Unlocking Success with Friends: Chad Price's Entrepreneurial Journey

Chad Price's journey to success began as a college student with an unlikely bond and a bold vision. Little did he know then that his unlikely venture with his friends would turn into a Fortune 500 company, and that his entrepreneurial spirit would lead him to even greater heights with his more recent endeavor, Life Grows Green. What will be the next twist in this remarkable story?

In this episode, you will be able to:

• Overcome obstacles and seize possibilities in forging successful friendships within entrepreneurship.
• Apply data-driven approaches to achieve impartial and flourishing business development.
• Cultivate autonomous brands for smooth handovers and favorable exits.
• Create eco-friendly, lasting health products that capture the market's attention.
• Embrace self-reflection and constant growth in your pursuit of entrepreneurial leadership.

My special guest is Chad Price

Chad Price is a seasoned entrepreneur who has successfully navigated the unique challenges of doing business with friends throughout his career. With an impressive track record in various industries, including sports and fitness, Chad has founded multiple companies, such as Life Grows Green, a lifestyle brand centered around natural products, and Living Fit, a platform that offers virtual and in-person fitness certifications. As a key player in building the renowned Kettlebell Kings brand, Chad's expertise in strategic planning, marketing, quality assurance, and organizational leadership has been instrumental in their growth and success.

The resources mentioned in this episode are:

• Identify opportunities in niche markets that you and your friends are passionate about and have experience in.
• Establish a business model that incorporates your friends' strengths and expertise.
• Document your journey as a team, sharing your experiences and challenges with your audience.
• Build a community around your brand, bringing together enthusiasts and experts in your niche market.
• Develop a sales funnel that streamlines the customer experience and offers valuable information about your product or service.
• Establish credibility by partnering with knowledgeable and certified sources in your industry.
• Continuously adapt and evolve your business strategy, learning from both successes and failures.
• Communicate openly and honestly with your friends-turned-business partners, navigating challenges together.
• Create an exit strategy or transition plan for the future, ensuring the longevity of your business and personal relationships.

From Buddies to Boardroom
In any new venture, selecting the right partners is essential, especially when friends are involved. A strong collaborative foundation between friends-turned-business-partners can help improve communication and facilitate decision-making. Friends entering the world of entrepreneurship together need to ensure that a shared passion and vision drive their initiative to maintain the friendship over the long term. In the case of Chad Price, he started his entrepreneurship journey with two of his college friends. His experience highlights the importance of finding a niche market and focusing on something they could all be passionate about. The three friends settled on kettlebells as their niche, understanding the opportunity to create a

Chapters

• 5:01 From Buddies to Boardroom,
• 8:31 Sports Minded Mindset,
• 11:29 Lessons Learned
• 15:35 Sharing the Entrepreneurial Journey
• 16:11 Dividing Responsibilities
• 21:25 Preparing for an Exit
• 24:55 Introducing Life Grows Green
• 27:21 Building a Like-Minded Community
• 30:42 Building a Natural Product Line
• 32:00 nnovation and Risk-Taking
• 36:20 Marketing and Advertising
• 38:01 Finding Your Core
• 41:53 Connecting with Chad
• 46:02 Understanding Self-Awareness in Entrepreneurship
• 46:23 Setting Milestones and Goals for Business Success
• 47:47 The Importance of Self-Learning and Experience in Business
• 49:07 Making Decisions Based on Facts and Understanding Who You Are

Transcript

00:00:59 Hey, everybody, and welcome to another episode of The Unlocked Show. I'm your host, Tracy Wilson. Always my pleasure to be here with you guys on an amazing Wednesday morning here on the Gold Coast of Australia. Now, today's episode is all about some unique challenges and opportunities of doing business with friends. So for those of you that are out there that are maybe you're in business with some friends right now

or you're thinking about going into business with friends, I would encourage you to hang around because my guest today is a veteran, I'm going to say, of all things, doing business with friends.

00:01:31 His name is Chad Price. He's a veteran entrepreneur and he's worked with close friends throughout his entire career. I'm going to say right the way back to college days kind of coming out of that. So going from buddies to boardroom, that is what he's done a number of times over his career. He's got extensive knowledge in multiple industries, including sports and the fitness industry.

00:01:53 He's created several companies along the way and he's the founder of Life Grows Green, which is a lifestyle brand which is focused all around natural products, which we're going to delve into a little bit today. He's also the founder of Living Fit, a platform that offers virtual in house or in person fitness certifications. And he's also played a huge role in building the massive brand Kettlebell Kings that included them getting to become a Fortune 500 company, chase, an expert in strategic planning and execution, marketing and advertising, quality assurance and organizational leadership, just to say a few things. So this guy is absolutely well rounded. Today we're going to dive into his experience of doing business with friends, all the benefits, all of the pitfalls, all of the goods, the bad and the ugly and everything in between.

00:02:43 And he's going, oh, my God, oh, no. And we navigate any of those tricky situations so that you can actually persevere and you can preserve the friendships that you actually have, which I think is really, really important whenever we're going into business with our friends. So without further ado, welcome to you, Chad. Welcome to the unlock show. Great to have you here.

00:03:03 Great to be here. Thank you for having me. Nice to finally meet you. Well, hey, look, let's give everybody a little bit of a background to you, because I know you've had this really extensive career. So since the time of being at college, meeting some really good buddies of yours and kind of coming up with some concepts and ideas and moving out of that and then starting your own.

00:03:24 I'm going to say multiple businesses along the way. How did that all come about? Where did that all start and what possessed you to go into business with a couple of your buddies? Yeah, I mean, when we first started, I think you graduate college and just like everyone else, you're trying to figure out what the next step is how you're going to earn money and also where you're going to kind of find your passion for life. What's the next steps after your college career?

00:03:56 I had several buddies who we had previously talked about starting a business, but when you first graduate, you don't necessarily have the experience or knowledge, I think, to make those efforts. And so everyone kind of goes in their different directions. But as we talked amongst ourselves as friends and in my network, the corporate experience or the business experience was a similar experience for a group of my friends that believed that we can do something better. So I would say worked in corporate America for three to five years. Once I kind of reached an area where I felt like I had a good experience of what it was and what it would be for me to reach full potential, let's say, in a corporate setting, I realized that I think I'd be more fulfilled having my own operation and running my own kind of business team.

00:04:48 So met with two of my buddies and I really want to have kind of a triangle or a three man decision making process. And they were excited about just the opportunity to do something different as well. And when we started, we didn't even know what kind of brand or what kind of company or what kind of product we sell. We just knew we want to sell something online. We want to do something in kind of the ecommerce niche if we could find something niche that was more preferable.

00:05:15 And fortunately, with my background in sports and fitness, kettlebells just kind of fell right perfectly in line with us. This is a really cool story because from those early stages of being in college, having your buddies, but then knowing going away, doing something else in corporate America, getting some experience under your belt, and then bringing those friends back together and having that common thread of we know we want to do something a little bit different. We know that maybe corporate America is not the place for us in the long term. We all have this desire to do something for ourselves. So how can we collectively bring our brains together and come up with something that's going to fulfill all of us and actually create something that we're going to enjoy doing?

00:06:03 Interesting, though, did you ever think I mean, we're talking right now about Kill Bell Kings, but did you ever think that that business with that concept and idea that just started out with, all right, well, we know we want to do something online, we know we want to do something together. Given that I've got some experience in the fitness industry, let's create this. Did you ever see that getting to the heights that it did, being listed as a Fortune 500 company? Yeah, when we started it, I don't think we set ourselves up for failure. So in my mind, everything that I'm doing is going to reach something whether it reaches it or not.

00:06:40 I think that's part of the journey I'm always trying to win. Regardless if we lose some of the battles, we're still going to try to win along the way. The team that I built, luckily one of my partners had played with me in college, so we had a background in playing competitively and both coming from small towns in Texas and going to a big city in Houston and playing in one of the highest competitive environments. And that kind of allows us to look at problems and challenges a lot simpler. Nothing as hard as some of the workouts we've been through together or some of the problems we've already kind of overcome.

00:07:20 So to me we expected it to be something I don't think you really know when you first start, but about six to twelve months in we started just kind of knowing socially that we had something that people really kind of gravitated towards and wanted to be a part of more than just us. It was an additional boost of energy from a community of people that we felt have been underserved for quite a long time.

00:07:49 What you're talking about here, and I think a lot of entrepreneurs struggle with this in terms of almost putting a cap on there. You hear a lot of people say, I just want to get to $100,000 or I want to get myself to a million dollars. And that almost puts the ceiling or this cap on where you want to go. But what you actually did was come to this with that, I'm going to say that sports minded mindset, that's like, we're just going to win. What does that look like?

00:08:16 Well, that looks like whatever it looks like. We're just going to get bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and knowing that no matter what, yes, we're going to have some failures. Yes, we're going to be down on the ground, but we'll brush ourselves off and get back up again and just keep going. That mindset has obviously enabled you to move quicker, move faster, be more agile, and get to those goals a lot quicker than if you just went out and said, well, you know what, we're just going to try and build this little company and make ourselves $100,000 each year. So I think there's a real lesson to be learned in that.

00:08:49 The other thing that I think is interesting about what you're talking about is that you realize and it sounds like fairly early on that oh. Even though we started this with just a concept and some of our knowledge, and experience, but we're going to go down the path of doing kettlebells and then realizing that, like I said, not too far into the project. We're onto something here. This is big. We're filling a market here.

00:09:20 So what I want to know is how did you land on kettlebells, like, really, that's super niche down. We hear about that a lot with going into business, get really niched. How do you guys land on that? I think when you're selling things online, you're always trying to find well, I shouldn't say always. It's easier when you're trying to start a company if you can find a niche and trying to try to find a true purpose.

00:09:49 So one of the things that we did, the three of us, when we were deciding on what we wanted to do, was try to really narrow down the list of typical items that we could even do that with. And then coupled with that, the fact that our personal routines and our own personal, let's say, workout strategies for the rest of our lives were at stake in terms of what do we like to personally do, what types? Of tools do we like to use? Is this something that also fits with us culturally and kind of what we actually can support and stand behind and believe in? And so one of the things that I liked about kettlebells immediately is I had never really used it in competitive workouts.

00:10:30 It's probably changed somewhat at this point, but nobody I knew competitively had been using Kettlebells to do anything. And so there were some immediate gains that I realized just from my competitive background that, hey, I've been missing out on this kind of and once I got introduced to the people who were experts in this field and because I'm a naive student of this particular tool at the time. I'm only trying to find the people who really are enthusiastic and are self proclaimed enthusiasts about this particular product. And I saw that community as a community that wasn't really getting a lot of acknowledgment, wasn't getting a lot of kind of cohesion amongst themselves. And I thought that's what a brand like Keller Belkins can do is it can bring all of these smaller, tight knit factions together so that there's a common purpose and a common theme that everybody can kind of grow around.

00:11:29 Awesome. So as I'm listening to what you're talking about, there are definite lessons in the journey in which you've had. And I just wanted to take a moment to kind of point a couple of these out, because I think, again, this is something as entrepreneurs, or as particularly in this day and age, when there's a huge amount of opportunity for people to start their own thing. So whether it's just starting selling T shirts, whether it's, I'm going to start my own kettlebell company, I'm going to start coaching, whatever it is, this concept that you talked about in here was, can I see myself doing this? You had a bunch of different opportunities that were obviously laid out in front of you, that you guys had thought we could go down that path or that path or that path.

00:12:14 Which one of these has got an opportunity that we can see right now, which is an unmet market, but also can we see ourselves having to incorporate that because your brand is going to be all about fitness and incorporating that into you, into a lifestyle. Can we, as the owners and the ambassadors and the promoters of this business, can we see ourselves doing that each and every day? Can we incorporate that into our lifestyle? And I think that's one of the things, as entrepreneurs, right from the get go, we want to start thinking about, it's not just how can we make money today or tomorrow or in three weeks time. It's can I actually see myself doing this in ten years time and still enjoying what I'm doing?

00:13:01 Or do I have some form of ability to be able to do this over the long term with an exit strategy so that I can move out and seamlessly transition into my new thing, which we're going to talk about a little bit further on in today's conversation because that's exactly what you've done over time. The other piece here is that you went down the path of understanding that there were these little congregations all over the place with people that were avid kettlebell users, but they really didn't have one big place to congregate. There was no Yankee Stadium for them. So how did you go about creating that? Like, how did you twig on that gosh?

00:13:47 If we create a community around this, this is what could happen. I think it starts with kind of like you say when you're trying to build that lifestyle or you're trying to build the original spark, if you will, for your company. I think that has to come from internally and it comes from the owners or the people that are putting their time and resources up to try to make this happen for us. We were fortunate enough to not really know much about the kettlebell itself. So even though we had a pretty extensive background in fitness, we didn't really know much about this particular tool.

00:14:21 And so through that journey and learning and reaching out and trying to personally acquire knowledge around that subject, we just immediately realized that there is no place to just where this is centralized and we're going on this journey on our own. Why don't we document this journey and make this journey a lot easier and incorporate this into our sales funnel so that when someone else is trying to learn about this particular tool, they're able to do it in a lot more comfortable pace or in a lot more streamlined setting than what we had to go through to learn this information? And even if you don't want to do that, we're setting ourselves up with the correct people and the correct credible sources so that even if you don't fact check, you know, the people that we're fact checking, they come from an enthusiast background or certified background. And we're not just getting our information from random places on the internet. Absolutely.

00:15:15 I love the fact that you've talked here. This is kind of like one of those AHA moments I hope for everybody is Chad said you've documented the journey that is so important to just take some time to actually document, whether that means documenting by pen and paper and sitting down and writing what did I actually do? Or in Chad's case, actually sharing publicly the journey in which you are on because you can bet your bottom dollar other people are going to be interested in how did you get from A to Z? Hence the reason that we do podcasts like this, right, is to unlock and uncover what was it that you actually did and in that comes other opportunities for you to create other businesses further down the track. When we're doing business with our friends, with our buddies, we all come to it with the intention that this is going to work out brilliantly.

00:16:11 We're never going to have any problems. We're buddies and pals here. How did you work out where each other's strengths were and what part of the business that everybody would play? How did that come about and how did you agree upon that? Yeah, I mean, I think that's very difficult when you're starting out especially, you don't even know all of the particular areas that everyone is needed, all of the problems that you're going to have to go through.

00:16:37 So I think it starts out as a very everyone's a utility player, everyone's kind of on trying to tackle everything. You divide and conquer as much as you can, but at the end of the day, there's so much to do when you first start in terms of just getting the operation set up that you kind of can forget about it once you have that operation set up. I think it's a conversation that you need to have amongst your team and you need to set a team up that you can have honest conversations. So for us, that would look like whether it's a voting topic, whether it's choosing the correct vendor, whether it's something that someone personally wants to take responsibility for. It's all just a matter of them kind of bringing that to the table and us making an assessment on if we think it's possible and taking a vote and moving forward.

00:17:25 The benefit we had of having three people is we forced ourselves to make decisions. So I think a lot of people get stuck analysis, paralysis, if you will, trying to overanalyze a particular decision and at the end of the day, you win some, you lose some, a decision gets made by the board and you just keep moving forward. And sometimes that means you have to support decisions you don't agree with. But I'm used to doing that. I look at that in football.

00:17:51 I did not agree with every play that the coach called for sure, but I still tried my hardest and played my hardest to support my teammates during that. So once you go through that several times, you kind of begin to build a common bond around, let's just try to do what's best for the company and ignore our egos and put that aside. Oh, I love that.

00:18:13 Put your ego aside because often our own egos can get in the road of doing what's right for the business. And so I love the fact that you kind of recognize and have that level of self awareness that sometimes we just got to put that to the side to enable us to move forward and to do what I can do and have to do to support my teammate and my co founder in the decision that we've just made together. So moving forward a bit. So as this company continues to grow, what are some of the key considerations that you had to keep in mind if you were to give advice to other people about starting a business with their friends, whether it be one friend or many, what's the biggest piece of advice you would give them? When you're talking about especially trying to maintain your relationships and your friendships, I think using data to make decisions makes things a lot easier.

00:19:13 I think we live in a day and age, especially now, 20 years ago, you weren't able to use as much data and just kind of fact check things as easily as you are now. So I think you can take a lot of disagreements and arguments off the table if everyone is just operating with supporting their argument and using data versus opinion. But you will have times where there are situations that you don't agree with. And I look at that as those are opportunities that I can support somebody. I don't want to be in a situation where it's like, oh, I told you so, I told you this is going to go wrong, but you still be there.

00:19:49 And I think when you go through several of those, you kind of earn more respect from the people that you're having conflict with when they know they'll support something, that you will support something that you don't even necessarily agree with. I think the next conversation, they're looking at that conversation, maybe to give you one or maybe kind of lean your way or lean in your favor, maybe the next situation that you come to. So it's a give and take, just like a relationship with a romantic partner or a mother and father, whatever it is, it's just a relationship that you have to foster and try to do your best to always keep what's right. What we're trying to do for the company is always well intentioned and not malicious in any way.

00:20:36 And I think that's a great piece of advice is that when you start to understand what are the metrics or the data points that you should be looking at in your business, and you can then look at those and start making decisions based on facts rather than opinions. It allows you to kind of take away any of that gray area or opinions of people that make things difficult at times. So let's fast forward a little bit and let's get to the point where, all right, so we started this business with our buddies. We've come up with some really good parameters on how we're going to work together. We know what our vision is.

00:21:15 We know what our company stands for. We know how we're going to have to build that. We have great meetings. We have excellent communication. Now we get to the point where it's time to exit.

00:21:25 How does one kind of come up? At what point did you come up with your exit strategy? Was that at the beginning? Was it partway down the track? What led you to the point where you were able to transition out and start doing your new business?

00:21:47 For us, we had a pretty heavy inventory based business. So I think our journey really started with financing the inventory needs for the customers, especially if you're talking about expanding internationally into other markets. You're almost talking about a million dollars in inventory just to genuinely expand into another market. If you're if you're trying to attack it with the same sales velocity as the one that you're currently in, So through that journey, the people we were talked to, the types of money that we were looking to raise in those efforts really led us to, okay, well, what's best for the company? How does that weigh on our personal financial situation?

00:22:28 And through those conversations, you kind of just do what's best from a business decision. I think at the end of the day, when you've been doing business for ten plus years, it becomes more of a math game, if you will, than you realize. And when it makes more sense to exit than to maybe potentially not have the same upside for you personally, or if it makes more sense for you to stay in and create a salary type role for yourself and see yourself doing this forever, I think that's an individual's decision to make. We never saw ourselves as the quote, unquote. I am not the quote unquote Kellabell King.

00:23:06 I'm not the face of the brand. We always wanted the brand to be more than just us, and we want to see it do as best as it possibly could. So for us, that looked like working with another company through that. So we signed basically a three year acquisition deal that allowed us to share on the upside of the growth of the company, but then also to gain some personal kind of life changing opportunities from the initial sale. Well, I want to say congratulations to all of you for getting to that point and getting to the point where you were really smart about every decision you made to get to the situation that you're in now, which has allowed you to move on and start this new brand, which we're going to be talking about in a moment.

00:23:52 But I do want to make this point too, that again, this often is a mistake that a lot of entrepreneurs can make, is that they make themselves the whole business centered around them. And what you actually did was created a brand that could stand on its own 2ft. So that in the event that all three of you wanted to exit and somebody else could step in, it was a much easier transition to do that and a more desirable business for somebody else to take over than something that was completely centered around you, completely reliant on you. So I think that's a really great lesson also for our entrepreneurs to take away out of today's podcast. So we're now at the point where you've had some fantastic upside out of Kettlebell Kings and then it's opened up this new drawer.

00:24:44 And I know this has sort of been something that's been kind of boiling for a little while. You've had a real interest in this space for some time. But tell us about Life Grows Green and what you're up to now. Yeah, Life Grows Green is my new baby, if you will. Basically trying to through my journey with Kettlebell Kings and just through my business journey, I have noticed and it's really been even more cemented in me how far away we've drifted from using natural products and really understanding the types of products that we put inside of our bodies.

00:25:17 And on top of us, I would see so many people succeed in one area of their health and wellness and because of their lack of understanding of different areas, they might not see the results or the health benefits that they're looking for. So I look at Life Grows Green as a company that can provide natural products, natural supplements, really anything that you would think of from nature, so that people are able to have a brand that they trust, have a brand that goes against kind of some of the stigmas or negative stigmas that have been put around plants such as the hemp and the cannabis plant. But really any natural supplement, I think we don't utilize these things to keep us away from the pharmaceutical solutions that are pushed on us and marketed to us on a regular basis. And so I'd like to have a company that kind of stands in between the commercial pharmaceutical approach and more of a natural solution to prevent you from having to get to that point when. You transition out of doing something like, I suppose, kettlebells.

00:26:28 It doesn't have all of the stigma or challenges that you face when you're trying to almost battle with decades of conditioning around. You should go to the doctor, you take these pharmaceutical drugs. It's the right thing to do for you? And now we're coming back to kind of this natural space. How do you battle that?

00:26:52 How do you craft your narrative, your proposition in a way that really appeals to the market now? And I think, gosh, the timing is absolutely right for this sort of stuff. But what have you done for that? What I do, what succeeds and what I try to do are probably three different things. Right.

00:27:16 Okay.

00:27:21 I guess what I try to do, and it's very similar to what we do at Kettlebell Kings is try to build a community of people who are like minded in a sense. And I don't want to tell people this is the specific way that you should live your life. No different than this is the specific way that you should lift a kettlebell. I think you should be safe and you should have a foundation and fundamentals that keep you safe in your journey. But I think there is room for kind of everyone's artistic interpretation or own flavor to the way they want to live their lives.

00:27:53 So I'm the type of person that I'm not against someone using something recreationally as long as it's not detrimental to their lives. Whereas I think that a lot of brands or a lot of companies will try to pitch their product or their way of thinking as the way of thinking. And I more look at it as do we all agree that we want natural and healthy products that are beneficial to us? And if that's the case and everyone's here to discuss and move around that type of concept, then I think it becomes easier for people to kind of come together versus argue about if you should take 1 gram of this versus 2 grams of that and what pharmaceutical company makes the best painkiller? I don't think we necessarily have to have those conversations if we're just talking about what natural solutions are available to us as humans.

00:28:44 I try to bring the general concept of just keeping things as natural possible to the forefront. And as long as we're there to talk about that, I think it's fair game. So in terms of the products that you are now manufacturing or promoting through your brand, Life Grows Green, what sort of things can we expect to sort of see coming out of that brand? Sure. I mean, anything that's natural, really.

00:29:12 So we have things like your natural supplements, protein powders, we have CBD products, hemp based products, salves and creams and things of that nature. But we're also coming out with new products such as bamboo type products, sheets, different products that will fit, let's say, a natural lifestyle. The way I look at our product lineup is anything that can fit a natural lifestyle and can replace something that is necessarily not natural. I think we should be in that space. So I'm an ever changing research and development, new product development type of person.

00:29:51 I'm always trying to find and source the best kind of quality I can from around the world. And as I build a larger and larger community, I just try to focus and do as much kind of research into that community as I can to figure out what products they want and where I'm going wrong and where I need to improve. I mean, what I love about this and I was going to come back to this too, in terms of these moments or these lessons throughout what you're talking about today. And this has been really evident through what you did with Kettlebell Kings. And clearly you've taken with you the learnings that you had out of that very successful company.

00:30:28 And you're now utilizing your knowledge, your skills and the wisdom that you've had over many years in this company. So one of the things that I'm hearing is that when you're looking at what products and services should I bring to the market? That's backed by a lot of research. So you're looking at like, fundamentally you have your keystone offering, which is we want to make sure that we're offering something that is natural. And if there is something in the market right now that maybe is serving a purpose but is not of a natural, is not kind and it's not green and it's not sustainable and all those things, can we actually create something naturally that will replace that product?

00:31:12 Because then you have this ability. And I think there's a beautiful lesson in this because then you have this ability to be able to pull out of the audience that's already buying that product because they already know that they have a problem and they are already solution aware, but they're now really keen on seeing something that is natural. It makes for a very simple transition over to your product, which I think is smart. And there's a lesson in that. Do you want to add anything to that?

00:31:41 Like when you're thinking about for anybody else that's thinking about building a product? Because it might not necessarily be that it's the brand new thing to solve that particular problem as such, but it's a new way of doing it. Do you want to add anything to that? Is there something you could share with our audience? Sure.

00:32:01 I think you nailed it the way you put it. But I think essentially even like when you take Kettlebells, for example, when you start with something that's just a piece of iron and you coat that piece of iron in a durable coating, the most durable coating you can find, there's not much room for your own personal creativity or your own personal style. Some brands will go that route and they will say, changing the millimeter here, change the millimeter there, doing that, not even being the expert that should suggest those types of changes. So rather than me looking at what types of products do I need to go and develop and create in a different way. I'm always on trying to see what people need and improve on what they need.

00:32:47 One of the things we say is, like, you don't have to reinvent the wheel every single time. I think the baseline of products that you offer should be something that most people would use, and that's going to be the biggest audience that's going to be available to you if you can come up with something that's patentable or something that the market has never seen before. I look at that as a bonus. I don't look at that as a core part of your business. I look at that as, okay, you were lucky to create something that exists that had never existed before.

00:33:16 But I don't think you can go into businesses or most businesses can afford to kind of risk everything on that type of just one concept. This is really about innovating, isn't it? So we're like being the masters of innovation, so to speak, when you're looking at, there's already something out there, but how can I innovate that maybe make it more appealing to a different market? So you're shifting the market as opposed to creating something revolutionary and brand new. You talked a little bit about this a risk at all mentality, so I'm really interested in how do you approach risk taking and how do you balance that with, all right, I've got these ambitious goals, but I also need to make sure I put food on the table.

00:34:03 My family is happy. I'm not risking the whole kitten caboodle on this one thing. What is your approach to risk taking? I think most entrepreneurs are pretty high risk individuals. There is a lot of risk associated with putting your well being and your family's well being in just your hands alone.

00:34:25 No one writes you a paycheck when you're an entrepreneur. But for me, I think that's just been a part of my nature growing up in sports. I think when you go out and you play sports for your entire life, it kind of conditions you to see the risk as more of a game. In some games you win, some games you lose, but you get better every time. And for me, I'm just trying to get better.

00:34:52 I look at these situations as I'm glad to be here and have the opportunity to learn or make these mistakes or successes, whatever they may be. So it really doesn't bother me as much. Some people would probably say I'm more of a risk taker than they are, but I think I've conditioned myself to be able to make as many decisions as possible, and some of those will go well, some of those won't. And at the end of the day, more will go well than they won't. What's interesting about what you've just said there, too, is, I think, is your ability to be able to make decisions and not be fearful about the fact that some of those decisions mightn't work out.

00:35:31 But the faster you can make them, the faster you can move on or the faster you find out whether or not that was the right decision. Right? Then you can make a course correcting decision if you need to. Interesting, because I think I also heard someone like Richard Branson say that the success of his companies has been his ability to make decisions. He's just making more decisions at a faster pace than most of his competitors or his peers and that's what's really stood him apart from anybody else and build the kind of companies that he's had.

00:36:04 I'm interested now in terms of like a lot of people would say to get to the point where I've got a business or a brand that's making lots of money, I have to put in a lot of money into marketing and advertising. What's your take on that? And how much of a role has marketing and advertising played in your success? I think marketing advertising is part of a brand, it's part of any brand, but I think it can only kind of tell the message or the story that you create. So I think more the core that people need to create and have to create is like, what is your content generation strategy?

00:36:50 What is the reason that people should tune into your radio station or tune into your TV channel? What is the reason that you exist? And that's easier said than done. I don't think a PDF graphic really tells that. I think you need to tell that story consistently.

00:37:07 So using today's social media tools, any kind of social engaging software, to me, that's the best way to go about it. That's really going to tell you and help you build your audience that it's independent of your own personal preference. It's going to be how much engagement are you able to generate from the things that you're doing and what is the audience find most engaging and want to tune into? So I think that's really important that you've spoken about that today in terms of really having a strategy around your content. Because we've got that many different tools, platforms available at our fingertips that often people get a little overwhelmed or blinded by all the things that are available to us.

00:37:54 And by you saying what we've got to start with is that core is what are we actually about? Why should people tune in? Why should they listen to you? Why does your brand matter? Why do your products make a difference?

00:38:07 How is it going to make a difference for them? And when you understand that at its core and you're able to, I'm going to say, sing that message over and over and over again, that's what gives you the traction to then be able to turn the volume up and go the next level and overlay that with some form of paid advertising. And I'm interested in when you really boil down or you think about why the heck do I exist? Is there a strategy that you use? Like if you were to tell somebody else this is how you can get to the core of why you exist?

00:38:47 Is there like a strategy that you use that helps people to get to that point, or yourself for that matter? Sometimes I hate being like the sports analogy guy, but the analogy is so good to me that I can't help myself. Yeah, I think it's just like in sports, you know, everyone is there for a common goal to win, to win a state championship, to win the Super Bowl, to win whatever you're going after. So I try to create that with the companies. I try to ask and create conversations with other people to prove that we all know why we're here.

00:39:26 So despite all of our commonalities, or I shouldn't say commonalities despite all of our differences, we try to find those commonalities around why we're here and why we exist in the first place. And I think that becomes a lot easier when you try to create a culture or a lifestyle brand because it's not really about you as much as you want it to be. It's about the culture and the brand being great. And if you can help support the brand be great, then that's why we're here in the first place. Anything else is kind of a sideshow to us supporting the brand and starting that is to me, directly kind of with the leadership and the people that are kind of the initial spark of the company.

00:40:07 If they don't have a will to see this company do well, if they don't treat the company with good intent and with high regard, then how can you expect a customer or an employee to do so? And so I try to set that tone really early from the beginning. That's really important, the piece around building that culture. But I think this really from a simple perspective is what is the goal of your audience and what is your goal? Do those two align?

00:40:38 If they do, it is like happy days. You got almost a marriage made in heaven. You've got something that you have created that has created this common ground that you can continue to build upon. And the vision is already there, just like you do. If you were with your family, you wanted to build something that's strong, that is united.

00:40:58 And that all comes from the narrative of what is your family, what do they stand for, what is the history, what are you going to bring forward? All of those sorts of things. So I think that's really interesting. And don't worry about the kind of sports analogies because I think they are always relevant. And you talked about the fact that we play team sports.

00:41:19 We get to understand how do we play with other people nicely, how do you buy into a common goal? How do you all move towards that together? So I think it's beautiful that there are synergies across the sporting arena and the business arena too, it goes without saying. So I want to find out from you in terms of the stuff that you've got going on at the moment, where's the best place for people to connect with you, Chad? Because you are an absolute wealth of knowledge when it comes to like business building strategy, but also those that are listening today that have gone, do you know what?

00:42:02 We may even have some entrepreneurs that are taking might be pharmaceutical, vitamins, drugs, whatever you want to call them, and they're looking for alternatives. Where's the best place that they can come hang out with you, ask more questions and even find out more about your products? Sure. I mean, I think the Lifeguards Green community is probably the number one place. So we're on all social channels, check us out@lifeguardsgreen.com.

00:42:31 But I think even more if you're looking to contact me for personal reasons, other business opportunities, you can contact me@chatprice.com. I'm also on LinkedIn social media channels is chat price or Real? Chat price. So I'm connected. I'm available.

00:42:49 If you reach out to me, either I or one of my team members will definitely get back to you as soon as possible. Awesome. I just want to a couple of other questions before we sort of wrap up today's conversation. But I know a big part of what you've done is build community and part of that has also been building, I'm going to say, merchandise that has enabled your community to really have a sense of belonging. I mean, I may have already answered that question for you, but why did you go down that path?

00:43:20 Because you've done. I can see you're wearing a shirt right now. I'm sure that they're going to be available for other avid users of your products. You did it for Kettlebell Kings. Why did you go down the path of kind of creating merchandise to go with your business, with your business ideas?

00:43:40 I mean, I think it's trying to give yourself some type of brand identity. I think a lot of companies really miss the value in having a brand, whether that's from the price point that people are willing to pay for things or just the overall sense of kind of value that it gives someone. We have people who believe in positive initiatives and if you can kind of associate with your brand or your symbol with a positive initiative, I think it goes a long way. So I try to give something people to stand behind, something that they can wear, something they can feel proud of, and even a conversation starter, if you will, about why would you wear this shirt over another shirt? And it's because I'm trying to spread a positive message and an initiative that someone is trying to make the world a little bit better place.

00:44:30 Absolutely. And, I mean, I think that's a great opportunity for people to add to their product suite, too, right, as additional products that they can offer to their customers and provides another marketing point. Marketing advertising point. When people are walking around, whether it's the golf course or just in their day to day life, actually wearing and advertising your materials through the apparel and the merchandise that you provide, I want to end today's conversation with what else? If you're looking back over your career, give me three things that you think have been the game changing moments.

00:45:13 Where were they? And how can other entrepreneurs kind of create those game changing moments for themselves?

00:45:22 For me, if I'm looking back over my career, it'd definitely be my experiences in corporate America. I think before you're able to start a business, you need to work inside a business and see a business that you would, you know, envy or an Adventist, a business that you would, you know, think of as respectable and want to kind of build your operation around or better than. So, you know, I think joining some type of team for me and learning from the people who have been in corporate America for 20 plus years, it gave me a lot of knowledge and insights into what might be best for me, what's not best for me, and also where do I stack up? Where's my kind of weaknesses and my strengths in terms of what I'm going to be able to do by myself and what I need to go out and ask for help for, or find the resources to hire help. But then starting the company, I think you come into your own different goals or your own kind of milestones.

00:46:23 And so setting those milestones where, let's get the company to a million dollar milestone, but knowing that that's just a milestone, that's just more of a representative marker of us moving in the right direction and trying to really transition this into the best it can be every day. So once we get to a point in the business or in our lives where everything that we're doing is kind of just about improving from the day before, life becomes a lot easier. I'm just getting stronger and faster every day, and that's the life. And once you have a company that you can kind of support that idea, I think everything becomes a lot easier for you. Fantastic.

00:47:02 Well, in closing, what advice do you have for aspiring entrepreneurs who maybe just starting out and they're looking to make their mark on the world?

00:47:14 One of the things I like to say is self awareness, kind of completely understanding who you are, what your strengths and weaknesses are. I think a lot of us struggle with having an accurate self awareness in today's society. We don't really have those truthful, hard, honest conversations. And in business, you need to be able to do that. I think that's the core kind of responsibility of the leadership in business is to have the uncomfortable conversations with themselves and lead the team in a positive direction, but then also gaining the experience.

00:47:47 Like I was saying, there's so much education that's free and available to us now, and we have the ability to organize information and work with people around the world that we would never have 20 years ago. So I would take advantage of as much kind of experience and opportunities as you can to actually become an expert in what you want to kind of start your operation around. I think that's essential for any kind of startup to have that level of self learning part of the aspect of you actually being an expert in your field of choice. I love that. I want to say a huge thank you to you for spending that time with us today, because your wisdom, your knowledge and the experience that you've had over this journey that you've got to the point where you're at right now has been invaluable to Alison's today.

00:48:40 And I hope that everybody that's listening has been profusely taking notes, has really thought about not just what Chad said, but how does that actually apply to you and your business? How can you take what he has talked about and put that into action and making sure that you are utilizing making decisions based on facts and not just your opinions or the opinions of others or even sometimes gut feelings. So we just get those real facts and make some decisions based on that, but also really getting to understand who you are, have that level of self awareness that says, what do I want to do? Where do I want to go? Who do I want to be?

00:49:20 Does this look like me in ten years time? Because if the answer is yes, then you want to move forward with Pace and make some decisions really quickly about building your own empire, because it can be done. And Chad and his buddies are absolute living proof of that. When you have a desire, when you have some skills and some knowledge and you're prepared to put in some hard yards, you absolutely can get there. So I want to say thank you for sharing all of that with us today.

00:49:49 Chad, your information, like I said, has been invaluable, and I know that all of our audience will take away some great things out of today's show. I will give you just a couple of moments if there's anything you want to say in parting before we dial out from today's session, you go for your life. Otherwise, I'm going to call today's session to close. Yeah, no, nothing in particular. Thank you for having me.

00:50:10 It was very nice meeting you. You're very welcome. All right, guys. Well, you've heard it from Chad Price how to go from buddies to boardroom, how to actually take your business. All the little things that he did to go from just having friends at school to actually creating a multimillion dollar business that he then was able to sell and is now in the throes of creating another amazing business.

00:50:35 Go check Chad out. You can go to Chadprice.com. You can also go to Lifegrowsgreen.com and you'll also find Chad's community on Facebook. You can also look him up on Facebook, LinkedIn and anywhere else that has a social profile because you'll certainly find him there. I want to thank you very much for joining us today.

00:50:55 If you found this episode interesting, if you took away just one thing out of today's episode, the very best thing you can do is share this with a friend. Make sure you share this with someone else. I was talking to another business owner yesterday, talking about the growth of his business, and Chad brought something up in today's conversation, which is something that I actually spoke to them about yesterday, which was growing your business too quickly can actually be detrimental. Chad didn't exactly say that, but he talks about he got the business to a point where he knew that, hey, it was time for us to move on. Hand this over to somebody else so they can take it to the next level.

00:51:33 So just knowing and understanding and having that level of not only self awareness, but business awareness, to know when the right move is to make the right, the time is to make the right moves is really, really important. So share this episode with somebody else. You also know that I interview really amazing people from all over the world on business, entrepreneurship, how they balance their business, their life and their family on the regular. So make sure that you go and you listen to all the other podcast episodes that I have going on. There's over 200, and I think we're up to about almost 220 of these.

00:52:08 So there's plenty of opportunity for you to learn from experts. Absolutely free. We are available on all of the major podcasting platforms. So until next Wednesday at 10:00 a.m., I will say have an awesome week and go and live your life unlocked because, you know, there's just no other way. Bye for now.