepreneurs. I mean, we're just throwing, the orders are coming, we're doing the best we could. And we put in this whole management system, which allowed us to scale the business. Without him, you know,

I don't think we could have ever scaled the business all the way up. So that was just a pivotal change. And then we continued to work with him for many years where he would come in one day a month and review things. And we'd bring in our managers and walk through it. And, you know, we had at our peak in our manufacturing days, we had like 450 people. So, you know, we had to have some tiers in our place with managers and we were running three shifts and so there was a lot going on

and we had to build in a quality program but he helped us with all of that probably a lot of organization right is that what he helped with the most is like how much steel you need and like i mean it's got to get complicated and you just look at you know just anyone can do this just next time you're using a cable machine or any of this stuff at the gym. Just look at how much goes into it. There's so many different things that are – it's not just a weight stack and some rods. It's like there's a bunch more stuff on there. And then to figure out how to put that stuff together, to figure out how to consistently end up with a quality product that's the same. It's kind of hard to communicate to the end user like,

oh, they don't make that steel anymore. So we had to make the product completely different. They're just going to be pissed that the product's not the same. Yeah, yeah. So one of the things, you know, very top level that always stuck with me, with him, is he said, A, you have to have your goals. B, you have to be organized. And B, you have to be organized, and C, you have to hold people accountable. Those are the three pillars of how you build your structure.

So what is it you're trying to accomplish? Who are you going to do it? Who's going to do it? What's the organizational structure supporting that? And then you have to hold people accountable to what they say they're going to do. So we just really worked hard at keeping and setting the goals, building the organization, holding people accountable, and building the company off of those three pillars. Was there ever a time where you were like, I don't think I want to do this anymore. The company's not going to make it. Was there any moments of self-doubt just because you were tired of the business or the business wasn't going in a direction that you liked or anything like that? Okay. So in 40 years, I've seen so many crises come through. You go back to 08, 09, you go back to COVID, you go back before that, you know, the

recessions that we went through, all of those things. And one thing about a recession is in early days, we were primarily a home fitness company. And when you're talking about discretionary income, that's one thing that gets whacked real hard. You know, people are like, I am not going to spend money on buying a home gym or a piece of equipment when that recession comes in. And, you know, I remember a banker telling me one time, OK, you fell off the toboggan. Let's see if you can catch it. So, in other words, you built up so much cost, you have so much structure in the company, and you've got this downturn. Can you cut everything back and get it all right size for what the market is now?

And in 08, 09, because we were doing more consumer products at the time, I mean, I couldn't believe how hard the market turned. The home gym market cut in half, in half in that period. So, you know, that's when we really started to say, we're going to have to get balanced out. We're going to go commercially. But every crisis, Mark, when I think back, every crisis was pivotal in how we then were able to say, we're going to create a new future. I'll give you another example. So 08, 09 was the crisis of, we're going to create a new future. I'll give you another example. So 08, 09 was the crisis of, we're going to be more commercial. COVID, because our commercial business, it shut down. Health clubs shut down. They quit ordering. Okay. And that was the vast majority of our

business at that time. We went back into consumer in a hard way. I mean, the day COVID and everything shut down, I pulled in our marketing team. I pulled in our purchasing and all of our people. And I said, listen, we're going to figure out how to sell more home products. We're going to make home products a bigger part. We're going to do it right now. We're going to change our website. We're going to change how we offer. We're going to change our website. We're going to change how we offer. We're going to take commercial products and figure out how to package them for homes. And we were only doing 2% or 3% home at the time. Wow.

So we pivoted that fast, and then we were able to come through. So today, now we have a significant consumer business. We have a bigger commercial business, and we have an international business. And we have these four segments that we play in. But each crisis out of the crisis was born the opportunity to pivot the business into a different direction. And, you know, we're in relative, we're a smaller company. And, you know, we're in relative, we're a smaller company. So we're able to do some of that pivoting and then create a whole different future.

Force you to be creative, huh? Survival has a way of doing that. Yeah. Because literally, I mean, we're staring at survival. Yeah. And I think, you know, when you go to your team and you say, hey, you know, if you say something like, can you guys be more creative? Can we? It's like, can you guys be more creative? It's like it's not enough. Or even if you give them some great speech and rally everybody up and get them fired up.

But this forced you in a completely different space that you really weren't doing nearly as much business with. So then it kind of boxes up ideas for people. Like, oh, we need to focus more on home stuff. What are some quick hit or easy things that we can think of that can make us money immediately? And then how do we build momentum and build that out for the future? Yeah, exactly. And it gives you an opportunity. That was such a dramatic shift that, you know, everybody was able to step back and say, we need to figure this out. You know, okay, we can do something with it.

You know, and we came up with a little simple thing. Everybody wanted dumbbells and everybody wanted weights. Everybody was stocked out of them because the clubs closed and everybody wanted to get them. So what we did is we said, if you wanted an Olympic bar and some weights, you had to buy a rack with it. We'd sell it in a combination. So we were able to kind of push up our average order value by doing that. And, you know, people would say, well, no, I just want the weights and say, well, we're only going to sell it this way. So we were trying to take advantage of the market and give the people that wanted to be able to do a full workout some equipment they could be able to do it. So, again, crisis is, you know, when you're on this side of crisis, you realize it created a different future.

But when you're in the middle of it, it's stressful, very stressful. Are you seeing any change in what's going on right now? Because I know it's not quite as dire as we'll say 2008, which, I mean, dire is kind of a little dramatic. But people are starting to pay attention to where their money is going. They're starting to prioritize, like, well, shoot, maybe I won't do that home gym stuff because like, dang, I just need to make ends meet and get food for the month or whatever it may be. Are you noticing a dip in anything yet? And if so, how do you think you guys might pivot out of this? Well, our commercial business is really good. So that business is very strong. And it's interesting. So out of COVID, health clubs said, we are changing. And we're not exactly positive why that is or, excuse me, why the following happened, but it did. In other words, people are going into health clubs and they don't want to just get on treadmills and aimlessly go for 45 minutes. They want to go over and they want to do some strength training. And, you know, there's more women on half racks than there ever was.

Yeah. It's really changed. Amen to that. Yeah. I think it's great. Yeah. So it's really changed. Amen to that. Yeah. I think it's great. Yeah. So it's really changed. So the commercial business is really good because what's happened is they're reorganizing their floors, which has been good for my company because we're in a position where we're putting a lot of functional equipment in and they want to create more community. And community is wrapped around working out with people.

So there's a bunch of that going on. So we're really good at that. We're really good at helping them. You know, we'll say to them, how many people do you want to train? What kind of training do you want to do? And how long do you want them to train for? And then we design the room. What my company does now commercially for sure is it's just as important of the design of the room as it is the equipment. We spend a lot of time. We have full-time designers who work on that because we want to create the exact room that they want. And then we give that to them and they go, yeah, that's what we want to do.

That probably creates like a lifetime customer too because then they come back and they're like, oh, you know, it's five, six years later. Maybe they want some different arrangement. And they probably communicate to you guys again. You're like, oh, we have these three new pieces. It would be perfect to what you already have. And they should go here, here, and here. Yeah, it does. And it also gives us an opportunity because everywhere we put in, we call it X create as the, the functional training pieces we build out everywhere. We put, when we bring a ripper out, that ripper can go on that X create. That's this opportunity where we go back and communicate and they go, that's awesome. I'll stick the ripper on the end of there. And now I can add that into

my functional training and my performance training area. So that part, I'm giving you a long answer on that, but that part, the commercial part's really good. The consumer part is much softer. I mean, what happened is so much equipment got pushed in during COVID into homes that the market got saturated. So all the consumer-only companies like Peloton and some of those guys, they're struggling because so much stuff got pushed out in such a condensed amount of time. And that means a bunch of used stuff is coming out behind it. So that part of it is still good for us because we continue to innovate. We do things like anchors and F9s, and we try to not be just a commodity item.

We try to not be just a commodity item. Yeah. I'm curious about this, man, because, you know, in fitness, we see like certain things fall out of style and then they come back. Like even when it comes to something like bodybuilding, it made like there was a really big surge of young, like younger guys getting into bodybuilding in like 2019 again. getting into bodybuilding in like 2019 again. So in terms of equipment or styles of fitness through the years that you've been making equipment, has there anything that you've just seen continue to just come back, die, come back, die? Have you just noticed any trends? Well, for sure, you know, free weights. I mean, free weights, you know, we, we, my early days, you know, everything was pretty much free weights. You know, use a barbell.

And then, you know, the Nautilus thing came on and machines came on and that became real popular. And then free weights, you know, but, you know, just moving iron has really never completely gone out of style. Yeah. And I don't think it will. I mean, it just seems to consistently be there. And, you know, I look at what happened with CrossFit. And, you know, where I really salute CrossFit and Rogue is that they figured out a way to make a sport out of fitness. They're one of the first people.

You know, we have the Olympic lifting, we have the Olympics and whatnot, but they figured out how to build, you know, and if you think about sports, the reason people get into sports is they identify with an athlete or a team and that's what they did. And they did a brilliant job of that. So that really was a game changer. And it really, you know, you talk about all the lifting, all the different movements that you're doing in CrossFit. That has been, that was one of the more significant things to come along in the last 20 years. Probably the biggest change, too, in terms of getting females into the gym, I think. Yeah.

I think CrossFit was really responsible for that. What do you think of some of your competition, some of the other companies out there, like a Rogue Fitness? Are you like inspired and motivated by companies like that? Yeah. So I have great respect for Rogue. I mean, what Rogue has done, you know, I mentioned like if you go back to what we were doing with Parabody and the early day in the garage, we're kind of like doing a bunch of things on a basic level that Rogue did. But if you look at how Rogue scaled that business up and what a marvelous job and how good they are

at, you know, I don't know how many things I can walk around and I can see a lot of rogue t-shirts. And I see a lot of rogue clothes. So they almost accomplished what Harley Davidson did. Oh, yeah. Good comparison. They almost did that with their brand. And in our business, they did it. You think about companies like Life Fitness or Precor, Matrix. Those are big commercial brands, and they don't have the brand awareness Rogue does. They don't have a feeling behind them.

Yeah. Like Rogue, you see some of the Rogue shirt, you kind of give them a little head nod. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, I really have tremendous respect for that because, you know, I know how hard it is to build a brand. And they did it. They did a great job of it. Yeah, that must, when you see other companies out there making innovative products, it must kind of get your team excited too about, you know, how can we change things?

How can we, you know, make our own niche? own niche. Yeah. And, and the other amazing thing about Rogue is their, their niche wasn't really around product as much as it was the aura of the brand. Cause if you think about, it's lots of Olympic bars, it's lots of cool, you know, plates, but they just flowed the brand through so many different things. And, uh, you know, they've done a lot of cool innovations on attachments and, you know, and they're just very masterful at that. We're, you know, we really are kind of product guys at heart. That's what drives us. You know, we're constantly trying to do something with the product and innovating with the product and coming up with solutions around the product. Earlier, you mentioned the tank being kind of created because you saw a need for it. You saw some of your training transformed to become more, I guess, functional. So with that being said, when did your training start to change? When did you start feeling that doing things like the tank

or doing more pulling type movements, moving your body in that way. When did you start seeing that that was super important for you? Because I think when we have some people on, some people are just like, they lift and that's it. And you can kind of see how that affects them, right? So when did you realize that? Well, I'll talk for me personally. I'm 64. So I did a lot of lifting, a lot of bars, a lot of traditional lifting. And I just started to transition over to using cables. A lot of cables, do a lot of cable training. I have the F9 that I work out in my home with. So, you know, I just, it was so much easier on my body that, you know, that's for me personally where, you know, I started making that changeover. And then the beauty of the tank is for me was, you know, I heard, I listened to a couple of you guys' recent podcasts on sprinting and running.

And the tank allowed me to get out and push and move my body and not feel like I'm going to get hurt and not feel like I'm going to get injured, really get my heart rate up and really, you know, do some things that, you know, like, I wish I could do still, but, you know, I don't want to have an injury. They take longer now to heal and all that stuff. So that's kind of how it happened for me personally. And, you know, from a business standpoint, I think back to openings, you know, we just, we're looking at the marketplace. We're always looking at the marketplace and where's it going? What's happening? Where's the opening? Where can we niche in and take advantage of what's happening in the marketplace? How does the, like, you know, the giveaway thing proprietary, but like, how does some of the

technology in the tank work? Because people look at it and the first thing people used to say is like, oh, it's goat wheels. They think it's going to be easy. It's like, all right, let me see you try pushing it and you're going to feel like you're going to die. So basically it works the complete opposite of a friction sled. The way a friction sled works is as you take off, that's the hardest it's ever going to be because as you move, you have heat and it's now getting easier. Okay. So with a tank, it's the complete opposite.

At the point of takeoff is the easiest it's ever going to be. And the reason is there's a wheel, aluminum wheel in there, there's magnets. And as that thing starts spinning faster and faster, those magnets get stronger and it increases the resistance. And we're just adjusting the magnets when you go from one level to the next to increase more resistance. So the harder you push it, the faster you push it, the harder it gets. So it's the opposite of a friction sled. So it's good for the body in the sense that you at takeoff, you know, you're not going to blow your Achilles out. You're not going to have bad stuff happen because it's the easiest. And then you're ramping it up and your body can be in, you know,

connection with the product. I like the safety of some of that, you know, like the rope to the continuous rope. Obviously anyone can hurt themselves doing just about anything. You can always find a way to do that. But with something like the tank or something like the rope, I find that you can go – you can give it a really good effort and it just doesn't feel like you're going to get hurt. Especially the tank because you get to kind of – you get to lean your body weight into some of that. And for some people, just dealing with their own body weight sometimes is really tough. So something like sprinting can be very difficult for a lot of people. But if you put the tank, you flip it up to two or three,

you get to kind of lean some of your body weight into it, and you're going so much slower that the odds of you getting hurt are much decreased. Yeah, I think it's one of the big, big benefits of the product and being able to use the product and get a really good workout. I mean, really get your heart rate up and really have a great workout. I love what it does for the legs. It's amazing pushing it forward, pushing it backward, but in addition to that, you get to do so many upper body movements off of there.

Just pushing it explosively, doing rows and stuff like that with it. And SEMA has actually kind of come up with some pretty cool ways of dragging the sled where you're moving your shoulders around and you are pulling in many different directions. Yeah, you can pull and push the tank in a lot of different shapes of your body. You can pull and push the tank in a lot of different shapes of your body. If you have the ability to get yourself one, it's one of the best tools I think you can have in a gym. And confined space too. Because it has the benefit of like, you know, most movements you do, you're standing still. But this, you're able to move through space and produce a lot of fucking power.

Which, you know, you want to be able to maintain that output as you get older. The other thing we're doing in that whole tank category is, so we have three models. We have an M1, that's that three-wheel tank. Then we have the M4, the MX. Well, the M1, a lot of people who are either personal trainers or they're garage gym people or whatever, they're buying that. They can take the handles off, throw in the back of their car. They can go anywhere with it. The M4, that goes into lots of CrossFit boxes, training studios.

The MX is an elite product. It has the highest levels of resistance. And that product can, you know, we get that into a lot of universities. Many of the NFL teams are training with that product. So we have those three categories. And the other thing we do, and I think we're going to have it, the updated version go live on the website here in the next two weeks, is we created a training where you can go on, you can watch about 45 minutes of video, you can take a test, and then you can get certified as a trainer on the tank. Oh, that's cool.

Yeah. So when we are out there talking to clubs and they're like, okay, you know, it's not just a push sled. It's what you were talking about where you can do all kinds of different things, all kinds. And there is a correct way to push it. You. And there is a correct way to push it. You know, there is a wrong way to do it. So we want to help people do that. So that certification will be up and live here in the next couple of weeks. What's this band you were telling me about?

You told me there's a band that you guys created that hooks to the tank as well. Yeah. So what we came up with is if you put our uh we call it the running harness or waste harness on the tank we came up with a band that is hooked between the tank and the the harness and it it just it has some give to it so it's kind of like when you're pulling a truck out of the ditch. In Minnesota, we kind of understand that. You have some give so it doesn't jerk. So this smooths out the tank. So if you want to do sprinting and you want to put that band on.

It'll go with you smoother. Exactly. Yeah. So it's not, if you don't, you know, you're going to have, if you're just doing walking or whatever, it's fine. But if you want to do more running and sprinting, then you want to have the band on there. And then you got the wheelbarrow feature of it as well. Yeah, so the wheelbarrow is, that's a fabulous workout. We have that available on the M1 and the MX.

And so that's where you're really activating your upper body. And you can get a great workout on that the um the newest uh m1 because i remember we had like a different version of it and then i seen like you guys updated it what have you guys changed on the m1 what we did with the m1 the new version is there were so many people who were wanting to do more backwards walking. Ben Patrick's driven a lot of that. Bunch of stuff with Joe Rogan's driven some of that. And what we did with that is we created where you could drop some dumbbells

on the front of the machine, and it gives you a little better traction out there. of the machine and it gives you a little better traction out there. And then we made that pivot on the front of the machine a little bit taller. So if you want to kind of do like a mid-level push back, you can do that. And the second or third thing we did is we added a console. So now you can track your workouts and you can have up to four people train. So if us four guys wanted to do a workout, we can each track our workout and then we could do a little competition with that. And you can toggle through the workouts.

What about putting some of the technology into like a belt squat or something like that? You guys mess around with anything like that? We haven't messed around with anything on a belt squat. That's an interesting idea for the same reasons we were talking about, you know, easier on the back. The one thing we found with that technology is it's somewhat difficult when you have real short motions. So, in other words, when I push a tank, I got – because, again, I got to get that flywheel. Yeah, I got to get that flywheel going. So, it's a little more challenging with that. So, it's an interesting idea because of all the, let's face it, pressure and whatnot on your spine.

What was the equipment you were telling me about in the gym? You said it was called gym something. E-gym. E-gym. And that gives you like a lot of feedback via like a lot of metrics of your reps, your sets and all these different things, right? Yeah. Yeah.

So that's a company that's come out in the last several years. They've done very, very well, really well in Europe. I think doing pretty well in the U.S. But what they did a great job of is it doesn't have a weight stack. There's a motor in there that's creating the resistance. And what I think is really quite well done is the feedback that you're getting on the screen, the way the machines adjust to your body to get in them. So they've done a nice, really good job of merging technology into strength training. And you can sort of like pick different resistance from different angles type thing, it seems like?

to like pick different resistance from different angles type thing it seems like uh well from what i know and i don't know a ton about it um but what i know is it's a lot of kind of traditional selectorize what we would think of selectorizer is a bench press but what's nice about it it really helps set your range of motion and it gives you feedback to look, are you doing a full stroke? Are you, you know, is your cadence proper? Right. Yeah, how many seconds up and down and stuff. Yes. Do you think, like, more technology will be integrated into a lot of the products that you have? Do you think maybe at some point there'll be some version of AI in there,

or has that been talked about at your company? So we're always trying to look at, you know, tech and we're always trying to understand it. I would imagine, you know, I had one person said, never bet against technology. I mean, it's just. Yeah, it's there and it's coming. Yeah, and it keeps coming. So, yeah, I would think that, you know, we're always trying to play like we have feedback built into our ripper now, into our tank now. We have it coming on our endless rope trainer now.

So we're going to try to work on, you know, having more of that. We have it on our air bike. So, yeah, I'm sure we'll continue to evolve there and do more of it. Yeah, I think that feedback is really important. to evolve there and do more of it. Yeah, I think that feedback is really important. I think, you know, I've been into just a handful of gyms, you know, that are attached to like some of these NFL teams and so on. And I've seen that like the athletes seem to care more about, and the coach, they seem

to care more about the execution of the exercise and that it's done within a certain framework rather than being super concerned about the weight. So I think that that can be really important for a lot of people, and then they can kind of – you can see your watt output or you can see your power output for a particular exercise. I think it's pretty cool. I do agree with that, and I do believe that as the next generation of strength and conditioning coaches come along, they're going to be way more inclined, right, to want that and look for that kind of feedback. So, yeah, I think it's definitely something we'll see much, much more of. to have some form of like a Wi-Fi signal on like a tank or something. And then you gamify it and you have your own torque games where everybody can go online and see where they rank. And then if you get like high enough, then you have to like prove it with video or something.

But I don't know. I just think that would motivate a lot of people just like the CrossFit Open. You get to see where you rank amongst everybody in the world. And you're like, okay, like we're not last place. We feel pretty good right now. It's like a tank world record. Yeah. Crossrope Jump Ropes actually does that same thing in their app.

Like you'll be able to see people legitimately like in your area, how many times they've jumped and how you rank over everybody like close to you in the past day. It actually makes you want to keep going higher. So, you know. It's a good idea, Andrew. I was curious about this. I've noticed it in the past few years.

There's a lot more, especially after like Ben Patrick started popularizing specific movements, like the lower back extension, Nordics, et cetera. A lot of people have like the tip bar guys and Shogun have come out with like a Nordic lower back extension or a Nordic and a lower back extension and a GHR and like a four-in-one, five-in-one type pieces of equipment, right? What do you think of those types of things?

Because like they don't take up much space and they seem fairly affordable. But what do you think about like that type of equipment popping up? Because I never saw stuff like that in the past. Yeah, I think it's kind of a natural progression. And I think what they're trying to accomplish is they're trying to get as great a price point and as great of many exercises as possible. I mean, I go back to that thing I mentioned earlier, our 12-in-1 bench. So, you know, we had a knee extension, a leg curl, an arm curl, a bench, an incline. You know, we could list off all these different exercises you could do on that bench.

But I think it's now that, you know, we're moving into all these other body parts that people are trying to train. They're just using and becoming, you know, more clever in how to get more into that product. I think it's great. How do you and your team, how do you guys decide on what to say no to? Because there's like, and Seema's mentioning these other products, probably real easy to be like, oh crap, we should make those. And then you got to ultimately say no because of time constraints. Yeah, that's a good question.

And I mentioned this to Mark earlier. So, you know, I look at my job as the CEO, I really have two major things that I'm responsible for. Like, what are we trying to do? Who are we? What is Twerk trying to accomplish? And then what are the core values that we live by as a business? And I try to make sure we stay true to those.

So when it comes to the vision of what we do, as I say, first and foremost, we build product for users. So what do I mean by that? They say 27% of the population does some form of exercise on a regular basis. So there's 75% or whatever who don't. Okay. There are some people who actually build product for them. They're using marketing and things to entice them in. But those aren't our customers. Ours are users. And there's a second element to that. When we build a product, anybody can use it. So Brian Shaw can use it. Or the grandmother who says, you know what,

I just want to live better. I want to be able to enjoy this part of my life. So we build it, the product will work for any of those types of people. So that's the first thing we think about. Second thing is we spend money, effort, and time on two elements, the look of the product itself and the look of the room. And the reason is, is when someone opens the door and they look into the room, it's a room we designed, we want them to, in their mind, to go, I want to work out there. I want to lift in there. I want to jump in there. I want to pull, push. I want to work out there.

Or if it's a product, they look at it and they go, I want to push that. I want to pull, push. I want to work out there. Or if it's a product, they look at it and they go, I want to push that. I want to pull that. So we spend money on industrial design and room design. The third element is we focus on three things. Two of them are efficient. One of them is effective, efficient in time. So if if we build a product if you're going to use a tank versus a friction sled if you're way stronger than me i need to take weight off and you need to put weight on that takes time with the tank i can flip a lever you can go i can go so time space we try to build everything as space efficient as possible. When we developed XCreate, we said, let's make sure everything can go against the wall. If it's

not against the wall, you can use both sides of it. You can modularize it. You can be as efficient as possible with space. Third is effective. We want to make sure that actual workout is effective as possible so you get the best result possible. So those are the three things. And the fourth element is when you're done, when you're done with the workout, you're like, man, I feel great. I want to work out again. We don't want our product to be coat hangers.

We want it to get used. And we want people to say, don't quit. I'm going to go work hangers. We want it to get used. And we want people to, you know, say, don't quit. I'm going to go work out again. And underneath all that is what I tell everyone. What we're here to do is help humans become a better version of themselves. If we do that, then we're doing our job. So that's the core vision. Now, if somebody brings an idea and it doesn't fit within

that, we say, no, we don't, it doesn't work. It doesn't work for us. Then on values, we talk about principle is do the right thing. Be a good human being. I tell everyone who comes to work for me, I go, look at someday you may have torque fitness on the front of your shirt. You have a last name on the back of your shirt. Be a a last name on the back of your shirt. Be a good man. Be a good woman. Be honorable. Be good to your customer.

Good to your colleague. Be a good person. Two, perseverance. We apply it to everything. Don't quit ever. three and you know we think we try to think this through and you know we try to make sure that um you know we're as a company you know i like to say hey we have to be profitable if we're going to have new buildings new products more people we got to make sure we're profitable as a company. So we try to make sure that everyone understands there's nothing wrong with profit. What it does is it allows you

to create the future. Because if you don't have profit, you can't create that future. So I just try to make sure everybody understands, you know, these are our values. This is how we operate. And then we apply that to everything. So we try to recruit people. And then on people, you know, I ask for three things. Number one, you have to have skill. And what I mean by that is if you're coming to work for us and you're an engineer, you have to have the skill set to do it. If you're coming to be in sales, you have to have the skill to do it. Number two, you have to make sure you have a work ethic. We don't want people

who don't understand, you know, without work ethic, without hard work, you don't get success. And then three, teamwork. You have to get along with each other. You have to be willing to help out. So we recruit people who fit that. So then you have what's called a corporate culture. And that's my responsibility. Keep us on that corporate culture. So if I can keep us on that vision and those core values, then the company is cohesive and people who have those values come there and they like working there. A constant thing that's been beneficial for all of our health has been intaking enough protein, but also intaking quality protein. And that's why we've been partnering with Good Life Proteins for years now. Good Life not only sells

Piedmontese beef, which is our favorite beef. And the main reason why it's our favorite is because they have cuts of meat that have higher fat content, like their ribeyes and their chuck eyes, but they also have cuts of meat like their flat iron. Andrew, what's the macros on the flat iron? Yeah, dude. So the flat iron has 23 grams of protein, only two grams of fat, but check this out. Their grass-fed sirloin essentially has no fat and 27 grams of protein. There we go. So whether you're dieting and you want lower fat cuts or higher fat cuts, that's there. But you can also get yourself chicken. You can get yourself fish.

You can get yourself scallops. You can get yourself all types of different meats. And I really suggest going to Good Life and venturing in and maybe playing around with your proteins. I mean, going back to the red meat, there's picanha. There's all kinds of stuff. There's chorizo sausage. There's maple bacon. That stuff's incredible. The maple bacon that stuff's incredible the maple bacon

yo my girl put those in these uh bell peppers with uh steak and chicken and oh my god it was so good but either way guys protein is essential and the good life is the place where you can get all of your high quality proteins so andrew how can they get it yes you can head over to goodlifeproteins.com and enter promo code POWERPROJECT to save 20% off your entire order. Links in the description as well as the podcast show notes. Really well said and well thought out. It must have taken you many, many years to come to all that. For some of the people that are listening that have ideas,

people come to me a lot with product ideas and creations and inventions. Sometimes people will say, oh, I'm not all that creative. I'm not really sure exactly how I would figure this out or how I'd make it. What would your advice be to somebody out there who has an idea and they want to turn it into a product? Let me answer that two different ways. One way would be because people bubble ideas up to us a lot and we always like the idea of, you know, having new ideas and concepts coming in.

But what we had to develop over time is if you don't have something wrapped around it from an IP standpoint, if you haven't got some way to protect your idea through patents or copyrights or something, then we really don't engage. And the reason is we may already be working on it. Then we have a conflict. We end up licensing something to you that can't be protected. Then, you know, we've brought it to market and now in comes the competition. So we choose, you know, only to look at things like that. If you have a very good idea, what I would suggest, especially if it's a unique idea, see if you can get something wrapped around it, some kind of patent protection.

Because without it, if the idea takes off, the competition is so intense, it'll come in, it'll take your idea. So if it's a product or a product idea, that's how we think about it and we think about it ourselves. But there's a third thing. If you just believe in it and you're willing to work your ass off and you think you can execute at some level where you can get that product to the marketplace at a reasonable price and still make the kind of money you want, you can go for it. But we have those two benchmarks that we think about. If it's license that comes to us or if it's your idea, try to wrap something around it. I think something that I'd like to encourage people to do is that I think a lot of times people have an idea or concept and they think that they want to turn this idea, they want to turn it into a business, they want to turn it into all these other things. I think sometimes we have a tendency to get ahead of ourselves. And I think sometimes we have a tendency to get ahead of ourselves.

And if you could just think this item that I'm going to create, this thing that I'm going to make, is that something that you really want to do? Like, do you really like it? Do you really enjoy it? Is it something that you'll be excited about five years from now, six years from now, eight years from now? Because all that stuff is going to take a really long time, you know, to, if you're not pumped about it in five years from now, then probably nobody else will be either. Right. So you have to be excited about it. And then the last thing I would say is like, I wouldn't worry so much about, uh, having this thing, try to be such a home run. Um, there's nothing wrong with collecting some base hits. There's nothing wrong with getting on second base. Um, and there's nothing wrong with striking out either second base. And there's nothing wrong with striking out either.

You know, there's nothing wrong with striking out here and there and have it just not really work well. But what I would like for people to have in their head is, imagine if the product that you made made you $20,000 for the year. Then maybe the next year it made you like $30,000. Maybe it got up to, over a couple of years, maybe it got up to, I don't know, $50,000, $60,000. Like, you know, they're probably not going to put you in Forbes magazine, right? But it's something

that you like. It's something that you set your mind out to do. It's very admirable. You had an idea. So many people have ideas and they don't do anything with them. You had an idea, you brought it to market, it's making money and it's something money and something fun and cool that you're doing. And as long as it's not really hurting you or costing you anything, I just like to mention that because I hear so many times people talking about so-and-so sold their business for a hundred million dollars and then this guy did this and this guy. And I think that some of those numbers just kind of overwhelm people. And what would be wrong with making a living off of something that you love doing, especially if it was something that kind of started out as like a side hustle? Yeah, I think you have to decide what your ambition is. And sometimes that side hustle, it could blow up and it could be even greater than you ever anticipated.

But I will tell you that now that I'm 64, the one element that is limited is time. So unless you're really passionate about it, you only have X amount of time. And you might learn from the side hustle, what didn't work. And then from the side hustle, how you pivot and how you come up with some other angle to make it work. So, uh, you just wouldn't want, you know, if, if the person goes, man, for five years, I'm going to grind away here and I'm only going to go from 20 to 50 grand. You can't hardly live on that in today's world, right? So unless it's truly a side hustle. So I guess my thing is, you know, be a student of what works. And, you know, what I did when I was,

got to that certain point and I was stuck, and I think everybody who's an entrepreneur who goes up, you'll hit these levels where you get stuck. And that's where you need somebody else to come alongside and give you good advice and be able to say, and I think the best advice is paid for versus just given. But somebody who comes in and says, hey, you know what, you know, here's the systems you need to put in. Here's the changes you need to make.

Here's the things you need to do to be able to kind of scale up to another level. And not everybody has to scale a company way up and, like you said, sell it for $100 million. you need to do to be able to kind of scale up to another level. And not everybody has to scale a company way up and, like you said, sell it for $100 million. I'm more hesitant now at this stage in my life to say just passion's enough. I don't think it is. I think you should think it through. It needs to be a good idea.

It needs to be a very good idea. There's a great book. I'd recommend anyone read Peter Thiel's book, Zero to One. It's a great book. It helps you think through how proprietary technology, all the different things, why should you try to venture into something. It's not for everyone, but it's a good book and it's an easy little book to read. I like what you said about wrapping some IP around it, trademarking it, patenting it, like things that you can think of that, that sort of make it intellectual property without it being litigious, without it being like a lawful attachment. But so like if you were making something, you know, just take my slingshot, for example, I was fortunate to be able to get a

patent for it, but I put it on the market before the patent came because I just knew that I was going to be able to do something awesome with it just because of sort of who I was already. So I knew that it would sell well. I was already popular. So my situation is quite different than some other people. But I also knew that if I built other products around it, that that would kind of solidify. It's not just a product. It's not just this thing for bench pressing. It's actually wrist wraps and elbow sleeves and knee sleeves. And it's all stuff that has to do with protecting yourself for lifting. So that was like, I would say there's probably more ways to make something a little bit

proprietary without actually ending up with a patent, but a patent is really important. Yeah, I like that. I like that. You know, you're basically protecting, you know, building a barrier around the brand. You know, that's one of the reasons if you do get a really good idea and you don't have really good protection, what you don't want to do is be crazy with pricing. In other words, if you get an idea and it takes off and you're starting to really get some market share, if you've priced that thing too high, you invite competition.

If you price that product at a price that allows you to make the margin you need to promote, to be profitable, but not too fat of a margin, then the competition looks over and they go, yeah, yeah, we could go in there and fight that guy. But that guy's pretty tough. And he's not trying to make too much money. So I recommend if you don't have that IP, you don't have some of that, you got a good idea and you have some passion to want to go out and promote it. Excellent advice. Cause I never really thought about it that way, but yeah, you're like, ah, that guy's making like six, seven bucks off it. Like, let's just let him, let's just let him do his thing, you know, and we're not even going to try to disrupt what he's working on. Well, yeah, because you're not going to go away.

Right. You know, and if I come in and I get a third of your business it's not enough to go to bloodbath trying to get it right how about you believe in it how about getting others to believe in that product if i believe in my product and get other people to believe in it? Yeah, I'll say convince, but you're trying to convince a stranger to believe in that product to eventually convert some money into that product. Yeah, good question. And we live in the best time for that, by the way. I'll give you a story. So I heard about Mark many years ago, about seven, six years ago.

And all I did is I shipped a tank down here and I wrote him a note and I said, beat the hell out of this thing. My name. Just ship the product down here. Because I knew he's an animal. He works out hard. And then he just started working out on the tank. And then he just started working out on the tank. So why we live in a great time is there's these influencers, these people who have popularity, and you can use your product and get it into their hands if you have an alignment between who you think they are and your product is, and they have that awareness.

So then you would need to budget some of your dollars to get product into people. So Mark has helped me immensely get product to Huberman or Sean Baker or some of these other people. Yeah. And then he got me a contact. So I shipped because I heard Dana White was all pissed off at Peloton. So I said. He's always pissed off at Peloton. So I said, I got to get Dana a stealth air bike because he's going to throw all of his Pelotons in the dumpster. So Mark got me a contact. So I sent a Tank MX and a stealth bike down.

So we live in a great era for that. It was way harder back in the old days where I know, where I could put an add in muscle and mag or whatever. So if you have a cool product, think of the product, think of an alignment, think of influencers and, you know, just get them product and, you know. That's a great example because when you did send it, I remember communicating back to you and I was like, this is the place to break stuff.

Like my team can figure out a way to break just about anything. Yeah. And it survived. So yeah, it made me a believer of it. Earlier you mentioned, you know, if you're going to do something, ideally you do want to be passionate about it along with it being a good idea. And, you know, owning as many businesses as you've had through the years. Were you passionate about all of them? Were there some that you did just because you saw that they were profitable? I've always been interested, passionate in fitness, always enjoyed it. I think I probably had a point where I transitioned some of my passion into leadership and into developing organizations and developing people. Yeah.

So I think that's a natural thing that happens to people as they go from little tiny startup to you're running something. tiny startup to, you know, you're running something. Cause if you don't, um, then you're, then you're, you're, you're going to cap out if you don't make that transition. So I think I changed, you know, so maybe I read more books on leadership than anything now and, and whatnot. But the other thing, uh, in, in that same realm, when it comes to, you know, product and, you know, what you can do or how you can bring product to market. I think if you really are, you know, looking at the marketplace and willing to figure out how to test those products, if it's within whatever your passion is, to test those products, if it's within whatever your passion is, then you can at least get a feel for, is that product going to have any kind of traction or not? Do your children have any interest in taking over the family business?

Or are they like, I don't want to try to step into dad's shoes? Because they work for you. Yeah. Let's try to step into dad's shoes. Because they work for you. Yeah, so, yeah, I have four children, two grandchildren. And two of them work for me. My daughter Sarah is in marketing. My son Sam is in our, we call it systems automation. And, you know, I don't know. I don't know where we'll end up here in the next several years with the business.

But, you know, I with, uh, the business. Uh, but, um, you know, I know, uh, they, they really enjoy the business. Why do you think it's so important to you? You know, you've built this business up for many, many years and built it to the spot that you did. Um, why is it so important to you? Why do you, um, why do you care so much about the details? why do you care so much about the details? That's probably a personality thing as much as anything. You know, I'm kind of like, if I'm in, I'm all in type person. You know, that's kind of how I'm wired up.

But, you know, I like the idea of helping humans become a better version of themselves in our way. I mean, there's all these other ways you can do it in this world. You can help people, you know, through their nutrition. You can help them, obviously, through their workouts. You can help them through their mind, their spirit, their, you know, all those different ways you can help people. It's kind of our way. And I enjoy doing it. And I just enjoy the people that I've worked with.

And I enjoy the industry. I enjoy meeting people who are also worked with and I enjoy the industry. I enjoy meeting people who are also like-minded and enjoy that. Yeah, it's life-altering when you first, when you first get into weights. So it must be an amazing feeling to get other people to feel some of that. Yeah, exactly. You know, and for me, I think I had a kind of a, You know, and for me, I think I had a kind of a, I don't know if it's a renaissance or the right word is, but I got diagnosed with very aggressive cancer. So I had cancer five years ago and then I got, and they told me it was aggressive skin cancer was on the top of my head.

And they told me if this cancer comes back, you're going to get it in your neck. Well, it came back. It came back two and a half years later. And that's the worst thing that could happen with this particular cancer. And they had to cut me basically from here up to my ear and they had to clear everything out of there. So I have no nerves left on this side. And I had to go through seven and a half weeks of chemo. I had to go through, uh, radiation, uh, and very, you know, aggressive. And, and it really, it was kind of, you know, well, in fact, when I was talking to the doctor, I said, well, what's the chance of me making it through this? And he goes 66%. Well, that means there's 30 some chance I don't.

He says, if this gets into your lungs, you will not make it. That's how aggressive this cancer is. So anyway, you know, for me, I got done with that and I just made some serious lifestyle changes. I cut out alcohol, changed my diet, really got rid of sugar because I know cancer loves sugar, you know, and I did a lot of different things. I upped my workouts. But when I was going into treatment, the other thing I did is I said, and I'd already been working out on a regular basis, but I really amped my workouts. And when I went into those chemo treatments and I went into those radiation and people looked terrible and I didn't because I had a basis that I went in there with. That must have been hard to train because like, doesn't it make, it makes you sick and stuff, right?

Oh yeah. And, but I worked out every day, but three days and I went to work at every day, but a few half days. But, you know, I just, I, you know, I really applied, you know, the don't quit attitude. I just said, I'm going to go into this with a strong basis. I'm going to get through this with a strong basis. I'm going to get through this with a strong basis. And then when I came out of it, I said, I have to really, I'm going to make some serious changes because I want to live, you know, this next phase of my life with my grandkids, my wife, my kids. And, you know, for me, you know, really applying that and, you know, kind of powering through that was, it made me a better person.

You know, I don't wish this cancer on anyone. It's nasty stuff. But for me, it made me a better person getting through that. Yeah, that's incredible. I didn't know that. You got a question? Yeah. Earlier, you mentioned the best information is that which you pay for.

And you mentioned zero to one by peer Thiel, right? So out of like maybe three or five or some of the most, I guess, the most influential development books on your end, what would you suggest that people get their hands on? Okay. So the old school book, in my opinion, best old school book is The Magic of Thinking Big. And if you haven't read that book or listened to that book, you got to go listen to it or read it. You have to revisit it. Yeah, revisit that book. And all the guys, if it's the motivation people, it's the foundational book. And I give that book out all the time. I encourage people who I work with. I had everybody in the company read it. But the magic of thinking big is just, to me, it's long, but it's really fundamental.

It really helps, and it really challenges your mind to think, think, think, think. And then the next book, it's not a motivational book. It's more a strategy book. it's not a motivational book. It's more a strategy book. It's called, it's by Michael Robert. I can't think of the name of the book right now, but it's a strategy book. And that book is excellent if you're in a business to really understand what strategy should I use to win in the marketplace in my business? And Robert does a very good, oh, The CEO Strategist is the original little black book. And that book is good to help you think about applying strategy to your business. So I really like that book.

I mentioned Thiel's book. I listen to a lot of books. You know, I'm a big book listener, big podcast listener. I listen to you guys' podcasts, and I appreciate it because I find it motivational to try new things, to do different things. I could look on here for a couple others. Yeah. I don't think I've heard of Magic of Thinking Big. I feel like I have it on my bookshelf, but I haven't read it in a long time.

It's a good one to listen to. I mean, if you don't have time to read it, you can just throw it on the car. I recently went through Jeff Bezos' event in Wander, which is basically – it's his annual report read over many, many years. And you really understand the evolution of that. I saw that Zuckerberg – he had a knee surgery not too long ago. And then he ran like a 5K the other day. And he ran it in like 20 minutes. Put it like a bionic.

He ran like a 630 something pace or something like that. Wow. It was ridiculous. It was cool to see though like in Bezos and some of these guys like getting in shape and taking their health seriously. Like I know for a little bit Elon Musk got out of shape. He's in a little taking their health seriously. Like I know for a little bit, Elon Musk got out of shape. He's in a little bit better shape now. And, you know, everyone has to pay attention to their health at some point. Yeah, it's all connected, right?

Right. It's all connected. Patrick, bet David's book, Your Next Five Moves. That's a good one. Okay. That's a good one. I have it. And I recently did some, you know, planning.

So I kind of went through that one. Do you invest as well? Do you put money in other places? Do you do real estate and things like that a little bit? A little bit. It's not your interest. Yeah, so I had a guy say to me one time, I lose money in the stock market and make it in business and real estate. So I do have some money in real estate. I'm not very good. And I have some investment stuff that some of these guys do or whatever, retirement funds and whatnot. But many years ago, I tried,

and how are you going to beat the wizards on Wall Street? Yeah, it's hard. Yeah. There's another one called the 10X Rule. That's a good one. Yep. I'm going to revisit that then. Is that Cardone?

Yeah. And then there's another one, Andrew Carnegie's The Gospel of Wealth. That's another good one. Yeah, I mean, there's all kinds of the knowledge of power. George Gilder. Isn't any business type of podcast? Not really. I guess if I'm listening to podcasts, I listen to some political stuff and I listen to some fitness stuff. Cool. Well, amazing having you on the show today. Thank you so much. Where can people find you? Where can they find out more about your business?

Torque Fitness is our website, torquefitness.com. And everybody's getting, what, 25% off today? Throw a code. Do you want to put a code in there? I think I do have a code. Yeah, Mark Bell, I think. Yeah, throw Mark's code in there. We'll give you a discount.

And you'll pay full price. Extra. You'll get a discount. I didn't know that. We're on Instagram. We're on LinkedIn. We're on Instagram. We're on LinkedIn. We're on Facebook. There's a lot of good stuff on Facebook in our Facebook channel on the tank. There's tons of different workouts.

So, yeah, there's a lot of stuff out there. Strength is never weakness. Weakness never strength. Catch you guys later. Bye.