Latest / The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast / BONUS: Manufacturer's Mindset podcast interviews Mike Cunningham

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BONUS: Manufacturer's Mindset podcast interviews Mike Cunningham · The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast

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Hey guys, it's bonus time. Here we go.
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This week, Mike Cunningham, that's me.
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I was invited to be on a podcast called The Manufacturer's
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Mindset. They invited me on to talk about
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being a manufacturer here in the US, about, you know, making the
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track equipment that you so humbly purchased from us and
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what that involves being a manufacturer and my role as a
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business development manager here at Gale Athletics.
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However, you know me well enough, I couldn't help but turn
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it into a coach track and field podcast.
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So take a listen. It just has a lot of time, a lot
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of fun time explaining to someone else not in track and
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field about the work, the positive impact that you make as
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a track and field coach here in America.
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So hope you enjoy it. Here we are with the
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manufacturer's mindset. Welcome to the Manufacturer's
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Mindset podcast, featuring casual conversations with
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manufacturing professionals about their journeys, lessons
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learned and more. Your host is Ryan Cote from
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Ballantyne Digital. Thanks for tuning in.
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Let's get started. Hey Mike, welcome to the show.
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How are you? I'm awesome man.
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Thanks for having me Ryan. This is a, this is a real treat
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for me. I love being able to discuss
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your business and manufacturing with like minded people like
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yourself. So I'm excited about this.
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Thank you. Yeah, we've had a great chat pre
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recording, so I'm excited to to keep it going.
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Why don't we start off by you, You know, telling everyone you
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know who you are and what we you know?
1:24
What should we know about you? Yeah, absolutely.
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Thanks again for this opportunity.
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So Mike Cunningham, I currently serve as the National Business
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Development manager for company in Illinois called Latania
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Sports Group. Latania is made-up of two kind
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of major brands, Gill Athletics and Porter Athletics.
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We manufacture sporting goods equipment.
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So easiest way to kind of described is if you go on to a
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high school or a college campus and you go to their athletic
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fields, if it's made out of metal foam, vinyl or netting, we
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probably manufacture it. So in the track and field space,
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if you think about the Olympics with pole vault pits and hurdles
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and javelins and things like that, we make all that right
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here in Illinois. And then all the way over to
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your other sports, basketball hoops, volleyball systems,
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tennis systems, soccer goals, you name it.
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Again, metal, vinyl, foam and, and, and netting.
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And so I have, I started here 18 years ago and have kind of moved
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my way up. I started as an entry level kind
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of sales Rep guy and have moved on to a bunch of other things
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including operations, marketing, sales, overseeing our different
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divisions that we have here and have really just I started here
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when I was 30 years old. This is my third career.
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You know, I look back at it now and I was like, man, what a pup,
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what a rookie I was. I knew nothing about
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manufacturing. And now 18 years later, I still
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don't know much, but boy, I I have learned a lot and really
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have a real passion, a love for manufacturing, for actual making
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of products. So it has been an absolute wild
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wind 18 years, and I'm just super excited for the continued
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future with manufacturing, Manufacturing in Illinois and
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manufacturing in the sporting goods industry.
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You were a track coach, you said was one of your earlier careers
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was a track coach. Correct.
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My very first one. I was a college track coach for
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10 years. So this I guess was a natural, I
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mean was this your plan to get into selling track equipment or
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did it just happen? How did it happen that?
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'D be a cool story if it was, but no way, no how that not even
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entered my mind. So I was a college track coach.
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So my my job, my passion, I was going to retire as a college
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track coach. I did everything in the world.
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I'm from the South, I'm from Alabama originally.
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So my whole career was to get to the SEC.
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I'm a big, you know, for any sports fans out there, I'm a big
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SEC Homer. I think the SEC can do no wrong.
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So I wanted to to coach in that conference and I finally got
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that opportunity in my 9th year and quickly realized that it is
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a whole different world on that level.
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So I spent a couple years at Mississippi State and you know,
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was about to turn 30I was 29 ish years old and was just kind of
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disillusioned with the career, the sport at that level.
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And so I wanted to get completely away from it and see
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if track and field, it's all I knew, is what I ran in high
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school and I coached as soon as I got out of high school.
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So I was coaching forever at that point.
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I wanted to see if track would bring me in.
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So I tried to get as far away from track as possible.
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And I actually moved to Vegas and became a professional poker
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player. I felt like that was the
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farthest. There was no track when we're at
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the poker table, that's for sure.
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Yeah, after that year and you know, you know, playing poker
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for a living sounds fun. It's not.
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It's very stressful. So I decided I want to get back
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to the real world. I'm so blessed.
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I was a customer of Gil Athletics of of the company now.
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And so I reached out to see if they knew of any jobs that were
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open. And thank God they had a job for
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an entry level sales guy because one, I needed a job and two, now
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looking back after 18 years, I met my wife here, two children
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and I get to, you know, positively affect the sport and
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coaches in a much different role now as a as a manufacturer.
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When I said funny how sometimes decisions you make end up
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becoming still life changing. Like you tried poker, it didn't
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work out. You reach out to Gil, they offer
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you the position and then you met your wife there and then
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your kids. And it's funny how one decision
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can splinter into all these major life transitions.
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You're exactly right, Ryan. You know, I, I host the podcast
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for us here at Gil FedEx as well and where we interview coaches
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from around the world. And same thing I talk about, you
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know, we go through life and sometimes there's these very,
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what we think in the moment are very small decision trees, You
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know, do we go the right path or the left path?
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And then we look back ten, 20-30 years later and go, holy cow,
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thank God I went the right way and not the left way because
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look what it got me. I I could have easily gone the
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other path and the only correction I'll give all right
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only because my ego makes me want to correct you.
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I didn't Poker did work out for me.
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I chose to leave leave poker because of the stress of it all,
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but I have no regrets. I made money as a professional
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poker player and more importantly, the number one
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lesson I learned in a professional poker player is the
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real value of a dollar that it means nothing compared to
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friends, family, passions and charity.
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So, so my ego says when you said hey, it didn't work out, I was
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like, Oh no, no brother, it worked out.
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I'm so glad. I'm glad I did it, but I'm very
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glad I don't do it now. I have a friend actually used to
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play for professional poker and I forget what he was saying.
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Like he got you get money from somewhere like people fund you
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or something. I can't remember the words he
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used but he would. He was making good money with it
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but it was burning him out. I'm not sure the specifics of
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why, but. That's called backing.
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You basically invest in a poker player, have people invest in
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you. And that was one of the things
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that this isn't a poker podcast. I'll be quick with this, but one
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of the things that really surprised me in the, in the
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professional world of poker is the borrowing economy.
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Like people allow other people to borrow money and then you you
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get interest and stuff like that.
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I never wanted to lend anybody money and I never wanted money
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to lend to me. But the, the stress comes from
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that. Every day your lunch money is on
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the table, that's your rent money, that's your car payment
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money, that's whatever. That's where it becomes pretty,
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pretty stressful. It's no longer the fun that you
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have, you know, at the weekends at your buddy's house or you
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know, you guys go to Vegas for a weekend or whatnot.
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You know, you lose whatever amount of money you can lose.
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You know that you you have the money to lose there when it's
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your actually livelihood. Like this is how you are going
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to pay your rent and stuff. That's where the the stress
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levels come from. So.
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You probably have learned to read people.
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I'm sure that helps in your in your sales career in addition to
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just knowing the sport of track. You know you've got kind of a
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secret advantage there, right? Not so secret because a lot of
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people know about my poker background.
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But yeah, for sure you learn somebody, language stuff.
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My strength as a poker player was asking a lot of questions
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and finding out their motivation, like how much that
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money actually meant to them. And so as a sales professional,
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kind of the same thing. You know what, Why are they
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wanting to buy this part? What are they really trying to
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solve? Not just, you know, surface
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level paying, we're trying to get, you know, what are we
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actually trying to what problems are we trying to solve And that
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helps with, you know, new product develop as a
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manufacturer, as a new product development customer experience,
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user experience as well. Absolutely do.
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They bring you into the manufacturing of the product.
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Like ask for your input and stuff especially with your your
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coaching and track experience. Yeah, on the front end side.
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So we have a very robust R&D department.
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That's pretty much how we have become the world's largest track
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equipment manufacturers. We make no apologies.
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We're always going to push the envelope in regards to
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innovation inside of our sport. And so whether it's new ideas or
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improvements on new products, a guy like me, I'm always talking
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to our coaches, I'm always trying to figure out what is
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causing them pain in their job today as it relates to the track
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and field equipment. So certainly bring that to our
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R&D team. And then the front side of it,
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when we're talking about the product and what it needs to do
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and solve and whether it needs to have color options or no
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option, you know, those kind of things.
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Certainly when it gets down to more of a finalized product.
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So it actually has to now flow through our factory.
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Yeah. You don't want me to back there,
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talk about which tube laser to use or what welders to use and
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things like that. Yeah, you don't want me back
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there for that. That's we got much smarter
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people that know how to actually make it flow through a factory
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than I do. Makes sense.
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Do you get the opportunity to go see some of these, some of the
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equipment being used or maybe go to like a meet?
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I think you said you sell to high school and college, right?
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Correct. That's our main markets.
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High school and college do. You get to go to any of the
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college meets. Yeah, that that's actually one
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of the things I work really hard on it.
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It's easy for us because we actually as a manufacturer 9095%
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of our sales actually go through a distribution network and Omni
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channel approach to the to the industry, which is kind of
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unique inside of our manufacturing space in our in
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our market. And so it's real easy to just be
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in your office, you know, working with your dealers and,
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and coaches and stuff like that. So I make it a, a real feather
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in my cap to actually get out in the field and see our stuff in
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the wild. It helps me with two things.
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One, it helps us to see how our products are actually going
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throughout the years. You know, I, I only see the
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product when it's finished here in the factory.
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It's brand new. What's that product look like in
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five years, 10 years, etcetera that can help drive some product
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R&D and manufacturing innovation.
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And I get to go out and see what are our competitors doing as
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well. Like, you know what, it's school
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X chose a competitor of ours. Well, what is that product doing
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versus ours? What, what are we missing or not
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missing out there? So I really do like to go to, I
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don't like to go to meets necessarily too much, although I
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do go to a few meets. I like to go to the practice
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sessions because that's when first of all, the coaches are a
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little bit less stressed because it's not competition day.
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So they're a little bit more open to to talking and answering
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questions and asking questions. It sounds like you love your
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profession. I love track and field coaches.
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In fact, I've lived my life on Twitter.
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Like I literally put out about AI don't know several 100 tweets
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a day basically in my name. My Twitter handle is at Mike
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Cunningham, but you know, you can change your name or handle
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or whatever my name on there is. I love track and field coaches.
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Man, that track and field coaches gave me such confidence
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and knowledge in life and I see what these guys and gals do to
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the young people and our world, You know, the the positive
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impact they make. It's quite amazing.
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You know, 99% of all the kids of these coaches are working with
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will go will not GoPro. It's a very small, you know,
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there's no NFL and things like that for track, but 100% of
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those kids are going to go on to be moms, dads, business owners,
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clergy, teachers, future coaches.
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And that is the real juice that a track coach gives.
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That's how they improve societies by positive impact on
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young people 14 to 22 years old. That's it's invaluable.
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It's immeasurable that that impact that they make.
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You know, it's funny you say that because I'm reflecting on
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what I said to you before we started recording.
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I used to run track and field in high school, and I was a
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sprinter and we had this coach. He was a maniac.
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And I mean practices. I throw up like every other
12:18
practices from the sheer exhaustion of sprinting,
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sprinting, sprinting with very little rest in between.
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But now I was kind of poking fun at him.
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But now in hearing your answer there, it probably built
12:28
resiliency in me, you know, and how to overcome something that's
12:31
really, really hard, you know, So you're, you're right there.
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I didn't really think of it from that viewpoint.
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Coach pushed you past what you thought that that here's the
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superpower of a track coach. And I'm sure you know these
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examples could be used in your tennis coach, football coach,
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etcetera. But you know, my my life is
12:46
centered around track and field. The real superpower of a track
12:50
coach is they see something in someone else before they can see
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it in themselves. When you first probably joined
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track and you know, we're given a goal of running whatever time
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for the 100 or 400 or whatnot, you probably were like, you are
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crazy. I'll never be able to run that.
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I'll never be able to finish that work out.
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The coach knew you could from experience, from belief and had
13:12
that belief in you and you were able to make those account.
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You were able to to pass those workouts.
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You're able to run those times. You're able to contribute to the
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relays for your team. That is what coaches do.
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And even though we might not in today's age as 30-40, fifty year
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old guys and gals, while we might not be able to pinpoint
13:28
say, oh, I remember when coach told me this and it really made
13:31
me believe it's that combination of every day, coming to the
13:34
track, working hard, throwing up, coming back the next day,
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doing it again. That is what helps people go on
13:42
to have successful careers, create great podcasts like you
13:44
do here, and really have something that is built that is
13:48
tangible in your life, your family, you personally as a as a
13:51
husband and a father, that that all stems from your coaches and
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for me specifically, your, your track and field coach.
13:57
Yeah. You're actually giving me
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flashbacks and me doing like these sprints with the parachute
14:01
on and and then the big rubber band to add resistance and then.
14:05
Pulling, pulling me back. Let's talk about lessons learned
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so far. If you were, I guess you know,
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you're, you started there when you're 30.
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So if you were able to talk to your 30 year old self, are there
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any lessons that you pulled thus far that you can share with him?
14:20
One of my biggest things and I learned this thank goodness
14:23
pretty early when I was a customer of the company, you
14:27
know, I bought direct from from Gil from the manufacturer, like
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I said earlier, you know, we sell actually, you know, 99% of
14:35
the vast, vast majority actually gets sold through an Omni
14:38
channel approach. So, so through a dealer network,
14:40
a distribution network, and I remember pretty early in my
14:44
career here, I went to my VP of sales and marketing who's still
14:49
my VPS. I love him.
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Like he's been such a great mentor.
14:51
Steve Vogel saying would not be where I am today with, without
14:54
his mentorship along the way. And I remember 'cause I look at,
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you know, I started getting involved in, you know, the P and
15:00
LS and started seeing the margins for direct versus dealer
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and all this stuff. And I remember going in and I
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was like, hey, Steve, why do we sell through a dealer network?
15:09
Like, why don't we just sell it all direct?
15:12
And he's been in industry for a long time.
15:14
You know, here's this, you know, relatively young guy, this
15:16
rookie at least asking this question.
15:18
He says, all right, sit down. He goes, how many high schools
15:21
are there in the state of Illinois?
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And I was like, oh, I don't know, you know, a lot.
15:25
There's probably got to be, you know, 506 hundred, I don't know,
15:28
maybe 1000. We have a pretty popular state.
15:30
And he goes, can you get to each one of those high schools to
15:33
talk to their track coach? And I was like, oh, God, no.
15:35
I was like, heck, I probably probably couldn't get to all the
15:37
ones just here in our county. And he goes, exactly, that's
15:41
what a dealer network does for you.
15:43
They are in every high school in the entire country representing
15:47
your products. And it hit me because I'm
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thinking about, you know, my local high school all the way to
15:52
the College in California, the schools out of town like, Oh my
15:55
God, like, how could we ever do that?
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Like, thank God for this dealer network.
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And I remember I looked, I, I paused, I looked at him and I
16:01
said, why do we sell direct at all?
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And so it just really helped me learn about, you know, there's a
16:09
difference between being a reseller, being one of our
16:11
dealers. There's a difference between
16:13
being a manufacturer that sells direct.
16:15
And there's certainly, you know, industries that that might be
16:17
the, the proper way to do it. But in our industry, if you're
16:21
not cultivating a relationship and helping these other
16:25
businesses make money for themselves and their sales
16:28
professionals, I don't know how you can be successful.
16:32
The amount of money you'd have to spend is just gargantuan.
16:35
And so I learned real quick that as a manufacturer, you or you're
16:39
serving two things. You're serving your end user.
16:41
So for for me, track coaches, but you're also serving those
16:44
men and women who are going in and representing your product
16:47
every day to every high school, every College in the entire
16:50
country and throughout the world, and in a lot of cases.
16:55
Is there anything you do tactically to nurture those
16:57
relationships? I mean, I, we're, we're just
16:58
getting to know each other, but you, you're obviously very
17:00
personable, but is there anything you do like certain
17:02
number of lunches or some number of reach outs or anything along
17:06
those lines? It's kind of maybe twofold.
17:09
One is education. So we have dealers that kind of
17:13
run the gambit in regards to their education of track and
17:16
field. Some of them were former
17:18
coaches. They probably know the sport
17:20
better than I do, for crying out loud.
17:22
So there's a little bit less education from them that it may
17:24
stand more around like when we do a new product or a new
17:27
feature benefit, you know, having to catch them up to
17:29
speed. Some of it is we use an actual
17:32
sales process here. So some of his education on how
17:35
to sell, it's not just about shaking hands, kissing babies.
17:38
There's an actual process to to selling things professionally.
17:41
Then we run that gamut all the way up to guys and gals who sell
17:44
our equipment, who also sell football pads, baseball bats,
17:49
tennis, they they sell uniforms, they sell all the other
17:52
manufacturers of this other stuff.
17:54
And so I'm always in a battle for their mind share, especially
17:57
track as we go up against baseball, which is a big heavy
18:00
equipment sport with, you know, the gloves and shoes and cleats
18:04
and all that kind of stuff, hats, etcetera.
18:06
So it's more of education of like, you know, here's what you
18:08
need to do to sell track. By the way, I don't expect you
18:11
to be the expert. That's what our team is here
18:13
for. I've got a team of former
18:14
college coaches and athletes and things like that.
18:16
So it's more about education, helping them to sell, sell at a
18:20
highest price so they can make the amount of money that they
18:22
need to be making for the company and for themselves.
18:25
Just nurturing that, you know what, you can make a lot of
18:27
money in this sport because it's the most participated sport in
18:30
the country for both high school and college.
18:32
So it behooves you to try to sell track and field.
18:36
Oh, was that true? I didn't know that.
18:37
Yeah, on the high school side, when you add boys and girls
18:40
together, it's the number one. It's on the on just boys in high
18:43
school, it's number two behind, of course, football.
18:45
And on the girl side, it is number one as far as
18:47
participation both in individual numbers and in number of
18:50
programs. And then on the college side,
18:53
same thing when you add men and women together in the college #1
18:55
most participated sport. So it's you're more likely to
18:59
bump into someone at the grocery store that ran some form of
19:02
track and field, then played any other individual sport,
19:04
basketball, football, etcetera. Learning something new today did
19:08
not know that I want to go back to the idea you mentioned
19:12
mentorship mentorship. I think that's a real key thing
19:15
you said your mentor was Steve. Why do you what do you think
19:17
Steve saw on you? Like why, why, why did he want?
19:20
I mean, I know you're on the sales team, so rising tide lifts
19:23
all boats, but why do you think he invested in you?
19:26
You're. Not going to ask him that.
19:29
Like what do you? Think he's saw on you I guess is
19:30
what I'm trying to say. Probably a combination, right?
19:33
So the, the position that I was hired in, you know, the entry
19:36
level sales position is a very entry level position.
19:39
So typically we're hiring fresh out of college, you know, one
19:43
year, two year job individual, so 22 to maybe 25 years old.
19:47
So here's this 30 year old that first of all, you know, had 10
19:50
years of poaching track and field.
19:52
So there's a little bit of a like, well, this guy should
19:54
bring a Rolodex automatically to the, to the forefront.
19:57
I think the, the poker thing probably helped a little bit,
20:00
but also can scare people away in regards to like, oh, is this
20:03
guy, you know, a transient? Is he going to be here for a
20:05
year or two and leave and things like that?
20:07
And so he, he definitely asked me a lot about that, you know,
20:09
are you going to go back into coaching and things like that?
20:12
Once I got here and, you know, after maybe, you know, 1st 1218
20:15
months and he kind of saw it. OK, he's going to stay here.
20:18
Oh, he's got a girlfriend, which is because of my wife.
20:20
You know, it's like, oh, he's getting roots.
20:22
I think everything that has happened positively to me in my
20:25
career. With Steve by my side is I
20:30
showed and continue to show a lot of curiosity.
20:34
Like I like to know why are we doing this?
20:36
How do we do that? Why we do it like this?
20:38
Have we ever thought of XY and Z?
20:41
And I think Steve saw early that I didn't.
20:45
I wasn't here in this type of job just for the paycheck every
20:48
two weeks. That was like, Hey, I feel like
20:50
maybe I can actually like affect this business positively, but
20:54
I'm going to need to know some more stuff.
20:56
I, I know nothing about manufacturing and business in
20:59
that sense. And so I want to learn.
21:01
And so I showed curiosity and I think he was right to, to teach
21:06
me and him. And you know, our CEO, David
21:08
Hodge and my former mentor, who's now retired, Fred Dixon,
21:12
they just, they poured into me, man.
21:14
And I was just a absolute sponge to soak it all in and and then
21:19
implement it in the in my unique way.
21:22
I love that word curiosity. I mean, it makes sense if
21:25
they're, if you're curious and then you're going to implement
21:27
their advice, then it probably makes them feel good to mentor
21:31
you because they see that you're you're soaking it up and you're
21:33
taking action. It probably makes them feel good
21:35
as good as well, you know? It's a real superpower That word
21:39
curiosity. You know it helped me get into
21:42
coaching and coaching track. It helped me to get into a
21:44
professional poker and then here.
21:45
It has helped me, you know, with new product development, sales
21:49
training, you know, training and, and coaching up our, our
21:51
sales team here, coaching and motivating our, our dealer
21:55
network, loving on and uplifting and honoring our track It.
21:59
It all centers around being curious why, why, why and then
22:04
implementing an action plan off of that.
22:05
Once you learn that actually, you know, it's great to ask
22:08
questions, but you know, action has to occur in the
22:10
manufacturing world. So being able to take that and
22:13
bridge those two together has been really the, the whole quote
22:17
UN quote, secret of the success I have had here in 18 years.
22:21
What's all my challenges? Is there any specific challenge
22:24
that comes to mind? Your career with Gil that was
22:27
very daunting, but you were able to overcome it.
22:29
Anything come to mind? Probably the biggest challenges
22:32
that relates to manufacturing, just had a meeting this morning
22:35
about this. I call it the dreaded F word.
22:37
And I'm sure everybody listening who's into manufacturing knows
22:40
exactly what that F word is. And that is forecasting the
22:44
whole breadth of products that we make.
22:46
About 80% of it is manufactured right here in Champaign.
22:49
So it's less than 20% that we're actually bringing in from
22:51
overseas. When we're talking about
22:54
aluminum, steel, vinyl, all the different colors, labor
22:58
forecasting that is, I'll tell you what, that is a challenge
23:01
that continues to be a challenge every day.
23:03
You know, for an industry like ours, we're small enough that
23:06
there aren't a lot of professional indicators out
23:09
there. We we have to piece together a
23:11
lot of little things to figure out what's going to happen next
23:15
year with this product set and this product or this new
23:18
product, etcetera. So that that is a challenge that
23:21
I don't know that anybody solved because if they ever did, they'd
23:23
be a bazillionaire with other manufacturers, that's for sure.
23:26
But we continue, I continue to struggle with forecasting and,
23:30
you know, just trying to make it accurate.
23:32
You know, as you guys know, inventory sitting out there is
23:35
just costing you money. You know, having people on the
23:38
clock that aren't working, that's just costing you money,
23:40
that's just eroding the profitability.
23:42
And so you have to be really intentional on forecasting for
23:45
your entire your entire company. I wonder if you can use AI for
23:50
something like that. I mean, I don't know know your
23:52
business and but like data in, data out like I don't know,
23:55
maybe it's not possible, but that was the first time to keep
23:58
in. Mind, maybe probably soon.
24:01
I'm a huge proponent of AI in, in relation to like chat GPTS
24:06
and stuff like that. I, I use it literally every day
24:09
more for the marketing and content writing type side and
24:11
even idea generation. When we talk about M&A
24:14
acquisitions, we, you know, I do some research on parts of our
24:17
industry through that. I, I'm a huge AI proponent and I
24:20
will not be surprised. I I think this Microsoft having
24:24
Copilot weaved in throughout your entire suite, so Outlook,
24:28
PowerPoint, Word, Excel, etcetera.
24:31
I think that'll be the first big AI that comes through for
24:35
companies of like that are our size that will help with good
24:39
data in produces good data out. So they have that ability.
24:42
I think that'll be the first big push that will be here within,
24:45
you know, I say 12 to 24 months, but it could be 12 to 24 weeks.
24:49
Mike, I've got one last question for you and we'll wrap up with
24:52
you. You know, sharing website,
24:54
social handles wherever you want.
24:56
If you were retiring today, looking back on your career,
24:59
what are you most proud of? Hopefully I'm not retiring
25:02
today, but I would love to retire financially.
25:05
I'm not retiring today, that's for sure.
25:07
And I'm a little bit the kind of guy I'm not sure I ever can
25:09
retire to be honest with you. What am I most proud of?
25:12
You know, I believe I do a better than average job from my
25:19
competitors to even people inside of of our industry of
25:23
knowing our customers of always putting myself in our customers
25:27
shoes. I really concerned myself with
25:30
the entire user experience of our customers and our coaches.
25:35
So how how do they get our products?
25:37
How do they order our products, the products they actually use
25:39
and when they call in, what's that experience like when they
25:42
work with our dealers? What's that like?
25:44
So I think what I'm probably most proud of is that I am
25:49
willing to show up every day to tell our customers and our
25:55
dealers that I love them. If it weren't for track coaches,
26:00
if it weren't for dealers representing our products, where
26:04
in the world would I be? And that means where in the
26:08
world would my family be? My wife, my children, my
26:11
extended family, my friends, my passions.
26:14
I don't know where that would all be today if it weren't for
26:19
the decisions of men and women around this country deciding to
26:23
show up every spring and coach a bunch of 14 to 22 year olds.
26:28
High school and college deal with them throwing up, crying,
26:31
missing practice, missed expectations, disappointments,
26:36
parents, etcetera. There's so much.
26:39
Thank God they decide to coach. You know this great sport.
26:43
It literally runs my entire life.
26:46
Family wise, faith wise, friend wise.
26:49
So I'm most proud that I love track and field coaches.
26:53
I love on our customers, I love on our dealers.
26:55
They are amazing men and women. And I will never get tired of
26:59
telling them that. And I'm sorry if they ever get
27:02
tired of hearing about it because they're going to
27:04
continue to hear about what amazing human beings that they
27:07
are. And I'm just so thankful and so
27:09
grateful for them. I'm sure they love working with
27:12
you as well and you have even very strong why feeling you so.
27:15
That's absolutely a big part of it.
27:18
All right, Mike, this was great. This is really great.
27:20
Really loved the conversation, everything you shared.
27:22
Maybe someone wants to connect with you, learn more about you
27:25
or Gil. Where should we send them?
27:27
If you're on Twitter, that's where I, like I said, I live
27:30
daily on Twitter. It's a big communication piece
27:33
for me there. So it's at Mike Cunningham.
27:36
So all one word, no dashes, dots and things like that.
27:39
And then probably maybe the more traditionalist through e-mail,
27:41
right. So our website
27:42
isgilathletics.com if you want to see track and field products
27:46
and things like that. We probably maybe don't have an
27:48
interest in track, but maybe you, you know, maybe there's
27:50
some value that I can bring to you in your world and
27:54
manufacturing. So if there's anything I can
27:56
ever do, I would just e-mail me. And it's just my first initial M
28:00
and then my last name. So M Cunningham and then it's at
28:03
gillthats2lsathleticsthatsplural.com. So M
28:07
cunningham@gillathletics.com. I strive to provide value
28:11
anywhere and everywhere I can, from buying groceries to doing
28:14
podcast like this. Obviously my job.
28:16
So if there's any value I can ever provide for anybody out
28:19
there, please don't hesitate to to reach out.
28:21
I'd love to have a conversation with you.
28:23
And if I can't help you, maybe someone in my network can.
28:26
And that's the the real power of it all.
28:28
Excellent. Thank you, Mike.
28:29
Great job. Brian, thank you again.
28:32
I appreciate the opportunity, man.
28:33
You're doing a great job. Proud of what you're doing.
28:34
You're going to help a lot of people.
28:36
You're providing value. So really grateful for you doing
28:38
this man really am I? Appreciate that.
28:42
Thanks for listening to the Manufacturer's Mindset podcast
28:45
with Ryan Cote from Ballantyne Digital.
28:48
If you're finding value in the content we're producing, please
28:51
help other manufacturing professionals find our show by
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