E14: How to Lead Through Service and Build Lasting Success | David Conklin
What does it take to build multiple successful businesses while maintaining a strong company culture?
This episode is packed with valuable lessons on entrepreneurship. We dive deep into how to build a strong team, foster relationships, and create a positive company culture. You’ll hear firsthand experiences on overcoming early business challenges, navigating market expansion, and sustaining leadership through service.
If you're looking to grow a successful business and foster a thriving company environment, this episode is loaded with insights just for you.
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Kellen Ketchersid
Kellen is a co-founder of Stag Business Coaching, business strategist, and a systems thinker. He leverages his extensive experience in biotech and consulting to empower entrepreneurs to navigate complex challenges with strategic growth solutions.
Albert Gillispie
Albert is a serial entrepreneur, business efficiency expert and co-founder of Stag Business Coaching who has founded several multimillion-dollar companies. With expertise in optimizing operations and innovative systems, he mentors business leaders who want to unlock their business’s full potential.
David Conklin is a serial entrepreneur with multiple businesses, including Little Guys Movers, F45 fitness studios, rental properties, and Adelphus Cellars Winery. He shares his journey and insights into building successful businesses. He emphasizes the importance of having good systems and a strong company culture. Conklin believes in serving his employees and the community, and he values building authentic relationships with his team.
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EPISODE 14 TRANSCRIPTION
Introduction
[00:00:00] Albert Gillispie: Welcome to the Business Growth Masterclass, where business growth is made simple. Listen as we discuss best practices to streamline your operations, increase your profits, and ultimately create healthier, more stable, and more valuable companies. Today’s guest is David Conklin, a serial entrepreneur and owner of Little Guys Movers, and the Adelphi’s Winery and Cellars Event Center, serial entrepreneur—yes. Man, what a story, what an interview, filled with so many colorful stories. Kellen, what was your number one takeaway?
[00:00:45] Kellen Ketchersid: Get into the emu business when it’s hot! That was a fun story. But honestly, there were so many good things. He’s one of my favorite guests we’ve ever had on. He talked a lot about culture and building a great team, and you can tell he’s a very strategic leader, always thinking ahead.
[00:01:00] Kellen Ketchersid: But I think my biggest takeaway was when he talked about waking up at 3 a.m. and asking himself, "Why am I in this?" That’s a struggle every business owner faces at some point.
[00:01:15] Kellen Ketchersid: And just the grit to stay in there—that’s a pivotal moment for everyone: the decision to keep going even when it’s hard. Anyway, it was such a good interview. What about you?
[00:01:28] Albert Gillispie: That resonates with the state of our world right now and what so many entrepreneurs are feeling. What stuck out to me was how intentional and proactive he has been with all the relationships in his businesses. He’s constantly pouring into those relationships and building up his people, who then grow and become rock stars, running parts of his operations and businesses.
[00:01:59] Albert Gillispie: That hasn’t happened by accident, and I think that will definitely stand out in the interview. You’re going to enjoy this one. Yeah, buckle up—he has great stories. Enjoy the podcast.
David Conklin’s Entrepreneurial Journey
[00:02:20] Albert Gillispie: We are live. Welcome to the podcast, David Conklin.
[00:02:23] David Conklin: Hey, thanks. Thanks for letting me be here.
[00:02:25] Albert Gillispie: Yeah, glad to have you. I’ve told you this—my father-in-law’s name is David Conklin. So anytime this week, when I was talking to my wife, she’d ask, "Who’s coming on your podcast?"
[00:02:37] Kellen Ketchersid: David Conklin.
[00:02:41] Albert Gillispie: Well, we are an entrepreneurial podcast, and we really want to dive into what you’re doing. I know you’re a serial entrepreneur with a lot of different businesses, but give us your story. What are you up to these days? What do you do for a living?
[00:02:57] David Conklin: Well, you know, I do have a few businesses going. I’ll just quickly go over those. Little Guys Movers—that’s the foundation of what I do. I spend probably half my time with Little Guys. We have locations in Lubbock, College Station, San Antonio, Greensboro, and Wilmington, North Carolina. Those five locations keep us pretty busy.
Getting Started with Little Guys Movers
[00:03:26] David Conklin: Since most of the locations are remote, we often use Google Hangouts or meetings. I have a GM, Michael Pruitt, who runs that company, and a national director of operations who helps the teams at each location. For me, it’s mostly long-term planning, motivation, goal setting, and some administrative responsibilities. That’s what’s happening with Little Guys.
[00:04:00] David Conklin: The second business we own is called F45, a personal training fitness studio. I started that with my daughter, Lacey, who manages and operates those. We have two locations, one in Lubbock and one in Amarillo.
[00:04:13] David Conklin: She oversees those, and I’m available to help her with any struggles or challenges she has. We also have some rental properties, but that’s mostly on autopilot—I have a management company that handles that, so I deal with it a little. The most recent business we got into is the winery, Adelphus Cellars Winery.
[00:04:38] David Conklin: We’re building a facility over on 112th and Indiana, and right now, that’s probably taking up more of my time than anything else—just the building process. I have a partner in the winery who manages it, makes the wine, and handles everything else. They do a fantastic job, and I help them with the business side of things, but they don’t need much help. My main responsibility has been overseeing the construction of the building, and it’s been good. It’s been fun.
[00:05:08] Kellen Ketchersid: That’s so cool. We met at F45, which, by the way, I think is the best workout you can get in Lubbock.
[00:05:13] David Conklin: Thanks for the plug.
[00:05:14] Kellen Ketchersid: Yeah, it’s a great place. But just talking to you and learning about all that you have your hands in, I think everyone else would be wondering, how did you get started as an entrepreneur?
[00:05:24] David Conklin: Man, you know, I think my dad influenced me—he was in business for himself. He owned a pipeline company and a construction company, and he did a few things before selling his company to HB Zachary. After that, he worked for them. So I always saw that entrepreneurial side, and I think I’ve always had a little bit of that in me.
[00:05:31] David Conklin: When I went to college, I studied to be an ag teacher, and I was an ag teacher for two years. It was great—fun but hard work. Still, I knew my heart wasn’t really in it after a couple of years, so I decided not to teach school anymore. My wife was working on her master’s, and we decided to move to Lubbock to make things more convenient for her.
[00:06:13] David Conklin: She got a job teaching in Idalou, and she loved it. She would have paid them to teach if she had to—that’s how much she enjoyed it. She retired from teaching, but she came up here, worked on her master’s, and during that time, I got into the emu and ostrich business for a very short time—about two years.
[00:06:33] Kellen Ketchersid: Was that in the late '90s?
[00:06:34] David Conklin: Yeah.
[00:06:34] Kellen Ketchersid: I remember that trend.
[00:06:37] Albert Gillispie: I remember that trend—it was peak Jurassic Park time. Eight, 10-year-old Albert thought it was crazy.
[00:06:48] Kellen Ketchersid: They might as well have been raptors. For those of us who don’t know about this, can you tell us a little bit about the emu and ostrich business?
[00:06:51] David Conklin: Yeah, the emu and ostrich business was exploding. People were trading ostriches and emus for breeding purposes with this projection that emu oil and emu meat were going to be huge commodities. None of that really ever came to pass because the market eventually crashed.
[00:07:13] David Conklin: You mentioned talking about biggest wins and losses, and from a pure dollars and cents perspective, I had found some emus over in Eastern New Mexico when the market was just skyrocketing.
[00:07:33] David Conklin: Every day they were worth more, so it was hard to find and buy them because people didn’t want to sell. We were raising ostriches, we had breeding pairs, and this huge incubator—almost the size of this room—a NatureForm incubator with all these ostrich and emu eggs in it. But we were always on the lookout for more birds.
[00:07:50] David Conklin: I found these birds over in Eastern New Mexico. This guy wanted to sell them, and I don’t know why, but I asked what he wanted for them. They were yearling emus, about a year old—pairs, male and female. He wanted $1,000 a pair, which was probably half price. I said, "I’ll come take a look." I went over there, the birds looked good, and I took cash with me—cash was king in that business. I gave him $12,000.
[00:08:34] David Conklin: I’m driving back from Eastern New Mexico, about a two-and-a-half-hour drive to my house, and this guy, a big emu trader in Lubbock, calls me. He says, "Hey man, I’ve got some buyers, I’m looking for some birds." I asked, "What are you looking for?" He said, "Anything I can buy." I said, "Well, I’ve got 12 pairs of yearling emus." He asked, "What do you want for them?" I said, "I don’t know, I don’t know what they’re worth." He said, "Let me call you back."
[00:08:54] David Conklin: Twenty minutes later, I’m still about an hour from my house, and he calls back. He says, "They’ll give you $12,000 a pair for them." I said, "I’ll just meet you at your house in about 45 minutes." I never even unloaded those birds at my place—I brought them straight to his house, and he paid me cash for them.
[00:09:08] Albert Gillispie: That’s amazing.
[00:09:09] David Conklin: Yeah, it was crazy. I thought I’d never have a poor day again. But a few years later, the market kind of crashed. It got saturated, but we got out before that happened, so it was good.
[00:09:30] Albert Gillispie: That’s amazing. It’s rare that I hear from anyone else who jumped on that bandwagon.
[00:09:35] David Conklin: I’ll tell you another funny story. I’ll try to make it short because my stories are too long. My brother-in-law and I were going to California to buy some ostriches, and again, it was all cash—nobody wanted to deal with checks. They wanted money on the barrelhead. So we’re driving out there, and I’ve probably got $160K in my briefcase, and my brother-in-law’s got about the same. We’re on the interstate in Arizona, right by Nogales, and we come over the top of a hill, and the highway patrol has a big roadblock.
[00:10:00] David Conklin: I look over at my brother-in-law and say, "Bro, if they find this cash, we are not leaving—they’re going to think we’re drug dealers." We pull up, and they ask, "What are y’all doing?" We say, "We’re headed to California to buy some ostriches." We had a trailer with us, and his business name was painted on the side. They waved us through, but we were breathing a little heavy for a second there. We hadn’t done anything illegal, but just the look of it...
[00:10:30] Albert Gillispie: Yeah, emu dealers!
[00:10:31] David Conklin: Exactly! So after we got out of that business, when I was in college, I started making custom boots. I learned how to make boots, and I did that through college. Even when I was teaching school, I had a little shop where I’d make boots in the evenings. Then a boot and shoe repair shop came up for sale here in Lubbock, and I bought it in late 1993 or early 1994.
[00:11:04] Albert Gillispie: What was the name of that?
[00:11:04] David Conklin: It was Acuff Boot and Shoe Repair when I bought it. We kept the name for two years, and then I found a guy who taught me how to make hats. So, we started making custom hats. I went and bought all the equipment for hat making, moved it in, and we changed the name to Flint Boot and Hat Shop.
[00:11:17] David Conklin: It’s still on the corner.
[00:11:18] Albert Gillispie: I remember that place.
[00:11:19] David Conklin: Yeah, right there. I did that for 14 years.
[00:11:34] Albert Gillispie: Was that around the same time as the emu business?
[00:11:34] David Conklin: That was right after the emu business. There was about a two-year gap from the time I sold that business until I started Little Guys. Two years before I sold it, the young man who bought it, Jared Kohfeldt, worked for me. He still has it today and is doing a fantastic job. Jared was a college student, learned how to make hats, and was fantastic at it. He’s taken it and run with it, doing a lot of great things over there.
[00:11:55] David Conklin: I bought Acuff, which became Flint, and about 10 years into that business, I got involved with Little Guys. Jared ran Flint for two years for me, and when he graduated from college, I thought, maybe it’s time to sell it to him. It worked out perfectly—good for him, good for me.
Challenges in Expanding Little Guys Movers
[00:12:23] David Conklin: There was a little two-year overlap between Flint and Little Guys. We got Little Guys going in February of 2007, and we’ve been trying to grow that ever since.
[00:13:00] Albert Gillispie: You described Little Guys as pretty much every small business owner's dream—what they’re trying to build.
[00:12:51] Albert Gillispie: You described it as having these satellite locations with a general manager and teams leading each one, making it this well-oiled machine.
[00:13:15] Albert Gillispie: I’m sure it wasn’t always that way—or was it?
[00:13:20] David Conklin: Well, in the strictest form, it’s a franchise. Right now, there are maybe 10 corporate stores, and my franchise, along with three other franchisors. But for years, up until a couple of years ago, it was just me—just the corporate stores and me. It was almost like a partnership.
[00:13:40] David Conklin: It’s an interesting story how that happened. My father-in-law played football at Baylor, and one of his lifelong friends, Ben Kerr, was his roommate. Ben’s daughter married Marcus Watson, who started Little Guys. I married into the other side of the family, and they would all get together a couple of times a year for big family gatherings.
[00:14:02] David Conklin: That’s how I met Marcus, around 2003 or 2004. Every time I saw him, he had a new store opening. He opened one in Colorado Springs, then in Fort Collins, and I thought, "Man, this guy’s always got something new going." One year, he mentioned franchising, and I said, "Hey, I want to look into that. See if I can get in on it." So that’s how it worked.
[00:14:42] David Conklin: They had about 15 years of experience and really good systems in place, so they helped us a lot. But no, it’s not always smooth and easy. We’ve had a couple of fails. We opened a store in Tulsa but had to shut it down, and we opened one in Gainesville, Florida, but also had to shut that down.
[00:15:01] Albert Gillispie: What different reasons? Yeah. What happened there?
[00:15:03] David Conklin: I think Tulsa was the third store that we'd put in and it was a little further, more remote than college. College station was our second location. We just got really lucky in college station and got the right guy from the very get go, you know, a guy that really did a good job down there and really took a hold of it and treat it like his own and did that and we just really struggled. And Tulsa, not only in hindsight, not only do we struggle with our managers, but we struggled with employees. We just had a hard time Tulsa. And I'm sure not saying anything bad about either one of these locations, but Tulsa is kind of like the middle of no deaths of Texas, it's a lot of gas, a lot of oil, and we really struggled to hire good quality employees that you get paid better. Yeah, they get paid better. Yeah, going out and working out in the oil field. That makes sense. Natural gas fields, a lot of big natural gas fields there. And so we just struggled. I think if we did it today, we could do it because I just have another 12 or 15 years of experience, but that was early on.
[00:16:13] David Conklin: And I think that was our struggle. And we just spun our wheels, spun our wheels, spun our wheels. Gainesville was relatively recent. And I've always felt like that we could just nearly operate in any market, but Gainesville just, there was a couple of moving companies that were really deeply rooted in Gainesville, Florida, and they were really good.I mean, Hey, it's great. There's other great companies out there, right? But we just could never crack. We could just never crack it. We had good guys there. We just struggled and we were in a situation where we're, you know, coming off of 2020, 2021 and 2022, we didn't have a lot of cash to burn, you know?
[00:17:02] David Conklin: So we're like, yeah, we're just going to shut this down. So we've definitely had some struggles and hard times, but you know, it is the dream of the entrepreneur and what. Attracted me to it was the duplicate ability, right? The systems, how the systems work and what happens. And, and generally they're pretty successful but not always.
[00:17:23] Kellen Ketchersid: Yeah, you learn a lot along the way. I can imagine.
[00:17:40] Kellen Ketchersid: So, if you were talking to someone with business experience who wanted to start a new store in a new market, like you’ve done, what advice would you give them to think about first?
[00:17:48] David Conklin: I think it’s really simple, and it’s not anything people don’t already know, but it’s all about the people. It’s always about the people.
Building a Strong Company Culture
[00:18:00] David Conklin: If you’re going to have remote locations, you have to have really good systems in place. You need to have a systems mentality—check off everything every day, make sure the systems are working. People like to implement their own systems, but they don’t always think about the consequences. I always think of it like a baby mobile: if you pull on something over here, something else is going to move. People don’t think about that a lot—unintended consequences.
[00:18:30] David Conklin: So, you need really good systems. In our Little Guys system, we call the manager the branch manager and the director of operations. Those two guys are the main decision-makers, making a thousand decisions every day. The goal is to keep them coloring inside the lines, staying within the system, and being transparent.
[00:18:48] David Conklin: If you can just be transparent—"Hey, listen, we ask you to make a thousand decisions every day. I don’t care if you make some wrong ones. I make wrong ones." Right? Just be transparent so we can see what you did, why you did it, and then give me the ability to say, "Hey, next time, maybe we should think about doing it this way, or maybe we could try something different."
[00:19:10] David Conklin: I think transparency is key. Success comes from having a good person who’s honest and transparent. Everything else can work itself out. But if they’re not transparent, you don’t know what’s going on. If they’re struggling but don’t want to share that with you, you can’t help them.
[00:19:31] David Conklin: Then it just becomes a downward spiral. Yeah, we’ve seen that too.
[00:19:36] Albert Gillispie: Yeah, I bet. That’s a common theme we’ve heard over and over from entrepreneurs—building the right team. If you have the right team, there’s nothing they can’t do. Is there anything you can share about how you find those people? That’s one of the most intimidating things. We have a couple of clients right now who are asking, "How are we going to find that next person to be what we need?" How do you go about that?
[00:20:04] David Conklin: Yeah, I mean, if I had an answer for that, I probably wouldn’t be sitting here right now—I’d be doing something different! But really, I say that in a joking way because I truly appreciate you guys inviting me here.
[00:20:20] David Conklin: I can see it on your face—you’re so offended.
[00:20:20] Albert Gillispie: I’m hurt!
[00:20:21] David Conklin: But seriously, the most success we’ve had is bringing guys up from the inside. We hire a lot of college-aged guys. Most of them have a lot of good things going on in their lives—they’re moving, shaking, and just trying to get through college.
[00:20:39] David Conklin: In the summertime, when we’re super busy, they get really good tips. Some make a couple of grand a week. It’s a great gig for college students. We also have guys for whom it’s more than just a college gig, but every once in a while, one of these sharp guys decides they want to stick around and move up in the ranks.
[00:21:12] David Conklin: We have a system called Raises and Ranks, so that every few months, they can take on more responsibility, get a raise, and move up. The biggest success we’ve had is with guys who start out as movers—college-age guys, not necessarily just college students, lot of times, you know, 21, 22, 24 year olds, they're not sure what they want to do. They're going to make some fast money and then some of them like it. You know,I think one of the keys to success, no matter what business you're in, it doesn't really matter. “Thank you” Is culture right company culture.
[00:21:58] David Conklin: We work really hard on that. We have monthly meetings where we ask our management team to cook food for the guys. Yes, we could order it in, but I want you to go out there, fire up the grill, and cook for them. I want you to serve them a little bit. They work hard for us every day, so we need to serve them too. That’s part of our culture.
[00:22:16] David Conklin: We spend a lot of time, money, and effort on culture at all the companies I have, but I really learned the importance of it with Little Guys. It’s so important.
[00:22:34] Albert Gillispie: Another thing that keeps showing up—and you articulated it well through your story—is that a lot of the senior rock star leaders you have now started out doing the grunt work, right? Doing the hard work. Over time, you see their character, you see that they get it, they want it, and they want to show up.
[00:22:56] Albert Gillispie: They want to work hard, they want to take on responsibility. And over time, they build experience, trust, and rapport with you. You see their drive, and eventually, they grow into that position. I think that’s one of those rules of thumb or common themes we keep hearing from entrepreneurs—it's what you have to do.
[00:23:21] Albert Gillispie: It’s not an easy or quick answer, but building that rapport, building that relationship, and building that person up over time is key. Now, you have a business that’s thriving with people you care about because you’ve poured years into them, and they care about you because you’ve helped them reach a different level of life, thriving, and all the soft skills that come with that.
[00:23:48] Albert Gillispie: And that's amazing. That that theme keeps keeps showing up and that's that's awesome.
[00:23:54] David Conklin: Well, you know, I don’t know what parameters we have on this show, but I’m a Christian.
[00:23:59] Albert Gillispie: Yes, bring it.
[00:24:00] David Conklin: I’ve been very blessed in my life, many times in spite of myself. But one thing I know is that those blessings aren’t just for me. They’re for all those guys that work for us. They have families, they have kids who need school supplies, clothes, all the things they need. And I’ve always known that the blessings God provided me were not just for me—they were for the whole organization, for all the people.
[00:24:37] David Conklin: At some point in my career, I realized that it’s not a privilege for that guy to work for me—it’s a privilege for me that he works for me. I’m not doing him a favor—he’s doing me a favor. You know, there’s this old-school mentality that says, "Just be lucky you’ve got a job. Be happy you get to work." And that was kind of the way we looked at it back in the day.
[00:25:36] David Conklin: But with the ease of information and the ability to find new jobs and move around, we really had to change our paradigm and thought process. It’s not about being lucky I’m giving you a job—it’s about me appreciating you for working with us. I want to show that appreciation through pay, but money doesn’t motivate people for long. You give someone a raise, they’re happy for a few weeks, and then it just becomes their paycheck.
[00:26:00] David Conklin: Relationships are key. Building those relationships is crucial. We have 300 employees, and I don’t know every single one of them—I’m not going to sit here and tell you I have a relationship with 300 people—but it’s important to build those connections.
[00:26:15] Albert Gillispie: a lot of mouths and families.
[00:26:17] David Conklin: We’ve got to make sure that the relationships are strong all the way through, from the master crew leader to the crew leaders in the field, and from the crew leaders to the crew members. From the director of operations to the master crew leader, and so on. It’s super important to us that we maintain those relationships, because I think that’s what makes us successful.
[00:26:45] Kellen Ketchersid: I was just going to ask—when you have your guys serve dinner or cook for the team, do you find that mindset is contagious when you’re trying to create that culture? When you’re serving from the top down?
[00:27:01] David Conklin: Yeah, I think so. I hope so. That’s what we’re trying to accomplish. There’s certainly a motivation to be successful by doing that, but the real goal is to serve those guys. If you do it with that heart, it makes a difference.
[00:27:15] David Conklin: Another thing I’m really proud of at Little Guys is how involved we are in the community. We rarely just write a check, but we donate a lot of service.
[00:27:32] David Conklin: I think that’s a big part of it. We’re members of the Chamber of Commerce in nearly every location we’re in—I assume we are everywhere. The Chamber is kind of a hub to find a lot of nonprofit organizations that need help. They need help moving things, hauling stuff around, or setting things up, and we volunteer to do that.
[00:28:00] David Conklin: We pay our guys when they go do it, but they also get a little bit of that volunteerism bug. They start to feel good about helping these organizations, and I think that really works. We do it from the top down, but I think our guys get some good exposure and feel good about their company and themselves.
[00:28:22] Albert Gillispie: Very cool. I think so many people overcomplicate culture—it’s a buzzword, but really, what you’re describing is building real, authentic relationships with your people by serving them. That looks a lot like Christianity, and it’s rooted in your faith.
[00:28:44] David Conklin: Yeah, sure. Absolutely. I mean, it is. And that's a kind of a fine line because I want to share, I want to share my beliefs with all my guys and I will, but I don't require that to be them. We've got great guys that work for us that are not Christians. We got that are different religions and it's fantastic.
[00:29:06] David Conklin: But still, I believe in natural law, right? It's just a natural law. Treat people the way you want to be treated. It's pretty simple. Good will come of that. Good will come. And so we do that with our employees. We do that with our clients and we've been, we've been very blessed. Very cool.
[00:29:23] Albert Gillispie: So what, what's next for, for little guys? You've got also a bunch of locations, 300 employees.
[00:29:30] David Conklin: You know, our employee count is, it's ebbs and flows. We're super busy in the winter. We nearly doubled. In the winter and we'll cut down in half in the summer, which is super challenging, right? That's a soup. That's another super challenging and sometimes a lot of young college guys really work well because they can come work for three months and then they kind of disappear So that works pretty good.
[00:29:53] David Conklin: So that's, that is also a big challenge at Little Guys is the seasonality of the business.
[00:29:58] Kellen Ketchersid: Can you say more about how you deal with that? Cause we have a lot of business owners in different areas that have seasonal businesses. What are some tricks of the trade you have there?
[00:30:08] David Conklin: Well, I mean, tap all your guys—ask them, "Do you have any friends who want a job? Do you know anyone?" I think we get a lot of referrals from our employees. You’d assume they’d think of that, but sometimes they don’t, so you really have to communicate with them. "Hey, we need some guys. Do you know any good ones? Send them over."
[00:30:27] David Conklin: Just asking makes a big difference. Indeed works pretty well for us—we spend a ton of money on it—but it’s a process. You get 60 applicants, maybe 10 are worth calling, three won’t call you back. You set up seven interviews, four show up, and one turns out to be a good fit.
[00:30:54] David Conklin: There’s a lot of time involved in that too. Yeah, a lot of time.
[00:31:00] Albert Gillispie: That's a lot of time. That's a lot of effort. A lot of names.
[00:31:03] David Conklin: It's a lot of effort. Get one. Yeah, it's a lot of effort. So our guys, locally, our local guys spend a lot of time on that.
[00:31:10] David Conklin: And we just never let off the pedal. Even if it's, you know, even if it is winter time, we're just always hiring good guys, always hiring good guys. If a good guy comes in, we just hire him.
[00:31:20] Albert Gillispie: That, I think that's important to sit there for a second that business owners, like you have to constantly be building your team, adding to your team, fine-tuning your team and take a hundred applicants to get one like that. That's just the truth and what's realistic. And I think you kind of got to set your expectations there. And if you're surprised, great.
[00:31:47] David Conklin: But that's just business is hard. I mean, it's business service businesses, especially where, you know, the guy that we send out is the product.
[00:31:56] David Conklin: Yeah, that's what we're selling. And so, you know, we have a pretty high threshold set on who we hire and who we don't. And yeah, it's tough, but I think it's, you know, the days are gone when we used to be able to do this in 2008, 2009, 2010. You know, March, we'd start hiring guys for the summer.
[00:32:18] David Conklin: Right now, we're talking about, "Hey, what are you going to do in May of 2025? How many guys do you need? What's going on? How are you going to get there? What's the game plan?" How many of these guys are going to stay? How many of these guys are going to be core guys that are going to stay here year-round for you? And so it's about a three- or four-month ahead-of-the-curve process that we're looking at.
[00:32:43] Kellen Ketchersid: Yeah, that's smart because a lot of business owners are more reactive and not thinking ahead like that.
[00:32:52] David Conklin: We've just been doing it so long. We know it's going to take time. It just takes that long.
[00:33:00] Kellen Ketchersid: From the other side, as you were saying that, I was thinking about anyone out there who’s not a business owner. You never know when you’re getting interviewed by someone like David. I'm sure you're always on the lookout.
[00:33:06] David Conklin: Absolutely, always. I go to Home Depot, and I'm like, "How long have you been working here, bro? What’s going on?" If he's sharp, articulate, and helpful, I hand him a business card. Sorry, Home Depot.
[00:33:24] Albert Gillispie: They’re not listening, it’s okay. So, from Little Guys to Adolphus…
Working with Family in Business
[00:33:29] David Conklin: From Little Guys to F45 and then F45...
[00:33:34] Albert Gillispie: Yeah, tell me about going into business with your daughter.
[00:33:37] David Conklin: Oh yeah, that's definitely been challenging. We’ve been doing it for six years now, and she does an amazing job. But man, you really have to think about whether you want to get involved with family in business.
[00:33:51] David Conklin: Yeah, because it’s challenging. You can’t just fire them—they’re going to come to Thanksgiving dinner. So, you can’t fire them, you can’t kill them. What are you going to do? You just learn. She’s a lot like me, so we would butt heads, but it’s a good thing.
[00:34:09] David Conklin: She does an amazing job now, and she probably did an amazing job the whole time. Part of the struggle was my expectations were way up here for her—not reasonable. I would never have talked to a manager at Little Guys the way I talked to her. No way. But emotions are different when it’s your kid, you know?
[00:34:28] David Conklin: We worked through all of that, though. It took a couple of years, and my wife refereed most of it. I was probably in the wrong most of the time.
[00:34:45] Albert Gillispie: So, what are your roles? What’s your daughter’s role, and what’s your role? How does that work?
[00:34:50] David Conklin: So she runs the show, and I’m just kind of her partner. The whole purpose of F45 was to help her set up a business. I try to help her with anything she needs, but I’m more of a consultant.
[00:35:09] David Conklin: In the beginning, she was fresh out of college with a business degree from Rawls. In many ways, she was probably smarter than me, but I had a lot of experience. We locked horns a lot on how things should be done. I’m more conservative and old-school, but she runs F45 now. I’m nearly completely hands-off. When we opened in Amarillo, we found the building together and negotiated the lease, but I’m pretty hands-off there.
[00:35:51] David Conklin: We have two locations now—one in Lubbock and one on 45th and Sauncey in Amarillo. From a financial standpoint, it’s not my biggest win, but when I started, I weighed 250 pounds, and now I weigh 175. That might be my biggest win from a business standpoint.
[00:36:17] David Conklin: If I talk about my biggest win, it’s not limited to one company—it’s people. There are different people in my life, like my wife. She was a school teacher, and if she hadn’t supported me, I would never have been able to do any of this.
[00:36:37] David Conklin: The first year I bought ACUF in 1993 or 1994, our gross sales were $57,000. That’s gross sales. I had to pay rent. Take-home was about this (zero). My wife kept asking, "Are you really going up there working? Because you’re not bringing home a paycheck." And I’d say, "Well, you know, if you don’t pay the electric bill, they cut that off."
[00:37:03] David Conklin: If you don't pay the rent, the landlord comes and locks the door. So I'm kind of the last guy to get paid.
[00:37:09] Albert Gillispie: But you dug out of that.
[00:37:10] David Conklin: Yeah, we dug out of it. We became successful in a relatively short period of time. It turned out to be good—it just took a little while. I mean, man, this is what I tell my kids who want to be in business. You’ve got to understand delayed gratification. You’ve got to understand that principle because it's not going to be easy.
[00:37:20] David Conklin: This is what I told Lacey when she started F45. I said, "I promise you, you're going to have a moment when you're laying in bed, you're not making money, you need two employees, and you're going to think to yourself at three in the morning, when you can't sleep, 'Why in the world did I get involved in F45? Why didn't I just go get a job and get a paycheck?'"
[00:37:54] David Conklin: I said, "That'll be your defining moment. You'll either get out of bed and figure out how to solve it, or you'll fold it up and go get a job somewhere."
[00:38:00] David Conklin: And I think—I don't know about you guys—but I've had those moments in nearly every business I've been involved in. It's never easy.
[00:38:18] Albert Gillispie: That's one of those things that doesn't get talked about very much, but so many entrepreneurs have that story—middle of the night, on your knees, praying, wondering, "How am I going to fix this problem?"
[00:38:33] David Conklin: I don't know how to fix it. And then you get to work trying to fix it. You get up—that’s what I told her—I said, "You get up, you put your pants on, you go to work, and you figure out how to solve the problem." And if the first step doesn’t fix it, throw that out and try number two. If that doesn't work, throw that out and try number three. But you just have to solve it.
[00:38:53] David Conklin: You have no choice—you have to solve it. And I think those are the people that are successful entrepreneurs. They're the ones who think, "I don't have a choice. I can't fail. I’ve got too much invested. I'm going to be successful. I’m going to figure it out."
[00:39:09] David Conklin: It’s a "can't quit" attitude.
[00:39:13] Albert Gillispie: That's so important. You only lose if you give up, if you quit.
[00:39:17] Kellen Ketchersid: And it's inspiring for people who are listening, who are business owners in that place right now, waking up in the middle of the night thinking, "Why am I here?" and thinking about quitting, just folding it up. Hearing from somebody like you, who’s been there, but now talking about all the things you’ve got going—it’s inspiring. And I know that doesn't mean your headaches are gone either, but it’s still inspiring for people chasing that.
[00:39:40] David Conklin: So, it took us—this building that we're building on 112th Street—it took us two years to get the permits and all the stuff lined up. The platting, the rezoning, all the things it took for us to start construction, it took us two years. They told us it would take 90 days. It took two years.
[00:39:51] David Conklin: Brutal. Brutal. I’ve been very blessed, but I’ve spent many sleepless nights over the last couple of years thinking, "How in the world am I going to get out of this situation? I can’t move forward, I can’t move backward." It’s just...
[00:40:15] Albert Gillispie: Listen up, city government—we need to make this a little more...
[00:40:19] David Conklin: Easier if we want to support our business owners, for sure. We need to make it more streamlined. Now, I will say, and you can take this for whatever it's worth—we could have a long discussion on this—because we had an event center, and this had nothing to do with the winery and alcohol. That part was easy. It was the event center. There’s no zoning in the city of Lubbock for an event center, so we had to get special zoning.
[00:40:34] David Conklin: What do you have to do for that? You have to go to the zoning commission twice, you have to go to the city council meeting twice. Okay, great. Let’s go. So we go, we tell them the story, they all raise their hand, approve—unanimous each time. Seven minutes—it doesn’t take long. We don’t have to spend a lot of time explaining what we’re doing or convincing them.
[00:41:00] David Conklin: Okay, well, we have to go to two of those meetings. When’s the next meeting? "Oh, well, because of COVID, it’s six months."
[00:41:06] David Conklin: Six months before the next meeting.
[00:41:07] Albert Gillispie: Dear, that's terrible.
[00:41:09] David Conklin: So, we did nothing except pay interest on the land we bought. Was that the city council’s fault or was that the government? It’s hard to say. It’s hard to really say. But it was a struggle.
[00:41:29] David Conklin: The point is, I don’t care how successful you are—you’re going to have struggles. I don’t care how good you do, you’re going to have struggles, and there will be roadblocks. But, like you said, "I don’t lose until I sell." I just keep fighting and pushing forward. Now, we’ve got this beautiful building going up over there, about 15,000 square feet.
[00:41:50] David Conklin: I don't know if you guys have driven by it lately. I know you have.
[00:41:52] Albert Gillispie: I haven't. It looks—we need to go look at it.
[00:41:55] David Conklin: I'd love to show you guys. That's exciting. You guys should come over there.
Opening a Winery and Brewing Beer
[00:42:00] David Conklin: I'd love to give you guys a tour. Let me tell you about what's exciting and what's happening with us over there because this is our newest adventure. We started the winery in 2018, by the way, so it’s not like super new.
[00:42:11] Albert Gillispie: Okay.
[00:42:11] David Conklin: We've been making wine since 2018. We have an amazing winemaker—I'll tell you a little bit about him. His name is Manuel Lechuga. He's been making wine for 30 years. In 2018, we had our first vintage. We have a wine—we still have this wine—but we have a 2018 vintage of a wine called Old Friends. It's a white blend, and it was named the best white wine in Texas.
[00:42:29] David Conklin: We had a Chenin Blanc, probably in 2019 or 2020. Texas Monthly does this thing called "The Perfect Case of Texas Wine," which is the top 12 wines in Texas, and our Chenin Blanc was in that. We sent a 2021 Cabernet to the San Francisco wine competition, which is the biggest wine competition in the world now—it used to be Paris, but now it’s San Francisco. It's considered the biggest international wine competition.
[00:43:00] Albert Gillispie: Okay.
[00:43:00] David Conklin: We got a gold. It’s a blind taste test, so they don't know where the wine’s from. We sent a Cabernet from Texas to California and got a gold medal.
[00:43:12] Albert Gillispie: That's amazing.
[00:43:13] David Conklin: Yeah, it's pretty amazing.
[00:43:15] Albert Gillispie: What's the name of that?
[00:43:16] David Conklin: It's the 2021 Cabernet Sauvignon. And in 2022, our Tempranillo got a double gold in San Francisco and California. I couldn’t tell you whether we have 70 or 125 medals, but we’ve got a lot of them. That has nothing to do with me—that's our winemaker. He’s amazing, he’s amazing. And my partner, Jim Irwin, in that business—he and I have been friends for 30 years, families.
[00:43:45] David Conklin: Our families have been friends for 30 years, and Adelphus in Greek means brothers. So that's where that came from.
[00:43:52] Albert Gillispie: Very cool. I like it. I like the meaning.
[00:43:54] David Conklin: Yeah, absolutely. Brothers, siblings, depending on how you—depending on which verse you're looking at. But we've been doing that, and they have been amazing.
[00:44:04] David Conklin: The Irwin family has been amazing—managing the vineyard, managing the winery, doing all the things that they do, and they've really put us in a great place. One of the things we decided when we started the winery, and it’s been a little challenging, is that we weren’t going to borrow any money to do it. We were never going to have any debt.
[00:44:21] David Conklin: So we’ve done that since then. Now, we had to borrow some money to build that building.
[00:44:29] Albert Gillispie: Yeah.
[00:44:29] David Conklin: But that’s the first money we ever borrowed. So everything else is free and clear. And because we started in 2018, it takes a couple of years to fill the pipeline up in the wine business because you have to age new red wines.
[00:44:41] David Conklin: So, towards 2020 is when we could have probably started really selling wine. And then, you know, in March 2020, COVID came, and they’re shutting down all these places. We didn’t have a tasting room, and it was a real blessing that we didn’t have a tasting room because we would have had all that expense and had to shut it down.
[00:45:00] Kellen Ketchersid: Yeah.
Challenges and Success in the Wine Business
[00:45:00] David Conklin: But it did kind of change the trajectory of the winery, pushing it back a couple of years. Then we found this land, and we decided, instead of buying an existing building or renting a place, we wanted to build there. So, that's been it. But we've got, you know, 8,000 cases of wine in storage.
[00:45:26] David Conklin: Which is perfect—I mean, it’s not perfect from a cash flow perspective, but it’s perfect from a standpoint of opening this big building. So we've got a lot. That seemed like a challenge, but it turned out to be a real blessing too.
[00:45:40] Kellen Ketchersid: Now we've got these award-winning wines right here in West Texas that people can check out at Adelphus.
[00:45:46] David Conklin: That's right. AdelphusCellars.com online, and soon to be over there on 112th Street. We have our working winery out at our vineyards, out by Lorenzo, between Lorenzo and Petersburg.
[00:46:00] David Conklin: And we have some events out there from time to time, but it’s, you know, a 40-minute drive from here.
[00:46:03] Kellen Ketchersid: Yeah.
[00:46:03] David Conklin: This will be great. We're super excited. And let me tell you, this is breaking news. It's the first place that people hear this kind of in the public realm. So, we decided that—and again, I’m sorry, you know my story, I tell a long story. You guys can just—you can chop them when you want to.
[00:46:22] David Conklin: So, we decided, “Hey, we’re going to build this building. We're going to have this tasting room. We've got really good wine.” And we make about 25 or 28 different types of wine. So, we have a big variety of wine. But you know, not everybody likes wine. So, I told my partner—and we were talking about it—and I said, “Man, you know, I think we just need to have some craft beer, right?”
[00:46:43] David Conklin: And so, if you're in the winery business, and you own a winery and I own a winery, I can buy wine from you. I can blend it with my wine, I can bottle it, I can sell it. I don’t even have to blend it. I can just buy it from you in bulk, bottle it, put my label on it, and sell it.
[00:47:00] David Conklin: So, we said, “Okay, the alcohol system in Texas is really antiquated and there's a three—it's called a three-tier system.” So, the top tier is a manufacturer, the second tier is a distributor, and the third tier is a retailer. If you're in any one of those tiers, you can’t be in either of the other two tiers. So, if you're a manufacturer, you can’t be a retailer. If you're a distributor, you can’t be a manufacturer or a retailer. If you're a retailer, you can’t be a manufacturer or distributor.
[00:47:23] David Conklin: Which creates some challenges for us because how are we going to sell beer? So, we said, “Okay, here’s what we're going to do. We’re going to buy a brewery license. About three grand a year, send it to the government, right? A little government tax.” And Jim and I will go back here and make about, I don’t know, 10 gallons of beer a month, and it’ll probably be terrible, and we’ll pour it out on the ground. And we’ll go to some of our local breweries and buy some beer, right?
[00:48:00] David Conklin: Yeah, sounds like a great, solid plan. That’s what we’d do if we were in the wine business. So, we had some questions, and we go over and we answer them, talk to the TABC guy, and make an appointment. We sit in his office, and me—I'm just, you know, too smart sometimes. I should keep my mouth shut.
[00:48:19] David Conklin: So, we're sitting there, and we're talking about this and that and the other. And I said, “Yeah, we got our brewery license. We’re going to make—” I just told him that story that I told you. And he goes, “Sir, that’s illegal. You can’t do that.” I said, “What?” He goes, “You can’t buy beer from another brewery.” I said, “You're kidding me. I can buy wine from another winery.”
[00:48:35] David Conklin: He goes, “Yep. The rules are different.” And he said, “You can't buy beer from another brewery.” Yeah. So Jim and I are kind of sitting there looking at each other like this. I was like, “Yeah, well, just forget that story. That's already out of the bag, right? I'm not going to be able to do that under the radar.”
[00:48:51] David Conklin: Yep. So, the good news is we’re putting in a brewery. We’ve already contacted a brewmaster to get that thing off the ground for us and get it going. We're in the process of ordering a bunch of stainless steel equipment and spending a whole bunch more money, but we're going to have a brewery. So, I’m super excited about that too. We didn’t really get started in this business to do that, but I think it’s a whole other leg of this company that could be super successful. And I’m feeling like, and I don’t know who it is, but you know, pretty much everybody in this business is family, pretty much is family.
[00:49:28] David Conklin: And I just got this feeling in my bones that there's somebody that's going to say, “Listen, I love this. I want to do this. I want to be the brewmaster. I want to go to school. I want to learn how to do this.” And if somebody would take a hold of it, I think it could be as big as the winery.
[00:49:46] David Conklin: Yeah.
[00:49:47] David Conklin: I mean, there’s more beer drinkers in Texas than there are wine drinkers.
[00:49:51] Albert Gillispie: Yep.
[00:49:52] David Conklin: So, I think we have a great opportunity.
[00:49:53] Kellen Ketchersid: Well, knowing you, you’re going to find somebody to do a good job of it. Who was the winemaker’s name that you have?
[00:50:00] David Conklin: Manuel Lechuga.
[00:50:05] Kellen Ketchersid: Yeah, you’ll have another Manuel in a few years at some point.
[00:50:05] David Conklin: I think we will. I think we will.
[00:50:05] David Conklin: So, it's interesting to see. Our business model was just to create an opportunity for somebody to have a beer if they didn't like wine. You know, “Hey honey, let's go over to the winery today,” and someone might say, “I don’t really… there’s nothing over there I want to drink.” Well, yeah, there is—we’ve got four craft beers. And I really wanted it to be from the local breweries here, but the law won’t allow us to do that. So, we’re just going to saddle up and make some beer. All right.
[00:50:39] Albert Gillispie: Saddle up, make some beer. I like that slogan. Texas slogan, I like that.
[00:50:43] Albert Gillispie: We’re excited about that.
[00:50:44] David Conklin: I’m super excited about it. That’s cool.
[00:50:46] Albert Gillispie: Man, you have so many different things going on that are so relationship-driven.
Building Relationships in Business
[00:50:55] David Conklin: It’s all relationship-driven, right? Isn’t really all business relationship-driven, no matter what you do?
[00:51:00] Albert Gillispie: I agree.
[00:51:02] David Conklin: I agree. I mean, maybe there are some one-hit things, you know, like “This was just a great deal, and I bought this from this guy in California and never see him again,” but generally they’re relational. Who brought you that deal? How did you even know about that deal?
[00:51:20] David Conklin: Yep. Yep. You know, they can’t buy your emus unless they know about you.
[00:51:20] Albert Gillispie: That’s right.
[00:51:21] David Conklin: And, you know, the other part of that, the third leg of that Adelphus Winery thing is, we knew that when we found that land—I mean, it’s at 112th and Indiana, so it’s not cheap land. It’s expensive. So, we knew that we were going to need to build something that would cash flow positively, right?
[00:51:39] David Conklin: So, we decided that we were going to build an event center too, on there. And we talked about the struggles with the event center, but you know, one of my other daughters, Andrea, is going to manage the event center. She’s got a degree, also from the Rawls in business and marketing. So, she’s heading up that piece of the puzzle for us.
[00:51:59] David Conklin: It should be great.
[00:52:00] Albert Gillispie: I’ve met her. She’ll be great.
[00:52:01] David Conklin: And she’s got a twin sister, Bailey, who is actually kind of doing triple duty. She’s spending time at the event center, at F45, and taking care of all the administrative work—the bookkeeping and the books and QuickBooks and all that. So, we’ve got a strong team.
[00:52:18] David Conklin: And something strong in the blood, about the wife’s blood. We started five or six weeks ago. Sometimes time eludes me, but I think five or six weeks ago, we started booking weddings at the event center because we’re getting close. And we said we’re going to finish the construction by the end of October, which for me, when the contractor says the end of October, that means like mid-November, right? That’s what I think.
[00:52:43] David Conklin: So, maybe at best. Yeah. So I’m being optimistic. So I think we’re going to be open by December. I said, “Hey, let’s not book anything before February,” because I just—I’m not going to call somebody and tell them, I don’t care if we don’t have anything in the event center for a couple of months—I’m not calling somebody and saying, “Hey, look, I know you planned to have your wedding here, but we’re not going to be finished.” So, we waited till February. We feel very comfortable about that. Our contractor feels very comfortable about that.
[00:53:07] David Conklin: So, six weeks ago, we opened the books. We started booking weddings. And I think Andrea booked the 12th wedding yesterday. 12 or 13 weddings.
[00:53:18] Albert Gillispie: Wow, that’s fantastic.
[00:53:19] David Conklin: Yeah. That’s awesome. And she’s, she’s actually doing venue tours about three or four days a week. And she’s booking at about an 80 percent booking rate. So, I feel—I’m just super excited about the venue. I think people are really seeing the vision of what we’re doing over there.
[00:53:30] Albert Gillispie: That’s amazing.
[00:53:32] David Conklin: Yes. I mean, it doesn’t even have any sheetrock up yet. You know, they’re still doing some internal stuff in the walls. So, we still have a little ways to go, but we’ve got good renderings and good stuff. And I think people can see it. It’s not only the building, it’s the location. The location is really good.
[00:53:48] Albert Gillispie: It’s a great location.
[00:53:49] David Conklin: Yeah.
[00:54:00] Albert Gillispie: In the middle of everything going on in Lubbock. Well, time flies when you’re, when you’re having fun.
[00:54:10] David Conklin: I want to—is there any question you wanted me to answer without a long...?
[00:54:10] Albert Gillispie: No, no, we have kind of our fire round at the end of it. So, I don’t know how much you read, but what’s kind of your top three book recommendations for budding entrepreneurs or business leaders?
Final Thoughts and Book Recommendations
[00:54:27] David Conklin: These are old books. I did see that question, and so I went back and looked at some books that I have. You know, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, it’s just like a bedrock.
[00:54:36] Albert Gillispie: Yeah, Stephen Covey.
[00:54:37] David Conklin: Yeah, How to Win Friends and Influence People. I think it’s the same thing. And then Atomic Habits, not quite as popular as the other two, but I think it’s really good for me.
[00:54:52] Albert Gillispie: That’s a good one.
[00:54:53] David Conklin: Yeah, I think that was a good one. And then it really got me thinking about it. So, so over the last week, I've been kind of doing a little bit of research, and I think I've got—maybe you guys read this book. Maybe you can tell me—Extreme Ownership.
[00:55:07] Albert Gillispie: Oh yeah.
[00:55:07] David Conklin: Have you read it?
[00:55:08] Albert Gillispie: Jocko. Yeah.
[00:55:09] David Conklin: Jocko, yeah.
[00:55:10] Albert Gillispie: That’s a good one.
[00:55:11] David Conklin: It’s on my list to read.
[00:55:12] Albert Gillispie: He’s very good about intertwining stories with his principles. And he's colorful.
[00:55:18] Kellen Ketchersid: I think I like that. He's got a good podcast too.
[00:55:20] Albert Gillispie: Yeah, yeah. And he looks exactly like I thought he would.
[00:55:25] David Conklin: I have seen him. I’ve seen him, yeah. Can’t Hurt Me, David Goggins. You read that one too?
[00:55:29] Kellen Ketchersid: I like that one. You guys are all… Albert reads everything. I’ve read some of these, but not all of them.
[00:55:36] Albert Gillispie: That was a good one. Well, when I was training for a marathon, I’d listen to that one. And I mean, if you need a shot in your arm and some caffeine, he's the guy, that book on there. I don’t know about his personal life, but as far as getting motivated and not wanting to quit, that’s a good one.
[00:55:54] David Conklin: I did see a podcast that he was, he was on with man, the UFC guy. What's his name?
[00:56:00] Albert Gillispie: Joe Rogan.
[00:56:01] David Conklin: Joe, yeah. Joe Rogan. And he was, he and Joe went to the gym. Did you, did you happen to catch that?
[00:56:08] Albert Gillispie: No.
[00:56:08] David Conklin: And so he goes, how many pull ups can you do, Joe? And Joe goes, I don't know, maybe six or seven. So he gets on there and he pumps out six or seven or eight pull ups, which, you know, he's a pretty heavy guy. I thought that was pretty good.
[00:56:20] Albert Gillispie: Yeah, he's like 57, 58.
[00:56:23] David Conklin: Yeah, yeah. And, and he hits the ground and the guy goes, I see what your problem is. He goes, we're not, we're not leaving here till you do a hundred pull ups.
[00:56:27] David Conklin: What?
[00:56:28] David Conklin: And they stayed like seven and a half hours. And he did a hundred pull ups.
[00:56:32] Albert Gillispie: Dear. That's wild.
[00:56:37] David Conklin: You know? And I just thought...
[00:56:37] Albert Gillispie: With friends like that!
[00:56:37] David Conklin: Yeah, with friends like that who needs enemies, right? I guess. But I mean, just the concept of "You can do it."
[00:56:45] David Conklin: It doesn't matter. You can do it. I think that's the, that's what we talked about.
[00:56:54] Albert Gillispie: Yeah. Entrepreneurial spirit, maybe not to the X factor that...
[00:56:54] David Conklin: Yes, not forsaking all other relationships, not your life, but...
[00:56:59] Albert Gillispie: Running a marathon and breaking your ankle and just getting some duct tape and taping it up and keep running.
[00:57:03] David Conklin: Yes. I heard that on that thing too. You know, it's craziness, but I mean, to some degree, that's what creates success, right? Just that grit. I would love it if I could just hit home runs every time, but it doesn't happen very often.
[00:57:19] Albert Gillispie: Yeah. Doesn't happen. Nope. That doesn't get shared on social media and Facebook. That's not the story. That's not what people hear, but that's, that's just the reality. That's reality.
[00:57:24] Albert Gillispie: All right. Last, last question. What is one piece of technology that maybe not, not everybody knows about that you've used that's been impactful for you personally in your business or life or whatever? I'm not really a tech.
[00:57:45] David Conklin: I really thought about this one too, because...
[00:57:47] Albert Gillispie: It doesn't have to be super techie. It can be...
[00:57:51] David Conklin: I don't really have any techie stuff. You know, I, I'm not really a techie guy. We have got really good CRMs in all of our companies. We've got really good software. We've got really good ways to track. We've got all, all this stuff. We did create in, in our CRM—our franchisors for Little Guys did create a screen where we can see exactly the return on every dollar that we spend on advertising.
[00:58:16] David Conklin: That's really cool.
[00:58:17] Albert Gillispie: That is cool.
[00:58:18] David Conklin: That's super cool. People will do that. People will do that. Now, say every bit of advertising, not every bit, but if we're doing Google, Facebook, Instagram, videos on YouTube, those are all trackable. When they come in, we can see where they come from. We can see whichever, wherever job came from or came from organic or it came from wherever. So we, so we have... any of our paid advertising online, we can track down to the dollar.
[00:58:42] Albert Gillispie: And that was homemade, or is that something that comes with the CRM?
[00:58:44] David Conklin: Well, they created our CRM. They had, they had software guys create this. Man.
[00:58:53] Kellen Ketchersid: That's in-depth.
[00:58:53] David Conklin: That's neat.
[00:58:54] Kellen Ketchersid: Well, I was going to say, I've worked with business owners that had these things custom made for them. And I know that it's, it's worth it usually for the investment. If you have a clear vision of what you want to read out and right. Those, those metrics can go a long way.
[00:59:00] David Conklin: They go a long way. Yeah.
[00:59:12] David Conklin: You know, they go a long way. I was, I was, I was thinking that that's the biggest piece of tech we have. But last year, my wife and I got, this is the first time we'd ever been to Europe, but we got to go on vacation to Europe. So we're sitting in the airport in Dallas, fixing to go to London. And I've got my, I got an iPad. No, I've got a MacBook Pro. You know, it's only about this big, right? It's not very big. So I'm sitting there working on it, and I see this girl sitting beside me, and she's got an iPad, a lot like yours, you know, and a small, a little bit smaller, and it's, but it's got what catches my eyes, it's got that iPad case with the, what's it called? You know, the keyboard.
[00:59:47] Albert Gillispie: Yeah. The keyboard.
[00:59:48] David Conklin: Yeah, whatever that the Apple specific one is, you know, everyone's a hundred dollars and that one's 300. And I'm like, hey, do you like that keyboard? She goes, oh yeah, it's absolutely worth the extra money. And I was like, okay. And she's, she's talking and tapping on mine. She goes, you got the, you got the big one there. And I was like, yeah, like, yeah. I mean, it's just a laptop, right? She goes, is that the mainframe for your company? And I was like, okay, I got to go buy an iPad because I thought it was pretty small and convenient. And she's like, nah, that's, that's not it. You get it. You get it. That's too big.
[01:00:32] Albert Gillispie: Lesson learned.
[01:00:33] David Conklin: Lesson learned. So I got an iPad with one of those Apple things. Cool. Carry around all the time. It's fantastic. You know, it's better. It is easier, but uh, not a super techie guy.
[01:00:44] Albert Gillispie: That's okay. That's okay. Not everyone is. So how can we send people to you? How can people get in touch with you? Do business with you? Get a hold of you?
[01:00:53] David Conklin: Wow. I mean, any of our companies have websites, you know, there's... it's just the name plus dot com. Littleguys.com, adelphussellers.com, F45.com. F45 would be a little different because then you'd have to look up our location, our location. Yeah, Lubbock or Amarillo. Well, we have social media on, you know, Facebook and Instagram and Twitter.
[01:01:19] Kellen Ketchersid: And I think maybe that's it. And we'll link all of that in our show notes. So anybody listening, if they want to find you, they should be able to just scroll down there and click. Well, hey, yeah, they should.
[01:01:28] Kellen Ketchersid: Absolutely. Thank you for doing that, guys. You didn't have to do that.
[01:01:30] Albert Gillispie: Yeah, we appreciate it. You bet. And thank you so much for coming on our podcast. Those are great stories and great lessons. I appreciate it.
[01:01:39] David Conklin: Yeah. Thank you guys.
[01:01:41] Albert Gillispie: Well, I hope you enjoyed that. A lot of colorful stories. One of our favorite interviews that we've had so far, a serial entrepreneur that has so much going on. And if you liked what you heard and you want more like that, click the subscribe button, leave us a five-star review. Help us. Don't be greedy. Help us share this podcast with the needy and help us get the word out. We appreciate you guys for listening, and we'll see you on the next one.
[01:02:11] Kellen Ketchersid: Thank you.
