Latest / The Inspired Stories Podcast / Handcrafted Sleep: How John Grove Built on His Grandfather's Mattress Legacy | Manufacturing Series

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Handcrafted Sleep: How John Grove Built on His Grandfather's Mattress Legacy | Manufacturing Series · The Inspired Stories Podcast

0:04
Welcome to another edition of the Inspired Stories podcast
0:08
where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from
0:11
their successes and be inspired by how they've overcome
0:14
adversity. My name is Anthony Codaspodi and
0:17
today's guest is John Grove co-owner and executive at
0:21
Mattress Grove based in Greensboro, NC.
0:25
They are a vibrant third generation family owned company
0:29
that has crafted top quality mattresses for over 5 decades.
0:34
They partner with retail businesses to offer professional
0:37
sales training, the highest quality mattresses, and superior
0:41
customer service, all while prioritizing premium, locally
0:45
sourced materials. Now, under John's guidance,
0:49
Mattress Grove has earned praise for its handcrafted Art of
0:53
Support approach and its successful partnerships,
0:56
including annual contributions to the Bed for Kids initiative.
1:01
NOW. John has been part of Mattress
1:03
Grove for more than 32 years, and during that time he
1:06
pioneered business outreach and engaged in public discussions
1:10
about the company's mission and the broader mattress industry.
1:14
He brings a wealth of experience in running a family owned
1:17
business and his passion for quality and community shines
1:21
through in every endeavour. Now before we get into all that
1:24
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1:28
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AD back benefits.com. All right, back to our guest
1:58
today, the CEO of Mattress Grove, John Grove himself.
2:01
I appreciate you making the time to Share your story today.
2:04
Anthony, thank you so much. That was a more than gracious
2:10
entry and I really appreciate you having me on the Inspired
2:13
Stories podcast. Super excited to have a
2:16
conversation. So John, your family's been in
2:21
the mattress business for more than 5 decades.
2:24
And if I understand it correctly, like we said in the
2:26
intro, you personally for over 30 years, I'm kind of curious,
2:31
what was your earliest memory of mattress life?
2:36
Wow, I hadn't really thought about that in a while.
2:39
Anthony, You know, you say 50 years, my granddad actually
2:44
started back in working for a mattress manufacturing company
2:50
out of Atlanta, GA over 100 years ago.
2:52
So we've actually been, yeah, in the mattress business in some
2:56
shape or form for over 100 years.
2:59
But, but we've been manufacturing for over 50 years.
3:04
So that's kind of why we we say that we've been actually
3:06
manufacturing. But my, some of my first
3:10
memories were of, you know, coming to the factory on a
3:14
Saturday while my dad was working with his brothers, you
3:18
know, 'cause you know how US entrepreneurs are.
3:20
We always have to be working, right?
3:22
So, and I, you know, of course I didn't know anything better than
3:26
to go back into the factory. And back then, we had, like,
3:28
tall, tall stacks of really inexpensive mattresses, but in
3:33
these plastic. And we would get on those stacks
3:35
of mattresses and kind of like, you know, ride them down to the
3:39
bottom. So I can't imagine how, you
3:42
know, the poor people in the warehouse on Monday came in, you
3:47
know, from a nice weekend, and they had to clean up those
3:49
mattresses. I didn't realize that it even
3:51
mattered until I came. You know, I grew up a little
3:53
bit, and I started being that person coming in on Monday,
3:57
having to straighten up all the mattresses.
4:00
But yeah, you know, that's what I remember best.
4:03
That would probably been back in the 70s, but with my cousins and
4:07
so forth. Just, you know, just having fun.
4:09
Didn't nothing about the business just being around.
4:12
Just being around it and mattress surfing on the
4:14
weekends. Huh.
4:15
Mattress surfing? Not probably not a lot of people
4:18
here that have done any mattress surfing I guess.
4:22
I haven't, no. I might have come down and visit
4:25
Is is that still an option? Is that part of the tour these?
4:28
Days only for, you only for. You fair enough.
4:31
I appreciate that. So you said that your your
4:34
grandfather had been in the business for, you know, starting
4:38
over 100 years ago and started the first family operation 50
4:43
years ago. How did that come about?
4:47
Yeah. So he, he, he was selling
4:51
mattresses for Southern Spring Bed Company, which became
4:54
Southern Cross. And anyway, he started working
4:58
his way up into the Carolinas and he was called on these, you
5:02
know, these independent retail furniture stores.
5:04
They didn't have mattress stores back then, but furniture stores.
5:07
And he noticed that, you know, they needed some other products
5:11
that and they weren't getting them quick enough.
5:13
And so he he started opening warehouses all throughout the
5:17
Carolinas and Virginia. So he, he was already selling
5:22
mattresses and furniture at the time.
5:24
And then in, in in the 70s, you know, some of these
5:29
manufacturers of the furniture started selling direct.
5:32
So in more into the 80s, but in the 70s.
5:35
And so he had heard that Spring air, Spring Air Mattress
5:41
Corporation had a they were out of Chicago at the time, was
5:47
looking for a licensee in the in North Carolina.
5:51
So, so make a long story really short.
5:53
He purchased into that that franchise.
5:58
It was actually a license operation in, in, in 1971.
6:03
And he brought along his two brothers, which was not my my
6:06
father. We were living in Florida at the
6:08
time because my dad was actually a engineer working for NASA,
6:12
which is a whole nother story. Yeah, family business is really
6:16
in, but which is a good thing. I mean, you know, so, but my
6:19
granddad and his two brothers, my uncles started manufacturing
6:24
mattresses in 1971. So it was a Spring Air franchise
6:28
is what we got into more of it's it's a licensee organization,
6:32
not a franchise, which was a lot more flexible, but they actually
6:35
bought into the brand. OK.
6:38
And for you, was it sort of predetermined, predestined that
6:41
you were going to, you know, join the family business or did
6:45
you go off and do your own thing for a while and eventually you
6:47
were kind of drawn into it as well?
6:52
Well, that's and that's a great question.
6:54
Most people would say, yeah, you know, you probably were drawn
6:56
into or you were pre predestined when I was brought up, I was I
7:01
wasn't going to have anything to do with the mattress business.
7:03
I mean, you know, we'd seen dads long nights, long days, you
7:06
know, mom, you know, talking about how it's you know, it's
7:09
just you don't want to go in that business.
7:11
It's just it's you know, it's tough and you just don't want to
7:14
do it. And so, yeah, I mean, we, my
7:16
brother and I have one brother who I, who I Co in the business
7:19
with. We, we said we don't want to do
7:21
anything, have anything to do with the business.
7:23
Let let them do what they do. So we went, you know, got our
7:26
degrees and went and did our own thing for a while.
7:29
And then then, you know, as as things changed and, you know,
7:35
life changed and, and the family business needed some help, you
7:39
know, we came back, we came back at different times, you know,
7:41
and but yeah, so we, it was not predetermined.
7:44
It was predetermined we would not get into the family
7:47
business, but now I wouldn't change it.
7:50
Pretty and it sucked you back in and it did.
7:54
And so when you first started in the company, I'm going to guess
7:57
you probably started like kind of a little bit more entry level
8:00
to kind of learn your way through the business, is that
8:02
right? Yes, I actually, you know, my
8:07
brother and I and my cousins, we worked during the summers, you
8:10
know, in high school and junior high, even working in the
8:13
factory, you know, sweeping the floors, mowing the grass, you
8:16
know, outside doing, doing things that we could do because
8:18
we weren't big enough to, you know, load mattresses and
8:22
trucks. And we certainly weren't big
8:24
enough to, you know, run, run machines.
8:27
They really didn't want to teach us to run machines because they
8:29
knew we were only going to be here for a month or two.
8:31
And it's a it's an art to it. So we did all the odds and ends.
8:36
So we kind of got got that part of business.
8:38
But once out of college and and I did my own thing, you know,
8:42
with sales, I came back into the business as a sales Rep.
8:46
So that was really my first taste into the real, you know,
8:51
business world, if you will. And had you done sales before in
8:57
previous jobs that you had? OK, so were you.
8:59
Comfortable in this role. Loved it.
9:01
Loved it. Yeah.
9:02
And, you know, I think, you know, again, I think selling and
9:06
sales is a bad word. But I think, you know, helping
9:09
people is the best thing in the world that anybody can do.
9:13
If you can, if you have that passion inside your yourself to
9:17
want to help people, that's all selling this asking questions to
9:20
helping people find, you know, what they need.
9:22
I mean that I don't care what you're selling.
9:24
You could sell anything and be in any kind of sales role as
9:27
long as you have that, that passion in that heart to want
9:29
to, you know, really help people find out, ask the question, what
9:33
do they actually need? And you know, and to me, so I,
9:36
I, that's my favorite role, the favorite role I've ever had is
9:39
being a sales. And so is this like frontline
9:43
sales like direct to the end consumer or is this selling
9:47
wholesale to retail accounts that you were doing?
9:50
It's, it's a unique position. It's selling wholesale.
9:54
So we're, we would be selling to, you know, a business owner
9:58
or a potential manager if the company's big enough and they
10:01
have a buying, buying office. But it, but our, our job is
10:05
sales reps in the mattress business.
10:08
How we're set up as a manufacturer is you really have
10:10
to make, you got to make 22 sales and then there has to be
10:16
1/3 sale made before it gets to the consumer.
10:18
So first you got to sell either the business owner, the
10:20
entrepreneur of the furniture store, you know, Andy's Fine
10:23
Furniture, I got to sell Andy 1st.
10:26
And then you put the mattresses on the floor, say we get, you
10:29
know, 6 models on the floor, great lineup to talk to you
10:32
about the story. And then now I need to come in
10:35
as a sales Rep and now I need to sell your sales people.
10:38
So now and, and you know, all along I'm, I'm hoping Andy's
10:41
also, you know, and, and you, I mean, Anthony's doing that too,
10:44
which you are because you, you want to sell those mattresses
10:47
too. So we have a big meeting and we
10:50
then we have to convince the sales people and tell them the
10:53
story. And then when they get it, guess
10:55
what? They have to compare the story
10:57
and tell the story why their consumer, the end user wants to
11:02
buy a Mattress Grove product. Or back then it could have been
11:05
a Spring Air product and we still make Spring Air as well.
11:07
But yeah, so it's actually a very unique story.
11:09
So it's or it's a unique sales position because you have to
11:13
make multiple sales before it even gets to the consumer.
11:16
That's interesting. Got to sell the owner.
11:19
If you don't do that, like doors close, there's no other
11:21
conversations to have. OK, great.
11:24
The the doors opened on the account, but now we need sell
11:27
through, right. And to get sell through, you
11:29
need buy in from the people who are, you know, working frontline
11:32
with the customers there in the furniture store.
11:35
And so how is it that let's go to the first step?
11:38
How is it that you get the owner excited?
11:40
Like why do they want to bring you in at all?
11:44
Yeah, sure. And a great question.
11:47
You know, first, obviously before you can talk to anybody,
11:51
you got to build some rapport. So, you know, you build a
11:53
rapport with the owner. And so you may, you may make two
11:55
or three or four calls just, you know, finding out more about the
11:59
business, right. You we again, I, there's no way
12:03
I can help you at, at, at Anthony's Fine Furniture until I
12:09
find out you know what your needs are.
12:11
And you're not going to tell me most likely most owners aren't
12:13
you just going to say, well, this is what I need da da, da,
12:14
da and to be known. Most owners don't even know, you
12:19
know, really what they need until you help ask the questions
12:24
and expose it and say, well, what about this?
12:25
So you know. So what are some questions that
12:28
you might ask? Sure.
12:30
You know, you might, you might ask, you know, hey, what's
12:33
what's working well for you on your floor?
12:36
You know, Oh, well, this one's selling, you know, I noticed you
12:38
have 30 models on your floor. You know, what's working well
12:42
for you, what's not working so well for you, you know, and and
12:46
this would probably be a second or third call.
12:48
It would not be the initial call.
12:50
And unless you just felt the report was there because again,
12:55
most owners aren't going to just Blair, you know, just tell you
12:58
and not knowing who you are on a first call.
13:04
OK. And So what are some give me an
13:06
example of some answers that you might get from an owner that can
13:10
then sort of guide how you might approach the conversation going
13:15
forward? Yeah, exactly.
13:18
Sure. And another question you might
13:19
ask is, you know, you know, what's your percentage of, of,
13:23
of mattress sales to your, you know, your furniture store sales
13:26
or, or whatever. Just trying again, trying to
13:28
figure out if they're falling in the normal range or they're
13:31
following, you know, or they're doing a great job in them in
13:34
their mattress category or they're doing a poor job.
13:37
What's the typical ratio there? What's a good percentage?
13:40
A good percentage is 15 to 20%. A poor ratio obviously would be
13:46
less than 10 and less than 5. And there's it, it's
13:49
surprisingly enough. There's some large furniture
13:52
stores out there that do a great job with furniture.
13:55
They're, they're usually more of a designer type store that that
13:59
they don't they, they may sell millions and hundreds of
14:01
millions of dollars in furniture and just sell, you know, 5%
14:05
mattresses. It's, it's very interesting.
14:07
And that's mainly because the design consultants, the sales
14:11
people on the Forde call them design consultants.
14:13
They're they're more into designing the furniture and
14:15
getting the, that part of the, the home.
14:17
And then by the time they get the mattresses, it's just kind
14:19
of an afterthought. Just get that at home.
14:21
What? No.
14:24
Bundle it in. Absolutely, yeah.
14:27
So you find out what's working well, what's not working well,
14:29
and and then how do you guide the conversation from there?
14:33
Right. Sure.
14:34
So you know, what we what we do is we bring, you know, new ideas
14:40
and new IT it the best values at the price point where, where we
14:45
see that they may be weak at. And so like, for example, maybe
14:49
there's a price points in the, you know, 1500 dollars up to
14:54
$2000 in a queen size set or whatever.
14:57
And then so we will tailor our, our story around those
15:02
particular price points. One thing that that I think is
15:05
really key and our sales team does as well is that we always
15:10
we talk about our product and our value.
15:12
We have a lot of people that try to copy us and, and, and I guess
15:18
more or less copy and lower the value.
15:21
So, for example, like a mattress that you see behind me, maybe
15:24
that's a a 1999 queen size set, you know, mattress in the back
15:30
in the background, and then somebody else, another
15:34
manufacturer will come in and say, well, I can get that
15:36
similar mattress for you. It can't stay artisan on it
15:39
can't say mattress Grove, but I can get you, you know, John's,
15:42
you know, fine, fine mattress or whatever and sell it to you for
15:45
1499. That's one thing we don't do,
15:46
you know, we don't take other brands and say, Hey, these are
15:49
these are knockoffs. I think it's really important to
15:52
do that, you know, anything, you know, you know, be authentic, do
15:56
what you do best. And so, for example, the, the,
16:00
the owner may say, you know, that they may talk about those
16:03
price points being key price points that he's not real strong
16:07
at. And so we, we would take our
16:09
line and, and figure out, you know, our story that works
16:13
within his and compliments and supplements his, his other
16:17
products on the floor. For example, if he has another
16:19
big brand, you know, like a Sealy or one that's something
16:21
like that, you know, we would compliment and supplement that
16:24
we don't want. If he's selling good with Sealy,
16:26
we don't want to steal that business.
16:28
We want to get him additional business for a brand that maybe,
16:32
you know, like our brand is not as well known, but our, our, our
16:37
manufacturing and our, our, our products, you can just tell the
16:40
difference because they're all handmade.
16:42
They're handcrafted, so they're made better.
16:44
The components inside are better.
16:45
We don't have the national advertising that Steely and the
16:48
other brands put into the mattress.
16:50
It has to be put in the mattress.
16:52
You can't just advertise it and just say, well, it just came out
16:54
of the sky. Nobody's giving Steely.
16:56
When you say put into the mattress, you mean the price of
16:59
the? Mattress right you're.
17:01
Paying for a lot of their expensive marketing, yeah.
17:04
Yeah, yeah. So, so you know, and again, it's
17:06
just part of our story and what we do it and that that enables
17:09
us to put a, a nicer, higher quality product in the consumers
17:14
hands. So, so tell us I, I want to hear
17:16
more about how you guys train the, the sales staff because it
17:21
sounds like this is probably a, a big point of differentiation.
17:23
But you know, as I'm, I'm looking at the product and we're
17:25
talking about it. Help me understand what it is
17:28
that separates you guys from a Sealy or you know another brand
17:32
out there? It is definitely the people you
17:37
know, and when I say people all the way through our family, you
17:40
know, we, we call the Mattress Grove family from the, the
17:44
artisans in our factory all the way through to our sales team.
17:46
And then of course, you know, as our people in our office,
17:50
everybody here has a, a sense of caring.
17:53
And a lot of that has to do with my brother and I, but a lot of
17:56
it also has to do with and, and basically each area of our
18:00
company, there is someone that was hired by Gen. one from, you
18:06
know, my granddad back in my granddad's day.
18:08
You know, we have people in the factory, have been there 40
18:11
years. And, and what that means is it's
18:14
just the consistency of our brand.
18:16
You know, we keep that consistency.
18:18
We also have people that are just just hired, but they learn
18:21
our culture and our and our and our and the consistency and the
18:26
attention to detail and the caring.
18:28
You know, I can, yeah, we can talk later about it.
18:30
But you know, just I would do anything for anybody in our our
18:34
company and they would too. And we have some, you know, I
18:37
have some, some, some backup to prove that.
18:40
But that's number one. I mean, because you have to
18:43
start with that. And so when people care about
18:46
what they do, they're going to make better products.
18:49
And what's interesting in the mattress business is if you come
18:52
into our Mattress Factory, which you're welcome anytime, Anthony,
18:55
you can come to Greensboro and we'd love to take you on a, on
18:57
a, a tour and, and we'll even let you do some mattress
19:01
surfing. Maybe we'll just put you on a
19:02
conveyor on a mattress. You won't have to write it down.
19:05
I. Don't want to make too big of a
19:07
mess. No, yeah, no, HR wouldn't get
19:10
mad. So but but what what I was going
19:14
to say is, you know, each mattresses are not made one at a
19:19
time. You know, we run, you know, a
19:21
lot of different the the borders of the mattress or the top
19:25
panels of the mattress or the foamy casement of the mattress
19:29
opening the coils of the mattress.
19:30
It's it there's a lot of moving parts, but it's all hand done
19:34
here at Mattress Grove. And so a person that just makes
19:39
the borders, which is the piece that goes around the mattress,
19:41
which you see behind me that has artisan on that's the border.
19:44
Well, a person makes that they never see the end in part of the
19:49
mattress until they come into our showroom here, which are
19:51
we're all under one roof here, our factories right back that
19:54
way, but right back there. So everybody's back there making
19:58
making mattresses. This is our showroom for
20:00
retailers only. We don't we don't sell directly
20:03
to the public per SE in a showroom setting, but the the P
20:10
it's it's just interesting because you know, they know what
20:13
they have to do and they have to make that border perfect.
20:16
Same thing on, you know, all parts of the mattress it it and
20:19
so. That that's where it starts
20:22
because then your mattresses, when they go to the consumer or
20:26
to the retail floor, they look different on the floor because
20:29
they're straight. Everything's perfect now,
20:32
everything is, is made correctly.
20:35
You would be amazed at it just having the top of the mattress,
20:39
the quilted top panel on the mattress if it was just off 1/2
20:41
an inch. If it's off 1/2 an inch or or
20:43
not cut correctly, it makes that mattress look bad because you
20:47
got the welting or the tape edge that goes down the side and it
20:49
matters all that that matters. You know we again, if you're
20:52
going to spend 2003 thousand or or what heck not $1000 on
20:56
instead of betting, it needs to be made right.
20:59
Yeah. And, and so as a customer,
21:02
somebody who's going to lay down on your mattress and, you know,
21:05
sleep there for 8 hours every night, what am I going to notice
21:08
that's different? You're going to notice the back
21:11
support, number one, the support that you get from, you know,
21:15
making the mattress correct again.
21:16
Everything is pulled really tight instead of having it kind
21:19
of loosey goosey. Now we have all different
21:21
fields. We have, you know, super plus
21:23
all the way up to extra firm, but we pull it down tight, make
21:27
all the all the components, you know, work how they're supposed
21:30
to. You're going it's going to feel
21:31
like a really deep feeling supportive mattress.
21:34
You you can you can still get a top the top of it if you want it
21:37
really conforming because that's what I like.
21:39
I like it to have really conforming on top.
21:41
But you got to have the good back support to keep your spinal
21:43
line, you know, at night so you don't wake up with a tired back.
21:46
That's why you wake up with a tired back, because you're not
21:48
getting the right right proper support.
21:50
So what am I looking at right behind your shoulder here?
21:53
Is that some kind of a pillow top on a?
21:55
Is it foam or is it spring or what?
21:58
What's the technology? Yeah.
22:00
So that's our artisan collection and it is a spring unit.
22:03
It's a pocketed coil spring unit.
22:05
It's actually the heaviest duty, heaviest gauge coil system that
22:11
leg and Platen makes and they make all of our springs.
22:14
Matter of fact, all of our components are made right here
22:17
in the USA. Most of them are made right here
22:19
in North Carolina. We're really proud of that
22:22
because we're tariff free, Anthony.
22:24
We don't have to worry about price increases.
22:26
So we don't really care what Washington.
22:28
Does what, what raw materials do you guys have coming or is it or
22:32
all your sourcing is done there locally?
22:34
Yeah, everything local and, and we, we, you know, you pay a
22:38
little bit more money for that, but it is so worth it.
22:42
You know, we during 2020 when the, the pandemic was rampant
22:46
and all the factories were having problems getting raw
22:49
materials. You know, all the ships coming
22:51
in cost instead of costing $3000 now they cost $20,000.
22:55
You know, it was, it was unbelievable.
22:57
And you couldn't, they couldn't get raw materials, you know,
22:59
guess what, we operated every day, matter of fact, we operated
23:03
till 12:00, you know, often nights.
23:05
And, and that's a, that's a whole nother story.
23:07
But you know, we take care of our customers and our customers
23:10
take care of their customers. And then that way, you know, our
23:13
customers don't care that we had to work till 12:00 at midnight.
23:17
You know what they care is that we didn't work till 12:00 at
23:20
midnight and they didn't get their mattress.
23:21
So now their customer's yelling at them, you know.
23:24
Hey, Anthony, you told me that my Matt mattress mattress was
23:27
going to be here on Tuesday. Oh, well, you know, the pandemic
23:31
we didn't have we didn't, we didn't have any of that problem.
23:33
We, we, we you didn't. Pull that excuse out of your
23:35
pocket. Ever.
23:36
We didn't pull it out of our pocket, but yeah, so, so that is
23:39
the pillow top behind this, that actually that mattress is the
23:43
most manufactured mattress out of our factory, the single most
23:47
manufactured mattress out of our factory that we make.
23:50
We make more of those than anything else is a better way to
23:52
put it. And we may we manufacture 57
23:59
different different mattresses not caught.
24:02
And then then you got to multiply that times, you know,
24:04
twin full queen, king, California king.
24:07
So we met. But that that's how many
24:09
different feels and collections we make.
24:11
Isn't that crazy? All the what did you call the
24:14
spring coil tech? Whitney Yeah, no, we make some
24:17
foam mattresses too. OK.
24:19
We, we currently do not one thing we don't do because we
24:23
just don't believe that it's the best quality mattress.
24:27
We, we only flat ship. So we don't put mattress in a
24:30
box. Our mattresses you can't put in
24:33
a box. If you took that mattress behind
24:35
me and rolled it up and put it in a box, if you could do it, if
24:39
you had a machine to do it, which there are no machines that
24:41
would do it, it would blow the box up.
24:44
Yeah. And that's, that's because it's
24:46
made so well. You know, I'm not trying to say,
24:50
well, yeah, I don't believe that a bed in the box.
24:52
I believe a bed in the box should be used for camping.
24:55
OK. All right.
24:57
You don't think that somebody can get the necessary back
25:00
support from a bed in the box? They need either a higher
25:06
density foam like you guys are using in your foam mattresses or
25:10
they need the spring coil tech. Is that what I'm hearing?
25:13
You you need, you need really both and and again, it's a
25:17
different manufacturing technique.
25:18
If if you're going to, you know, you fold it over and then roll
25:21
it up into a box and put it in a U PS: able box.
25:24
You know, there's no way that that mattress can be, you know,
25:29
that supportive and for a long time.
25:31
What a lot of people find is that, you know, they get the
25:36
mattress delivered to their front door, they take it in,
25:39
they open it up. Oh, it's cool, you know, and it
25:42
hopefully it opens up. If it doesn't, then they call
25:45
and they send them another one. But but what happens is they
25:48
find that they're the longevity of the mattress just doesn't
25:51
last. So what I like to tell people is
25:53
you can buy a bed in a box and go do it if that's what you want
25:55
to do. But just know that's probably
25:57
going to be the most expensive mattress you ever buy.
25:59
Yeah, because you're going to buy another one.
26:02
Because you're going to have to keep replacing it.
26:04
Yeah. And so that artisan one that I
26:06
see behind your shoulder, how long would I expect that to
26:08
last, assuming I'm sleeping on it every night with my wife?
26:12
That's probably the most one of the most often questions asked
26:17
that mattress will be around for for for way too long, longer
26:21
than we want it to be and be very comfortable.
26:24
What what so the mattress is going to give you good support
26:28
for probably it's, it's got a, it's got a 20 year warranty, but
26:31
it's going to give you good support at least that long and
26:33
probably longer. You pass it down to your kids
26:35
and and whatever. But what happened, what changes
26:38
more than anything is our body. You know, think about how our
26:41
bodies change. Our bodies change every, I mean,
26:44
some people depending on how you eat and you exercise, it changes
26:47
every couple years, but we'd like to stay like about every
26:50
eight to 10 years. We need to really look at the
26:53
mattress we're sleeping on because we've changed, you know,
26:56
we, we, you know, whatever we could have lost weight.
26:59
It's just the age changes our, our body, how we, how we sleep
27:04
and, you know, we may even change how we sleep.
27:05
So we recommend everybody start to look at their mattress at 8
27:09
years and 10 years that the, the mattress is going to last.
27:12
It's just the, the, the, the change in your body, your back
27:15
changes, everything changes. It's, it's a good idea to, to
27:19
start to look. I mean, what else do you buy
27:22
that, that you keep, you know, any longer than eight years and
27:25
expected to lap people? Do I mean, you know, there's a
27:28
few people to buy cars and they drive them for over 8 years.
27:31
But if you go, I can promise you if you go go drive a new car
27:34
after eight years, you're going to.
27:36
Go. This is pretty nice, yeah.
27:38
Yeah, and it's the same thing with the mattress, but people
27:40
just neglect it because it's back in the bedroom.
27:43
It's covered up, you know, it's, it's.
27:45
Do we need to flip our mattresses?
27:48
The one behind us, you cannot flip.
27:50
It's a single sided mattress. Mattress type.
27:53
Yeah, Yep. Now we recommend rotating that
27:55
one just because again, if you know my wife or you know, it's a
28:00
different, a different body type And so it'll it'll, it'll change
28:04
how the mattress breaks in the one behind this actually is
28:07
pretty unique also because it's hand tufted, which means that it
28:11
has Tufts from the top all the way to the bottom of the
28:13
mattress, pulling everything down.
28:16
So it pulls it down across the whole surface.
28:19
So that mattress, it's still a good idea to rotate it, but
28:22
you're not going to get like any the impressions on that type of
28:25
mattress. Then you will one that's not
28:27
tufted. So anyway, that's a, that's just
28:30
a, and there's, there's some information on our website about
28:33
tufting and hand tufting. It's an expensive piece of, of
28:36
manufacturing, but I think it's one of the most, most important
28:40
things that that you should look for in a mattress.
28:43
The problem is it's very expensive.
28:44
It's hard to find, you know, under $3000 in a queen size, but
28:50
that mattress actually has has has a minute for less than that.
28:53
How far do you guys ship there from Greensboro, NC?
28:57
Yeah, we ship currently, we ship kind of southeast right now.
29:03
So, but we're working on some other, you know other options
29:08
and we're happy to talk to anybody.
29:09
If you go to mattressgrove.com and you're on our site for more
29:13
than about 15 or 20 seconds there, a pop up will come up and
29:17
it'll say call John and David, which is my brother, me and my
29:20
brother. And it has a phone number on
29:22
there. And that phone number actually
29:23
rings right to our personal cell phone.
29:27
So one of us though, I answer and we're happy to have that
29:29
conversation. You know, you mean if somebody's
29:31
in California, I'm happy to try to help them find the mattress.
29:34
If I, if it can't be ours, that's fine, but a lot of times
29:37
we can also help maybe get them one of our mattresses.
29:41
We have some retailers that'll ship to, to other areas as well.
29:46
So we're, we can, we, we do business in, in Korea.
29:50
I mean, but you know, that's a, that's part of our international
29:53
program. Mattress Grove is pretty well
29:55
known in South Korea because it's a brand that they, they
29:59
just, there's a, there's a retailers there that have, you
30:02
know, just really kind of built that brand over the last five
30:05
years or so. So we, we just, we partnered
30:09
with them quite the time. Quite I guess.
30:11
Yeah, it's probably been 5 or 6 years now.
30:13
It was before, before 2020. So they do a great job with the
30:18
mattress care. That's kind of wild, right?
30:20
That is kind of wild. Yeah.
30:21
You guys are exporting there to Asia.
30:23
So I'm. I'm curious to get back to the
30:26
training that you guys provide to the frontline salespeople,
30:31
design consultants, you know, whatever their titles are, you
30:34
know, because in a, in a wholesale business like you guys
30:37
have like, it's one thing to sort of win the account, but
30:41
then you want that, you know, that turnover and to get that
30:43
turnover, you've really got to educate and get the frontline
30:47
people excited about the product.
30:49
So what does that process look like from your side?
30:52
Yeah, absolutely. All of our sales team are Dale,
30:55
Dale Carnegie educated. So they have that, that, that
30:58
relationship building a piece of that we've all been to the
31:04
classes and and so forth. And so that that that helps get
31:07
the relationship piece. But then then we get into in
31:13
different, different sales people are different in how they
31:15
they get into this. But we get into the mindset, you
31:18
know, I mean, you know, Anthony, I believe in, in our sales team
31:22
believes this, that, you know, we're, we're, we're so grateful
31:25
that we get today. And so we want to, we want to
31:29
let the salespeople know the same thing.
31:31
And, and I know this is going a little bit off topic, but it's
31:33
important because, you know, we're not guaranteed another
31:35
day. I mean, you know, every day I
31:38
wake up, you know, I'm like, I just, I get so excited.
31:41
I'm like, you know, I want to piss myself, make sure that I'm
31:43
actually here because we're not guaranteed.
31:45
You know, there's, as you get older, you know, you get older
31:47
like me, you start seeing some friends pass and I'm along the
31:50
way and whatever. And you start really being
31:54
grateful to, to, to be able to be here to talk to you and, and,
31:58
and share you share ideas and, and, and hopefully talk to other
32:02
people. But so, so you know, that's
32:05
number one is trying to trying to get people to realize, you
32:08
know, they're in a, they're in a furniture store.
32:10
They might not be they, they, they look at, at outside sales
32:13
reps. Oh, you're so lucky.
32:14
You got this great job, you know, I've got sit in the store.
32:17
Well, you get to sit in the store and you don't have to, you
32:20
get to it. What a great opportunity You get
32:23
to, you know, you get a captive audience.
32:24
They're coming into your store. They have a need, you know, they
32:27
have a need that and, and, and so that's kind of #1 to get, get
32:32
them, you know, get them understanding where we're coming
32:35
from. So then they then, then we then
32:37
we're able to, you know, get into the more we don't really
32:40
try to stay away from the spec. The specs are all on the beds at
32:44
the end of the, at the end of the mattress.
32:46
You can flip up a card and have beautiful specs and shows, you
32:49
know, the different layers of the mattress, but that is not
32:53
what's going to get you a good night's sleep.
32:56
It doesn't matter if it has two inches of memory foam or has
32:59
four inches of pallet latex or has this or that.
33:01
If you don't like the way the mattress feels.
33:03
So you know, So what what we train is let's let's take them
33:08
take the the consumer to three mattresses that we know exactly
33:13
how they feel and we lay them on these mattresses.
33:16
Now look, do you like this one or do you like that one?
33:19
OK, well, boom, I like this one. OK, well, that one's a little
33:21
bit more plush that you should think that.
33:23
OK, perfect. It's more so so we're going to
33:24
kind of eliminate 50% of the mattresses on the floor because
33:27
you don't really like that real far and feel OK, perfect.
33:29
So then you would lay them on this, this plus and maybe
33:32
another plus. Maybe it's a little higher
33:33
price. So we, we teach them to to to go
33:36
down, you know, to do that. And then when the consumer says,
33:39
why is this mattress, the last mattress I bought was 15 years
33:43
ago and I paid $500.00 for it. Why is this mattress, you know,
33:48
the $2000, I'm not spending $2000.
33:50
And then that's when we teach them to talk about, you know,
33:53
the quality of the components and go into that.
33:56
And then maybe at that point there, you're like, you explain,
33:59
you know, now what's your feeling in this mattress that's
34:02
created on your body? And you, you, you can feel it
34:05
cradling. You said you could feel it
34:06
cradling under, you know, your hips and, and, and, and the
34:09
smaller your back. Well, that's, there's some,
34:11
there's some, you know, NASA memory foam in there.
34:14
And that's, that's, that's what you're feeling there.
34:16
And so we, we teach them the sales process, teach them kind
34:20
of mindset first, you know, Hey, you know, be, be grateful and,
34:24
and, and, you know, I'll go back a little bit because we teach
34:28
them to ask questions, right? Number one, we ask the
34:30
questions. You know what, sometimes I, I, I
34:33
leave that out. But number one thing I'm going
34:35
to ask if I'm on the, on the retail sales board, we're going
34:37
to ask, you know, what is wrong with your current mattress?
34:41
You know, if they come in on a mattress, everybody should be
34:45
talked to about a mattress because most people don't even
34:48
know how bad their mattress is. It kind of goes back to a car.
34:51
If if you come pick me up in your new, your new Expedition or
34:55
whatever, you have Anthony and you say, hey, John, I want you
34:57
to drive it and I've got an old Ford Explorer or an old
35:00
Expedition or whatever. I, I'm going to go, wow, I, you
35:04
know, this is really cool. I didn't know, I didn't have no
35:06
idea how this was how, how different it is.
35:08
So a lot of people that come into the stores don't even know
35:12
that how bad their mattress is until you get the blame on it.
35:15
But so you ask them what's wrong with your current mattress?
35:17
Oh, it's sagging bad, you know, so we teach the the the
35:22
salesperson to take that and say, OK, perfect.
35:26
We're we're going to we're going to ask them a couple other
35:27
questions. You know, do you like a firmer
35:29
plus? So, you know, it's just a
35:30
process that we teach them to do so that they get the information
35:35
and we teach them not to jump on a June bug.
35:37
Don't answer that question. Say, oh, I got the mattress.
35:39
It's perfect for you right here. It doesn't exact use that in
35:42
your presentation when you when you start and when it's time to
35:45
present, when you find out the information and you start to get
35:47
to a product that they say they like.
35:49
Well, by the way, by the way, way, Anthony, this mattress is
35:53
not going to sag because it has extra coils in the center.
35:56
It's got extra support in the center.
35:58
So you're going to, it's going to hold your body weight up
36:00
forever. It's not going to sag.
36:01
You know, so those are just things like that.
36:03
We, and it takes lots of those sales meetings.
36:07
Anthony, you can't you, you know, you can't go in and do one
36:10
sales meeting and go, I got it. I'll never see these people
36:13
again. You got to go and do another
36:15
one, you know, and, and there's a reason why.
36:17
I mean, if mattresses are 15% of their overall sales, that's what
36:21
they got 85% over here that that's paying their bills,
36:23
right. So there's a lot of things that
36:25
go on in there. That's why our team goes into
36:29
all the all their stores and their prospects, you know, at at
36:33
least every three weeks, if not every two weeks, which is
36:36
unheard of. I was.
36:37
Going to ask, is anybody else doing this?
36:40
Not like we do not like we do most, most people may go in
36:44
every two months. The bigger brands may go in once
36:47
a quarter or maybe once every, you know, maybe twice a year.
36:51
They expect that their marketing and their, their, their, their
36:54
marketing dollars is going to get enough of their sales.
36:57
They don't have to go in and train.
36:59
And what happens is this the, the sales people don't feel
37:01
comfortable showing the product because somebody comes in and
37:03
looks at the product and they go, well, tell me a little bit
37:05
about it. And they're like, well, hold on,
37:07
let me look under here. It says it's got this much foam,
37:10
2 inches of this, two inches of that, two inches of that, I
37:12
mean. So, so John, are most of the
37:15
mattresses that you're making, do they have the Mattress Grove
37:18
name on them? Are you doing like other brands
37:20
or private labels? We do, we make spring air, which
37:25
also we, we, we do make private labels.
37:27
We make you know private label for different retailers.
37:31
We also make Chatham and Wells. But Spring Air is what what we
37:35
when we came in in 1971 was our brand.
37:38
I mean, we were we bought into the brand and then in the late
37:43
2002 thousand and eight that 2007 there was a roll up and
37:49
private equity came in, killed the brand, killed everything.
37:52
We didn't we didn't sell our our business because we had our you
37:57
know, we we love the business. I mean, we love helping people.
37:59
We love helping people with their health and Wellness, you
38:01
know, which is what a mattress is a good mattress.
38:05
And so, you know, we, we really, you know, focused on, on, on the
38:10
Spring Air, but as during that roll up, we were forced to sell
38:13
our, our share in Spring Air. So now a different entity owns
38:17
it. So we, it's just different now.
38:19
Spring Air's a great brand. I mean, it's a fantastic brand.
38:22
And we're the oldest licensee in the world.
38:23
We've been making Spring Air longer than anybody else in the
38:26
world. Spring Air back supporter is,
38:28
is, is what that is. And but Chatham Wells is the is
38:31
the ultra luxury brand goes up to about $10,000 in a queen
38:35
size. What goes into a $10,000
38:38
mattress? That's different than selling a
38:39
2 or $3000 mattress gold. You know, it's got.
38:43
Yeah, No, no, there's. There's a toilet like on the
38:46
side of it. And.
38:48
Like a maid service as well. That's.
38:52
Yeah, it makes itself. It makes itself.
38:53
Yeah, it makes itself. No, it's a lot of things like
38:57
it's got natural, like horse tail hair is a insulator pad,
39:02
which is, you know, just lasts forever.
39:04
It's, it's just the, the top of line, it's got three, it's got
39:07
three different coil systems in it.
39:09
And of course it's super thick. You know, things like that, just
39:13
it, it's like buying a, a Gucci handbag or something.
39:16
You know, it's just the, the, the attention to detail.
39:19
It's got a solid nickel plated emblem on the end.
39:23
You know, the handles on the side for, for, for moving the
39:26
mattress around are all embroidered and, and they're,
39:31
they're made with, you know, upholstery grade materials, you
39:35
know, just just really high. And, you know, and, and, and if
39:39
you go look at it, I mean, and, and lay on it, it, it, it feels
39:42
great. But not everybody wants to spend
39:45
$10,000 on a mattress. And that's actually cheap
39:48
compared to a lot of, you know, people are out spending $50,000
39:51
or more for mattresses these days.
39:52
It's crazy, Yeah. OK, talk to me about what the
39:56
art of support means. I see the tag line there over
39:58
your shoulder. Yeah, we, you know, it's kind of
40:02
a play, I guess, not words. I mean, you know, back supporter
40:05
is, is, is spring air. That's a spring air thing.
40:07
But what you know, we believe, you know, our mattresses are
40:11
supportive. I mean, that's, that's the
40:12
artist support. What most people say, well,
40:14
yeah, you're in the mattress business is support.
40:16
But it's it's actually a lot more deeper than that.
40:18
You know, everybody here at Mattress Grove, we support each
40:22
other. And I'll go back to just to tell
40:24
the story, I'll go back-to-back in 2020 when we had all this
40:28
crazy business because a lot of other people, other
40:30
manufacturers couldn't ship. Plus we lost, we lost some
40:33
people in the factory. They didn't want to come to work
40:36
because of COVID and all this, this other stuff.
40:38
So we would, you know, we, we, we just all chimed in.
40:43
I mean, my brother and I, you know, we used to load trucks and
40:47
back, you know, in high school and we still load trucks.
40:49
You know, we, we still go out there for a workout, but we
40:52
loaded a lot of trucks with our people, you know, during, during
40:56
those, those months and that, and you know, us as leaders, we
41:00
had to sit in front of our people and you know, May and
41:03
June and go, look, guys, I know we're all working overtime now,
41:06
but you know, this is going to be, this is going to be short
41:08
and we're going to be fine. Give us our 30 days.
41:10
And we did the same meeting in August, the same meeting in
41:13
September. But everybody, you know, our
41:16
core group and everybody, they, they just always supported us
41:19
and we supported them. You know, like I said, we, we,
41:21
we during, during the hottest months of the year, we take off
41:24
our, our butt down shirts and we put on our, our T-shirts and our
41:28
shorts and we'd be out there just, you know, sweating to
41:30
death, which is great. It was, it was fantastic.
41:34
You know, we're, we're servant leaders.
41:35
That's how, that's what we do. But we all support.
41:38
I mean, you know, if, if something happens and we lose a
41:41
key person, you know, David or I or somebody else in the factory,
41:45
will, will jump in and, and take care of that position until we
41:49
can get somebody to fill it. Everybody in the factory is
41:52
cross trained and, and again, they want to be because they
41:55
want to be able to, to help, help the cause.
41:58
So that's, that's, that's really the, you know, the and then the
42:02
other piece is our service to our customers.
42:05
There's nobody at service our customers like we do.
42:08
If you call our, our, our number or not, not not me or David, you
42:12
call me or David, David and I are going to answer.
42:14
But if you call our office line, there's not an answer service
42:17
it. We have somebody here, Angela,
42:20
Wanda, you know, it could be Meredith.
42:22
If it rings long enough, it'll come to my office.
42:25
Well, we don't want to answer service.
42:26
We don't want to answer service that they press one for English,
42:28
2 for Spanish, 3 for Korean or any of that.
42:31
We want to answer it. You know, if if it's a call that
42:34
we don't want to talk to him, you know, I can get you all the
42:37
phone. Hey, I'm not interested
42:38
whatever. So we don't care about that.
42:39
I want to talk to customers. I want to talk to you know,
42:41
people. So that's our support.
42:43
Going back to Angela, she's, she handles all of our incoming
42:48
orders and then she also schedules it to the factory and
42:51
then she handles the trucks going out.
42:53
So she has a lot of conversations with our
42:55
customers. We ship faster than anybody
42:57
else. You know, we ship on, on 53 foot
42:59
trailers to our customers, but you know, which are the
43:03
retailers. But our, our support goes, it
43:05
goes all the way through. And then I talked about our
43:07
sales team. You know, they're, they're
43:08
always there. We answer the call.
43:10
You know, we're, if we're awake, we're, you know, what we say is
43:13
if you're working, we're working.
43:16
So call us. I like that.
43:19
Talk to me about beds for kids. What is this?
43:21
Why is it important to you guys? That that'll make me smile and
43:25
cry at the same time. Yeah.
43:27
Beds for Kids is a fantastic organization based out of
43:30
Charlotte, NC. They've been around a long time.
43:34
We partnered with them about six or seven years ago, maybe.
43:38
Yeah. Heck, time flies when you're
43:40
getting a little bit older. But you know, we, we heard about
43:45
them and and they've invited us down to their facility.
43:49
Their old facility, which is a lot smaller, was smaller than
43:53
than it is now. But they, they're just amazing
43:57
organization that helps get kids off the floor more, more or
44:02
less. Now they've grown now to where
44:05
they not only just supply mattresses, but they also supply
44:09
furniture. So they have, you know, a lot of
44:11
donors down in Charlotte did, did not only give money.
44:15
And if anybody wants to give money, go to their website and,
44:17
and, and give to a great cause, but they also have furniture
44:21
companies that, that, you know, either have close outs or
44:23
something that they donate. But anyway, we went down there,
44:28
my brother and I and, and we actually went on a as a
44:31
volunteer went because they, a lot of people go volunteer to
44:34
help, you know, unload mattresses and furniture into
44:37
these, these people's homes. But they do a great job of
44:42
vetting people that sign up, you know, to make sure that the mom
44:47
and the dad or whatever are actually trying to work or
44:50
they're working. They're not just, you know,
44:53
attics or whatever. So, but we went down there and
44:56
we were, were, we got to serve a family and it was really, really
45:00
amazing. It's it's amazing when you go
45:03
into somebody's home and they really don't have anything but
45:06
like maybe 1 lamp and then they have, it just has a light bulb
45:08
and it doesn't have a light shave.
45:10
And the poor, you know, the kids are going to school, but they
45:12
don't have any, they don't have a desk to, you know, study by,
45:17
they're by, by that one light on the floor.
45:19
So it's a really, really great cause.
45:22
And you know, we've, we've shipped, we've partnered with
45:25
them, probably shipped over over 10,000 mattresses now.
45:29
Just really, yeah, helping a lot of of of people just I mean,
45:33
just so far, gosh, this year we've shipped them over 300
45:37
already. So we're, we, yeah, it's just a
45:41
great, it's a great 'cause and then at the end after we, you
45:45
know, after they set up the furniture and everything, we all
45:49
got together and, and, and prayed for, you know, prayed for
45:52
the family and prayed that, you know, that, that we're grateful
45:55
enough that, that God gave us this opportunity.
45:57
So it was really, it's really a great cause and we will, we want
46:02
to continue to support them. They, you know, they're just
46:07
really, it's a great, it's a great organization.
46:09
And they're serving families mostly in the Charlotte area
46:12
then. Pretty much, yeah.
46:14
The Charlotte Beckenburg, I I believe it's 11 counties around
46:17
the area and, and it's just it could they just continue to grow
46:20
it It continues to grow. And you know, their their
46:23
leadership team is, is just amazing.
46:25
They're just really amazing. We'll see if we can find a link
46:29
to their website included in the show notes for folks if they're
46:31
interested in checking that out. Becoming involved, making
46:34
donations, it, it sounds like a tremendous cause, John.
46:39
What's a serious challenge that you've gone through in your
46:43
life, whether it's something personal or professional, How'd
46:46
you get through it? What did you learn?
46:50
Oh gosh, which one do I want to talk about?
46:56
Yeah, You know, I went through a pretty tough divorce, you know,
47:02
about 15 years ago or whatever. And you know that that was
47:06
tough. Yeah, I have two, two beautiful
47:08
kids and now I have 3 kids, but two kids at the time.
47:11
And yeah, it was it was a tough situation, but.
47:16
And I don't have the same mindset.
47:17
I didn't have the same mindset then that I do now.
47:20
I wish I did, but you can't change the past, so I don't
47:22
worry about that. But that being said, you know,
47:27
our business, you know, our, our, our family business was a,
47:31
was just a, a great place for me to focus.
47:34
And I was the sales manager at the time.
47:36
So we, we opened some pretty serious accounts during that
47:42
time, some good, really good business accounts.
47:45
And yeah, a lot of it just had to do, you know, with, with my
47:50
focus, you know, I was able to really focus on, to keep my mind
47:54
on keep my mind straight, focus on, you know, the business part
48:00
of my life because the other part was kind of, you know, was,
48:03
was, was shady. But but I was, I did keep a
48:08
positive mindset, you know, But yeah, you know, things like
48:10
that, you know, they kind of they kind of shape you, you
48:14
know, and you we get to decide whether we want to be woe is me
48:17
or we want to be, you know, a victim.
48:19
And thank goodness I didn't because I could have, I could
48:22
have been like, you know, man, I'm just, you know, it's a bad
48:25
situation. But I think a lot of people can
48:28
relate to going through that. And, you know, it's never easy
48:33
and it's never easy. And I don't recommend it by any
48:37
means. But you know, sometimes it's
48:38
just happened. You mentioned that your mindset
48:42
is different now than it was at that time.
48:45
How so? And what sort of triggered that
48:48
change? Yeah, You know, like I said
48:52
earlier, you know, I am so grateful for each day, you know,
48:57
almost every minute, I hate to say it, it seems crazy, but you
49:01
know, personally, I, I know how valuable life is and I know how
49:05
valuable, you know, people are. And my goal every day is just to
49:10
I see people smile. I mean, really is, you know, if
49:13
I, you know, and, and we all should be that way.
49:15
I don't know, you know, I don't understand why we wouldn't be
49:18
that way, but I wasn't always that way, you know, I always, I
49:20
was maybe a little bit more judgmental, you know, and, and
49:23
so forth, you know, and that and it's natural to be that way.
49:26
And I, I still find myself doing that, but I have to, the sooner
49:30
I realized that this happening to me and my mind's going there,
49:33
I stop it. As soon as I stop it, it helps
49:35
me get a, a better way, a better wave of, of positivity and so
49:40
forth. So I, like I said, I always had
49:42
the can do not always, but in that time I had the can do
49:45
attitude. But it was, you know, it wasn't
49:48
like it is today to where I just want to help people.
49:51
I just really want to, you know, be able to, you know, make
49:55
somebody's day better. It doesn't matter whether I'm at
49:58
Wendy's, which I don't go to Wendy's much, but wherever I am,
50:01
I, I checking out at, at Harris Theater food line or wherever I
50:04
am, I'm, I want to make that person.
50:07
You know, I want to, well, I want to attempt you.
50:08
I'm going to be nice and I'm going to ask about the day, you
50:11
know, and if they want to talk longer, then we'll, we'll talk
50:13
about other things. But you know, I want to see a
50:16
smile and there's a very few people that I actually won't
50:20
give you that smile because that smile is coming back to me as a
50:24
smile. I mean, that makes me smile.
50:26
So, you know, whatever you give out, the energy you give out.
50:29
And I believe, I believe wholeheartedly in energy.
50:32
And I think that's how Anthony reached out to me was because of
50:36
its energy, because energy is here always and energy is not
50:43
like it's not something that is only between me and my brother
50:49
over here down the hall. The energy, it goes to Korea and
50:54
energy goes everywhere. And whatever energy you're
50:56
giving off and you're thinking about it, it goes to other
51:00
people, I promise you. And we all have had those, those
51:03
situations where we're thinking about somebody and they call us
51:06
and we go, oh, that was just coincidental.
51:09
I don't believe that because it happens too much to me.
51:12
And, and, you know, every, almost every day, something like
51:14
that happens to me. And maybe I'm just special.
51:18
I'm not. Everybody has this energy.
51:20
And so, you know, the energy that we give off is, is it can
51:25
be positive or negative. And, you know, so we, we, we
51:28
actually get to make that decision.
51:29
You know, every day we wake up and, you know, I tell the story.
51:33
It's not my story, but the way I wake up every day is the same as
51:38
if I would have won, you know, somebody would have given me $10
51:43
million. Because if, if I ask you,
51:47
Anthony, what, how you would feel if I said anything, You
51:51
know what? I appreciate you interviewing me
51:53
on this podcast. You know what?
51:55
I've got an extra $10 million I'm going to give to you.
52:00
I'm going to give you $10 million just just because you,
52:03
just because I like you. How does that make you feel?
52:09
A combination of amazing and confused and also wondering if
52:15
this is verbally binding. Like is it?
52:18
It's just being recorded right on the so, OK.
52:21
And so if I said OK, great. Well, I can only give that $10
52:26
million to you if you agreed that you don't wake up tomorrow,
52:30
you don't get another day. I'm gonna say no, no thank you.
52:35
I'm. Gonna say no.
52:36
So every day we get another day is worth more than $10 million
52:40
to it because that's how it, you know, And so that's the, that's
52:43
the mindset that I look at And it, you know, is that, that's,
52:47
that's why every day is so important.
52:49
Whether I make $10 million, but I've never made $10 million.
52:52
But if I make, you know, a dollar or make somebody smile,
52:55
that's, that's, that's, that's how I look at every day.
52:58
And I think, you know, everybody can look at that.
53:00
It just takes some practice. I was going.
53:02
To ask how do you teach someone else or train yourself in this
53:07
kind of mindset? It it's just repetitions every
53:10
day. Maybe that mental exercise of
53:13
what I take $10 million today if it means, you know, not waking
53:17
up tomorrow like it, like, is that sort of like a helpful
53:21
exercise to go through, you think?
53:23
It it is it? I think it is, you know, I think
53:27
the first thing that everybody should do when they get up in
53:30
the morning is smile, put your feet on the floor and just
53:33
smile. I, you know, if you want to go
53:36
look in the mirror, that's even better.
53:38
But get up, smile and be grateful for one thing, whatever
53:41
you know, it could be for today, it could be for you know, that
53:45
you, you know, the, whatever it could be that you, you get the
53:48
breakfast today or you're going to drink coffee today or
53:50
whatever. But be grateful and be mindful
53:53
of it, you know, and then you can then you can go into more
53:57
deeper, you know, thoughts. But the interesting thing about
54:03
sleep just really quick is that, and I'm just learning some of
54:06
these things, but R.E.M. sleep is so, so important.
54:11
And we know, we've heard that. And you know, and I'm not going
54:15
to get into all the details of it, of how the chemistry of the
54:17
brain works, but I will tell you this, that what we think about
54:22
today and what we focus on today will be replayed in our brain in
54:27
a hallucinogenic state. Because R.E.M. sleep is when you
54:30
get in R.E.M. sleep. That's what that's where dreams
54:32
are. And if you think about your
54:34
dreams, they're usually some type of a hallucinogenic
54:36
situation because you're either falling off of buildings or
54:39
you're seeing something crazy, something that can't really
54:41
happen usually, right? You're running from the monster
54:44
and you know it. Thank goodness it doesn't catch
54:46
you. But when you're in that R.E.M.
54:48
Sleep you, your brain is recounting and re and
54:53
remembering really, really fast because you only get a little
54:57
bit of R.E.M. sleep the day that you had.
54:59
So when you think about really positive things, guess what
55:03
happens? It goes into your R.E.M. sleep,
55:05
your REM sleep and it re and it and it and it goes in fast.
55:08
So that's where your subconscious is.
55:10
And so when you wake up the next day, you're going to get more of
55:13
that. So if you're living into a very
55:17
negative situation and you're living that negative situation,
55:19
and guess what? If it goes the same way, it's in
55:22
your R.E.M. sleep. That's why dreams are kind of
55:24
weird. They don't, they don't make
55:25
sense. I think one day it may not be in
55:28
our lifetime, but one day they're going to be able to
55:30
figure out why dreams are what they are.
55:32
And dreams are intentionally by our brain, by God, however you
55:37
want to think about it, they're intentionally forgotten because
55:41
of how our brain recycles that that information.
55:44
It's still in there. It just, it, it goes through
55:46
the, it goes through a cleansing so that you don't remember it.
55:49
So you can move forward and and kind of have a new, a new day.
55:52
But it's really interesting how, how that that works.
55:55
Do research on if you want to. It's crazy.
55:58
Lots of fascinating learnings to be had around the understandings
56:03
of sleep and the benefits that it has on the brain, for sure.
56:07
John, I've just got one more question for you.
56:09
But before I ask it, I want to do 2 things.
56:11
First of all, I'm going to invite all of our listeners here
56:13
to hit the follow button on their favorite podcast app so
56:17
you can continue to get more great interviews like we've had
56:19
today with John Grove, the CEO of Mattress Grove.
56:23
John, I also want to let people know the best way to get in
56:25
touch with you. Obviously, there's your website,
56:27
mattressgrove.com. Any other ways that you
56:31
recommend folks to connect with you?
56:33
Yeah, sure. And and that that's, that's,
56:35
that's a great way we're on, we're on TikTok, we're on, you
56:39
know, Instagram. We are really, really active on
56:41
Instagram and Facebook under Mattress Grove.
56:45
You know, we've, we've really done a lot with that.
56:48
But yeah, Mattress Grove on any of the social medias, we are
56:52
always putting out content. We're, and again, we're in the
56:56
mattress business, but we're really in the health and
56:58
Wellness business. Like that.
57:01
So last question for you, John, as you look to the future, call
57:04
it the next two to three years, what are the changes that are
57:07
coming to your business and your industry that you're most
57:10
excited about? Probably the technology to to
57:17
learn more about, you know, our sleep and and how you know what
57:22
we can do to better sleep. I mean, we all know that we need
57:26
to, you know, be off of our devices, not, not drink alcohol,
57:30
not smoke marijuana, not, you know, you know, drink caffeine
57:35
during certain, you know, after 2:00 or 3:00.
57:38
But we can dig deeper into that. And I think the technology is
57:43
going to keep getting better. You know, there's no question
57:46
that there's a ton of research and a ton of conversation.
57:49
And, you know, if you go on TikTok and hashtag sleep maxing,
57:55
I mean, that's, that's, that's a big trending topic right now,
57:58
you know, and it's about how to get a better night's sleep.
58:02
A mattress is a very important part, but there are a lot of
58:05
other things that go together with it.
58:07
You know, if you see, if somebody calls me and says, hey,
58:09
John, I, I need a magic mattress that's going to make me sleep
58:13
better, You know, I'm going to have to ask the question, you
58:15
know, of, you know, I'm going to say, I can give you a great
58:18
mattress, going to give you great support and, and it's
58:20
going to last you a long time, But let's talk about some other
58:22
things as well. So I think in the next few
58:25
years, being able to bring some of those things to consumers
58:30
through mattress Grove even is, is very exciting to me because
58:34
I, I believe that, that, that people need to know, you know,
58:37
we, we need to over told and we know, but how, how much you
58:41
know, the more we know, there could be an apps that remind us,
58:44
you know, I, I, I wear a fitness ring or whatever, or it's a,
58:48
it's a sleep ring, whatever. And it, and it, and it reminds
58:51
me of, of certain things that, that I need to be doing.
58:54
And so I think that's important because there's there's nothing
58:58
more important, Anthony, then sleep.
59:00
You know, there's three, there's a three legged stool.
59:03
You have, you have exercise, you have food intake and you have
59:07
sleep. And out of all of them, just
59:11
leave sleep out for a few days and see what happens.
59:15
Things unravel pretty quickly. I can speak to that from
59:17
personal experiences. I'm sure most of our listeners
59:20
can. But John, I want to be the first
59:22
one to thank you for sharing both your time and your story
59:25
with us today. I really appreciate it.
59:27
Thank you, Anthony. It's been great.
59:29
It's been awesome. Thank you so much for having me
59:30
on. Folks, that's a wrap on another
59:32
episode of the Inspired Stories podcast.
59:35
Thanks for learning with us today.