Nov 8, 2023
Our well-being is important to maintain in our lives, and different companies can help us with that. In this episode of the Class E Podcast, we talked with Chad Price, an international business consultant and entrepreneur with several successful wellness ventures. Price shares the knowledge he’s acquired throughout his entrepreneurial journey from his exercise equipment company, Kettlebell Kings, to his most recent venture, Life Grows Green, a lifestyle brand focused on natural and hemp products. Price also discusses how entrepreneurs in any industry should always be equipped for battle because they never know what hurdles they may face.
Guest: Chad Price
Webistes:
https://www.kettlebellkings.com
Host: Mary Sturgill
Producer: Isabella Martinez '24
TRANSCRIPT
MARY: Hi there, everyone. Welcome to this episode of the Class E Podcast. I am your host Mary Sturgill and this is the podcast that's brought to you through a partnership between the Hill Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship here at Furman University and the Communication Studies Department. Today we have a very special guest, Chad Price is with us. He is the founder of Kettlebell Kings and multiple ventures, which we're going to jump into and talk about. Chad, welcome to the show.
CHAD: Hi, nice to meet you. Thank you for having me.
MARY: Yeah, thank you. So I want to start by talking about… kind of going way back to your childhood, and I want to find out…where did your entrepreneurial spirit come from?
CHAD: You know, I think it's interesting. I had to really kind of dig on to that question when I was writing my book recently. And trying to figure out, you know, when was the first time that I really kind of thought about being an entrepreneur and I don't know if it was ever, you know, a one kind of light bulb moment in my head.I think it was just, I've been kind of light bulb moment in my head. I think it was just, I've been on so many teams growing up playing sports that I always knew I wanted to be or create, you know, some type of business operation that I respected like the teams I participated in. So, you know, some type of successful operation, a group of individuals that got together and you know, achieve something bigger than themselves. That's kind of always been my dream. When I graduated college, I, you know, I think it was just like anybody else. I went into the corporate America and tried to find different jobs and different experiences that I thought would maybe fulfill that need and in that process, it kinda led me to realizing that, you know, this wasn't the exact experience I was looking for and if I really wanted that type of experience I'd have to create it myself
MARY: Yeah, absolutely. So you mentioned you played football at Rice and you got a business degree while you were there. It was a few years after that though that you started Kettlebell Kings with I believe a couple of your teammates?
CHAD: Yeah, so one of my teammates, one is a friend of a teammate. So kind of, you know, small circle. And when we started Kettlebell Kings, it was more for us. We knew we wanted to start a business in general.
MARY: Yeah.
CHAD: And we knew it's gonna be something e-commerce. We had kind of been doing our research and at the time I was working a corporate job. So, you know, in my free time, I was researching and trying to figure out if I was gonna start a company, what type of company would it be? And at the time there was really no cool brand around Kettlebells. And so, we wanted to kind of build like a network or community of people who use the kettlebell as a tool for health and wellness, but more of a fitness or enthusiast type of community, an overall health and wellness community just using that kind of as a centerpiece.
MARY: Yeah, I love that idea. I'm gonna remind our listeners and viewers on YouTube that was back in 2012 right? So it was before Peloton and before the mirror and all of those things.
CHAD: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, no, and it's interesting to see those things come along. Cause like, you know, you kinda feel like, oh, we missed that on these huge ideas, right? Cause we're sitting here selling kettlebells, but you know, I think that's kind of the benefit of starting your own business. You know, there's different kinds of levels to the journey. There's different scales to everything that you do.You know, I think the fitness community, building the online community and kind of aligning different kind of small and niche type of organizations is kind of an expertise of ours and expertise of mine now that I can carry with me and kind of apply that in any organization.
MARY: Yeah, absolutely. And well, I think you guys, I mean, I don't know if anybody before you guys maybe unless it was like individual people or individual gyms that were creating this idea of community around the product, right? And before or some of the big ones that we can think of now. So I think that was brilliant that you did that at that time, right? You kind of rode the digital wave a little bit in that regard, I think.
CHAD: Yeah, it makes me feel very old that I'm like original like social media, you know, like I had Facebook when it first came out, right?
MARY: Right.
CHAD: I thought those were the good old days and I think you're correct in the sense that there weren't any real kind of online communities back then because social media wasn't such a big presence. And we really… in the kind of creation of our business, we really wanted to focus on bringing as many people together as we could through a digital platform and we never really wanted to have like a physical location. We wanted to invest everything in the company that we could to have like the most successful aggregation of content and basically like a superstore for the enthusiasts online and anyone can experience from anywhere in the world.
MARY: Now you also… for people who might not know, you also actually sold kettle bells and worked on the design of them and the manufacturing of them as well, didn't you?
CHAD: Yeah, no, I mean that kind of stuff is awesome for me. You know I had many different jobs in college and after college so some of my previous experiences helped out there. Like for example, I was doing stadium seating when I was in construction and if you do stadium seating, you know, like the stanchions or the uprights that hold the seats together, they're made out of caste. And so I would get huge containers of those on the construction site. And you know, for me, it's like, oh, this is how, you know, metal is made. This is how bulk iron is shipped to America. So I kind of had a familiarity with the type of process that was needed. And once we started Kettlebell Kings, we really just found experts and organizations that, you know, we kind of took their advice and took the customer advice and tried to make the best product. So we would take samples from a manufacturer and then just really tweak and tweak those until we got those into the hands of the professionals and they told us it was perfect and then that's the one we'd go with.
MARY: Yeah, nice. I love that process. You know, and it's trial and error, right? You just have to go with what's best right now until you find something better.
CHAD: One hundred percent and you know, I tell people all the time we got kettlebells with literally, you know, we get them into the warehouse, we want to do quality control and so we literally throw them up in the air, bang on the ground like try to break them on purpose and during that process, some of them would crack open so you know we've got kettlebells literally like factory dust and dirt and cigarette butts inside before. So there's definitely a trial and error process that goes into making things right but you know I enjoy that process and I think that's what helps separate you from another company. So if everyone has to go through kind of those pitfalls and overcome those obstacles, you know, just puts you a little further away from the competition.
MARY: Absolutely, absolutely. You know, COVID affected a lot of businesses that were… in a negative way when we all closed and all of that, but you guys actually thrived during that time. Talk a little bit about that and how that happened.
CHAD: Well, I mean, we always knew when we started the company that online fitness and digital fitness at home was gonna be the future of health and wellness. So you know in our eyes, COVID just kind of accelerated that process and took this into that, you know, that new reality forever. So even if you went back to the gym, I think you still remember those days and you still kind of have a plan or backup plan for your online fitness or your home based fitness, let's say initiatives. And so for us, we were already set up perfectly for that. And all that really did was, you know, kind of prove our point and, you know, it proved the kind of the model if you will for Kettlebell Kings as a whole because we weren't even able to fulfill all of the needs at the time, you know? We went from, you know, normal, doing well as a business, growing, doubling every year type of success as a company, but during that time period, you know, we had over 50,000, 60,000 people on our waitlist. Just they couldn't get product so you know it's kind of a crazy time.
MARY: Yeah, that is a crazy time. You mentioned your model. Can you talk about that a little bit more? Kind of outline that for our listeners. Your model for Kettlebell Kings.
CHAD: Sure. I mean, I think it's multi faceted, right?
MARY: Right.
CHAD: So when you talk about having a business model or, for Kettlebell Kings, specifically our business model, you're gonna have basically your products for your hardware, which is gonna be fitness equipment. The main thing for us is going to be kettlebells. So, you know, we section that up into the different types of kettlebells.There's different, you know, you have kettlebell, sport, you have hard style kettlebell lifters. You have people who want kind of a hybrid. You know, you have kilograms versus pounds, different things like that. So we decide on, you know, which lines of series of kettlebells we carry. And then more importantly, we really try to be a content company. So we try to see ourselves as a kind of like the ESPN of the kettlebell world where we're aggregating all of the content, all of the user generated content that exists out there and trying to create or produce better content from that and work with those people who are creating those pieces of content to, you know, promote them as a, you know, whether they're a trainer or it's a gym or, you know, a facility for kettlebell sport, different things like that. So it's about really kind of having a production, if you will, where we're literally having, you know, 365 days a year. This is what we're going to be producing. This is what we're going to be, you know, when we're going to be filming it, this is when it should be coming out on our social content channels and things like that. So a lot of it was really growing that production side. I think that was the harder part than the equipment. The equipment is just, you know, I think that's kind of the basics of just getting manufacturers from wherever you're getting that manufacturing.
MARY: Yeah, but you bring up a good point about having multiple revenue streams. Coming in with that. And correct me if I'm wrong in this, in 2019, you guys actually acquired another company… Battle Ropes. Am I saying that right? Tell us about that.
CHAD: Correct. Yeah, so in 2019, you know, we really decided that kettlebells were really growing. As a fitness company, we had inquiries and we had, you know, the ability to sell other things besides kettlebells, But we didn't wanna have, let's say, dumbbells by Kettlebell Kings. And so we created a new brand called Living Fit. And that brand was basically going to encompass and it's still I say going to because I sold my shares in that when I sold my Kettlebell King shares, but my partner still runs that brand. That brand basically sells all types of fitness equipment and battle ropes was one of those things that we want to incorporate into that. So the purchasing of battle ropes, you know, a strategic decision for us to have those types of certifications and all of the training and workout videos that came with that company. That gave us a kind of a foundation to build other types of products from. So, you know, we'd use that as a structure to build the dumbbell, the barbell, the jump ropes, resistance bands, you know, diet programs. So at that point we really were into building digital programs and digital services that we could offer people and you know there was no actual physical product that we need to ship in that situation.
MARY: Yeah, yeah. You mentioned the sale of Kettlebell Kings, a multimillion dollar sale.How did you come to the decision to say, okay, maybe it's time to do this kind of… be open to this?
CHAD: Well, we knew, you know, we…It's a heavy inventory based company. So when you're trying to grow, you know, you can only grow as much as your margins will allow you if you're not taking on a significant amount of financing and when you have 3 partners… We had 3 partners, 2 companies, a bunch of kind of different initiatives so it becomes a challenge just to allocate resources and agree on where you're gonna allocate those resources most effectively to grow the company because when you're growing so fast that, you know, it's not much room to pay yourself personally. Because the company just needs more and more finance for whatever it is, whether it's inventory, marketing, expanding into new countries, different things like that.
MARY: Right.
CHAD: So on that journey when we're looking for inventory financing or looking for a financial partner, a lot of people were approaching us about owning some type of piece of the company and a lot of those people wanted to own a majority share of the company. So once those conversations started about a majority share, you know, there wasn't a real option for us to stay around as a kind of a side or a minority owner in the company. And so we really just started kind of taking conversations of if you want to purchase the company as a whole and that led us to some of these larger aggregators had already been reaching out to us. You know, I think a lot of people see the brand and has a lot of potential because it has such a great online following and it demands such a big presence in that niche. So, you know, if you're searching kettlebells, you're going to find Kettlebell Kings. You know, we've becomes synonymous with the term kettlebells in a way where you know we have our competitors to have the hashtag “Kettlebell Kings”, on their social channels and things like that. So I think that's one of the benefits to just owning that brand and the expansion that it’s capable of is, you know, it's outrageous. You're not even talking about… you're talking about…we've only really been in America. Kind of just dipped our toe into Europe and Australia a little bit.
MARY: Right, right. You mentioned the brand becoming synonymous with the piece of equipment, the kettlebell, and I think that you guys worked hard to make that happen because that's what comes to everybody's forefront of their mind when they think kettlebell. You're absolutely right about that. I know initially…and this is, you know, well documented… as a minority business owner, it's difficult to get funding sometimes.Did you face any of those hurdles based on the fact that well, you had 3 partners, but 2 of you are minorities, right?
So, did you face any of those hurdles that people normally face?
CHAD: Yeah, definitely. And, you know, I, you know, I tell people all the time we would never get financing. So we tried to get financing from every, you know, bank that we ever worked with. We ended up leaving every big bank because they kind of, you know, what we felt were not taken as serious as entrepreneurs or as businessmen. We ended up working with smaller credit unions who you know told us that they would take us a little more serious but they never really had any type of financing that was substantial enough to really make a difference for us. So you know. $5,000 is not really gonna change your company when you need, you know, $30,000 worth of kettlebells.
MARY: Right.
CHAD: But in those situations, they also wanted, you know, personal guarantees and things like that. And when you're an entrepreneur, you don't have, you know, a salary, let's say, for example, to guarantee some of the things that they're gonna want to get these types of financing options. So for us, you know, we literally boot strapped it all the way into the point where we were using, you know, these kind of e-commerce type loans, whether that's, you know, PayPal capital or, you know, the different ones that you could just, you know, you basically can sign up online. They take a percentage of your revenue from your ecommerce store. So that's probably the biggest financing that we used. But up until the point in which we were looking for serious financing and eventually ended up selling, that's kind of what led us to that conversation.
MARY: Is this your second or third year staying on and then you're moving on? Kind of talk about that process a little bit.
CHAD: Yeah, so unfortunately I probably should have mentioned this to you earlier, but unfortunately with the company that acquired us, we were then acquired by another company and so we attempted to stay on and unfortunately that ended up leading us to no longer work with them and in the end actually ended up leading to litigation.
MARY: Okay.
CHAD: So we're in pending litigation with that second acquiring company right now because of the current contract.
MARY: Right, because that was part of that original agreement. I'm assuming that you guys stayed on for a period of time to help in the transition and, you know, bringing the company forward in the way that you guys had intended.
CHAD: Correct. Yeah, and it was the 3 year acquisition that had, you know, payouts associated with the 3 years and everything like that.
MARY: Right.
CHAD: And so, it'll get worked out through the course of some, you know, luckily we live in, in a world where there is a way to handle these situations and our lawyers have been involved the entire time. So from this, from the time we sold to the time they were reacquired, the lawyers were kind of never really finished with the first sale so it's something that the lawyers will work out and it's really just a matter of time before everything gets settled.
MARY: Right, right. I think that's important too for our listeners to understand that sometimes these sales don't always go as planned, right?
CHAD: For sure.
MARY: But there are avenues that you can take to protect yourself. And I think that's important for them to know. What did you learn in that process that you wish you had known before you started that process?
CHAD: Yeah, I mean, I was just gonna say that I think even in these situations you learn so much about what you can do, how you can help someone in the future, what, you know, what kind of safeguards you could have put in place. I think in these situations you really have to understand that you're working with a corporation, you know, when you come from being a small business owner, you take a lot of personal pride and, you know, you put a lot of personal integrity into your work, into the brand. And when you're working with corporations, especially international corporations, they don't necessarily look at business the same way or maybe have the same, let's say, personal attachments or personal integrity to what you're trying to do, as an individual brand. So, you know, if a company owns a 150 brands and you come in as one brand, you're just not going to get the same level of care that you know, white glove type of care that you would have given it possibly and I think taking that kind of stuff into consideration and contractually making sure that the things that were most important are contractual and not just kind of word of mouth or handshake agreement, is probably the best way to go in any of those types of situations.
MARY: Yeah, some good advice. I'm sure you have some of that advice in your book too, which we'll talk about a little bit later. Let's go on to your new venture. Life Grows Green. That's your new company that you started in… I believe 2019. Explain to us what Life Grows Green is.
CHAD: So one of the things, you know, through the journey of kind of owning a health and wellness company or fitness company, that I really noticed how you know we could help people, you know, it really inspired me to see how many people would pick up a kettlebell, and, you know, 6 months later they feel like, you know, they've found something great in their life and they really have built kind of a new personality even around. you know, around this new tool and it just really inspires them to just live a healthier life. I think helping people do stuff like that is, you know, part of a good business and part of building community. I didn't realize I had a passion for it when I started Kettlebell Kings, but now I know that, you know, that is the kind of stuff that I wanna work on. You know, I don't think I could ever really work for a company that takes advantage of people, for example. So, you know, my idea with Life Grows Green was to build a company of natural lifestyle products, you know, whether that's hemp based products, you know, plant derived type of supplements and things like that. Or just your, your natural lifestyle products that you use every day, you know, your glassware, your sheets, your bedding, you know, different things like that. Really just trying to build a community of people who see and want to replace any type of product they can in their life with some natural option or natural version.I think there's, you know, there's a lot of kind of missed out opportunities to have natural products in our lives and just because we don't know any better, we end up with, you know, a cheaper plastic or pharmaceutical version of something that could be natural.
MARY: Right, I completely agree and I'm one of those people who loves to go natural. I'm in the process of getting rid of all the plastics in my house, at least trying to. Let's talk about… you mentioned some of the products. How can people find the products? How's business going so far? Because you've been what it's… four years now?
CHAD: When we first started, this was right before COVID. And so, you know, the idea of what we're gonna do shifted quite a bit over COVID. You know, at the time when I started Life Grows Green, I had the nail salon still…I was running a nail salon, Kettlebell Kings, and Living Fit. And then I had Life Grows Green as well. So the idea and the popularity around hemp and CBD was a lot higher. Once COVID happened, everything kinda went into, you know, let's say kind of a suspension, if you will, until we figured out how long we're gonna be in quarantine. We have a lot of in person projects and events that we were trying to participate in that obviously got canceled and didn't really get to happen.But not to mention just the space of advertising for hemp is one of the most difficult things that I've probably done in my career because of all the regulations around it. So, you know, Google, Facebook, Instagram, you're not really able to do that. You know, if you see advertisements there, it's usually some type of a gray hat/ black hat method that companies have to use to not get their account suspended or banned or different things like that. We've tried, you know, even to do things the correct way. Hire organizations to do things the correct way and still have gotten our accounts suspended and banned just for trying to do normal advertising like I would with any other company so through that lens…
MARY: That's really interesting. Yeah.
CHAD: Yeah, go ahead. I was gonna say through that lens, it's very difficult to advertise and to grow a brand like this.
MARY: Yeah.
CHAD: With that being said, you know, lately we've been shifting into more natural lifestyle products. So we have all of your hemp products, but you know, you'll see our Amazon store coming online here shortly. We'll be carrying more of your, like I said the universal lifestyle products versus the hemp based products. And I think advertising and trying to use those as kind of a starting point to get more people in online, it's gonna be a lot easier than trying to climb that uphill battle or fighting the quote on quote CBD and the hemp space.
MARY: That's interesting because I know Google Analytics and that online marketing really helped with Kettlebell Kings and you kind of.. search engine optimization and all of that and so it's throwing up roadblocks now though for this particular company, which I find interesting especially since…I mean how many states now have legalized medical marijuana or marijuana for use and correct me if I'm wrong but hemp is not marijuana.
CHAD: Exactly. And weed I don't sell. Everything that we sell is 100% federally legal to ship nationally and internationally.
MARY: I wonder why that is. Why do you think that is? Because it's not, I mean the products don't contain THC.
CHAD: Yeah, I think it's the stigma, you know, I think it's the stigma of people thinking that is like kind of a gateway to THC, which is the gateway to, you know, cocaine and just you know it just scares people just you know you take one step in that direction and you know I think that it’s coming down. I think the green wave is real and it's continuing to kind of wash across America and like you say legalization is still growing every single… every time we have an election, we, you know, we get more and more states that are going in what I would consider the right direction.
MARY: How are you overcoming that hurdle though?
CHAD: You know, I think everyone who is in kind of that industry has had to overcome hurdles like this. So, you know, I kind of complain about the social platforms, but it's not just them. It's the credit card processors. It's insurance. It's every single part of the business. You know, you can sell 99% of your products, be everything besides let's say hemp or CBD and if you add hemp or CBD, now you're a high risk company for some reason. And these are things that have been in legislation and you know kind of ingrained into corporate America that they need to just be outlawed. Like there's no reason for, you know, hemp has already been basically given the same kind of space as a rice or any other plant or grain that you would grow. So it should be treated as such by every organization. It shouldn't be treated as some kind of high risk event or high risk operation, but currently that's just how it is and there's not really anything you can do. So you just have to…you're paying a higher cost for every single thing that you do and you're getting restricted on advertising pretty much on every platform currently.
MARY: Right. So, you have some strategies, I'm sure, to overcome that. How are you.. what are some of the strategies that you're implementing?
CHAD: What you can do is literally try to create an online community using the products that you sell that don't have anything to do with hemp because you can technically have, let's say two separate stores, an Amazon store and an e-commerce store, and then by building that community of people who appreciate the 100% non-hemp, non-CBD products, you can kind of hopefully get those people through your social channels and things like that.
MARY: I think you're right. I think there's a path forward for these brands because so many of us are turning back to natural, you know, even down to, you know, doing our own gardens every year, right?
CHAD: Exactly.
MARY: So many of us are making that turn back to natural products. So I'm hoping that you are one of the companies that makes it through. I think you will be. You bring up a topic though that a lot of entrepreneurs face and that's just when you're facing so many roadblocks sometimes it kind of deflates your goals a little bit and deflates your passion a little bit. How do you overcome that?
CHAD: Well, I tell people all the time when I first, you know, sports helped me quite a bit when I first got to Rice. Well growing up where I grew up, you know, we were good in sports and I was really good in sports. So I won most games that I played. And, you know, won the state championship in high school. So it was very kind of fortunate to have kind of a winning career up until my college career and in college, I had to kind of do a little more setback. You know, we had a season where we were 3 and 8. And we only won 3 games, which to me… that was outrageous. Only lost two games in high school in 4 years so having those types of experiences just kind of had me on a different mindset, you know, I look at it as like you can have a losing season and you can still come back next season and be better. And even two losing seasons, three losing seasons, you know, I don't look at the losses as a hundred percent something that I need to dwell on, something that I need to make sure I'm learning from and getting stronger from. So it more just calibrates me for the next bat on. You know, I feel more confident going into the next battle because I've lost already and because I already know what that feels like. I know, you know, how I didn't make it last time or why I didn't succeed when I did this in the past. And so those types of experiences, they really give me more confidence if I spend them correctly.
MARY: Yeah, you mentioned battle. Your book is called Preparing for Battle. It was released this fall. Talk about what people are gonna find when they pick up that book from Amazon.
CHAD: Yeah, I mean, I think that's kind of what I talk about in the book as well. You know, I do see business as kind of a battlefield, a competitive playing field. I think everyone who wants to have a successful brand, who becomes an entrepreneur and there can only be so many. You know, one of the things I tell people is that, yeah, I think we all individually only can remember so many brands in our head. So I don't know how many brands, you know, you maybe have 10, I maybe have 10 or 8 or whatever that number is but there can only be so many brands that we actually associate with ourselves and we, you know, we're proud to kind of be a member of or a part of that community. So I want to be that for as many different brands that I work with and I talk about kind of building the mindset to create that in the book. So more than what type of specific industry you're in. I think it's about having the correct mindset to deal with the obstacles that are going to come up in business. You know, the information that in 2012 when we started Kettlebell Kings and how you do social media advertisements, you know the most lucrative ways to kind of build that community are not the 100% same as they are you know in 2023 and I think understanding that you need to go into it with the mindset of this is going to be a battle. I need to learn on the fly. I need to be a lifelong learner you know the person that kind of leads my team as an expert in my industry and expert in whatever field that I'm trying to get in. I think that's more important than, you know, trying to gorge yourself on information before you get there.
MARY: Yeah, yeah. I'm suggesting to our listeners that they go and get your book and read it, but what books along your path did you read that kind of influenced you?
CHAD: So I mean, there would be so many like…I was one of those kids where I literally used to read adult books, you know, like I read every religious book by the time I was like 10 years old. I used to read the encyclopedia. So yeah, I was one of those like, extremely, kind of, nerdy kids that just used to read all the time. At a certain point, you know, reading books to me is just part of the experience of learning. You know, I like to take, I like to take concepts more than kind of the individual words or things, you know, I don't like to idolize individuals, I don't like to idolize books. I really like to learn the concepts and cross reference those concepts. So, you know, if you really were talking about like what are some of my favorite books, it would be like, you know, The Laws of Power, or, The Art of War or something like that. It'd be something more conceptual to where I really just like, how do we apply these concepts universally to whatever we're trying to achieve, whatever goals we have? My experience through sports and seeing so many different personalities and individuals and ways to lead, you know, and lead men and teams and things like that. They really kind of build my philosophy on how I look at business. I don't think when I go into a business that I know everything I need to know. I think that I've been given this responsibility and it's time for me to grow into that person and it's time for me to lead to that person and it's time for me to lead everyone and kind of walk this journey with everyone. And I think a lot of entrepreneurs could learn from kind of that approach versus, you know, kind of thinking that you're already the expert at whatever you're trying to do before you get there.
MARY: Yeah, right. You also consult with businesses and now having this conversation with you, I can totally see why. And the benefits that other business owners would get in kind of hiring you to kind of lead them through some processes that they may have going on. Do you, and you kind of alluded to in that answer, do you have a philosophy of business? And of entrepreneurship?
CHAD: I mean, I think it shifts, you know, I think having the self awareness to assess where you are, you know, I think I tell people all the time, like a good example is I had to learn this for myself when I was having a nail salon and having a fitness company at the same time.
The conversations and the motivational conversations that you'd have in the nail salon are not the same that you have in a kettlebell warehouse. Those are completely two different…So I have the same goal, but you do not have the same conversation. You can’t have the same tone, the same attitude. You have to take these things into consideration. So I think having that self-awareness not only about who you are as an individual, but who your team is, these types of things. For me, it comes easy because I've been on so many teams. I didn't, you know, I don't, I didn't like everybody I played with. I was the kid that I knew the coach would get on some people and baby other people because that's what it took to motivate them. There was a, you know, there was a method to the madness sometimes and I'm one of those people that can see and I like that kind of psychological strategy to things and so I really try to come in and say, you know, where are you? Where do you think you are? Let's see, you know, how close to my objective, a perception of things is your perception of things and then if we can agree on common points then I think you can kinda coach any team to the direction you want them to go. And that's just a matter of kind of putting the plan in place and executing on it.
MARY: Yeah. Excellent. I love this. I know we can keep talking forever, but I probably need to wrap us up a little bit. I do want you before I let you go to give some advice to some of our entrepreneurs who are maybe starting out their journey. They think they have a product or they think they have an idea, but they're just not sure how to get it started.
CHAD: I mean, I think when you're, when you're just starting out, that's, you know, it's an opportunity and it's kind of one of the most difficult times you're a hundred percent right. You don't know which direction you’re always going when you're first starting and there are unlimited directions. So you know that's one of the things that you know, even with Kettlebell Kings, it changed over time. When we started the company, we were going to carry every single brand of kettlebells that existed and because of the first year of trying to do that, it ended up being, hey, you know, now we're just gonna carry our brand and we're gonna manufacture a different series and so I think having the correct mindset going in that you're gonna do whatever it takes to work is more important than, you know, trying to make sure that you've gotten the exact product line up right or you've gotten the exact advertising, the exact logo even. You know, I think there's situations in which action trumps, you know, kind of just sitting there being stale. So, if you have a way to create cash flow, to create revenue, to reach customers, I would say that's where you should start. You know, you should start with whatever can kind of create that initial cash flow. Even if it's not high profit margins, you can, you know, you can work on the margins, especially if you're not doing high volume and you're still able to create cash flow and bring in new customers and generate leads, bring in some type of let's say proof of concept that will allow you to do a lot of different things because as you're doing that you can work with individuals you can, you know, you can mentor or you find yourself. I'm sorry, not mentor. You could find yourself a mentor to help you in these situations. But if you don't really have any real world item to analyze.It's kind of hard for anyone to help. You kind of talk about a figment of everyone's imagination.
MARY: Right, right. I love the way that you said that because so many people I think get almost paralyzed by trying to get everything right before they launch. Right? The right logo, the right, you know, branding materials, the right product. Rather than let's launch, let's bring in some money and let's be ready to educate ourselves on how things are going. And be open to change, which is all the things that you just said.
CHAD: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, and that's why I say for me, it's almost natural because of sports and, you know, and sports the games on Friday. So it's like you can do whatever you want to do, but you have to go play on Friday.
MARY: Right.
CHAD: And I think in business you have to, you have to create that for yourself. So that doesn't exist. There's no real game. And if you're, you know, when you're first starting, you get to kind of stall and say, well, we'll just play next week. We'll just play next week. And it's like, no, you have to be the one to say the game is on Friday. So we're starting on Friday and that type of mindset I think is what is most important in entrepreneurs so that you're the person that pushes things forward if no one is there to build your dream for you. Like no one is there to build a brand. It's a multimillion-dollar or a billion-dollar global brand for you. It's like you're going to be the driving force or at least the starting point where the energy comes from.
MARY: Yeah. Oh my god, that's so good. I'm gonna tell everybody right now to go back and re-listen to what he just said because it's so good. The other thing I want to ask you is, okay, so you sold the Kettlebell Kings, you're starting this new company, and you've written the book, what's next for you?
CHAD: So I mean right now I'm working on, you know, quite a few different things. Obviously, Life Grows Green is one of my main focuses right now for sure. The book is just being released, that's what I'm really mainly kind of doing my promotional tour, if you will for the book. So I'll be doing podcasts like this, but I'm also doing in-person events. I'm working on some workshops. So I have workshops and presentations, kind of doing some career development even with some of the young entrepreneurs and things like that. So I'm really just trying to transition to the next chapter of my business life. I am looking for consulting opportunities or joint venture opportunities right now. So, you know, have a couple of potential opportunities that I may do. But I'm, you know, I'm also looking to kind of bring in larger ones. I think that there are some larger fitness brands possibly out there that could use my advice and that maybe you're not doing so well when I look at the landscape, but you know I think those are just kind of… that's just one angle that I'd like to kind of give my feedback on but there's so many different things that I want to do right now. I'm just kind of open to anything.
MARY: So, Chad, how do people get in touch with you if they would like to hire you as a consultant or ask you some questions?
CHAD: The best way to get in touch with me is probably through my website. My website chadprice.com. You know, you can also reach me on all social channels. I'm on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, so Chad Price on LinkedIn, and real Chad Price on the other social channels. And then you can check my book out on Amazon. So, you know, that's probably the number one way to support me and really understand a lot of my philosophies, and it talks about my story and then my story with Kettlebell Kings. So I think that's always a good starting point if you're interested in starting your own business for a business entrepreneur.
MARY: Yeah, absolutely. Because in that book, you have some great advice and you even have a section of the book that's kind of a workbook for entrepreneurs too.
CHAD: Yeah, I mean, like I said, you know, previously I think kind of getting your mindset correct is the best way to start or to look at entrepreneurship. Really self assessing where you are, what skills you may need, kind of building out a roadmap. And I think that's what the workbook section really tries to help you do. It helps you really give a good self-assessment of where you are and where you'd like to go. What tools and resources you're gonna need to put in place in order to get there. And that's why I try to help people.
MARY: All right, Chad Price, thank you so much for joining us today.
CHAD: Thank you for having me.
MARY: Yeah, great conversation. So everyone go follow Chad on his social media and buy that book. But for now that does it for this episode of the Class E Podcast. Remember this is the podcast that's brought to you through partnership between the Hill Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship and the Communication Studies Department here at Furman University. Remember you can catch the podcast multiple ways now. We're on wherever you get your podcast, but we're also on YouTube. So go check out our YouTube channel and make sure that you hit that subscribe button so that you get notified every time we drop a new episode like this one right here. This podcast is produced by Communication Studies major, Isabella Martinez. We want to thank you for tuning in for us today. I'm your host, Mary Sturgill. Until next time everybody, dream big.