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Secrets of a Successful Business and Marriage: The Laskers Reveal All · None of Your Business Podcast

• 0:00
  We are privileged and honored to be here today with a power
• 0:03
  couple, and I'm excited to have you guys here because I've known
• 0:05
  both of you for a very, very long time.
• 0:08
  Let's just get right into it. Why don't you guys introduce
• 0:10
  yourself? Who's going to who's going to
• 0:11
  take the lead here? Let's see, I think I'm going to
• 0:13
  take the lead. Wow, that was quick that.
• 0:15
  Didn't take a whole lot of time. We're used to this already.
• 0:18
  Sammy and Cheryl from Rushing Promotions.
• 0:20
  Hi, how are you? Thanks for having us.
• 0:22
  Go ahead. I'm Sammy.
• 0:23
  Go ahead. That's it.
• 0:25
  You're done. We're here, we're done.
• 0:26
  You're finished. We've been working together for
• 0:29
  20 years in November. We know Michael and the Prime
• 0:31
  Source team from the beginning of time.
• 0:33
  We've been working together with our Prime Source contract
• 0:36
  probably from the beginning. We've been doing a lot of stuff
• 0:38
  together and we're happy to be here.
• 0:41
  Wow, that's, that's quite an introduction.
• 0:43
  We got to get right into it because I have to tell you that
• 0:46
  I'm a big fan of partnerships and we talk about this all the
• 0:49
  time, or at least I do. And I always say partnerships
• 0:52
  can be the best thing or the worst thing, right?
• 0:55
  But in terms of business, the minute you realize that it's
• 0:58
  like a marriage and that you have to put the work into it,
• 1:01
  that's when you can potentially have success in partnerships and
• 1:04
  it could be the best thing in the world.
• 1:05
  You guys stepped it up a notch. You took not only your
• 1:08
  partnership on a personal level, but on a business level.
• 1:11
  I know there's a lot of people listening that have partnerships
• 1:13
  with their spouses, a lot of people listening that broke up
• 1:16
  partnerships, a lot of people listening that want to break up
• 1:20
  their partnerships both personally and professionally.
• 1:22
  I have to ask you guys, what is the secret?
• 1:25
  It's not for the faint of heart and that's what we tell our
• 1:27
  children. We have grown children now and
• 1:29
  we tell them don't do this. It's not for the faint of heart.
• 1:32
  We happen to be very different as you can tell.
• 1:35
  We have very different personalities.
• 1:36
  We do very different parts of the business.
• 1:39
  Sammy's on the back end with purchasing and with our website
• 1:41
  and with development on that. And I'm more on the sale side
• 1:44
  and with our staff and selling and handling customers.
• 1:47
  So we don't actually work together all day.
• 1:50
  We don't even sit near each other.
• 1:52
  That's a healthy thing. He sits in his office, I sit in
• 1:54
  mine. And it's funny, sometimes the
• 1:56
  customers or some of our staff will say, can you ask Sammy this
• 1:59
  or that? I said you could ask him just
• 2:00
  like I can ask him. Because we don't actually sit
• 2:03
  next to each other. We've learned ways to balance
• 2:05
  ourselves. We've learned ways to work
• 2:08
  together that are healthy and we've learned different things
• 2:11
  that should not be done. And can you?
• 2:13
  Share some of those things I'm so.
• 2:15
  Throw things in the office because they might break.
• 2:19
  Don't fight in front of the employees, like don't fight in
• 2:21
  front of your children. Don't fight in front of the
• 2:23
  employees. Who has executive decision
• 2:26
  making power when it comes down to it and there's a decision
• 2:28
  that needs to be made right or left, Who's making that final
• 2:31
  call between the? Two, I'm interested in hearing.
• 2:33
  I want to hear his answer. I want to hear his answer.
• 2:36
  I will try to encourage Cheryl to make the decision, but many
• 2:38
  times you will force me to say you decide.
• 2:41
  Wow, so it's not like any of you want to even make the decision.
• 2:43
  You really want the other person to make the decision.
• 2:46
  We're we're on the same page with a lot of.
• 2:48
  Things with a lot of things, we also have different outlooks, so
• 2:51
  we can bounce things off in different ways.
• 2:54
  Just for example, we're here at the ECAP conference.
• 2:56
  It's a very expensive conference for us.
• 2:58
  A lot of money that goes into this is a lot of work that we do
• 3:01
  in the back end for this conference.
• 3:03
  And we always talk about, you know, how to do this in the
• 3:05
  right way, how to do this in the smart way, how to spend the
• 3:07
  money in the best way possible. And we'll bounce things off of
• 3:10
  each other because we're so different and we think about
• 3:12
  things so differently that he'll come up with some ideas that I
• 3:16
  might not necessarily have. Sammy, I want to hear it from
• 3:18
  you. Give me an argument that you
• 3:19
  guys had recently. Tell me something that you guys
• 3:22
  like had it out and you had to make the executive decision.
• 3:25
  But I want to hear those petty ones.
• 3:27
  Put your foot down. I want to hear the dramatic one.
• 3:29
  I want to. There had to have been.
• 3:30
  How many years are you doing this business together?
• 3:33
  20 years, 20 years. So in 20, it's a lifetime. 20
• 3:36
  years. A long time, you know?
• 3:37
  Yeah. 2. That's two centuries.
• 3:40
  Two decades. Yeah. 3 decades. 2 centuries.
• 3:43
  My God. Yeah.
• 3:43
  Two decades is long enough. Like.
• 3:45
  Two, yeah, feels like 2 centuries, yeah.
• 3:47
  So in the last 20 years, as far as you can remember, what was
• 3:51
  the biggest? Did you ever have an argument,
• 3:52
  like, in front of people? Like, did it get really ugly?
• 3:55
  Like you guys had to, you know, just stop it right there?
• 3:57
  Do you remember something like that so.
• 3:59
  I don't think you'll remember. All of the other.
• 4:02
  Yeah, that's an every wife. Yeah, of course.
• 4:05
  Right, I don't know that there was something we we really tried
• 4:07
  to behave in front of. Sammy, let it out.
• 4:10
  That makes sense. Do you bring your work home with
• 4:13
  you? Do you guys ever talk about work
• 4:14
  at home? Yes, certainly you do.
• 4:16
  Certainly. Yes, absolutely.
• 4:18
  Which is why we try to invite Shabbos guests.
• 4:19
  We try to have a lot of people around our tables so that we
• 4:22
  have other things going on. Because if it's just us, then we
• 4:25
  just go from one conversation to the next and then there's no
• 4:27
  beginning, there's no end, there's no anything else.
• 4:29
  Going, we hang out a lot, Michael and I and with with
• 4:31
  other partners as well. And we tend to talk a lot about
• 4:35
  business when we're together on our own free time.
• 4:38
  Somehow conversations just always veer in that direction.
• 4:40
  But you guys are passionate about what you do.
• 4:43
  Like, after all these years, you still love this.
• 4:45
  Are you still like excited about it or has it started wearing off
• 4:49
  and it's becoming a chore? Every day is an adventure for
• 4:52
  us. Every day is different.
• 4:54
  The clients are different, the projects are different.
• 4:57
  To me, every day is just still as interesting as it was 20
• 5:00
  years ago. Keep in mind, we're the promo
• 5:02
  people. We do fun stuff, we do
• 5:04
  interesting stuff. You don't just do the same thing
• 5:06
  day in and day out. If we are doing the same thing
• 5:08
  day in and day out, we have to change it up.
• 5:10
  It's my job to change it up. Because when you come to us and
• 5:12
  you say, Cheryl, can you give me an idea of something that we can
• 5:15
  recommend to a facility to give out?
• 5:17
  You don't want to hear pens and sticking.
• 5:18
  No, no. We've done that already it.
• 5:19
  Was a good idea that you did recently.
• 5:21
  Just go for it because. You're something creative,
• 5:22
  something someone did that really stood out.
• 5:24
  Yeah. First, tell us about your
• 5:26
  business. Tell us what you guys really do.
• 5:28
  What does Rush King do? You guys have a pretty solid
• 5:30
  name. You've been around the industry
• 5:31
  for a long time, so a lot of our listeners know about Rush King.
• 5:35
  But for those who don't know, when you talk about a
• 5:36
  promotional company, like what does that entail?
• 5:39
  What do you guys typically offer?
• 5:40
  What type of services? Tell us a little bit about your
• 5:42
  business. OK, so want me to take it from
• 5:45
  here? So we do obviously print and
• 5:47
  promotional items. So we're going to do anything
• 5:49
  that has a logo printed on it. So we can do the basic stuff,
• 5:52
  pen, sticky notes, T-shirts, mugs, caps, anything that you
• 5:55
  can think of off the top of your head.
• 5:57
  But we also have customers that will come to us and say want
• 5:59
  something a little bit more unique, but little bit something
• 6:01
  more creative. We have customers that we do
• 6:04
  their things completely done overseas.
• 6:06
  They have a concept, they have their theme, they have their
• 6:08
  logo, and then we'll work on something for months on end with
• 6:12
  factories that we we work with overseas and we come up with
• 6:15
  designed items that are unique and interesting day-to-day.
• 6:19
  Customers can't handle orders like that because we have to get
• 6:21
  that done months in advance. There's a lot of back and forth.
• 6:24
  A lot of what Sammy does is work with the factories overnight
• 6:26
  because China has to be done overnight and the customers have
• 6:29
  to be handled during the day. So there's a lot of give and
• 6:31
  take that we do most unique things, definitely the things
• 6:33
  that we're doing overseas. Overseas.
• 6:35
  That we're doing that are. How many people in the company,
• 6:38
  in the business? So right now we have about 22, I
• 6:41
  think we're at 22 people. We actually hired somebody this
• 6:43
  week. We have a few different offices.
• 6:46
  Once we hit COVID and we started getting the people, like we
• 6:49
  heard last night talking about people working remote or Mr.
• 6:52
  Wonderful, we learned that people don't necessarily have to
• 6:55
  come into the office. So while I was always rigid and
• 6:57
  I wanted everyone to be part of a team and I like the team
• 7:00
  building and the brainstorming and the working together and I
• 7:02
  love that atmosphere. Once we hit COVID and we started
• 7:05
  telling people to work from home, we said, hey, you know,
• 7:07
  this is not so bad either. We kind of brought back our
• 7:10
  teams a little bit to the office.
• 7:11
  We have an office in Brooklyn, NY where we are.
• 7:13
  We have an office in Lakewood where we have a whole bunch of
• 7:15
  people and then we have people that work in their home offices
• 7:18
  across the country remotely, remotely and.
• 7:20
  They're being productive. You're finding that it's working
• 7:22
  out. We love it A.
• 7:24
  Large employee pool for us from all different parts of the
• 7:26
  country. Sure.
• 7:27
  You got a bigger market where you have that kind of allowance
• 7:30
  when people who work from home. Right.
• 7:32
  We have great people that we're able to hire.
• 7:34
  They come in. We do have different
• 7:37
  opportunities that we like to put the team together.
• 7:39
  I love having people meet each other and be able to sit next to
• 7:42
  each other and rest or evening out.
• 7:44
  We do a lot of that to just keep people going together.
• 7:47
  But other than that, people are working remote.
• 7:49
  We have the technology for it. We have great team.
• 7:51
  And that brings me back to your original question.
• 7:53
  What's rushing? Rushing is the promo company
• 7:56
  with feeling, with the heart behind it, with how to take care
• 7:59
  of the customers the right way. We're automated, we have the
• 8:02
  technology behind it, but we're still people behind the phone
• 8:06
  will say we're still here for you.
• 8:07
  We're going to give you advice, we're going to hold your hand
• 8:09
  through the process. You have other things that you
• 8:11
  need to do and that's always my mantra.
• 8:13
  You guys, everybody has their other businesses to run.
• 8:16
  Ordering promotional items shouldn't be your full time job.
• 8:19
  It's my full time job. I need to know what's out there.
• 8:21
  I need to know the price point. I need to know what to suggest
• 8:24
  to you and I need my team to stand behind and say these are
• 8:27
  good ideas. These are not good ideas.
• 8:29
  You handle what you need to handle.
• 8:30
  You do your job, you feel your or whatever else is your job.
• 8:33
  We'll do the rest and we'll do it simply easy and not
• 8:36
  expensively. That's a beautiful thing.
• 8:38
  That's a beautiful thing. Definitely the human element.
• 8:41
  It's not just so much about your company, it's about you guys.
• 8:44
  That's really what's going to sell.
• 8:45
  That's what people are going to come back to you again is
• 8:47
  because they like dealing with you.
• 8:48
  I don't know. I mean, I feel like more, I feel
• 8:50
  like promotional items is, I'm not going to say commodity.
• 8:54
  That sounds a little bit cheap, but there's a lot of companies
• 8:57
  that do this kind of thing and it's got to be hard for you to
• 8:59
  stick out and, you know, be top of mind for people.
• 9:02
  And what is it that you try to do to attract people that
• 9:05
  separates you from all the competitors?
• 9:08
  The items themselves are commodities.
• 9:10
  It is it is a commodity. We mentioned sticky notes in the
• 9:12
  pen. They are a commodity finding the
• 9:14
  right item for you and the right budget.
• 9:16
  But the way we handle it, the service that we provide, the
• 9:19
  people that we are, the just the way we interact with the client
• 9:23
  and their team, making sure it's there.
• 9:25
  It's taking all of the surprise and all the whatever else might
• 9:30
  be uncomfortable about the process.
• 9:32
  We take that out. We take the brunt of it.
• 9:34
  Most of my customers know shoot an e-mail to Cheryl.
• 9:37
  It will be taken care of. We're not spending any.
• 9:39
  Money. Who's Cheryl?
• 9:40
  Me. OK.
• 9:41
  And it'll you go by Cheryl Handel.
• 9:43
  What's your Hebrew name? Cheryl.
• 9:45
  Interesting, right? Is that a common thing?
• 9:48
  Cheryl's always Cheryl or you just.
• 9:49
  No, it was my grandmother's name, my parents named after my
• 9:52
  grandmother, and my parents like the name Cheryl, so they gave me
• 9:55
  an English. Where'd you guys grow up, by the
• 9:56
  way? I grew up in Brooklyn.
• 9:58
  And you're Elizabeth, NJ. Elizabeth.
• 10:01
  And now you live in Brooklyn. Brooklyn.
• 10:04
  We spoke about this earlier. So I just want to reiterate this
• 10:07
  idea. I love Brooklyn.
• 10:08
  I grew up in Brooklyn, but I also love that I got out of
• 10:10
  Brooklyn in many ways, although I do miss it.
• 10:13
  So you guys? Our suitcases are packed, we
• 10:16
  just haven't yet left. Any day, any day, it's
• 10:19
  happening. It's a quite dusty suitcase.
• 10:22
  We're one foot out. How long did you plan on living
• 10:24
  in Brooklyn for? One year.
• 10:25
  One year. We said one year we were both in
• 10:28
  college, we had to finish up our stuff.
• 10:30
  We both had jobs and we had things that we were doing.
• 10:32
  We're going to live here one year, but we're not raising our
• 10:33
  children in Brooklyn. I would never even date any guy
• 10:36
  that was from Brooklyn, other than Sammy over here who
• 10:39
  promised me. He's not a Brooklyn guy.
• 10:41
  He's so nice, he's so genuine, He's so warm.
• 10:44
  He's not a real Brooklyn. Whoa.
• 10:45
  Whoa, I'm from Brooklyn. I'm nice, I'm warm, I'm genuine.
• 10:48
  How did you guys meet? So we know a lot of the same
• 10:50
  people. Yeah.
• 10:51
  And a cousin of mine was friends with his brother and they
• 10:54
  suggested the idea and I said a Brooklyn guy.
• 10:57
  Not for me. I'm from New Jersey.
• 10:59
  I'm an out of town girl. I went to Darfing Bean in
• 11:01
  Israel. I'm not the typical Brooklyn
• 11:02
  girl. I.
• 11:03
  Don't know, but out of town you're like 20 miles.
• 11:05
  Yeah, relax. Yeah, OK.
• 11:07
  Have you a bit right? Have you been to Elizabeth?
• 11:09
  Sure. Many times.
• 11:10
  Yeah, Yeah. Yeah, for their food.
• 11:11
  It does have an out of town mentality I hear.
• 11:14
  I hear what you're saying. Yeah, we actually talked about
• 11:17
  living there also and just it just didn't workout for us.
• 11:20
  We talked about living in a bunch of different places.
• 11:22
  But once you have kids and you get kids settled and you have a
• 11:24
  life and you have a busy things going on and everyone's doing
• 11:27
  well where they are starts to get hard.
• 11:29
  To change, it's hard to change. So when did you guys come with
• 11:31
  the idea that you wanna do a promotional item company?
• 11:35
  Like when did it start? How did it happen?
• 11:36
  Was the first thing you guys did.
• 11:38
  That was the first thing we did together.
• 11:39
  Yes, right. We both.
• 11:40
  How did you come up with this idea?
• 11:41
  Why did you go into this? I am a computer programmer by
• 11:43
  trade, went to college for that. I have my master's degree in
• 11:46
  that, and I wrote a computer program for a company that
• 11:49
  actually sold promotional products.
• 11:51
  You might remember the company and.
• 11:54
  All in one. What was it out-of-the-box?
• 11:57
  Wow, out-of-the-box promo. I feel left out over here.
• 12:00
  I. Mean we knew each other for over
• 12:01
  2 decades. Yeah, yeah.
• 12:03
  And. We worked on more.
• 12:04
  Than that even. Was it the Wynn Hotel back then
• 12:07
  that we were working on? Yeah, yeah, even before the Wynn
• 12:09
  Hotel. I remember, I remember knowing
• 12:10
  you then. And like, you know, Steve Wynn
• 12:12
  and his wife decided to, like, change the way Vegas works and
• 12:16
  they wanted to keep people in the rooms upstairs where until
• 12:18
  then everyone was going downstairs.
• 12:20
  And he changed the model. That's right.
• 12:21
  And he went to, he went out to bid and he said, who can help me
• 12:25
  make A room, room that is inviting for people to stay in
• 12:28
  the room? Yeah.
• 12:29
  And you guys worked on that project.
• 12:30
  I remember being involved in that.
• 12:32
  It was. It was a fun project then.
• 12:33
  What are some of the really big projects you've done that you're
• 12:36
  very proud of? Any any big names like you
• 12:38
  service, you know, Google, Amazon, I don't know who do you
• 12:42
  Nigeria. Right.
• 12:43
  That's a great story. Have you ever heard that story
• 12:45
  from us? I mean, Bank of Nigeria always
• 12:47
  contacts me for money, yes. Right.
• 12:49
  But this time it was real. What happened?
• 12:51
  It's a great story. Who's going to tell it?
• 12:54
  I could take it. I love this, Sammy.
• 12:58
  You're dismissed. We'll call you back later.
• 13:00
  You didn't want to be here. Better than I, OK.
• 13:03
  That's a great story. This is going back many years.
• 13:06
  We get a phone call from Bank of Nigeria that they have cash to
• 13:09
  pay for a blank, travel bags, duffel bags.
• 13:13
  That's screaming fraud. The Bank of.
• 13:15
  The phone call they called you. They called on the phone.
• 13:18
  This is back. What's going back when you?
• 13:20
  Spoke to, kept on calling back. I was like the Bank of Nigeria,
• 13:23
  you don't take an order from the bank.
• 13:24
  Of course not. Yeah.
• 13:25
  And #1 what we do is print it. Why do you want blank things
• 13:28
  from us? We don't do blank things.
• 13:30
  Go to Amazon, go online. Yeah.
• 13:31
  That's where they wanted to buy the item from you.
• 13:33
  Want to buy the item? We need them blank and we need
• 13:35
  them delivered to an airport. Interesting.
• 13:37
  OK. What is that screen to you?
• 13:39
  Yeah. And leather bags not printed.
• 13:43
  Not printed. Very shady, you rush.
• 13:44
  Very shady. Came to rush.
• 13:46
  Very. Continue.
• 13:48
  Go ahead. So like, thank you, but we'll
• 13:50
  pass. They called back again, called
• 13:53
  back again, we told them thank you, but we're really not
• 13:56
  interested. I get a call on my cell phone
• 13:58
  from and this before we use cell phones for anything other than
• 14:01
  like, you know, personal to, you know.
• 14:03
  Phone calls back when it was an actual phone.
• 14:05
  And it's my bank. It's Chase.
• 14:08
  I bank with Chase. And they're on the phone and
• 14:10
  like, did you get a call from the Bank of Nigeria?
• 14:12
  Yes. OK.
• 14:13
  Who are you Like, well, I'm not your regular banker, but I'm
• 14:15
  someone else that Chase. Perhaps you'd like to take this
• 14:18
  order from the Bank of Nigeria. I'm like, why are you calling
• 14:20
  me? Have my banker call me, if that,
• 14:23
  if it's really something. Sure enough, 10 minutes later,
• 14:25
  my phone rings. It's the branch manager of my
• 14:27
  local branch in Brooklyn who I have a relationship with,
• 14:30
  calling me and saying, please, you're embarrassing us.
• 14:33
  The Bank of Nigeria would like to place an order and you guys
• 14:36
  are not taking the order. We recommended you at a meeting
• 14:39
  with the Bank of Nigeria, who happens to be 1 of at that time,
• 14:42
  I don't know today, but at that time was Chase's largest
• 14:45
  commercial client and they were real people and we were
• 14:48
  recommended at a meeting in Chase.
• 14:50
  And here I am, Sammy from Rushking is turning down the
• 14:53
  order. I'm embarrassing my bank.
• 14:56
  Why didn't they mention up front that they got a referral from
• 14:58
  from Chase Bank? They should have started with it
• 15:01
  off. The phone, it's like, yeah, Bank
• 15:02
  of Nigeria, right? He's saying why didn't Chase?
• 15:04
  Tell you they give you or somebody tell you, I'll give you
• 15:06
  a heads up. Because when you refer someone,
• 15:08
  you expect them to take. That's it.
• 15:09
  Yeah, Take the order. Yeah, they didn't.
• 15:11
  For people. And they're being relentless.
• 15:13
  They're going at that back. They're just harassing him.
• 15:15
  Whatever you. Actually did the order then.
• 15:16
  And they wanted to send a wire transfer, so they needed our
• 15:19
  bank account. Information.
• 15:20
  Did you go to Nigeria to deliver it, I'm assuming?
• 15:22
  Delivered it to an airport. We've had a lot of fun stores,
• 15:24
  those things that had to get delivered.
• 15:25
  Did you find out what they needed this stuff for?
• 15:27
  Why they was? A meeting and there was a
• 15:29
  meeting with other bankers and our bank had recommended the.
• 15:32
  Anniversary of the Bank of Nigeria.
• 15:33
  Right, so there was a meeting and they.
• 15:35
  Was it a big order or was it like?
• 15:36
  $65,000 it was 65 more $80,000 it.
• 15:41
  Was over. Yeah, yeah.
• 15:42
  Wow, 20 years ago now it was basically all profit because we
• 15:46
  gave them some bogus price when they started calling us because
• 15:48
  we're like, you don't want this. And they took that price.
• 15:50
  And they took the price. We made a.
• 15:54
  By the way, the Bank of Nigeria didn't call you.
• 15:56
  God called you. He sent you.
• 15:59
  The Bank of Nigeria was the messenger.
• 16:01
  But that's what happened, right? You realize that it away A.
• 16:03
  Few times and we kept saying no, we don't want the order.
• 16:05
  We don't want the order. Stop calling.
• 16:07
  Stop calling. We don't want.
• 16:09
  Like, listen, we're going to make you get this order whether
• 16:11
  you like it or not. And they just kept them coming
• 16:13
  back. Unbelievable.
• 16:14
  Yeah. So we, we should start taking
• 16:16
  these things seriously or I gotta go back to the e-mail.
• 16:19
  I gotta check my spam really quickly.
• 16:21
  Right. Right.
• 16:23
  By the way, these people in Nigeria, like these Americans
• 16:24
  were just trying to give them money and they're just not
• 16:26
  taking it from that right. But still, we were hesitant.
• 16:29
  We opened a separate bank account for them to wire
• 16:31
  transfer in the payment. I still didn't want them
• 16:34
  touching our bank account. Wow.
• 16:35
  I still didn't trust the extra cautious and I was still very
• 16:38
  careful because it just felt. Did it take the time for you
• 16:40
  guys to touch that money? Like, were you nervous?
• 16:42
  It was very scared. Yeah.
• 16:44
  Doesn't feel right. They pay all the years.
• 16:46
  The 100 grand is just sitting in the account and you're like, oh,
• 16:49
  oh. No, we're not touching it.
• 16:50
  It took us a very. You said you renting airports
• 16:53
  for other delivery. We've had situations that
• 16:56
  certain things got delivered to the wrong place.
• 16:58
  When you order with rushing, we will hold your hand and take
• 17:02
  care of things back in the day. I'm just going to remind you of
• 17:04
  the story with the drug company that was in Chicago.
• 17:07
  We were doing some samples with the drug company.
• 17:09
  Back then, drug reps were able to give out a lot of promotional
• 17:12
  items. Now that's more regulated and
• 17:13
  they can't just give out the amount of stuff that they used
• 17:15
  to give out and the samples mistakenly.
• 17:18
  Remember the story came to us instead of going to Chicago.
• 17:21
  Well, guess what? It needed to be in Chicago that
• 17:24
  day. What do you do about samples
• 17:26
  that we're holding that were like custom items that we were
• 17:28
  doing for them? You get it on a plane to Chicago
• 17:31
  because there is no other way to get it there.
• 17:33
  And we figured it out. Same day.
• 17:35
  Same day, within an hour, you just go to the airport and you
• 17:39
  get it on the next flight and you have somebody meet it on the
• 17:42
  other way. There's always ways to figure
• 17:45
  things out and that's what we tell the customer.
• 17:47
  We don't want those terrible stories to happen.
• 17:48
  We did. Let you check luggage onto a
• 17:51
  flight if you're not flying. No, you have to give it to
• 17:53
  someone. Oh.
• 17:54
  Yeah, someone, somebody asked me.
• 17:55
  How did you find someone? You just go where there's a
• 17:57
  will, there's a way. So you found someone, you paid
• 17:59
  them. Take this in.
• 18:00
  Right, He said. Can you do me a favor and take
• 18:01
  this bomb for me? I mean, you didn't say that,
• 18:03
  right? Right.
• 18:04
  Somebody trusted you to think about really trust the Chicago,
• 18:06
  yes. And they are put on the other
• 18:08
  side. Did they open the box to see
• 18:10
  what it was? It's just samples of promo
• 18:11
  items. It was actually.
• 18:12
  Sure, Yeah, sure. See.
• 18:14
  We're still here and we haven't, you know, gotten arrested.
• 18:16
  So, you know, I had that on a plane.
• 18:17
  By the way, this guy that comes over to me is you're you're
• 18:20
  flying business. You're allowed to suitcase.
• 18:22
  I see you don't have suitcases. Do me a favor.
• 18:23
  Can you take these few suitcases for me?
• 18:24
  I'm like, wow, are you crazy? I'm flying El Al to Israel.
• 18:28
  I'm not taking suitcases. And he says no, no, no.
• 18:30
  I'll bring you the head of security of El Al.
• 18:32
  I said you could bring the president of Israel.
• 18:33
  I'm not taking this. Sure enough, though, by the way,
• 18:36
  he bought the head of security. He worked for a newspaper called
• 18:39
  the Ediot Agronaut and his job was to get the printed version
• 18:43
  in America, an Israeli paper, the printed version in America
• 18:48
  every week and ship it to Israel because it was cheaper that way.
• 18:52
  Find people in business class had a little connection.
• 18:55
  It was before El Al was, you know, in the the right hand.
• 18:59
  Yeah, right. And people used to do that all
• 19:01
  the time. So it's it's interesting.
• 19:02
  We had that also with an umbrella order.
• 19:04
  Do you remember there was a facility in New Jersey they
• 19:06
  ordered clear umbrellas for Nurses Day?
• 19:08
  Nurses Day is a very big time that people order giveaways.
• 19:11
  When is nurses day? May something or.
• 19:14
  Thank God it stretches for weeks now.
• 19:16
  OK. Good Nurses Month.
• 19:17
  Thank God for Hallmark, right? It made business.
• 19:19
  That's right, you know. What does a nursing home
• 19:21
  typically buy from you? What are those go to things that
• 19:24
  every nursing home will buy? Like what's that residual thing?
• 19:27
  So. Definitely the place to start is
• 19:30
  admission kits. Some type of a bag with a couple
• 19:32
  of an items that they give as they get new.
• 19:34
  When the patient gets admitted, they give them a welcome kit.
• 19:37
  What's in that kit with? About 10 items, deck of cards,
• 19:40
  slippers, pens, a toothbrush. Toothbrush could be basic stuff,
• 19:44
  Cops, pill cases, whatever it is that they need that they need,
• 19:47
  whether it's an assisted living or a different.
• 19:49
  Type of. So they must do a lot of those.
• 19:50
  They're ordering those almost weekly or monthly.
• 19:52
  Stock, a lot of those. We have certain customers that
• 19:54
  will order a project like that and they say, well, we want to
• 19:57
  order this in bulk and we'll get better pricing and we'll work on
• 19:59
  projects like that, but we don't need them all.
• 20:01
  Send us, you know, a box of 35 at a time.
• 20:04
  We offer warehousing, we offer shipping.
• 20:06
  We try to be very user friendly and easy.
• 20:09
  Don't start working. Just shoot us an e-mail as you
• 20:12
  need more of your admissions because we have them stocked
• 20:14
  here. We'll just shoot it out.
• 20:15
  We keep it on a spreadsheet. We make things super comfortable
• 20:18
  and super easy and super. Top line service.
• 20:22
  What about retail you guys do to, you know, direct to
• 20:25
  consumers or you're selling only to businesses?
• 20:27
  No, we can do to consumers too. Like do you have a website?
• 20:30
  Yeah, of course, we have a website.
• 20:32
  We're talking about the healthcare arm of our business.
• 20:34
  Yeah. But another huge arm of our
• 20:35
  business is our website business.
• 20:37
  What's the percentage? That's my bread and butter of
• 20:39
  what we do. I don't know what is our
• 20:40
  percentage of our website business.
• 20:42
  Percentage between business to business and direct to consumer.
• 20:45
  Yeah, that I wouldn't know that we'd have to it's.
• 20:46
  Got to be 95% direct to business.
• 20:48
  Right. So that's your main footprint is
• 20:50
  selling to? The consumer who someone's
• 20:53
  ordering to for bar mitzvah or Bosmetz for Sweet 16 or
• 20:56
  something like that. Yeah, those.
• 20:57
  Smaller type of AD orders. Right.
• 20:59
  I mean there we, we do them there.
• 21:01
  Yeah, but those are small party business.
• 21:02
  Small party, What was like the most interesting thing?
• 21:05
  Interesting type of client that you?
• 21:06
  But I'm actually going to interrupt you for one second.
• 21:08
  Tell your acne story. We were dealing with somebody
• 21:11
  who was extremely annoying. Needed mugs for her husbands
• 21:15
  retirement party. You notice like dealing with
• 21:17
  people who want mugs for a retirement party.
• 21:19
  Put it like this. Put it like that I'll do 72 I'll
• 21:21
  do 71 I'll do 73 I'll do 75. No, I like it red no, I like it
• 21:25
  blue. There's a lot of back and forth
• 21:26
  and those customers we have to deal with, but it's not.
• 21:28
  Like much time, yes. A lot of time and we have to
• 21:31
  deal with that. She was difficult to deal with.
• 21:34
  And then to top it all off, she lives way out in the middle of
• 21:37
  the country somewhere. UPS can't get to wherever she
• 21:39
  lives in her barn somewhere. So UPS had to then meet her at
• 21:43
  the bottom of her hill. There was a lot of coordinating
• 21:45
  with her silly order of the mugs.
• 21:47
  Sammy was the Rep back then. We didn't have so many people.
• 21:49
  He was the Rep back then. Lived through that order.
• 21:52
  Got the mugs for her husband's retirement party. 2 weeks later
• 21:54
  she calls and. And I actually took a call and
• 21:58
  she tells me how wonderful it was, how wonderful it was
• 22:00
  dealing with me. And you know, by the way, my day
• 22:01
  job is I am the head purchaser to Acme Foods.
• 22:05
  Stop it, stop it. What a story this is, by the
• 22:10
  way, we should have started the podcast with this.
• 22:12
  This is this is like a this is I'm so happy that this how did
• 22:15
  you think of the story all the sudden?
• 22:16
  What did we say that triggered you?
• 22:17
  Remember this? This is like I think.
• 22:19
  We're talking about the small customers.
• 22:21
  Yeah, small customer, not so small anymore, right?
• 22:23
  Because I was thinking like, at what point did you like just
• 22:26
  decide we can never do this again or like not call this
• 22:28
  person back or, and you didn't, you went through with it.
• 22:31
  And then she's telling you that she's the director of purchasing
• 22:34
  for Acme Foods. I'm not that excited yet.
• 22:37
  I want to hear what happened. I.
• 22:39
  Met a lot of people. After we got through her
• 22:41
  husband's retirement party, we got through the purchasing
• 22:45
  through Acme Market. Then we became one of their
• 22:47
  vendors and one of their approved vendors and their group
• 22:49
  purchasing vendors. And then we opened the door to
• 22:52
  lots of other wow that she was able to open the that's.
• 22:55
  Amazing. Are you still doing business
• 22:56
  with them? Kept on coming.
• 22:57
  I don't think so. Like.
• 22:58
  This is years ago. Yeah, a lot of these.
• 23:01
  Things. Michael, what do you learn from
• 23:02
  this? I mean, you never know, right?
• 23:04
  You have to treat everything. Nothing from them?
• 23:07
  No, really, because each customer is really the same.
• 23:10
  They're all people. They're all people that we're
• 23:12
  that came to us. You said the Bank of Nigeria
• 23:14
  came from God. You're saying that that this
• 23:16
  other lady, you know, I have to treat her Well, we really treat
• 23:18
  all customers until they teach us to do it.
• 23:21
  Otherwise, we really treat all customers the same.
• 23:24
  It's a beautiful thing. I love it.
• 23:25
  You're, you're answering his question.
• 23:26
  That's what he's saying. He's saying the answer is you
• 23:28
  treat each person as its own individual.
• 23:31
  You give them the attention. Yep.
• 23:33
  You really never know what's going to be that window and that
• 23:35
  or that opportunity. But at the same token, I don't
• 23:36
  want to lose sight that sometimes strategically it does
• 23:40
  make sense that we have to align our resources properly or.
• 23:43
  Sometimes teach us, yeah, don't spend so much resource on this
• 23:46
  right or this person is, you know, we've had to fire a
• 23:49
  client. Right, you know, right.
• 23:50
  And we do, and we do with. You please find, you know, yeah.
• 23:54
  It's not a match, it's not working out a.
• 23:55
  Good communication with all of our staff at the end of each
• 23:58
  week. We might not necessarily meet
• 23:59
  with them, but we have them shoot us an e-mail with ups and
• 24:02
  downs of their week so that we can be involved.
• 24:04
  And there was one of our sales reps last week sent us an e-mail
• 24:07
  that there was a particular customer who orders this time
• 24:10
  every year and she just can't handle this lady.
• 24:13
  She's very difficult. She's very demanding.
• 24:15
  At the end of a million ups and downs, she ended up with pens
• 24:17
  and we told her this is the last order that you're going to take
• 24:20
  for her, please send her elsewhere at a certain point of.
• 24:23
  Time she. Cannot work with them and she's
• 24:26
  you're giving it your all and she's being difficult please
• 24:29
  take your business elsewhere there's.
• 24:31
  OK. I respect that you can do what
• 24:32
  is the next advancement for this business, what's coming, what is
• 24:38
  the next big thing. There was technologies advancing
• 24:41
  and where is this going? What direction, What, what
• 24:45
  should we get excited about? So what happens to us day-to-day
• 24:47
  is we get very involved in the day-to-day, which is, you know,
• 24:51
  every day, as Sammy said, is a new adventure.
• 24:53
  We don't know what's going to happen.
• 24:54
  And as we train in our people, you think you're going to work
• 24:56
  on a few things today. Phones ring, emails come in, it
• 24:58
  gets super busy. We're doing over 100 orders a
• 25:01
  day. And sometimes it could be small
• 25:03
  basic orders and sometimes it could be very rush orders.
• 25:05
  We could have orders for today that they need by Friday.
• 25:08
  We have a lot of upside down topsy turvy.
• 25:10
  Definitely what's on our agenda now is getting our social media
• 25:13
  up there, and we know we're not up there and we know we're not
• 25:15
  good about it. We know that.
• 25:16
  What? Are you doing about that?
• 25:17
  What are you doing They're. Coming on our pods, yeah.
• 25:19
  We're sitting here. It's not enough, though.
• 25:21
  Guys, I'm very proud of you that you're getting out of your
• 25:22
  comfort. No, this wasn't easy.
• 25:24
  Python. Yeah, this is a good this was.
• 25:25
  A2 hour sales. TV here for something.
• 25:27
  For others. Yes, yes, but you, you got to
• 25:30
  bring somebody who gets it, you know, maybe somebody young and
• 25:33
  somebody who's in tune with, you know, because social media is
• 25:36
  the wave of the future. I mean, that's the form of
• 25:38
  communication, legacy media. Media is pretty much over with.
• 25:41
  And now the way we communicate with one another is through our
• 25:44
  own platforms, right? So you got to find someone who's
• 25:47
  going to make it more cool, is going to make it more hip and
• 25:49
  you're going to have to put a content, you know, you got to
• 25:51
  keep the name top of mind for people.
• 25:54
  And it's not necessarily about a better product, but it's who you
• 25:57
  are sharing yours. I think the fact that you 2 are
• 25:59
  married and you've been in business for a long time, maybe
• 26:02
  you can think about sharing tips with other business owners that
• 26:05
  are also married and share your experiences.
• 26:08
  If you're willing to get a little vulnerable, if you're
• 26:11
  willing to open up, you'll, you'll see real quickly.
• 26:14
  People will resonate with you. People will realize, oh, they're
• 26:16
  just like me who I want to hear more about what they have to
• 26:18
  say. So if you take that step and
• 26:20
  it's difficult, it's not easy, but you bring somebody in, must
• 26:24
  then do it by don't forget everything, someone who knows
• 26:25
  the space and figure it out because that is where the future
• 26:29
  was going. Right.
• 26:30
  You know. You guys really wanna tap into
• 26:32
  that? You don't wanna get
• 26:33
  blockbusters. Remember Blockbuster?
• 26:35
  Yeah, right now. Yeah, we remember.
• 26:36
  That Continental airplanes, we keep saying.
• 26:38
  Our kids have no idea who blockbusters.
• 26:40
  I'll never know, right? Because they fail to still.
• 26:42
  Have the card in your wallet. No, no, I do.
• 26:44
  You never know when they're gonna show up again.
• 26:46
  Yeah, yeah. Blockbuster, by the way, was
• 26:48
  thrilling for many reasons, but it wasn't, like, so acceptable,
• 26:51
  like, you know, in our community, you know, to go
• 26:54
  Saturday night, not to Shabbos and get still out the door and
• 26:56
  get a move. But somehow everybody was still
• 26:58
  there. Yeah.
• 26:59
  You saw all your neighbors. Met at video Rama in the corner
• 27:02
  of 18th Ave. Video Rama, I remember that
• 27:04
  place Yeah, yeah, yeah, you just.
• 27:06
  Didn't go to the back when everyone?
• 27:08
  No, of course not. Of course not.
• 27:11
  Probably a bank, urgent care bank.
• 27:14
  That's what's all over bar park these days.
• 27:16
  That's that's the truth. Take me back guys to when you
• 27:18
  started. You know, she asked this
• 27:20
  question yesterday and I love this question and you were
• 27:23
  saying that there's someone going around to different
• 27:25
  business entrepreneur. Yes.
• 27:27
  Tell us when you were not able to make it and you were like
• 27:31
  struggling and thinking like, what are we doing?
• 27:33
  Like, you know. The way he phrases it very
• 27:35
  simply is, Were you ever broke before COVID and what did you do
• 27:39
  during that time? Right.
• 27:40
  So we hit COVID, nobody's ordering anything.
• 27:42
  Nursing homes are really struggling and that's a big arm
• 27:44
  in my business. Phone stopped, can't pay
• 27:48
  payroll, can't hit what we need to do.
• 27:50
  And we said, OK, we need a pivot.
• 27:52
  We put everybody on whatever that was, unemployment or
• 27:55
  whatever we needed to do at the time.
• 27:57
  Also, I was going through some personal stuff.
• 27:59
  My father ended up in a hospital.
• 28:00
  We couldn't find him. We lost him.
• 28:01
  So I was, you know, dealing with.
• 28:03
  Lost him. Physically lost him.
• 28:05
  Oh my God. Yeah.
• 28:07
  He walked out of the hospital. My father fell.
• 28:09
  He was an older man. He fell at home.
• 28:11
  He ended up breaking his hip. Unfortunately, I ended up the
• 28:15
  one talking to us, although he was in New Jersey, I was in New
• 28:17
  York and I said I think he needs to go to a hospital because a
• 28:21
  full with a broken hip at home for an elderly man is not your
• 28:23
  risk. Straight away.
• 28:24
  In a hospital. So I drove over there, got to
• 28:27
  the hospital. They won't let me in.
• 28:29
  My mother happened to have been in with him.
• 28:31
  They made me and the security guard bring my mother out.
• 28:34
  He needed hip surgery and they said they're going to give him
• 28:37
  some hip surgery and in two days we can pick him up and take him
• 28:39
  home. But he needs to stay here now.
• 28:41
  We never heard from him again. This is a man who had a
• 28:43
  smartphone, who was an elderly man, but he was not dying.
• 28:47
  He certainly didn't have COVID. He ended up getting transferred
• 28:51
  to a COVID ward. We don't know where he ended up
• 28:53
  in that hospital. They wouldn't let us in.
• 28:54
  They wouldn't answer the phone. We had a lot of, you know,
• 28:57
  contacts that I have in the nursing home arena who have
• 29:01
  representatives in the hospital tried to figure out where is he,
• 29:04
  what's. He was transferred somewhere,
• 29:06
  but there was a trail of. Somewhere, maybe the closets, we
• 29:09
  don't know the. Chaos of COVID.
• 29:12
  So he vanished. So he died in the hospital.
• 29:16
  We got the phone call that his care is going down.
• 29:18
  I said, has he been getting his medications?
• 29:19
  Have you been feeding him? Yeah, because he hasn't answered
• 29:22
  his phone. How many days later is this
• 29:24
  that? So it was a full week A.
• 29:25
  Week, a week, but for a week you don't even know where he is.
• 29:28
  And then they locate him and. And then we actually, if we want
• 29:32
  to take this to Hash Kaka process story, we can go on that
• 29:35
  little tangent. It's a great story.
• 29:37
  We couldn't find him. We had no idea where he was.
• 29:39
  We had couldn't get people on the phone.
• 29:41
  All of a sudden somebody who happens to be a distant relative
• 29:44
  of ours, but was in medical school.
• 29:45
  I have a niece that went to medical school in Israel who was
• 29:47
  in medical school with a niece in Israel.
• 29:49
  He was a radiologist. Somehow he ended up on the floor
• 29:52
  that my father was and he saw a name on the chart, which
• 29:55
  happened to be my niece's name because she was the
• 29:58
  representative that we put on in case they had medical things, in
• 30:01
  case they would actually call us.
• 30:03
  They should call my niece. So maybe they had a professional
• 30:05
  courtesy to a fellow Dr. We put her on.
• 30:07
  He walks by, notices a file. He didn't belong on the floor.
• 30:10
  It was a COVID floor at that point.
• 30:12
  He was a radiologist. Somehow his head turned.
• 30:15
  He noticed my niece's name written on a paper.
• 30:17
  And he called my niece and said, why is your name?
• 30:20
  You live in Baltimore. Why is your name on a chart in
• 30:22
  New Jersey in a hospital? And she says, what are you doing
• 30:26
  there? He was a radiologist.
• 30:28
  He's like, my mother will kill me.
• 30:29
  I don't know why I ended up on this floor.
• 30:31
  I'm on a COVID floor. But I saw your name, and I
• 30:34
  wondered what you're doing there.
• 30:34
  She says our grandfather is lost in that hospital.
• 30:38
  We have no idea where he is. We have no idea what he's up to.
• 30:41
  Can you check on him? He said, yeah.
• 30:43
  He got himself all garbed up. He found the room.
• 30:45
  He went in, and he gave us such a sense of relief.
• 30:50
  He found my father. He found him there.
• 30:53
  He said Vidoy, because we knew we're losing him.
• 30:55
  We we don't even know what's going on with him.
• 30:57
  He he opened his phone. We all talked out loud at that
• 31:00
  point. My father was sedated or out or
• 31:03
  we don't know what. We all said goodbye.
• 31:05
  We didn't know where he was. We said we're here with you.
• 31:08
  We can't get in, but we're behind you.
• 31:10
  And he said he's away with our father.
• 31:12
  My father passed away that night.
• 31:14
  But some kind of an amazing process.
• 31:16
  He's like. There was somebody there in his
• 31:18
  final moment to. That floor, he's like, but I
• 31:21
  noticed the name on the chart and I was like, God send like
• 31:25
  Elias Navi or something to walk through that floor and say I saw
• 31:29
  him. I said he's away with him.
• 31:31
  I put the phone on so that you can talk to him and say your
• 31:34
  goodbyes. I mean, it's not that much, you
• 31:37
  know, my heart that why was he doing there?
• 31:40
  And we should have gotten him out and we couldn't get him out.
• 31:42
  But at that time, bringing us back to that, to that story is I
• 31:46
  was losing my father. You see my personality.
• 31:48
  I was throwing everything. I'm going to get into that.
• 31:50
  I'm going to go in, I'm going to put on doctor clothes.
• 31:52
  I will find somebody who's on that board in that hospital.
• 31:55
  I will find this nursing home owner who I know who's on the
• 31:58
  board in that house. I will get in there and I will
• 32:00
  get my father out. I couldn't.
• 32:02
  Do that. This is a crazy story.
• 32:04
  First of all, I'm terribly sorry for you.
• 32:06
  Yeah, this must have. Been thank you.
• 32:08
  An excruciating experience. I mean not knowing where someone
• 32:11
  is is the worst thing in the world.
• 32:13
  It's just like not not knowing is what is unsettling.
• 32:16
  You know, it's very difficult. So that's that's crazy.
• 32:19
  And during Covic, we forget it's been 4 years, but it was
• 32:23
  madness. It was chaotic.
• 32:24
  And thinking back a lot of things that we did and how we,
• 32:28
  you know, rules that were in place that in hindsight made no
• 32:31
  sense. And unfortunately there are
• 32:33
  probably more stories like this and and this is heart wrenching.
• 32:36
  Yeah. And we think he's a carbon of
• 32:38
  corona. Yeah.
• 32:39
  Yeah, because of Corona. We lost them.
• 32:40
  That's crazy. That's that's terrible.
• 32:42
  But that brings us back to the business took a nosedive and
• 32:46
  after I got up from Shiva, I said, OK, we're going to have to
• 32:48
  put this together because this is our whole life here.
• 32:50
  You know, I call it my fifth child.
• 32:52
  We have four children and my business is my fifth child, IT.
• 32:55
  May be one of your oldest children.
• 32:56
  How old is your oldest child? No, actually.
• 32:58
  OK, but it's up there, right? It could be 2-3.
• 33:00
  Yeah, it's pretty old. I mean, but you know what we
• 33:02
  did? We cut up T-shirts and we turned
• 33:04
  them into face masks with a print on it.
• 33:06
  And before they did all the masks, we said we're going to
• 33:08
  have to sell something that people need to buy.
• 33:10
  Yep. What are we going to do, go back
• 33:12
  there arranged with AT shirt company to cut up.
• 33:15
  This is before the printed face face masks and that turns into a
• 33:17
  business on its own, he said. Can you cut us T-shirts today?
• 33:21
  And we started selling the. Very nice rectangles with.
• 33:24
  Little right out of a T-shirt. And that's before it took a new.
• 33:28
  Business, by the way. What a move.
• 33:30
  And it went on fire. And then we did the Healthcare
• 33:32
  Hero T-shirts and that went on fire.
• 33:34
  And everyone was ordering it for their facilities and they were
• 33:37
  giving gifts and they were, I said, I hope we're going to be
• 33:39
  able to get paid for all this business because, you know,
• 33:41
  there's no money going around. But we did it and we stood tall
• 33:45
  and we hired our staff right back because we were dealing
• 33:47
  with all these mask orders and these T-shirt orders and look at
• 33:52
  you developed. Ourselves, you're in the
• 33:53
  creative type of business and even in the business model, you
• 33:57
  got creative as well. And you pivoted into something
• 34:00
  and, you know, you kept yourselves afloat and you did a
• 34:03
  service for the people that you hired back because, you know,
• 34:06
  they also need jobs. Yeah.
• 34:07
  So that's that's really amazing. Yeah, at the time when we put
• 34:10
  them on their unemployment, I have people that work for us.
• 34:13
  They have families. They're depending on.
• 34:15
  You. Yeah, I have people that, you
• 34:16
  know, unfortunately are divorced and there is no other income
• 34:18
  there that, you know, we're going to do our best.
• 34:21
  But we also told them we're putting them on unemployment,
• 34:23
  but we need them to work. We need them every single day
• 34:26
  because the only way we're going to get ourselves to keep going
• 34:29
  with this is by putting in the hard work.
• 34:31
  We were just sitting with our feet up in a hotel somewhere in
• 34:33
  Florida like something. You guys sounds like you're in
• 34:35
  the trenches. You guys are right there with
• 34:37
  who's your, how long is your longest tenured employee by you
• 34:41
  working by you. The full 20 years. 20 to
• 34:43
  somebody that's with you from the beginning, you, a few people
• 34:46
  you. Remember Jackie from the out of?
• 34:48
  The days, of course, she's still working with you.
• 34:51
  You bet. What?
• 34:52
  A Wow, that says a lot about you guys.
• 34:54
  Remember Michael MO back then? I'm still getting over the fact
• 34:57
  that Jackie's. Still with you?
• 34:59
  That's great. She's part of our family when we
• 35:01
  hire people. We tell them hi, Jackie.
• 35:04
  For a life sentence, you're never leaving.
• 35:07
  We hold on to good health. That's phenomenal.
• 35:10
  Part of our life and part of our family.
• 35:12
  And change your name, by the way, to rush King and Queen.
• 35:14
  I mean, you guys are. Michael, it's right there on the
• 35:16
  shirt. I I didn't see.
• 35:18
  It There it is. See it?
• 35:19
  Yeah. You're the rush queen amazing
• 35:21
  wow it's I did not expect this type of story like we see you
• 35:25
  everywhere we go. You guys are amazing partnered
• 35:28
  vendors with Prime Source and just knowing that you're in the
• 35:31
  room here with us telling the story, it just, it makes it all
• 35:35
  worth it seeing you running around your shirts.
• 35:37
  I feel like I want to bring them business like tomorrow.
• 35:40
  I don't know. I just like I feel like I I
• 35:42
  should give them a little parting gift before they leave.
• 35:45
  They're such nice people. You're very pleasant people.
• 35:47
  I have to say. Yes, good conversationalists.
• 35:50
  OK. And you have really a lot of
• 35:52
  stories to share. And you know, in any which way,
• 35:55
  as long as you just open your eyes, there's really a story of
• 35:58
  hash Kaka practice like like you pointed out.
• 36:00
  And I was like to say this line is that coincidences is God's
• 36:05
  way of reminding you that he exists.
• 36:06
  That's all it's that's all what it is, right?
• 36:08
  And you have a lot of these stories to share in you in a, in
• 36:11
  a promotional item business, like, you know, who would have
• 36:14
  thought like God's hands would would be visible and he's
• 36:17
  delivering to you, you know, just regular people is moving
• 36:20
  chess boards and everybody's purse is being moved.
• 36:22
  And you guys have that. I'm so happy you shared that
• 36:25
  with us. This was phenomenal.
• 36:26
  We appreciate it guys. This has been another amazing
• 36:28
  episode of our Trade Secret series brought to you by the
• 36:32
  Prime Source Production team. Before we let you go, guys, we
• 36:35
  always like to ask one or two staple questions.
• 36:37
  And I'm just thinking one that I'm thinking of.
• 36:39
  You guys have been through so much.
• 36:40
  There's so many young people trying to get into industries,
• 36:42
  whether it's, you know, sales, promotions from a woman's
• 36:45
  perspective, from a couples perspective, from just an
• 36:48
  entrepreneurship perspective. What would you tell those young
• 36:51
  people? What would you tell your younger
• 36:52
  self? What is that?
• 36:53
  You know, that secret sauce that kept you going and that kept you
• 36:56
  so strong throughout all these years?
• 36:58
  I was actually talking to another much younger lady just
• 37:01
  at the breakfast yesterday and I was telling her, hold on to your
• 37:04
  vision, don't feel them. Sometimes mothers have guilt.
• 37:07
  I shouldn't be working so hard. I shouldn't be going to
• 37:09
  conferences. I should be home with my kids.
• 37:11
  I feel bad I'm not there when they come home with their
• 37:13
  homework. Don't hold the guilt so strong.
• 37:16
  You're doing your best and everyone's really doing their
• 37:18
  best. But hold on to your vision cuz
• 37:21
  this person had a vision and she was a hard worker and she had
• 37:24
  it. Hold on to your vision.
• 37:26
  I love that. What about you, Sam?
• 37:27
  I do love that. Any parting words?
• 37:28
  Yeah, find something that you like, something that you enjoy,
• 37:31
  but put your entire self into it.
• 37:33
  Just really just do it. Do it with your all.
• 37:36
  Carol's favorite thing is when you do it, do it all the way.
• 37:39
  Do it all the way, but really put yourself into it.
• 37:41
  Become an expert, become a go to, become something that you
• 37:45
  can be proud of. I love that guys.
• 37:47
  Thank you. Thank you.
• 37:48
  Thank you. This was wonderful.
• 37:49
  You guys are amazed. It was really beautiful.
• 37:51
  I. Appreciate.