Ep24 Gary D Cook—The Accidental Landlord: How One Mechanic Built 100+ Units by Never Hearing "No"

Joe Blackburn  0:00  
The opportunity in front of you, Gary, just on the flooring alone, is exponential. So if I'm thinking in square feet, a lot of times we get caught up with cover in this room. That's that's our normal tendency. I got to get this room done. I got to get this apartment done. People see the world this big. I try to get them to see it this big.

Jason Croft  0:16  
Welcome to the lion's edge, where top performers sharpen their teeth. Hosted by Joe Blackburn, founder of The Lion who is relentlessly dedicated to helping business owners lead multi million dollar teams and me. Jason Croft, I transform unseen entrepreneurs into industry leaders by developing their market gravity. Each week we reveal proven strategies and raw insights to help you maximize your business, multiply your wealth and make your family indestructible. Now let's create your edge. Well, I like that you're the number one guest Carrie that should just feel like the honor right now, the inaugural baby. I want to start this off with Joe telling me about Gary before we get into the nitty gritty and all the business stuff you do. I want to tee that up.

Joe Blackburn  1:18  
So here's what I'll say about Gary, although he thinks he's my antithesis, he's actually my best client and best partner in what we're doing. Because, first of all, he's fearless. So no matter what the obstacle is, and there's a lot of them, he doesn't run from them. So that, and when we're looking like when I'm looking in lying, I'm always looking for hunger like I know it's trite, because it's a lion that eats, but we're looking for people, and to put people together that are hungry and aren't afraid to take chances when they see something they want. You know, we can do all the math all day long. I mean, numbers are numbers. It's more about I'm willing to take a chance to get what I want for my family, for my friends, for my clients, then sit back, play it safe. And I got introduced to Gary from probably the Lion of all lines, Sam Thomas, who just doesn't have a fear mechanism in his brain. He just doesn't exist. It's like, well, why can't we do this? You know that, and Gary's got a lot of that. He's had a tremendous amount of experience starting a business from nothing, you know, coming out of different trades. But start starting a business, selling a business, and then growing and not feeling like this is all I can do. So you know, of all the people that are in our inner circle, he's always looking for opportunity. So whether it's in the multifamily space or acquisition of a new business, it's like, what can I do next? And how can I marry those things together so that I'm not chasing a bunch of shiny objects? I want them all to work in tandem. It's like, online, you hear building a vertical. So that's the business side. The personal side is, he's the most fun person we have. He's the Grand Poobah. So even in like, we went to Charleston, I think I ran the meeting for, what, 30 minutes, Gary, and then you took over and helped facilitate it. And it's always, you know, in good spirit, which I have a rule, if it ain't fun, I don't do it. It doesn't mean everything is, you know, roses. It just means if we're not enjoying this, I'm not doing it. So he's made the inner circle more enjoyable for everybody. And we had new faces in Orange Beach. And they're all like, Man, I love Gary. And I'm like, have you met him? But they all, he's got the knack for talking number one, but also finding out about people, what's important to them, making them feel great, making sure it's the best experience you can have. Hell. And we're in Missouri, he hosted the after party. You would have thought the President was coming to town. You know, I do an after party. I throw them in the nine person rig, and don't even have air conditioning. You're welcome, Gary. We have a little air conditioning snafu, but it he rolls out the red carpet. His wife, Cassie, is amazing. She's a the most tolerant human we've ever met. Let's start there, like her level of toleration, because Gary, and I'll say this with love, is a character. He's one of my favorite humans, and we Lauren and I talk about, now he complains once, while Warren and I talk about a lot, like, that's a big part of what we do together, is having those kind of people that have a great spirit. They really want to get stuff done, but they also don't take themselves so seriously that they're annoying. Like, I don't like that person. Sometimes call them an asshole, so that's what I would say about Gary. And we actually have a couple rules we build around Gary in the inner circle. Sometimes we have a WTF, what the fuck Gary? Because sometimes he does say some things, but it's always entertaining. It brings us back, brings a ton of energy. You know? Know, I think it's one of the best things that's happened to the inner circle, is to have him and people like him that aren't in the same place doing the same thing. But whatever the magic is, it just makes it stronger. What do you think about

Jason Croft  5:17  
now that Joe, thank you. You're welcome, brother. Yeah. Yeah. So Gary with that context, and that's exactly what I want like, give people this idea of who we're actually talking to as we go into the what you do out in this world. And I definitely want to dig into the all the different aspects coming together. So it's, it's not a shiny object, and yet it's something that compounds. And hey, let's do the next one. That's the next one, but give us that overview right now. What? What are the businesses that that you're doing right now?

Gary D Cook  5:54  
Right now? I'm multifamily real estate investor. We just bought a carpet store, flooring store back last June, and we're incorporating flooring, paint and cabinets, because that's the three biggest expenses of my multifamily is flooring, paint and cabinets. And so why not own the store? Phase two the paint is coming within a couple months. Phase three will be cabinets. Right now, we've have a heck of a flooring line laid out, and it's accenting my multi family, and I'm helping other landlords and developers and residential people too. So right now, that's the only I'm underwriting a business right now that, uh, signed NDA on and can't really talk about, but I hope it's coming to fruition. It's going to be a great business if I can get a hold of this one. But, it's like Joe says, I'm just I'm not scared to leap. I come from a small town of 600 people, and growing up, you had to have an imagination and you had to have sense of humor, and if you didn't have them, two things. It was a very miserable life.

Jason Croft  6:54  
Talk about the realistic, talk about what got you there. What's the been that trajectory coming up? It was

Gary D Cook  7:01  
by accident, really. I had a I opened a four bay mechanics shop in 2002 and it had a mini storage beside it, 64 bay Mini Storage. And so I told the owner. I said, Look, if you ever get ready to sell this holler Adam, it's convenient. It's right here beside the auto repair shop. And I guess it was 10 years later, he approached me and said he was ready to sell, but there's a catch. He wanted all out, so he had three houses and one trailer all on the same block in a small town not far from him. And he said, it's a package deal. It goes with it, or I don't do the deal. So me and my wife went to Mexican restaurant and discuss our future, you know, and long story, long we I said, You know what, I don't want to be a landlord. I dabbled with it a little bit and turned nasty. So I said, we'll just buy the houses to get to many stores and sell it in two or three years. And, you know, just break even, or whatever we got to do. I ended up paying the houses off in three years. Paid the Mini Storage off in five years. The next year, I bid on, what was that? The first one was 12 apartments, and got it. The bank approved it, everything. I was like, check this out. You know, the next year, I bought 16 apart that was

Jason Croft  8:19  
supposed to do. Like, are you sure, baby?

Gary D Cook  8:21  
Yeah, the original houses had little ladies in them. They were stabilized. Wasn't big rent income, but it made a cash flow to made a profit. Didn't have any problem with them. I just go in and flip them. And I had, I had basic carpentry knowledge and stuff like that, so I did all the work myself, and it just worked. And then, like I said, the next year, I bought 16, the next year, I bought 12, then I bought 18, then I bought 36 then, I mean, I just the bank never said no, so I kept going. My deal was I was young enough at the time. I started rentals in 2012 so I was young enough at the time that if I did fall on my butt, I still got to mechanic shop, and that was my gusher at the time, rentals. I just invested every bit of it right back into rentals. I didn't take a dime out of until I closed the shop and retired in 2018 and that's when I started living off rentals. But they just never told me no. So I just kept going and which I paid extra on the notes, I built equity. I had a great relationship. I actually worked on the bank, execs, cars, you know, at motto pair shop. So we had a good, it's a good regional, local bank relationship. That's the key to my success.

Jason Croft  9:33  
I think that's probably my favorite line I've heard. Is they just kept saying, yeah. So I just kept going, yeah, it never said, No,

Gary D Cook  9:43  
I love it. And with the auto repair shop, I had, you know, public service. So I had new customers and people every day. With the rentals, at least, I know who my customer base is, you know, I know their habits, their tricks, their you know, their attributes, stuff like that. So I dealt with the same people every day, and I'm. Really good. I'm good at relationships, so every one of my tenants know me on a first name basis. They can, if they see me out and about, they'll hollering. My problem is we'll talk 3040, minutes, you know, when I'm trying to get work done, but everyone knows me, and that's good and bad to an extent. I guess, if you're trying to scale and really get big, big, big, that's kind of bad because, you know, I'm so personable and personal with my tenants that it's hard for me to property manage out and stuff like that. I don't want to lose that personal touch. But in the same sense, to Joe's favorite word, scale, if you want to scale or grow, you have to kind of let loose some of the reins and not just be the head honcho all the time. And that's one thing I'm learning with the lion growing up. How we did, you know, we was on welfare to I was probably, I don't know, second, third grade or something like that. And we went instantly from poverty to middle class. My mom got on to post office, and I just watched her work six jobs before that, you know, to keep us off welfare. We was on welfare probably about two years or so, and it was a shame back in the 70s, you know, and she didn't want the government raising it, so she busted her butt five, six jobs I remember at one time, and that's just kind of where I got my work ethic, that and being raised by my grandparents a lot, because mom did work so much, you know, my grandpa built houses and stuff like that. He was just a great man. I mean, I'll never find a man with more integrity than my grandpa. And I know a lot of folks say that. That's kind of cliche, but it's true.

Jason Croft  11:29  
You know, yeah, that's fantastic. So how are you tackling that aspect of things? Because that's a lot of properties for anybody, you have to start letting go of that a little bit

Gary D Cook  11:43  
you do. And I'm getting a lot better of contracting stuff out mostly now the jobs I don't want to do and I don't mind working. I mean, I've got to work, or I'll just sit and watch your podcast all day, you know?

Speaker 1  11:58  
And that's all you do. But it is why I am

Gary D Cook  12:00  
moving slowly toward integrating, you know, other people and and leveraging laborers and stuff like that in the business, because my bandwidth is getting getting a little tight.

Jason Croft  12:10  
But yeah, and then that lets you expand out even more that that attention, the things you are fantastic with, and you can go meet more people and be more personable on at the deal level, rather than necessarily doing all the all the work level. How is that, that flooring company now integrating with all of this stuff? I think, I mean, it makes sense logically, but how is that financial and actual infrastructure going in? So it's not too much of a departure to run the thing too, but it's working together.

Gary D Cook  12:43  
Well, we secured a really good manager for, like, a better word, we kind of poached him from a 30 year manager position at a company. He's been, some people call that recruiting, by the way, recruiting, we recruited him, and he's been so great. Everybody loves him. He's got a great personality. I couldn't ask for a better manager right now, and he and he knew nothing about flooring when we got him, which we did, and I told him we'd grow together, you know, that's what we'll do. So the good thing about the lions is, with this acquisition of this new business, and even the one I'm under right now, being from Marston, the small town in Southeast Missouri, we didn't have a lot of conversations about money or business or how to do stuff, and that's where the lines really come in. Helpful to me. Joe kind of sees things around the corner. You know, I got really far for doing things by myself, but then I plateaued, and then I started regressing. It's kind of like your thermostat, you know, all the gurus talk about I'd get make a real good living one one year, and I kind of self sabotage, and I'd go back to my comfort level and the lines. Has been really good about letting me there's no ceiling. I mean, the ceiling meant to be pushed up. You don't have to stop where your ceilings at. So Joe's been really good in the whole group. The whole group is so diverse. I mean, we've got from real estate people to insurance to wealth management to manufacturing. I mean, there, it's so diverse of a group, and they know way more about multifamily than you think they would not being in the business. It's just, you know, business is business, and sometimes you're so close to it, you can't really see and that's where this group comes in really, really handy. For me, the only conversations we had about money growing up was we didn't have enough. You know, it wasn't enough at the end of the week, much less the month. And so Joe's been really good at integrating my mind and getting the mindset right that, you know, you set your 10 year limit, your 10 year goals and stuff, and he looks at they say, Nah, we'll do it in five. So he really compresses your time and makes you and it's all a belief thing, this whole game of success, it's all in your head. It's all a belief game. And Joe's really good at bringing out the beliefs and people and show them that they can do it. So I've not regretted a minute in the lion. I mean, I was actually in an. Other mentorship when I came on, and I carried them both for about a year, and I finally let the other one go, because I was getting more value out of the lion. So So Joe, how are you?

Jason Croft  15:11  
How do you help orchestrate that? And because you do see around those corners so much what was coming up with, as you've seen, Gary progress through this stuff that hey, look out for this or that structure, and even now, where are you guiding him to to make the most out of the flooring, carpet company, along with the multifamily and the next phase,

Joe Blackburn  15:36  
the first thing that we had to really look at was time utilization. You know, how are you actually using your week, your time, your hour? I mean, hell Gary texted me at 450 every morning, like we're accountability partners on Get your ass out of bed before sun gets up and let's get going so, and I do that with some people, but not at 450 so first of all, getting an early start, not getting frustrated, meaning things are going to happen. You know, when, when Gary bought his flooring store. You know, all of us see a PNL, buy a business, and then think it's going to run. And he calls it the success tax. That's his terminology. I think he came to grips really quick with I got to pay the price here for a little while, and I may not have anticipated that as much. So just the consistency of like, we got to get this thing going flowing. I mean, how Gary, you hit your quarterly goal at the beginning of March or mid March in the store? You guys are already above goal. So what, what did we talk about? Next quarter's got to be bigger. And it's true of all of us. When I'm in it, I It's hard for me to have peripheral vision on what's coming next. So how do you think bigger anticipate bigger problems, look for bigger opportunities. You know, when you're when you're in flooring, you're thinking in square feet like Gary can tell you to the penny what a square foot costs and what the margin is? Well, if I'm thinking in square feet, how many can I do? You know where there is no limit there? How many Gary how many developers, house flippers, contractors, you name them, or just in the Boot Hill alone? So if I'm thinking in square feet, I want to cover all those. And a lot of times we get caught up with cover in this room. That's that's our normal tendency. I got to get this room done. I got to get this apartment done. I try to help people, you know, I say it in our corny video, or whatever, people see the world this big. I try to get them to see it this big. The opportunity in front of you, Gary and we talked about this lot, just on the flooring alone is exponential, because you're not relegated just to a geography. You're getting pricing better from distributors faster than most people would at your stage of the game. So that gives you the opportunity to get bigger faster. I get better pricing and have more leverage across, you know, whether it's from Georgia or Texas. You know, Missouri is kind of, I mean, there's an arch in Missouri. You guys heard of this? What is it? It's a gateway. It's got a, you know, it's got all the necessary things to to move material. So just, really, just, can I see bigger? And then what am I not seeing? You know, we talked about Greg for a minute. Greg sold furniture or a managed furniture store for 30 years. He has a learning curve. So does he know what you know? Does he know what he needs to do? Does he know what to anticipate? Is he the one having tough conversations with the customers on things he's not 100% certain on kind of trial by fire in that regard? So if I look at it, it's okay. We got one store here. We got competitor down the street, kind of a competitor in the luxury flooring and cabineting. If I'm right on that one, well, can I get this other one? I mean, you know, they have a customer base, or can I help them exit the business? She is 81 years old, so if she sees this, I sorry, Gary, but you know, where is the opportunity lying to get bigger faster? That's what I try to hone in on. And again, it's not like I don't know, it's that I'm focused here. So my job is to then see, well, where can we go with it, and how fast can we get there?

Jason Croft  19:16  
Yeah, and Gary, that brings up a great point too, because we're talking about something that essentially is a commodity, right? Like that is where you need to get those that better pricing, and then the guy down the street and offer the better pricing and all of that. How do you compete on that right now with where you are, and how do you get above that and out of that conversation even, well,

Gary D Cook  19:45  
it all goes back to my local bank. When we structured this deal, we, you know, the holding company bought the real estate, and with the business portion, they actually did us a floor plan on the inventory. So we had this big draw to, you know, get out of for the. Inventory, and we started talking to vendors and distributors and meals, and they was excited, because nobody wanted to do it at the size we was doing it. We actually right off the bat, within the first month, we started building a 3000 square foot warehouse behind the big store. So because we knew we was going big or going home, and so we were filling that up really quick. Our plan is to have 250,000 square foot of flooring at all times in stock. That way the contractors don't have to wait two weeks to get it in from the big box stores. That was my biggest beef, is having to wait to get inventory, and when you need it, you need it. So we're cutting right through that and having the inventory in stock with the great process, because we're buying truckloads of containers at a time, and we've got to quit thinking of it as a flooring, paint cabinet store, because it's going to become an everything store. I know exactly what it costs to build a warehouse now, so we're pretty dangerous. We're looking at overseas brokers and international shipping and stuff like that. And I even thought about, you know, with my developer and landlord connections and all this, and even for myself, you know, we can go overseas, buy 300 toilets at a time, put them in the warehouse and distribute them out to landlords when they need them. And we're getting them at such a cost that our margins, we can beat the big box stores on them too. So we might just be an everything store before everything's up, you know? I just, and Joe's helped me not limit myself, to just say, Hey, I own a flooring store. I own a whatever you need store, you know. And if we can, if we can help myself and other people, it's a win win, because I'm going to use the same materials too for all my multifamily and if I can help the other landlords and developers and property managers and all that, it's just a it's a big bonus and a plus for everyone. You know,

Joe Blackburn  21:51  
there's another component to that. Jason on the commoditization, the actual output product is price sensitive. However, the he mentioned Gary, by the way, uses something called pillars. Didn't apply to him at first, but he uses that now, if I've got the relationships with those people that you name, the developers, the contractors, the multifamily owners, and I'm reliable on price, on time, even if I can get it at a discount at Lowe's or Home Depot. The on time thing has a cost to it for them. So the relationship, regardless of the output product, is the key. Because, you know, put yourself on the other side of that with the client. I'm the contractor. I'm buying the material. I don't want to have to, you know, go talk to a 16 year old that's working part time at Menards or Lowe's. To help me, I want someone that knows the business, understands the margins and has a local skin in the game, that if this goes south, that's on us, like we have a look like that local brand, especially. And when you say local, I'm not talking about just one town I'm saying, we're, you know, go in here. I'll challenge you. Go into Lowe's and bitch. Just go complain. See what happens. Like, something didn't go right. Like, how do they treat that? That's commoditized? To Gary's credit, they did have an issue with one, and he could have just let it go. He called the client. Made it right. Those big stores don't do that. They don't care. They're they're they are under margin compression. So if I can solidify the relationships, give better service and be more accessible, I've got a competitive advantage, and it's not always price sensitive. I mean, we've got a lot of clients in the trades, so to speak. So HVAC, roofing, cleanup, all those different things as you go up the food chain and people, and this is, this is kind of the principle of pillars at the base level, on low pricing, people are only in they could care less. They just want price. But as you get into bigger risk and bigger results, they're more in tune with how much aggravation and what's this going to take time wise. So if we can provide that, whether it's through the installers or through the distributors or whatever it is, if we can do it faster and we're a little bit more it's probably more price friendly to them because of the speed of getting it done. Because when do they collect upon completion? Maybe half up front, but most of it could be a net 45 or whatever it is. So if I can compress down, like Gary said, two weeks, then my cash flow on that other side, my strategic partner, they have more cash, so that's a really valuable aspect that, you know, out of convenience, a lot of people do go to the big places because it's right there. But if I can do it faster than them, with light quality and maybe a, you know, hair on the margin, you. I'll start to outgrow them. That's what I that's what I hear and see happening and people, as long as is, this is the case, because the boogeyman AI may take it, people always default to people. They can make a logical decision on numbers. They make an emotional decision on feeling of what it's like to be a client of this person, business, you name it. So that's where the advantage is in what they're doing now. And that may, that may change. You get 10 warehouses. You got to have people there that can so, like, you extrapolate out the connectivity.

Joe Blackburn  25:40  
That's where you have to see. It is like, you know, you said it Gary. Everybody loves Greg. He doesn't know all the stuff. He's probably getting questions. He doesn't know the answers to and I see a ton of people that, until they know everything, they can't fucking function. But if you can forego the need to know and get out and do the service, then you're in front of everybody, because most people wait around to like, I got to know the answer to everything I talk about. No, you don't. You just got to be able to get the answer. There's a big difference. I can get you the answer. I just don't have it at my fingertip now. So I, I just think that component in this type of business is extremely valuable. And if you ever were to package it up and sell it, it's extremely valuable. If you're working with a distributor and there is no relationship, let's just say that, like I'm going through a third party or something like that, then it will come down to price at some point. Like that will be the biggest lever. So the more you can beat Gary and have that as your brand, like our people care about people. We live here, we sleep here, we pay taxes, here we go to church. Here. That's a huge competitive advantage. And by the way, I like to get off on an AI tangent. The more that AI gains traction, the more valuable this becomes,

Jason Croft  27:02  
I agree. So how are you doing that right now? Carrie, how are you working that pillar system and continuing those relationships and and again, that's the piece of it too, is moving up the chain, as it were, in that relationship building. So you're meeting with people who have 10 properties instead of the one contractor, etc. How is that going right now for you, it's actually

Gary D Cook  27:28  
going pretty great. We'll never compete with the big box stores on convenience. We just can't do it. But what we want to do is reduce the headache value and build relationships. When we first started the store, there was, I don't know, 20 vendors and distributors that come by, just, you know, wanting to want their business and stuff like that. And the last owner might have used all of them. But what we did is we narrowed it down to three or four. I'd rather have three or four good relationships, great relationships, instead of, you know, spaced out around 20. And like I said, we try to work on the headache factor. We try to work on the inventory. And right now with and I know we're eating bologna and the big box stores each state, and had to feed a lot of people, so right now, with the margins we need to make, we're half price of the big box stores on flooring. I know that's hard to fathom, but we're half price on most of our stuff. We're buying we're buying truckloads. Instead of just, you know, a pallet custom order. We're buying it in just trying to anticipate what the customer wants, and which is testy it sometimes, you know, in a brand new market, I had no I knew how to install flooring, but I've never sold it. I knew what my you know, what I wanted my apartments, but I didn't know what the consensus of the general public wanted. So it's been, it's been a trial and test, and we're overcoming it greatly. We've got a ton of stock. We've got great distributors and great relationships, and that's all we want from people. Just give back to the community and help people out. So right now, trying to hit one lunch a week from, you know, a big hitter, and I call it columns. It's kind of similar to pillars,

Joe Blackburn  29:06  
something like that. By the way. Jason, he has started his own mastermind within the mastermind called the hyenas. Well, a rolled group. So there's a small group of hyenas that are the antithesis of my existence, and then they all seed off each other, just like a pack of hyenas. The big lion comes in, and they all try to nip and take bites.

Jason Croft  29:29  
I've seen the Lion King.

Gary D Cook  29:30  
It's kind of similar, but not we're the road group, and we have overflowing coolers. Is our main, our main we

Joe Blackburn  29:36  
had cooler malfunction on a boat cruise. We did I underestimated the drinking power of the hyenas. And the best part was, the beer was in my room at the resort. I had it.

Gary D Cook  29:48  
He brought three beers, three beers per person, and we was gone for three hours. That's one beer per hour.

Joe Blackburn  29:55  
Well. And the best part was, of course, before I left, Susan's like you. That's the cooler you're taking. I'm like, Yeah, they'll be fine. And she's like, and then Lauren's like, should we get two coolers? I can go buy a Styrofoam one. I'm like, No, should we take all the beer? Absolutely not. We don't need it.

Gary D Cook  30:14  
Double Down on so the next morning, the hyenas was founded at a little coffee table,

Jason Croft  30:20  
because there is time and the place for mutiny. Sometimes there was, it

Joe Blackburn  30:25  
was damn near mutiny. So then I got them all a little gift at our next in person, which was their own personal cooler with a lion on it

Gary D Cook  30:32  
that holds eyes for about 7.3 minutes maybe.

Jason Croft  30:37  
So you just got to drink faster.

Gary D Cook  30:39  
We do have fun. That's one thing I do like about the lions. We have a lot of fun.

Jason Croft  30:43  
What comes to mind too, as you're as you're talking about pricing, you're talking about relationships, but also the knowledge you have in being in multifamily for so long. Where does the sales process, instead of just order taking or the education process to someone of like, Hey, you. You should really be looking at this. This is why I put this in to my properties. How much does that play? Or is it more? Hey, we got what you want, kind of aspect.

Gary D Cook  31:18  
It does a lot, because we've got two different kind of clientele. We got the residential that mostly want really high end, good quality flooring, you know, and it's got a, usually a premium price with it, and that's great. And we carry the best flooring you can get for our residentials. Now for our our landlords and property managers, they want a good price with good quality, average quality. It ain't got to be the Vegas you know, we try to get the best bang for the buck for our, you know, rental landlords and stuff like that. Now, with the developers, they want a happy medium, a little bit better quality, at a better price, because they're actually selling the house to somebody that's going to live in it, and it's just not going to be flipped every year or two, like a rental. So, I mean, there's different aspects of the whole game, and we're, we're catering to every bit of it. I mean, we want, we want everybody to come to us and know that we're the go to place. So, so we got a little bit for everybody. I mean, it's, it's really been amazing that the reception that we had, we remodeled for three months, we closed the whole business down, we bought and we remodeled for three months, built a warehouse. We wanted to get all our ducks and row before we, you know, unveiled it to the public. I didn't want to half ass it, you know, right off the bat. And so we got our ducks and row, and you wouldn't believe just the people curious coming by, knocking on the door, want to see our progress and want to see, you know, what we're doing. And and the community got excited, and it kind of built a little bit of buzz, you know, had a little bit of headache with cold. You know, how it always goes when you're when you're trying to build something new. But we succeeded, and it's going to be a beautiful this is a beautiful venture, and I'm so glad that I did it, so glad that I was able to do it, and we're going to the moon from here. I mean, it's, there's no doubt that this, you know, this can't be a way multi million dollar business. So, oh yeah, it

Jason Croft  33:06  
sounds like it kind of a parallel track. Here is something I know Joe's really good at in the whole reason for the lion is to look around those corners. Prepare, go full force, do it, but prepare what's coming down the line. What are potential and we got to watch out for this and pay attention to this. And at the same time our competitors, it's, it's, it would hit them the same way it would hit us. And so here's how we could take advantage of that better. Anything, anything stand out in that area?

Gary D Cook  33:45  
Well, with the talks of recession, everyone's talking recession and interest rates and all this, but the local economy, the economy there, is still booming. I mean, it's still developers are still building houses. My partner, he builds probably 30 to 40 a year. He's rocking and rolling. It's supposed to been our slowest months in December and January. The last owner said that sometime he looked out the window for a couple weeks without a customer coming in. We had great December and January. So if that was our slow point, bring it on. Our good thing about us is we've got capital and we've got low overhead. So I mean, that's a dangerous combination in business. We're set up to weather any storm. We've got reserves and backups that if something did take a dip or hit, we're fully capable of still taking care of customers. So I think that's our strong point. There is the capital and our low overhead and just smart business decisions. I mean, I don't know, I was kind of in service retail when I had the auto repair shop. So, you know, I sold myself a lot, and I could sell myself. So now you just put a product in front of me. I sell myself with the product. It just, it kind of seems like an easy process. You know, all I do is talk and tell stories, and people seem to

Joe Blackburn  34:55  
like it, so I don't, that's all you do. That's correct. Well. Well, you So you hit on it, you have an unfair advantage. You can empathize with the person that is purchasing the physical the hygienical product, because you do that. So connectivity wise, it's like I've been in your shoes and still are. So I get what you're going through. Empathy moves more money than anything on the planet, and you do it naturally. It's not like you have to manufacture a story about what you've been through. It's the real deal. As I've said for a long time, people feel that they get it. You've been in the trenches, you are in the trenches. So I understand it. So it makes it an easier path to keep them and to help them grow their business and continue to buy from you just because you've been there, which is invaluable. I call it's like an it's it is the unfair advantage, because, like I said, the 16 year old at Lowe's doesn't give two shits. They're worried about their vape and their what they're doing after work. So we have a different service level. And then consumers saying, Do you get me and can you help me? Answer is, yes, I get you and I can help you. So that makes it a lot faster sales process. And when you're talking about, you know, if we're talking seeing around corners a little bit, what's the square footage on the biggest job you got right now, we just did a

Gary D Cook  36:15  
almost 11, 11,000 square foot job, and it was a pretty, pretty good job, and we treated the customer fairly. They're happy. We're happy, and we're targeting syndications now, you know, on a national level, so people with high rise apartments, stuff like that, we got some connections that's in the field of that, and are giving us some bones. And we're we got conversations going on as we speak with, you know, 300 unit complexes in the national market. So, I mean, that could be 50 to 100,000 square foot of flooring and one one, you know, drop ship container. So we'll just drop ship, it to them. Save on shipping, make our margins, and we cut our margins quite a bit on on big orders like that, just because it is such a buy, you know, but I think it makes everybody happy. And one quick example I referenced in the toilets earlier on one of the Zoom calls I had with a potential buyer in Texas. He was like, can you get low flow toilets? I need to replace. I says, Yes, I can. Did I know how to get low flow toilets? No, but I'm gonna figure it out. And I have figured it out, and we've got a pretty good source. And once we get all our ducks in a row, we'll have low flow toilets and flooring for them. If you need something, tell me. I'll figure it out. I mean, I got the working man's PhD, you know, see

Joe Blackburn  37:37  
right there, that is what I'm talking about. Most people would have said, No, that little moment right there, yes, I'll get it and I'll go find it.

Jason Croft  37:45  
It's a step above, well, let me find out. Some people be proud to say, You know what? Let me find out, and I'll try. Or they, they'd be happy saying that, no, the answer is yes, yes, and you go figure it out.

Gary D Cook  38:01  
Correct? There's the difference. Yes, commit you. Once you're committed, you have to figure it out. Your backs against the wall. And I think that's I work really good under pressure. Give me two months to do something. I'll wait to the last week. Bust ass to get her done. I just get in the zone. It's no doubt. My wife always says, she says, when you know tornado said or something devastating happens to community. She said, You kick in the zone. She said your brain just kicks in. And she said, you're so focused you can see in your eyes. And I just, I kind of tend to do that on business sometimes too, you know, I get so focused on it that you don't really see what's around you. And that's where Joe comes in handy again, and say, hey, don't

Jason Croft  38:36  
forget about this, Gary, this has been fantastic. I appreciate you being on I've had a blast. This has been awesome. How do people reach out? How do they find you? Do you want them to what's

Gary D Cook  38:47  
definitely want them to find us? The store. It's in sykeston, Missouri, down in the Boot Hill. It's called wholesale flooring and paint LLC. The website's the same name, wholesale flooring and paint.com Email us wholesale Florida and paint@gmail.com and reach out and touch our phone number is 573, 471, 8700, call and talk to Greg. He's such a pleasant person to talk to. You'll feel like you knew him forever. He's like the guy around the corner that that that helped you with yard work when you didn't ask for it. He's just, he's a great guy.

Jason Croft  39:19  
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Speaker 2  39:57  
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