Carl J. Cox 11:03

Wow. I think stress. Almost keyword almost almost made it fun. That’s fascinating. A three to one savings. Blaber right. So and then and then faster, more continuous, as opposed to a batch method, which is more traditional, right? And that, so who are your customers, and so the customers construction companies or who your

Mike Carmody 11:27

customers are really smaller contractors that are doing jobs, we’re not trying to replace the big concrete trucks. So if you’re pouring a foundation for a house, you don’t want to do it one bag of quikrete at a time, you’re not doing that. But if you’re doing a back patio, you’re doing a section of a sidewalk, we even have some plumbers, if they’re having to do something in the basement of a house, they have to tear out concrete, and then they got to pour it back. I mean, it’s an ideal situation for that. For people that are pouring pads, like for air conditioning units, it’s ideal for that. So really, it’s ideal for anyone that’s using bag quikrete or shotcrete or something like that. If you’re using a bag, concrete product, then this is really, really for you to it. So it so it is for the small contractors, then it’s also for the do it yourselfers to if they’re doing a weekend project, and it’s just back breaking work if you’re trying to pour concrete suit, so now you can go rent this, use it for the day, and then it’s just gonna make your job that much easier. So we think it’s really this is our two target markets, both the do it yourselfers on the weekend, and then the small contractors.

Carl J. Cox 12:37

And so how is this being sold today? What’s the kind of delivery method so to speak, did get getting to the to the customer?

Mike Carmody 12:44

Yeah, yeah. So we started out of course, with online, RCA, of course, was most people with online sales, because because you don’t have any distributors. So you got to start somewhere. So we have it on our website, you can order it. But we never intended to be there very long, because this is a it’s about 150 pounds. And so it’s not something that’s easy just to ship out. So we thought it made a lot more sense to be at a distribution center. As soon now we just started marketing it through geany, which is a sister company of Northern tools. So they have a wide range of dealers that they sell to Home Depot’s going to come online in the next couple of weeks, not in the retail stores. But in the Home Depot online and in their, quote center markets. We’re excited about that. And then we got some others that we’re working on that we think are going to come a little bit later. So we’re definitely getting the word out there. And you need these partners to be able to spread the word on a product like this.

Carl J. Cox 13:38

Yeah. Wow. That’s super exciting. That’s that’s a really exciting path that you’re heading towards. And it’s great to hear how once again, the patience, right, you know, because I’m assuming a lot of people would have potentially quit, right, you know, you get to certain parts, and they’re like, I’m not going to do it. But now here you are. And you’re getting into one of the big box stores, through you know, once again through distribution differently, but what a what a what an opportunity you have.

Mike Carmody 14:03

Yep, yeah. And I’ll do another shout out to Jon Foster. I know we’re not supposed to maybe do that the whole podcast. But Jon has been a lifesaver for me in this business, because I can talk to him openly and honestly and say, you know, Jon, is this just the way it is in this type of business? Because I was from that online spreadsheet type business, and I just didn’t have to deal with stuff like this. So you know, John, does it normally take three months to get this done? And he said, you know, yet so. So that was very comforting to me to know that. Okay, this is just part of that business cycle and you just can’t rush it. You got to wait through that process. So that was good to have somebody that had some expertise in the manufacturing world.

Carl J. Cox 14:46

So I was I’m curious about Red Dog Mobile Shelters. Do you mind sharing a little bit about that business that you have?

Mike Carmody 14:53

Yeah, the Red Dog Mobile Shelters was actually an invention of a friend of mine in the same one that co invented A MudMixer. So it’s interesting over my business career, I’ve been self employed over 20 years. And I’ve never had an idea myself, I am just not an original idea person, what I like to do is take somebody’s idea and then turn it into a business. So I can come up with the strategic direction and actually get you from A to B. But in terms of coming up with that off the wall original idea that that’s just not me to this guy was approached by one of the large world companies and said, Hey, can you design a tornado shelter for us that we can move from worksite to worksite, because they only stay on a path for 30 or 60 days. So we need it to withstand an f5 tornado, but we don’t want it anchored to the ground. So that that was a challenge. Well, Oscar, my friend, his answer is always Yes, I can do that. And then later, he’ll figure out how he’s going to do it. And a brilliant guy, super nice guy. So he came up with a design. So he created an aerodynamically anchored tornado shelter. So he just super, super neat idea. So it’s really analogous to the curved wing on a Boeing airplane. So when the wind blows over that curved surface, it actually lifts the airplane off the ground. So it creates that area of low pressure. Well, what Oscar did is he said, Well, I’m going to create a tornado shelter that has a curved surface on the top, and then I’m going to put a hole at the top of it with a column that goes through the shelter. And then there’s about a six inch sub floor that’s underneath it. So when the air blows over it, it actually sucks out the air from the sub floor. So then it’s just like a giant suction cup holding itself to the ground. Wow, do the harder the wind blows in a tornado, the more it holds itself to the ground. So it was a just a brilliant design that nobody had come up with. So then we’re able to have these tornado shelters that are good for 32 workers at a time. And then they can just move it from site to site. And they don’t have to like put a concrete pad or they don’t have to put any anchors or anything to the ground. So it’s a super mobile tornado shelter, but it does with standard tornado. So it was it was a good design. So we rented out to those in the primary on the oil and gas sector, but also to construction site. Anybody that needs a tornado shelter on a temporary basis. So that that’s really what our shelters designed for.

Carl J. Cox 17:22

And how many people does it hold was a designed to hold? Yeah, it

Mike Carmody 17:25

holds 32? Yeah, yeah. So there’s it’s five square feet per person, which is what’s required on commercial tornado shelters. So it’s 160 square feet.

Carl J. Cox 17:36

Wow. Okay. Okay, so 160. So what’s the what’s the general dimensions of it? It’s

Mike Carmody 17:40

eight feet by 20 feet. So it actually looks like a giant mailbox. So that’s. And of course, it’s painted red. And the name actually came from Oscar, he had a Red Dog. And so he called it Red Dog Mobile Shelters. And actually, our logo that we have is a picture of his Red Dog Snickers that that’s what was there.

Carl J. Cox 18:04

That’s awesome. I prior to that, I had asked where that name had come from Red Dog. I was super curious. Because my I told you my mom had worked in a mining camp. She was one of two women of 500 people that was working at this mining camp and pretty high part of Alaska. Very, very remote area. And But no, it’s named after the dog. So

very cool. So okay, you have you have these two businesses. You’ve been instructor it sounds like for multiple different areas. Tell me a little bit about being an instructor, sovereign grace running what what is that about? How do you get into that? Yeah, so

Mike Carmody 18:47

we started sovereign Greece, running about 14 years ago. And we had some friends that had moved up from Atlanta, and they said that our kids run a homeschool running team down in Georgia. And so why don’t we start one in Nashville, Tennessee. So I said, Okay, well, let’s start one at first, we thought it would just be a few families. But we ended up with some more interest that we had. So we had about 25 to 30 kids on the team the first year, and then it’s just steadily grown since then. So it is a homeschool running team for both middle school and high school. And we have over 100 kids on the team this year. So it is it is just an army of kids we practice from 630 to eight in the morning. And I think that is no small feat that you get teenagers to show up at 630 in the morning, three days a week. But they do it because they love hanging out with their teammates. And they work hard at practice. I mean, cross country practices are just part. There’s there’s no other word for it, but they really do enjoy pushing each other and I find the coaching that I do at practice is not terribly different than the coaching I do when I’m running my businesses. You’re still trying to motivate people You’re trying to set a clear direction for them. You’re trying to make it where they can achieve their goals. It’s it’s amazing how many analogies I can use from my running coaching to my coaching actuaries, as we coach actuaries to help them pass the exam. So we have quite a few people that I managed them up there. So just working with them and trying to motivate them just like I do. The runners on the team. So it’s just neat that how those experiences play into each other.

Carl J. Cox 20:31

So get give an example of a strategy, if you may, you know that that is would be like a consistent sprat strategy. Obviously, it’s specific running, that that you do to help keep to work at for lack of a better term.

Mike Carmody 20:47

Yeah, I would say in running in particularly, you mentioned, you know, you’re training for a marathon, a marathon is not a short training process. As you can train anywhere from, you know, three to six months, typically, you’re going to train for a marathon. Well, you have to follow a plan, and you have to stay disciplined, if you’re going to do it. So when I’m coaching the kids on the team, we start practice at the end of July, I tell them, we’re not trying to set your five kpr in July or August, that that’s not the goal, we’re laying the foundation so that as we get later into the season, we’re going to peak you at the right time. So you have to patiently follow that process to get to the desired end goal that you have. Well, the exact same thing is true in business, you can’t start a business and say, Okay, I just tomorrow, I want to have that success. You know, it’s not, it’s not gonna come tomorrow. But you’ve got to go through the steps in that process to be able to get to a likely point of success at the end. So it’s looking at it for the long haul. So that’s why I think training for distance running and running a business or just just kind of go hand in hand like that. And if, if you do try to rush it, so in running, if you try and rush it, you’re going to get shin splints.

Carl J. Cox 22:08

As you again john Foster, you’re gonna be ringing during this says gets released. Yeah, you can’t just run 13 miles and think you’re gonna run it every single day, buddy. What you did back then. Yeah, no, it’s great because I think I want to getting shared with you and forgive me, my own person, but there’s very very it’s so funny. The synergies and timing of this particular podcast recording. I am training is another marathon March. So I come off of a in September, I had my appendix burst. And but it was in Centralia. So I was halfway to Portland, Seattle, not my home. And it had burst, I was in the hospital for a week, it was pretty nasty, and took me three months to fully recover. And I had failed the previous two years to run a marathon. And so the third time, like Okay, I’m gonna get this done. And so I pulled into how Higdon marathon training, which is pretty well known in marathon circles. And in the funny part was Mike is like, Well, hey, I can do novice one. So I of course, I failed to read the book, I went straight to the back went to the appendix, like, Oh, well, first day is Tuesday, I just have to run three months. And so as I just literally watched my first video that I sent john, and this, and I’d run, I would tend to run three miles, why I got stopped at a stop sign about 2.6 miles into it. And all of a sudden, everything fell apart. It was like my legs were spaghetti, you know, my knee was hurting, I barely actually was able to finish the three months. And it took me like three to four weeks to finally get into the novice one. And it was wasn’t until after I’d read they said no, no, no, you typically have to be running for three to six months to get to novice one. Oops. You know, so yeah, it’s great. And when is the these funny things of you know, you can’t get to these places overnight. Right? You know, you gotta you gotta you got to build up over time, you know, your, your endurance, your strength. And, and I appreciate because the same thing for business, you know, I probably like you, you know, you see or read or even Yeah, that one person says, oh, you’re an overnight success. It’s like you didn’t see the blood, sweat and tears I’ve done in the past decade, you know, helping to build this business.

Mike Carmody 24:26

That is that is absolutely true that people, people don’t see your business until it is successful. And so then they just think it was always that way. But But you’re right. There’s a lot that goes into it well before anybody’s gonna know about it.

Carl J. Cox 24:40

Yep. So let’s talk a little bit more on the personal side for you. So once again, my experience has been when people have things going on, you have multiple businesses you’re running, you’ve been successfully been able to be self employed for over 20 years. Congratulations to you that I think that should be a encouragement to those who are thinking if you aren’t already out there if you’re thinking about going in and doing things on your own. But for you, on your personal side, what do you do to keep that energy to be managing so many different things and to have the poise to create these businesses? So tell me to tell the audience a little bit about your, if you may, a brief personal life, how do you keep yourself focused? So you can do a good good job there? Yeah,

Mike Carmody 25:24

yeah, I’d say first, it’s my my faith in God that that keeps me focused, keeps me grounded on what’s most important. Also, I’ve got a great wife, Bonnie and I are going to be married 31 years this year. And she’s been a great support. through all of this through all of the crazy ventures that I’ve been on, which all don’t succeed, some, some fail, some succeed. But I would see one thing I decided maybe the last 10 or 15 years is that I’m not as concerned to what particular business I’m in. I’m way more concerned who I’m doing it with. And so, so that’s why I’m in a variety of businesses, from teaching actuaries to teaching CFA candidates to tort mobile tornado shelters, to running codes to a concrete mixer. All of these are very businesses, but what they all have in common is I’ve got a very qualified group of people that I’m working with. So I really only work with friends and family. And so even if I start out working with someone that’s not a friend, they’re going to become a friend. So just like Jon Foster, he and I would say now, our friends first, and then we’re business partners after that. And so that’s super important as you go through life, that you’re not just chasing money or something like that, you’re, you’re doing something because you want it to be good for other people, and you want to enjoy the journey that you have along the way. So no, don’t just look at the destination that you’re trying to get there and enjoy what you’re going through along the way. So I definitely would encourage people to really think carefully who you want to be in business with what type of customers you want to work with. Because that can make all the difference in your career.

Carl J. Cox 27:12

I appreciate you sharing a bit about faith and secondly your marriage congratulations so that getting that it’s it’s no easy task to do it the right way. You know, you need to get through meaning it’s it’s it’s the right thing, right when we could pull it off and get through the the trials and tribulations right of marriage and to have that successfully be of that state. But you’re talking about something that’s really important that first who then what, you know, if you find the right people to partner with me, you start with the beginning of the you know, you’re generally not the innovator, so to speak, right? But you’ve partnered with people who have created good ideas, and you can help them get it to market, you can help them create value in the marketplace, right? Because an idea left on a vine is just the dead fruit, you know, but if you can actually clip it and, you know, have it ripen to be something and keep on planning it year after year is when the real value ends up happening. So no, I appreciate you sharing that on a personal level. So Mike, one of the things I love to ask people is what what’s a book that you recommend for our audience that you’d suggest or recommend that they should be reading? Yep, yeah, but

Mike Carmody 28:21

I’ll give you a couple recommendations. One, I can actually see right behind you good degrades, I think that’s a great message behind that, that, you know, you really got to focus on something if you want to make it great and not just good. And a lot of times in business, that means saying no to good things so that you can get to something great. So you do have to have that discipline in business. And another one I really like it’s a really short book. It’s called just do something by Kevin DeYoung. It’s a book that I’ve used actually in teaching some of the kids that coach because it’s probably primarily written to older teens or young adults. But it was really getting at the idea that sometimes people just sit around and don’t make a decision, because they’re waiting for this epiphany to come to them that says, Okay, this is exactly what you’re supposed to do. And so what it’s telling you is, hey, you already know in general, what you’re supposed to be doing. So just go do something. So don’t don’t just sit around and think about what you might do. So I thought that was a good book, because I think that is a little bit in our culture, to talk a lot about things but not actually start and do something. So a lot of people will talk to me about, hey, I want to I want to start my own business. Well, they’re just keep talking about it. You got to make that first step and do it. And so I would just encourage people to take that first step

Carl J. Cox 29:45

of it. I didn’t know if you notice this book behind me start by john a cough. Oh, yeah. You know, that’s a similar type book is we are so fearful of trying something and moving forward. And Matter of fact is in one of my stages, is a silly stage of strategic planning execution. But of the research we did only 20% of organizations actually start their strategic initiatives on time. Wow. You know, so they literally fail before we even start, by definition, right? Because the fear are not doing that we’re not focusing the right thing not know, assigning the right people not being clear at your joy to accomplish. And, yeah, it’s, it’s not easy once again, to do what you’ve done. And and we mentioned that encouragement we should have for people, it can be done, but it’s not easy. You gotta, you gotta have the patience. And, you know, like myself, I, you know, I’ve moonlighted multiple times throughout my career to get another business going. So I’m doing my day job and working another night job because you got to pay the bills in between, right? And so people go well, that they’re just lucky. It’s like, it wasn’t luck. Put in that time overnight, you know, and take the risk, right? Where your spouse is like, yeah, I’m gonna leave my good paying job and this and get an extra irregular paycheck to try something in a risk. So So once again, congratulations for you. And I appreciate the recommendations for the books that you had there. How can people where would be great place to find out more about either one of the businesses or about you?

Mike Carmody 31:17

Yeah, definitely, you could find me on LinkedIn, just Mike Carmody on LinkedIn. So then you can see the different businesses that I’m in for the concrete mixer business we talked about is just mudmixer.com. So if you’re interested in that, they have some cool videos on there. And also the Red Dog Mobile Shelters if you’re just interested to how an adu shelter is aerodynamic. So that that was that was pretty cool. And I know this is a much smaller segment of the population. But if you want to take an actuarial exam, or you want to take the CFA charterholders exam, then you can either go to Coaching Actuaries or Salt Solutions. We think we’ve got some good test prep material for you there

Carl J. Cox 31:56

that beg you thank you for sharing all you do. I think it’s incredible that you’re involved in so many distinct, unique businesses, a really incredible story of an entrepreneur and being able to do that successfully. So Mike, this has been really special to be able to listen to you and, and so thank you for being on the show today, Mike.

Mike Carmody 32:17

Thanks for having me. Really enjoyed it, Carl.

Carl J. Cox 32:19

You bet. And to everyone else. We’re wishing you the very best at measuring your success.

Outro 32:26

Thanks for listening to the Measure Success Podcast. We’ll see you again next time to learn from the best. Remember to subscribe now to get future episodes.