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The Small Business Safari
Have you ever sat there and wondered "What am I doing here stuck in the concrete zoo of the corporate world?" Are you itching to get out? Chris Lalomia and his co-host Alan Wyatt traverse the jungle of entrepreneurship. Together they share their stories and help you explore the wild world of SCALING your business. With many years of owning their own small businesses, they love to give insight to the aspiring entrepreneur. So, are you ready to make the jump?
The Small Business Safari
From Classroom to Franchise: Mary Block’s Journey to Mobility Plus
Ever wondered what it takes to leave behind a stable teaching career and successfully launch a franchise? Our guest, Mary Block, a former Spanish teacher with 16 years under her belt, shares her captivating journey from the classroom to owning a Mobility Plus franchise. Through personal anecdotes and humorous tales, Mary sheds light on her realization of the insurmountable challenges within the American education system, her decision to pivot careers, and her adventures in elder care that influenced her new path.
As we gear up for the franchise launch, the episode is filled with chaotic yet memorable moments, including a studio mishap involving bourbon and friendly jabs at our rivals at "Smartless." Mary and her husband’s story of bypassing franchise brokers and securing an SBA loan to establish Mobility Plus in North Atlanta is both inspiring and educational. We discuss everything from choosing a family-owned business model to navigating the hiring process, and even touch on the humorous side of racing scooters.
Running a specialized business in medical equipment rental and sales comes with its own set of challenges. Mary dives deep into effective marketing strategies, emphasizing the power of SEO and personalized customer service. She also highlights the importance of building a resilient team and maintaining a flexible business plan to handle unpredictable challenges. Whether you're an aspiring entrepreneur or a seasoned business owner, this episode is packed with insights that will motivate and equip you to climb new heights in your own ventures.
You'd have flipped me off.
Speaker 2:All right, this one works, alan, we got recording going. Let's launch this missile. Let's get this sucker started. Let's make sure somebody doesn't slip down the roof again and do stupid shit like Chris did.
Speaker 1:Or try to fix my microphone and dump the entire studio on the floor, including our bourbon, which did not break.
Speaker 2:So the only thing that did not break, as we dumped the entire studio table down because Alan didn't like the position of his mic, was our bourbon. So to that I say cheers. Hey, that's why we do this shit. Oh my God, this is amazing. We have a great guest today, because I had a chance to hear about her. I had a chance to talk to her on the phone, but I never had a chance to have her in person, you're kind of building her up to be something to be heard.
Speaker 2:You know what this is like? Well, it's like Smartless, how they introduce the invisible guest and I really don't know what she does.
Speaker 2:She loves Smartless and you know what she doesn't realize? She's with guys who are probably better than Smartless. We have some serious cachet. I mean we, we could do this. I mean Bateman, arnett, hayes they want to be like us. It's so funny, is that one of those requests I was telling you that we get everyone so well? Is their producer reaching out saying, hey, can I have people talk to your people? You're talking to people, bro, and so don't big time me, because I'm big time and you. That's right, smart list, we're coming after you. You think you go to Hamptons interview Stern. Well, you know what I can do the same. We're gonna go on remotes too, alan. How about that?
Speaker 1:we talked about going on a remote right. No, brewery.
Speaker 2:Uh, we are, we're still gonna do it uh, yeah, I want to.
Speaker 1:I want to do a remote with jake going uh through athens to all the places that have peach state light all right, we'll make that happen.
Speaker 2:Actually, uh, jake and I just come back and forth on a couple things, because I've got the branch up in Athens. They actually have just gone big time. You know they signed a deal with Publix, so they've got Southeast Distribution out, which is huge. If you know anything about beverage sales again, how to scale your business, come up with a great product, come up with a good idea. But you've got to find the decision makers and we had Richard Grove on Mr Wall Storage not just a name but an entity, kind of like what we have today. Because we're building this thing up, it's just going to be so epic. By the time we introduce this guest, you guys are gonna be like I want her on a ground.
Speaker 1:She's sitting there going. How am I going to say something after chris goes off like a roman candle?
Speaker 2:oh, by the time we're done, I mean, she's not just jenny on the block, she's gonna own jenny on the block and all those rocks. Oh, did I just say that I did? All right, let's go back to this.
Speaker 1:So, jake from state farm, no he's like no, so so just for our listeners, chris really injured himself and I jokingly said did you take some pills with this booze? And he goes yes, so is this that was not a joke, I did okay, right, but I'm just are we on the boost have?
Speaker 2:Have they kicked in yet? No, I just took a head, though, really Well.
Speaker 1:No, I know you.
Speaker 2:Hey, it's legal somewhere, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, no.
Speaker 2:Damn it.
Speaker 1:All right, did you get it under a load of celery?
Speaker 2:Right, oh my God, did you All right news that says at our uh national or our state farm, uh grocer, that they did a meth bust in celery and I so bad wanted to put peanut butter and and little raisins on it. Remember we had that peanut butter ants on a log it's a log. I was like that is a new meaning to answer. The log was meth and celery, so I'm still gonna do that. I think I'm gonna do one celery with a bunch of 2300 pounds of meth and I sent that picture.
Speaker 1:I said I sent the article. I've got a buddy who's a celery farmer up in michigan actually, and I'm like this is why you buy us celery this is what you buy.
Speaker 2:Well, all right. So back to this. Here's what they said. They said you know, and the poor celery farmers that are up against them are really hurting. They had the agricultural, the agricultural farmer head on making a quote, saying this is really hurting the real celery farmers because they don't care what they're pushing the celery product at, because all they're trying to do is boot the meth. I'm like so that's the biggest problem, not the fact that you're bringing in 23 million pounds of meth and distributing all across South Georgia. I'm like get real. And so back to true crimes, because that'll put us in the best. That's the best, highest. Uh, he didn't take advil, did he, mary no I'm pretty sure he didn't yes, he didn't.
Speaker 3:Let's go buddy guys on to you, it was just.
Speaker 2:I'm all right. I just love my celery. It's a log, all right. All right, guys, let's do this. Mary Block yeah, not just Jenny on the block.
Speaker 1:Check that, see that that's your worst one that you've done. Oh, come on, listeners, you can back me up on this.
Speaker 2:So Mary was a school teacher for how many years?
Speaker 3:16.
Speaker 2:That's 16. And in teacher years that's 16 times 22, right it's?
Speaker 3:like 105. Exactly yeah.
Speaker 2:So. But she decided you know what I'm teaching eighth graders what would be easier oh, I don't know how about selling products to aging people who are not cranky and hurting like Chris is right now? So she bought a Mobility Plus franchise here in Alpharetta. I've heard a lot about her and about how she's doing this and what's going on. I actually have had her partner in crime come out and give me a quote with again cranky old people who decided not to go with this because they were just fine at 91 and 89 to get up the stairs themselves. Yeah, no, not really. In fact, I just wore KJ out again about that. I'm like are you kidding me right now that they wouldn't do anything? It?
Speaker 1:was his folks yeah.
Speaker 2:Who that I'm like? Are you kidding me right now that they wouldn't do anything?
Speaker 1:it was his folks yeah, who just recently sold the business for yep and it wasn't the money, it was the pride.
Speaker 2:Oh, oh, yeah, 91 needs knee surgery. Yeah, doc said, happens a lot. Doc says we can't do the knee surgery. Um, odds of making it probably not worth it. And then, and what does he tell me? He goes ah, I'm not as bad, it's, my wife is worse. I'm like, okay, yep, then get it for her. And they wouldn't do it. I know I came out I was trying to come up with all kinds of ideas and it wasn't the money, it was a great product. So, um, mary's husband came out and gave me a quote, uh, to do this. And it was a really unique product and something I'd never heard of and it was super cool and this was the perfect application for it for these folks. And they just wouldn't bite.
Speaker 1:Well, I can't wait to hear what this product is. It sounds like teleportation or something.
Speaker 2:All right, we're going to come back to that. First, we got in a little bit more about Mary, so what about Mary? Like how he did that.
Speaker 1:Do you want to know something about Mary? I do Okay.
Speaker 2:All right, Mary. Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 3:Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2:We're excited. Okay, she's blushing. So, mary, when you came in, you started talking, and our audience is going to find this out very quickly. So you're a native Atlanta.
Speaker 3:I am. Yeah, I know Atlanta is a city of transplants, but I've been here. I grew up in Stone Mountain, scott, and I love it and it's a great place to raise a family and we actually wanted to move away Not that Atlanta is not great, but there were other places we wanted to explore. But my in-laws moved here from Connecticut because they were tired of the snow, so they were here and we just decided to stay because we had young kids. What?
Speaker 1:brought Scott here A job. Okay, we just decided to stay because we had young kids.
Speaker 3:What?
Speaker 1:brought Scott here A job Okay.
Speaker 3:So yeah, he came down. He's from St Louis and he worked for Singular Wireless and they made him offer. He couldn't refuse and he came down and never looked back.
Speaker 2:So have you always wanted to start your own business?
Speaker 3:No, but my grandparents were serial entrepreneurs, so, and I actually didn't make the connection until later on. But my grandparents had. My mom's parents had owned a luncheonette, they owned a ballroom. They got their real estate licenses and they learned English. Their English actually wasn't proficient enough to take the exam very well. They had to memorize questions. Where were they from? My grandmother was from Lithuania and my grandfather was from Malta, and I don't know how the hell they communicated. How did they meet.
Speaker 3:That is a great question. I don't know that I know the answer. I've got to find that out. I'm going to ask my mom.
Speaker 2:Can we back up? I'm a little myopic, but uh, what do they speak in malta and what do they speak?
Speaker 3:oh, let me tell you, they speak maltese and lithuanian, which are two of the hardest languages in the world I didn't even know.
Speaker 2:There were no languages yeah again coming off the olympics here. You know, great, great time for all of us and total world.
Speaker 1:Malta's not that far from the motherland. You know for you, chris.
Speaker 2:Malta is close to Italy, that's why I figured it was Italian.
Speaker 3:That's like four hours by ferry from Sicily, yeah.
Speaker 2:That's why I thought it was. That's why I was waiting to hear. I thought for sure it would be Ticilano. I don't know. That's the only word I can say. Actually, all the other words I can say you can't say Well, I can say because nobody fucking knows what I'm talking about.
Speaker 3:But obviously I just dropped that one, so I might as well say them all All right, but I think I came by the entrepreneurial gene. Honestly, you know, like my grandparents had done this, and so I kind of discovered that I had never really thought about owning my own business, but I'm so glad that I did. I took the lead.
Speaker 2:All right, let's talk about that, because one of the things we talked about with our audience is that Al and I both did the Corporate America gig. In our cases, we were just both making so much money we didn't even know what to do with it all and at the time we couldn't dump it on our boats or anything meth related in the celery, because I don't think meth was around.
Speaker 1:I didn't do celery, I had a boat. You did yeah.
Speaker 2:I had a boat, just not big enough for me to put my cash in it. It was a little boat, so we made the leap, so we left Again. It sounds great and gratifying, but it really was scary and terrifying because we left the security quote-un, unquote that you get from corporate America. I mean fat checks every two weeks, you get 401k, you get matching, you get all this health care stuff, but you were teaching the expense account.
Speaker 1:Do you remember that, Chris? And the expense account.
Speaker 3:You know what At?
Speaker 2:the end. I was not client facing, so I had no expense account.
Speaker 1:Oh my God, I played so expense account. Oh my God, I got tired of eating steak. Can you believe that?
Speaker 2:And here we go, we started our business. So, mary, you, you were teaching, you were teaching eighth graders.
Speaker 3:I was yeah. I taught Spanish.
Speaker 2:And you talk Spanish Wow.
Speaker 3:Yeah, my degree is in Spanish and my undergraduate degree, and then I have a master's in foreign language teaching from Michigan state. Go green.
Speaker 1:Go yeah we need to do that over, go green go white, there we go.
Speaker 3:Oh my god, that was nice, that's awesome yeah, and so I had always taught spanish and um, but for the last 10 years of my teaching career, I taught middle school spanish so eighth graders yeah, I've heard the height of hormones are eighth grade oh yeah, it's got to be the worst year to teach, I think I loved it, though I'll tell you they are a mercurial bunch, those eighth graders, and and that's a good word- yeah, that's in the sat yeah, probably.
Speaker 1:So. You've learned a couple good words these last couple of times I have, I'm ideating as we speak, I'm mercurial ding, ding ding.
Speaker 3:That was my point. That was five points. Thank you oh beautiful.
Speaker 2:All right, so you're teaching, and when did you go? Okay, I've got to do this.
Speaker 3:About three and a half years ago I came home and I told my husband this is going to be my last year, and it was just a few weeks after the school year started. I was a highly invested teacher. I believe in public education. Every day I told my students I was glad to see them and I meant it. I was not bullshitting them. I loved what I did. I was nominated teacher of the year the last three years I was at my school but I realized that there were problems in the American education system that I was not going to be able to solve and that was difficult for me because I'm an advocate by nature.
Speaker 1:So we should bring back spanking as well.
Speaker 3:Absolutely, and the dunce cap. I think that would be a great combination.
Speaker 1:How many times did you wear that, Chris?
Speaker 2:We did not have that. I went to Catholic school. Did you have?
Speaker 1:to stand to the corner with your nose against the wall I had to do.
Speaker 2:Uh, not that one, but I did have to write. I will not shut up 500 times on the chalkboard. That was fourth grade. And then sister mary pauline uh, I had to. I had to stay after school for an hour there. Then I had to clean the uh urinals oh, that's a good one man that one I like that
Speaker 2:that would prevent future, in fact. In fact, I even. Well, this is what got me two days. I said I'll even take the ruler off the knuckles. Oh, that wouldn't help, by the way, me getting out of things never works, and I don't know why I I always felt like I smiled right when I said you just look guilty, and I said I'll take, I'd rather have the ruler off the knuckles. We'll see you tomorrow afternoon.
Speaker 1:You look guilty and you're lippy.
Speaker 2:I am definitely lippy, all right, all right, so your tip, rick Beck does cap. Where are we going with this? I didn't actually mean that kids All right, thank you, anybody who's listening, and you're a former student of Mary Block.
Speaker 1:You will soon be using her mobility devices probably because she spanked you so hard, that's right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're still twitching, all right. So you came home and said that's it, scott, I'm done, you know what? And he went okay, oh my, that's the best idea I've ever heard.
Speaker 3:Oh well, I'd already prepped him for that, like, if you're a teacher, you have this conversation on a regular basis with your spouse. You're like, listen, there's going to be a plan B because I'm not going to be able to do this forever, which is funny and tragic, but I don't want to bring this down. So, yes, that he had been fully prepped, like we'd had this conversation and I had taken care of my loss, my dad in 2017. And I had taken care of him in his last year of life. He had a good long run. He was a World War II vet, lived until he was 91 and lived by himself near Highlands, north Carolina, until he was 90. So he moved. I convinced him to move to Atlanta. He lived in a fabulous assisted living home. I was his youngest child. We were super close, so I took care of him and I experienced all the things that my current customers experience in taking care of aging parents.
Speaker 2:Wow, yeah, so that that obviously it was an effect. But so immediately, what we all do especially when I spend time with our elderly parents is try to figure out how to capitalize on it Is that what we do I don't know. That's what I heard. So how could I make money off you dad?
Speaker 3:I feel like you are twisting my words. No that definitely was not the intention, but no, I mean, I realized. So I'm a very pragmatic person. Scott and I are not like we weren't going to do food, fitness or fashion Not that those things aren't great, but that's not just really who we are.
Speaker 2:Okay, so you just hit, hit it off like you talked to a franchise consultant yeah, we were no, no how did you?
Speaker 2:we didn't you didn't no because I mean you just rattled off. We've had a number of franchise consultants on and she, just she hit the three hot buttons right there food, fitness and fashion. So not that they aren't great no, uh wasn't my thing who's she kidding? No, they suck guys. I mean seriously food, food. You're going down. Do you want to own a subway? Might as well, just go down there and let that thing implode anyway.
Speaker 1:Man, you are just a bundle of joy with these pills, aren't?
Speaker 2:you Right, I tell you what these are my happy pills. You know the?
Speaker 1:true, chris is really coming out.
Speaker 2:I thought I knew the true one. I don't know. All right, let's continue, shall we Okay?
Speaker 1:Do you remember? You have a owie.
Speaker 2:No, I feel great. In fact, I'm bouncing around over there, my legs are bouncing, I'm like we have to have you back, mary. So talk us through the process, because I think that's one of the big things. A lot of times people go, hey, I got an idea, bang, I'm going to make a million bucks, let's go start it now.
Speaker 3:Yeah, okay, look, I'm not 30. Neither is my husband. We are fans of calculated risk, but we're not rash. I think you have to have a certain amount of. You can't be risk averse and decide in the middle of your career you're going to go buy a business and go in a completely different direction. We did not use a franchise broker. We were one and done. We ran across this franchise. Scott was just doing some research online. We talked to them and that was it. We had some. We had very specific criteria, so we wanted a family owned franchise. You know we can't control what happens at some point, maybe they'll sell out to pe, but we didn't want micromanagement and a large corporate franchise order to begin with. So they ticked the box off there and um, and it's, it's been great. I mean, we don't. We have a fair amount of autonomy and and we wanted it to be purposeful existing franchiseisting franchise.
Speaker 2:you bought Existing location. No, I thought a little bit more about that.
Speaker 3:No, we started from scratch. Yeah, we were the first ones in Atlanta. There is one south of the city, but we are the only ones in the metro area.
Speaker 2:Whoa. I'm going to say it out loud. I didn't know that. I thought you guys had four or five here and I thought you guys were the oh wow, no only franchise for mobility plus in north atlanta.
Speaker 3:yeah, we own a fair amount of territory, um, but we only have one store and, to be honest, not that I don't love my employees, but managing people is a tremendous challenge. It's, it's, I thought I I'm, I was a little cocky because I'm like I taught eighth grade I can manage people, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you want to bring your eighth graders back now, don't you Right?
Speaker 1:Her employees are listening.
Speaker 2:No, she loves you guys and you want to listen to this because you want to hear why she did this.
Speaker 1:She really isn't going to spank you.
Speaker 2:But the dunce cap sounds like it might be on the right.
Speaker 3:No, my current employees are amazing, but we did have some challenges finding the right team, and that is what I tell everybody, like when you are worried about starting a business. Yeah, there's plenty to worry about, but what you really need to focus on is how challenging it is to build a quality team, because they're they're the ones that are going to make your business.
Speaker 2:All right. So you, you buy into this franchise. So talk to us a little bit about how did you finance it. How did you do this? Did you guys save up the money, get rid of the rock and roll? How'd you do that?
Speaker 1:And she just tell us what they do. No, not yet, please.
Speaker 2:No, okay, we pray on old people. Hang on, we're getting back to. I mean we help people age in place.
Speaker 1:They need our services. Come on.
Speaker 2:Well, actually you're at that age. We were talking about your parents, but really I was talking about the grab bar for you there, tom Kine.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I'm never going on the roof, ever again. I'm now officially old. That's a good idea. You could put a grab bar on the roof. Jesus Lord, I should have. And oh, don't forget the fact the sun came up while I was on the roof and it was even worse. So, yeah, okay, uh, chris has done a lot of stupid things in his life and I just keep checking boxes that you didn't think I could, but I find them.
Speaker 3:They're hidden boxes, they're kind of like a good friend should.
Speaker 2:Yeah, all right. So, uh, how did you guys uh start the biz finance it? That's what cause it's? Because I think it's interesting for a lot of people.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So we got an SBA loan and we already knew what kind of space we wanted. So we went light industrial. A pure retail space is appealing, I think, because we are a retail business but we do home access. So I've got large wheelchair aluminum modular ramp systems. I've got stair lifts, I've got vertical platform lifts and vehicle lifts. All those things are really large, they take up a lot of space. So you've got to have a big warehouse. So ultimately we went with a light industrial space and we have 3,500 square feet and we use every inch of it yeah, do you do scooters.
Speaker 1:Yeah, do you race the scooters we do.
Speaker 3:Uh, yes, we do, I've got one I love this lady.
Speaker 2:We do yeah, we do and I win so I will let it's strategy, chris and I take you guys on strategy you know what I think we're doing, that we're going to have a Mobility.
Speaker 1:Plus Live remote scooter race so what is Mobility Plus?
Speaker 2:Let's talk about this. Thank you, okay, fine, all right, mary. What do you guys do?
Speaker 3:So Mobility Plus sells rents and repairs, fall prevention products, home access products and medical equipment. So medical equipment, so we do hospital beds and wheelchairs and stair lifts. As I mentioned, we've partnered with someone that does full elevators now as well, so we can offer full residential elevators. We do powered mobility and manual mobility.
Speaker 2:So if I had a scooter AKA hypothetically of course how fast can I soup it up to make it go?
Speaker 1:I so, hypothetically, of course. How fast can I soup it up to make it go? Can he get home from the club before his ice melts is what he wants to know.
Speaker 3:Probably not. Probably not. If it's a class two medical device, it's going to be capped at four miles an hour. We have a governor and we can make it go one mile an hour, which I think you would need because I've only spent a few minutes with you, but I'm pretty sure we'd have to put the governor on your scooter.
Speaker 1:I think you need to put one of those on his scooter. You know what? My golf cart is governor less my friends and there's a reason you have to blow on a tube before you get out.
Speaker 2:No, there's a reason that the that the top is barely hanging out with a JB. Well, the duct tape. My friends, it was my kids, but it was my kids, so all right. So you got into this, and what you're talking about, though, is what you're helping people do, though, with Mobility Plus age in their homes or convalesce in their homes so they don't have to stay in a hospital or an assisted living place.
Speaker 2:So I find that that is fascinating, because I'm finding that more and more that people want to stay in their homes longer.
Speaker 3:That that is fascinating because I'm finding that more and more that people want to stay in their homes longer. Absolutely, you know we do have. We do help people thrive in assisted living as well, but obviously those offerings are more limited. So our customers that live in assisted living communities need power wheelchairs and scooters, rollators and walkers. A rollator is a walker that has four wheels on it. A walker has no wheels, or two wheels and two pecs. So those are the items that we sell to people who live in assisted living, but I would say the majority of our customers are wanting to age in place and we want to help them do that.
Speaker 2:Where are you finding the biggest demand right now? Here in the Atlanta area.
Speaker 3:Like geographically, what part of town or what product?
Speaker 3:product yeah service stair lifts and ramps. For sure, because people, you know, you've been in your home for 30 years, 40 years. You didn't anticipate. I mean all of us logically, like the logical mind, knows that we're going to age and that we're going to need assistance, but when you're 40, 50, you don't. Reality hasn't set in because you're not experiencing it yet. So we have people who've been in their homes, and it's a three-story home and they do not want to leave and so a stair lift is life-changing for them and that's just like the old commercials, the little seat that you'd sit on and it takes you up the stairs, yeah can we soup those up?
Speaker 3:I mean you could try. I don't know, I'm talking ejector lift.
Speaker 2:I'm talking squirrel ejector turbo booster. I I went and did it for a lady and she goes um, can you go downstairs because I want to build a closet for all my clothes. I'm like, okay, she goes, all right, go down there. I'll be down there in just a minute. And she had the stair lift. I mean, I was down there with one of my asses. I swear to god, we were together for like 35 minutes. Man. You're like, in 35 minutes might as well bend like 100 years you know, what you need is a stairlift safety feature a stairlift to go up in a slide on the way down right?
Speaker 2:I know no, but again we make light of this uh big thing that we've done at the trusted toolbox isbox is a lot of aging in place. We've had Janet Angolan and Esther on from agingplacedirectorycom on the radio show.
Speaker 1:Do you know them I?
Speaker 3:don't. You need to know them.
Speaker 1:I think I need to know them.
Speaker 2:You are going to know them because we're going to hook you up.
Speaker 1:I had them on my radio show we're in the drive right there, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh, we got things gonna hook you up.
Speaker 1:that's why we've been waiting to do this well, and, by the way, my in-laws are moving here from the west coast and we need a need a scooter.
Speaker 3:We need to get grammy to the dining hall.
Speaker 1:I got you okay, all right, see, there it is business being done on the trusted toolbox podcast the trusted tool.
Speaker 2:It's called the small business safari thank you everybody, it's the percocet I'm so, I'm so thrilled. Can we soup granny'sies up?
Speaker 3:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:I want to come over there. I think we have to challenge them to a scooter duel, I think so. Yeah, let's do it?
Speaker 3:I don't think so. The fastest the scooters goes, like six miles an hour. I don't have any of those. Oh, I think actually I have one.
Speaker 1:We could play like basketball on the scooter yeah.
Speaker 2:You know that before.
Speaker 3:We'll, yeah, yeah, you know that before. How about there's? We'll do archery on the scooter or joust absolutely so mary is all about safety, thank you. Mobility plus, thank you they've given me these flags, and so instead we can use the flags. Instead of putting on the backs, we can just use them to joust oh my god, we're doing that that's right, gentlemen, you're welcome live remote.
Speaker 2:You know what I think it may be let's get, let's get break dancing out of the olympics and we could put it, it's breaking it's actually not going to be breaking in la. Do you hear that? That is not a sport that's not I apologize for editorializing, but I'm just saying right, kind of bowling, a sport golf sport correct archery, a sport shooting.
Speaker 2:A pistol with one hand, with the other hand in your pocket 100 and the man that dude is, uh, I mean I got hit by my wall in my office. I'm like that's a man right there, bro. I mean you want to be that dude, right? It's like super cool, and I love the backstory. The backstory was, uh, that I here's the alleged one and that was he thought it was a hit and they showed him a bullseye. He goes okay. Then the other one was he's going through a divorce and he needed a release and he had to learn how to shoot a gun. I'm like, hmm, yeah, okay, all right, still I'm in, I've had him on the wall. So, all right, back to mobility. Plus, can we shooting people on scooters or javelin or jousting, jousting.
Speaker 3:Did you? Didn't you ever go to the Renaissance fair?
Speaker 2:I did, jousting In the scooter at six miles an hour. I just, oh my God, okay, it might be the Percocet. I mean Advil, advil, not meth celery. All right back to this, okay. So, you guys, when did you start the biz?
Speaker 3:When Three years ago, no two and a half. We've been open two years. At the end of this month.
Speaker 2:Did you have a business plan?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean it's a requirement for an SBA loan you have to have a business plan.
Speaker 2:Did you hit your business plan in the time that you thought you would?
Speaker 3:We did.
Speaker 1:Hello everybody, Success story brought to you by the Small Business Safari. That face on her was like suck it, chris. She did too.
Speaker 2:In fact, you guys can't see this because I don't have the video going the right way. But she then gave me the hands down. Break that, bro. I was like you can't do that, mary. You've taught eighth graders. You're making me feel bad now.
Speaker 3:That is how I taught eighth graders.
Speaker 2:When you talk to them you've never taught eighth graders.
Speaker 3:No, listen.
Speaker 3:And afraid to talk to them, I think honestly, I still many days I have imposter syndrome because I've completely reinvented myself Right and not that I didn't believe I was capable, I mean. But I think it is so scary to completely rewrite your story and I didn't I mean not just me like the main breadwinner of our family, we did it together. So it is terrifying. So I think I've become more comfortable at celebrating my success. I am so damn proud that we hit our business plan and that we are succeeding. And we haven't yet built a scooter empire. But my husband's been with me for a year. He was in corporate marketing before and he came on with me full-time a year ago and we're making it work, we're paying our bills and we're doing it and it feels so good.
Speaker 1:What are some of the things that are happening that you had no idea to expect?
Speaker 3:Oh my God, let me tell you, okay, number one we hired a full-time retail manager when we first opened, and all I'm going to say is that I learned the hard way that someone's best day like the day that they are on and they're showing you their best self is when they interview with you.
Speaker 1:And nugget everybody.
Speaker 3:Oh my God, I, and you know, I feel like one of my strong points, one of my strengths, is training. Right, I mean, I was a teacher and I was good at what I did.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:I was good at what I did, so I feel like I worked really hard to put together a strong SOP, manual and written processes, as well as verbal instruction, and I realized that some things this individual was doing she was really great with customers and that was a real strong suit of hers but she struggled being detail oriented and keeping things like credit card numbers in the right person's profile, you know, in the system.
Speaker 1:Is that?
Speaker 3:bad. That causes a really bad day.
Speaker 2:I'm just going to say so. There's another gold nugget putting the wrong credit card on the wrong customer.
Speaker 3:Yeah, bad that is. That's a bad thing. B-a-d.
Speaker 2:Yeah B-a-d, yeah b-a-d. There's an acronym there and that says don't fucking do that. I think that's what it stands for right nine weeks it lasted, but oh, nine weeks, nine weeks, and I was like and you should have fired her at week three, correct, yeah?
Speaker 3:but that I think that was the same that was a reality check because also as a teacher, I think you know I'm a nurturer, I'm an empathetic person and I had to just toughen up and just say you know, this is not working and I've got a business to run and money to make and I'm not going to compromise my ability to do that to make this person feel better. It's really hard.
Speaker 2:So I have the uh we use this profile and I have the coaching uh profile and so I have coached long before the employee was dead, way before I finally let them go, and I just kept coaching going. There's no way I can't get you off the mat. I there's no way I can get you up here. I got you, man. I'm going to prop you up weekend at Bernie's. We're going to do this. And you said you did nine weeks. I swear to God.
Speaker 1:that's what I've done. Sorry, it took a second to hit. Let me laugh at that one. Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 2:I appreciate that. So for everybody on the pod uh, so alan just had one of my fancy drinks, uh, that I laced with percocet. I mean advil, my advil, so yeah, so that's hard, right, you have to learn that lesson early. You're like man, I tried so hard and I was looking for the best in you right, and you gave me. You just didn't give it to me. You just wanted to so kill weekend at bern at Bernie's. Thank you All right.
Speaker 3:But I've got a great team now and I think so. We hired about eight months ago. We brought on a part-timer. So after I had to let the retail manager go, I needed. I had PTSD, I had to recover for a few months. I'm like I can also hiring people. That is a part-time job, like when you do it yourself sifting through those resumes on Indeed and ZipRecruiter I swear to it was like 15 hours a week.
Speaker 2:How about this one? So I advertise for a salesperson and I got four Walmart greeters, two home. I mean I could do it, I could do the whole. I would say, oh no, you're not a salesperson yeah, walmart greeter no. Um, home depot uh, cashier no, yeah. Uh, public cashier no. I mean guys, seriously. I said sales in home service sales. You can make up to 120 000 a year and these guys are applying. I'm like yeah, yeah, yeah, so hard, that's rough, yeah but learned.
Speaker 3:So after a few months off, we did it again and found someone great. She was the last resume out of weeks of looking, and I was with girlfriends in Chicago, and I'm just cause, with the platform we were using, you were charged every 72 hours for the resumes in your bucket. Well, if they weren't quality resumes, then you're being charged for junk, right? So I had to really stay on top of it, and the last one I had just emptied and gotten rid of all the junk and I was like, oh my God, forget it, we're not going to find somebody. Last one she's amazing. She can only work part-time, though, so we've had her for about eight months, and so now we're ready to, in addition to her, bring on a full-time retail manager, and this time we are using somewhat a recruiter, someone to find the individual for us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've actually had to switch. I've been at this for 16 years. When I first started, I started on Craigslist. This is back in 2008. I get 150 people resumes coming through for me to find one handyman. And then 2008 hit and it, just it, just everything.
Speaker 2:Well, I was in 2008 and it just started drying up, drying up, drying up. Covid hits I get nobody, so I've actually had to switch to a recruiter. But I've been through a ton of them and spent a lot of money and trying to have people help me and it's hard. I mean, you think you can do it yourself and Mary, you brought this up If there's a 40 hour week which I put that in quotes I would say 10 of those was focused on recruiting and then talking to these clowns I mean great potential employees and human beings and fellow brothers and sisters with mine in this world that we call earth. I'm so into everybody. Um, I'm full of shit, I'm. That's the reason I'm not a teacher. But yeah, so it's hard. Yeah, so you've had to do that. So you get into this thing. You have a franchisee. Yeah, you're a franchisee of a franchisor. Did tell us how they helped you get to where you are. You hit your business plan. I mean kudos right there. We're gonna keep coming back to that. That's huge how many?
Speaker 1:how many locations nationally for them? 64 okay, so it's still pretty small yeah nice look at alan throwing around this.
Speaker 2:I know a little bit about franchising. I like that.
Speaker 1:That's solid yeah, so it's interesting because a lot of franchises you didn't think she knew.
Speaker 2:What, that you were a franchise king yeah.
Speaker 1:I am I like that name. Wow, I'm with royalty.
Speaker 2:You really are. I mean honestly Again failed. I will not do later, all right go no well.
Speaker 1:so a lot of franchisors. They no well. So a lot of franchisors. You know they have a concept and they throw it out there and if we sell a bunch of franchisees then we'll backfill the services that we really need to provide, that we kind of said that we had. Then there are other ones that actually do have a great support system, even though it might be lean, you know. So that the newer, you know the startup franchisees, the first wave, don't get annihilated. So you know, I don't know if you want to talk about your franchisor on the air.
Speaker 3:Oh listen, we've been so happy. There's a lot to be said for a family-owned corporate franchisor. They're highly invested in their franchisees. At no point have we felt the tension that I assume can develop between franchisees and franchisors. I think they really have our best interest at heart. It's a symbiotic relationship. They solicit feedback from their franchisees and so far the experience has been great and really supportive.
Speaker 2:And there you go, Ellen. I mean Mobility Plus should be a sponsor, and can we get the governors off these freaking scooters at $60,000?
Speaker 1:That's all I want to know. I could dig in this a little bit, because the franchisor you know, when you buy a franchise, you got to play inside it's, it's, it's, you got to play inside a defined box.
Speaker 3:Yeah, all right.
Speaker 1:And the defined box includes their marketing program. Your husband happens to be a marketing person. Has there been any conflict there? Like, okay, well, I kind of like maybe I'm going to do this instead of what you told me I needed to do.
Speaker 3:Instead of what you told me I needed to do. There has not been a problem because they don't really control our marketing.
Speaker 2:It's just not used to our back and forth play in studio. But, alan, when you're here it's awesome, but when you do that, that's when it's time you got to come around this way or move the mic over, and Michael's not going to cut it out.
Speaker 1:So we're right back here, and oh, by the way, I'm gonna go green, go white.
Speaker 2:I choked on it. You know what? Let's go back. You don't do it again. Can we do the question again? It's not getting cut out. Let's just do it again. I mean, who we kidding, michael? I mean, it's even more fun when we say it's like smartless and so hey, those guys are so polished and then again so shitty at the same time this is authentic we're authentic, you know, and so are those two, three, whatever, um, it depends on what day they're on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, um, not great, it's all three of them, all right, so back to the question?
Speaker 1:yeah, it was just. You know your husband's in marketing. They've got the defined marketing plan.
Speaker 3:You can't deviate from that because you'll infect the brand negatively well, I think okay, so in our case we do have a lot of autonomy, um they, so they do control our website. Our website is, you know, corporate managed um, but our marketing is not. I mean, obviously we have parameters like you have to use, you know, branding colors and all of that, but we can do pretty much what we want to do.
Speaker 2:Well, let's talk about that, because I think that where Alan's going at least where I'm thinking, is they tell you hey, we love Alpac and Money Mailer. No and uh, and I'm not putting those two down, but of course I am.
Speaker 1:So much for their sponsorship yeah.
Speaker 2:Bye. But so they're not telling you you you've got to go this way, you do that way. No, no, again, a good franchisor is a partner and somebody who wants to see you succeed. So that way they can get their cut. Because they started this idea. They give you guys great access to products. Um, because I've saw that we've talked about this on your website. That's where I think their, their franchise, makes a lot of sense, because they get access to power buying on grab bars and different mobility things and different products that we can't get. And if they can get them, they can power buy them and get a little bit cheaper than us. Actually, I don't even buy most of my grab bars at Depot anymore.
Speaker 1:How's your Spanish? Helping your business? It's excelente.
Speaker 3:How's your?
Speaker 2:Spanish helping your business. It's excelente. I don't know. No, listen, muy bueno.
Speaker 3:I don't have. I'm thrilled when I have the opportunity to use it because often a family probably about five times families come in and you know abuela is with them and she's visiting and normally in every store they go into she is relying on one of the grandkids or her son or daughter to translate right, and she's not fully part of the conversation. But when they come in my store I can speak to them in Spanish and so everyone's included and that makes me feel so good to be able to give that to that family member. I love that, but it's only happened about five times. I've had someone come in and occasionally people call on the phone and yeah, have you actually used that in your marketing though?
Speaker 3:That we speak Spanish. That is a great question. I think that I do. Oh, you know, it's on my Google business profile, oh thank God but yeah, I mean oh, for the love of Pete.
Speaker 1:I mean he just questioned, Wasn't it a great question?
Speaker 2:By the way, we keep score here, mary, like a married couple. I don't know, you and her husband have a great relationship. We know that already. But the two of us, we're in therapy. We're in therapy.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, I sense this.
Speaker 2:Thank you, I know. I know it's deep-seated.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And it's taken a lot. Back to barry. One of us is hey well, thank you again. Couples therapy, couples therapy. We both have to agree to do it it's true, okay, oh my god, we have.
Speaker 1:So what percentage of your customers come from marketing? You know, social media print whatever versus off the street. Now you said you had light industrial, so you probably don't get off the street.
Speaker 3:We don't really. So people, we're a destination. They'll Google hospital bed rentals near me because we rent and we sell. So they'll Google what it is that they need and then come see us we are, I'm glad to say, we are getting a lot of referrals. At this point, two years in, we repeat customers, um, and then they're telling friends and family.
Speaker 2:so that's great all right, hang on. Yeah, you said repeat customers. I mean, yeah, let's think about this oh no, don't go there.
Speaker 1:Come on, man. I mean seriously. I mean it's rich and fertile, but don't go on.
Speaker 2:I don't know. You can't have repeat customers unless you believe in reincarnation. Maybe well, um, I actually have to switch religion soon, just so I could go through the portal that way. Okay, so referrals uh, all right, so that's the biggest part. We talk about this. What percentage of your revenue do you spend on uh advertising? And then, what's been the richest return on uh?
Speaker 3:So well, I mean, I guess the golden rule in marketing is, you know, 10% on marketing, but yeah, I'm a little lower but that's cool. Yeah, not hard and fast, but you know so.
Speaker 1:Are you saying 10%? You get a 10% response to your marketing.
Speaker 3:No, it depends on spent. She said it depends 10% on her revenue. Okay, yeah, on marketing, but we're not, we're not quite there.
Speaker 3:I mean that's if you have like a global kind of omni marketing plan, which we're not quite there yet. So we focus on SEO and and Google we. The first thing we did, the first money we spent I'm so glad we made this decision was to hire an SEO firm and a digital marketing firm. So they've been great for us and that really kind of jumpstarted things at the beginning, made our phone ring Because you know you just got to get people in the door right. When you get people in the door, then it's up to you to make that sale close that sale, find a solution for their problem, but you've got to get them in there. So for us, since we're not in a pure retail space, google is really important and it still brings us the majority of our customers.
Speaker 1:Who are you competing against?
Speaker 3:So we are competing against. So there are not a whole lot of local mobility dealers. There are other dealers that do some of what we do, but we're the only ones in the Atlanta area that do all of what we do. So that gives us an advantage. We compete on value, not price. So like if somebody walks in my door and they've got a stack of notes and they're done all their research online and they think they know exactly what they need, they're not my customer because they don't see me as the expert right. They think that they've got it all figured out and they really. That kind of customer is somebody who's really happy purchasing the item online. So our customer wants somebody who's available. They want somebody that they can text when they have questions and that you know will show up on a Sunday if they can't figure out how to get the hospital bed up or down or whatever. You know, we don't have to do that often, but we're willing to do it and I think that's what makes the difference with us.
Speaker 2:Solid move on what she's doing with the retail marketing and everything like that. 10% that's the rule of thumb, and what I've always talked about was the dollar we spend. You've got to have 10 to one back on that. That's a hard number to pick up and that's what I've done with the trusted toolbox is that if we don't have a 10 to one, then we're not. We're not doing what we need to do. We need to be more efficient in our marketing and that's been hard, and so I'm very proud of how we've done it. We've done a lot of networking, but so is yours. But, but you hit your business plan and on your time, and I was only two years behind mine. So I'm not going to applaud myself or pat myself on the back, I'm just going to say it's still 14 years in the back I have.
Speaker 2:16 years later, I'm an overnight success. All right Back to Mary Joey. All right. So, mary, as you guys grow this and help people and we're starting to come to the end of the podcast some of the things you've learned, some of the things you want to put in place as you grow, and how big do you want to get?
Speaker 3:So big to us doesn't necessarily mean more locations. We want to build our customer base and get more referrals and serve more people, but that doesn't mean that we're going to have more stores necessarily. So we hiring, so building out our team, I think, is probably the first way we're going to scale. So hiring a full-time retail manager we have a full-time tech now, but we'll need another part-time tech within the next 12 months for sure. They're hard to find.
Speaker 1:And the tech does what.
Speaker 3:The repair. So we have a VA contract. We work with the Atlanta VA. We do a lot of service and repairs. We do stairlift installs, wheelchair ramp installs and repairs of complex rehab mobility equipment for the Atlanta VA. So our full-time tech is really busy so we've got enough work for another part-time tech because that individual also is installing stair lifts and, you know, with my husband and doing repairs for our regular customers as well.
Speaker 1:And if you have an issue with your scooter, do you go to you too, do you fix?
Speaker 3:it, oh yeah.
Speaker 1:So that's better than getting online. Yeah, I think so.
Speaker 2:Right, I mean again the mobility plus, and I said it on the whole podcast. Frankly, when I researched her, I thought she was one of four franchises here, so I was missing something in my research. So, oh well, good thing I didn't look anything up. Yeah, you did a great job in not preparing Alan.
Speaker 1:Sometimes I just kind of know, you know when, to just come in blind.
Speaker 2:All right. So, mary, you're talking about this is the second career. You've reinvented yourself. You actually said something. I'm rewriting our story. I think that's going to be the headline of this podcast, guys, and if you, if you didn't learn something, you guys are driving around doing your thing, walking, listen to us. Uh, we've enjoyed having everybody here. We get a lot of great feedback over email.
Speaker 2:And before we let Mary go, I want to talk about the other side of the spectrum. I just had a young person say hey, I follow your podcast. I was like, really, they go. Yeah, because I've always wanted to start my own business and I figure, if I listen to you guys and you guys are entertaining I said, well, one of us is Thank you, but they said appreciate this. One of the things I really picked up is that you bring in a lot of unique perspectives and you talk about not only the easy stuff but the hard stuff that my mom and dad would never have told me. I thought that was really cool, yeah, really cool. Yeah, that meant a lot to me and that was pretty cool, and so I wanted to bring that up at the end and so we're going to finish with Mary. As a teacher, I've been saving that one up. So, mary, as a teacher, what would?
Speaker 3:you tell people, young or old, what should they do to get ready to start their own business. Well, I think you have to get really comfortable with your plan B and your plan C may not work and you you have to determine do you have enough resolve for things to go to shit? And can you, you know, dig deep and figure it out anyway, like are you going to be able to withstand that? Because you cannot possibly foresee all the complications Like you think you can, you think you've got it all figured out and you've talked to all the people and you've done all the research. I am here to tell you that you have not. And one day the sky is going to be falling and and are you strong enough? And you have to have that conversation with yourself and get your head right I can't sum up any better than that one.
Speaker 2:We gotta go. Yeah, mic drop, we're out of here. Getting that pain cave. Get out of that pain cave. Keep going up that mountain. Let's get to success. Let's get it all done. We're gonna scoot her out of here. We're jousting soon, my friend cheers. Thank you, we're out of here.
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