He Grew CMP attachments from $480,000 to 4 million in 6 years. 4 k vid

six years ago we did 480 thousand in revenue and this year six years later you're doing four plus million yes okay they want to start their own business and I want to hear what it took to do that from you because I'm guessing it wasn't an easy road knowing that actually I've been told no more than I've told been told yes what does that mean I've told all my employees this all the time I want every one of you to be better than me there was actually two years I only took two weekends off are you staring Christmas now all we did that for seven years though did that for seven years no pay seven years no pay that success was handed to you and I hear that all the time but I'm gonna go on the record saying no I I handed it to myself yeah alright guys we're at cmp just outside of st. Cloud Minnesota we're gonna talk to these guys about how they built their business and how they run their shop Derek and Andrew so stick around because this is gonna be a two-part series we're gonna get the Grand Tour starting right now all right you guys today we're launching a brand new miniseries called listen while you work and what it's designed for is the guys that are out there every single day working and they need something to listen to but they can't watch a video what I'm going to be doing is going out and attempting to interview different entrepreneurs and people from across our industries trying to pick their brains and bring you the best information that I can get from them now the success of this series will depend on how you guys interact with the video you see YouTube's algorithm determines if a video is good or bad determining based upon what you guys do so every time you guys comment or hit the like button it actually helps promote the video so if you guys think that this is going to be a good series or beneficial in any way shape or form please comment anything in the comments down below I don't care if it's even the word anything all of that goes to tell YouTube's algorithm that this is the kind of information you guys want so without wasting any more time let's go hook up with Derek from CMP attachments and let me know what you think of this series so let's get into it right now [Laughter] all right guys we're with Derek and he actually is the owner president of CMP you started this attachment shop right okay so let's go out into your yard and let's take a look around but what did tell me a little bit about CMP what do you guys do first and foremost well we manufacture attachments most of the stuff that we try to manufacture we use high-grade material t1 and AR we try to specialize in things that people aren't specializing in and wanna manufacture okay so and we try to manufacture things I cut out the labor how long you guys been in business we've been in business for 13 years 13 years okay so you if I understood this right though Derrick you started in a garage as a diesel mechanic well I started out of high school as a diesel mechanic I went to work for a company called MP next level started there right out of high ceiling mechanic and then the last eight years I was there I became their their shop manager and I started cmp when I was working at MP next level so you got some tools and attachments over here so but this story you started as a shot mechanic a highway or just a basically a diesel mechanic how did you transition to run it well you got what twelve guys we got fourteen guys now fourteen guys okay two of them are gone today but I don't know I've always managed people and I've been really good at it and one of the things that I always like does ever since I was a little kid I love building stuff you know I like like this stuff over yeah like this we have the patent on or hide your bucket look in a good unit actually this is my model and it's actually one of the first models that we ever built yeah it's a great tool when I was that MMP we did a lot of restoration and we hated the skid loaders because you had to have a bucket and he had a soil conditioner and you had to switch back and forth so we used a lot of times we used the tractors and we had all this [Music] doubling up on equipment and that's where I came up with this so we built I built my first one out of my garage and that's how it started was actually this unit how much what do you have in gross sales per year now we're gonna be just under 4 million this year 4 million okay so in 13 years you've been doing this for 13 years been doing it 13 years been doing it full-time for six okay and then and it's basically six years you went I'm gonna guess what were you where were yet when you were doing it part when I when I left my first year six years ago we did four hundred and eighty thousand in revenue and this year six years later you're doing four plus million yes okay and so today that's what we're gonna find out we're gonna find out how you took built your own attachment company and how you took it from going from out of high school is a diesel mechanic to running a fabrication shop to marketing to running the business that's our goal we want to hear your story so that when these guys are thinking about what where's what can they do with their lives you know guys don't mind being diesel mechanics but a lot of guys have hopes and dreams that go beyond just being a diesel mechanic and they want to be an entrepreneur they want to start their own business and I want to hear what it took to do that from you because I'm guessing it wasn't an easy road no it actually I've been told no more than I've told been told yes what does that mean well every time we've always been a focused on getting dealers okay and at the beginning stages I couldn't get anybody to be a dealer for our product so we had to sell direct now it's the opposite we got people calling to want to be a dealer okay Joe it's a it's actually really fun now so what this success like how I feel it has been like I've never given up like when everything is coming down and it feels like oh my gosh how am I going to handle all this you have to come up with a plan on how you're going to get out of that wood safely and I feel that planning and probably the next most important part is surrounding yourself with good employees I think I think that's key it is and the most important is like if you talk to all my guys I try to treat them how I'd want to be treated that's the other leader you would want up yeah that's one of my sayings I've got I made that up I wrote it on my board be the leader you would want to follow treat him the way yes absolutely so I think a lot of what has built my business today I'd be naive to say it's just me because it's not I would say it's all the good employees I've got I've really paid attention to hiring good guys good guys that care about okay meeting this business but I want to jump in here because there's a lot of guys out here that have good guys but if they're not motivating them and driving them to get the most out of them then they're leaving a lot of potential on the table so if they're not pushing a guy to become better themselves then they they're not fulfilled or not going to their utmost potential I think I would agree with that I would agree and I think that might be kind of what you do if I'm listening correct it's really hard because everybody's motivated differently exactly nobody like not one person you can motivate this way and like I treat these guys and tell these guys like they'll be like well he doesn't do this he doesn't do that we got to get him to do this a lot of times it's just putting people in the right place like they might not be good over here and they don't like it but let's find something that they they exceed it and they're really good at and let's find a spot in our business where we can plug them in - okay and when they plug in the goal really is and I've tell all my employees this all the time I want every one of you to be better than me because if every one of you guys are better than me yeah we're gonna we're gonna be more successful than just me right so you try to find all these people I find all these guys that are better we already got guys I can weld butter me I've machine I got guys that can machine better than me I got guys that can manage the shop better than me so it's really cool to see absolutely yeah absolutely so I look I can I actually have people in place where I can go get advice from the only situation that we have in place yet is nobody can design stuff better than me like I have that like when I look at equipment I just love equipment like operating it yet in it and when I like everything I do is hands-on like I spend a lot of time in the equipment and I'm like gosh how can I make this better how can I treat this do that and I think that'll probably be my hardest challenge is how do I find somebody that loves equipment more than me and so that will probably be my role in this company so you're graduating I called the graduation process where you graduated for your graduating up and you're getting people to fulfill those spots inside of your business so that you can graduate to the next level correct is that yeah I would say I I enjoy designing equipment and coming up with new ideas and that will probably be my place in the business okay so let's talk about the transition period because I think this is a key element for guys that are going to try to duplicate and but you know the success you've had build a great team you were saying something off-camera that I want to make sure we head on and that's when how you actually started while you were doing it part-time or you went full-time this is good you guys yeah so like you know obviously I started off I took a two thousand dollar credit card loan because I never had money never had any investment into this I bought a welder and the first thing I built was detach oars we had I had already invented these but it was just was this in your garage this was in my garage so I started manufacturing 3.2 thatcher's and zero-turn D thatcher's and I did it nights and weekends I work 50 hours a week I came home every night and they worked til 10 11 o'clock then on the weekends I I work there was actually two years I only took two weekends off are you staring Christmas that was it like otherwise every weekend Saturday Sunday I worked and that's what it took to get the business going it's really hard and I can tell you at the end it's so worth it like now we did that for seven years though did that for seven years no pay seven years no pay busting your butt yes nights weekends and I repeat this because a lot of guys aren't willing to make that sacrifice to do what it takes to get here they look at somebody like you and think that success was handed to you and I hear that all the time but I'm gonna go on the record saying no I I handed it to myself yeah it right I don't think it would have if I want to put in that work this business won't be where it's at today today I always tell everybody to like we're very innovative and creative we can manufacture stuff but what I call lead manufacturing of we're a profitable the last five years we've been a profitable R&D company we've developed over a hundred and eighty products so I mean I look at how much we've done we got a long road ahead of us we're looking at robots now we've got products that are taken off so we're we're looking now okay now we just need to focus on mass manufacturing all the products that we've developed in the last five years so there came a time while you were working part time that you got an ultimatum yeah my my wife um I was 30 years old and we had two kids at that time yeah and my wife was extremely supportive through the whole thing and just and she's finally she just sat there and she looked at me and said you got to decide you either work full-time for a company or you got to go on your own and I looked at her and I said you're right and so that yeah that next Monday I went in put in my two-week notice so so it's not an easy journey no it's extremely hard but I tell you what it's been extremely fun and you know there's not a lot of things I would change when look back at it like there's not much of a change to like the Sun but where you are right now though right there's not much you would change you've been doing this for 13 years do you work as hard today as you did back then to get started I would say the truth no okay do I work hard yes you know I need now as the business is grown I need to have a little bit more of a clear mind so I work hard but it's more internal working not external okay so that's still working it or what you say you're telling me that if you sit in that office all day long even if you're not out busting your butt you don't come home mentally exhausted and pretty much fried no look I when I say work hard before I did physical labor all day long like I didn't get in till 10 11 o'clock now when I go home yes I still work I think I'm thinking about the stuff I'm drawing and like that never ends when I go on vacation that never stops you cannot shut that off as a business owner that's one of the sacrifices you're you have to be willing to make yes you have to be willing when when everybody else is off having fun I'm generally even though I'm having fun I'm still thinking about stuff you're thinking about Monday and you're thinking about all the projects you got going and how you're gonna make sure you got to have the plan so when the guys come up to you and wonder what they're gonna do the next week you have to have a plan ready for them so I want to talk a little bit about your team do you motivate them to work as hard as you possibly can understand I'm guessing nobody works as hard as you or do you have guys that will work as hard as I I do think I got guys I'll work as hard as me yeah so I've got I've got one guy that will work as as I do and I think that's the key is to find that motivated guy that it will work right alongside you and then you've got actually how did you foster that in them was that just natural or do you get wall here no I think the thing we do different here is I make it fun like I don't we're just a different shop like when the guys come here I'm not corporate like the guys come in late I understand they got families you know for us it's a little bit easier we're under one roof so like if somebody wants coming in hour late I don't care as long as you get your stuff done like I don't care like I'm not gonna sit there and hound them as long as you get your stuff done if they want to leave early if they take a long break we don't use punch cards I told the guys like we're all I want to trust every one of my employees so you write your time down if I can't trust you I don't want you working for me all right I'm gonna jump in here cuz that's how I work too yeah hi all right as long as everybody shows up at the same time I don't care as long as you get your jobs done I don't care no punch cards yeah if I can't trust you then you're the wrong person to have on my team I have had that been taken advantage quite a few times because I'm a pretty trusting individual but that doesn't mean that I'm going to change the way I work because when you find the right core group of people they love it they thrive or they do hurt underneath that all right and I've seen bosses where there just laugh at them because they're evil I mean I like I videotaped one over my shoulder once I didn't I couldn't show it he's yelling and screaming it is crew so let's talk about how you differentiate yourself from the competitors the other attachments out there because I mean there's a lot of companies that are making attachments right now so what do you do to set yourself apart well everything that we do you know if you look at all of our attachments they're all a little bit different I fix all the problems like I'm not an inventor I'm a I'm a problem solver okay I look at the problems that are with some attachments like take that soil conditioner for a three-point okay you know like the problem is with the other brands they use a shaft the gearbox and then goes down to a chain and when you hit a rock and you hit stumps to got all that linkage and all that drive line that you're shocking and you know I've been in this industry and like you're constantly working on the chains the shafts the gearboxes are going out where this is simple you slide a hydraulic pump on we have a relief valve then we got a motor inside the drum when you hit something it's just going over relief no different than your loader over curling on your bucket it just goes over relief there's no damaging parts so we just look for items like this that guys want to use 4050 hours a week okay and we say okay let's give them a unit that's gonna actually perform forty people are making money with this and putting food on the table for their families that's how I look at it and like this guy that buys us and does soil conditioning and does ball fields and whatnot like that feeds his family that how he gets to where like gets there like this is more important than just building an attachment this I feel it's like when we build an attachment I told the guys it's more than that we're partnering with a landscape company with a construction company so it's our goal to make sure that they stay running and they make as much money as they can we want them to make more money than everybody else that's not using our stuff so the goal behind everything is I look at okay can it be more profitable on the job is it gonna save labor because that's key that's what's gonna set us apart from another attachment company isn't our units are gonna last longer and they're gonna perform better so words of wisdom from a guy that went from nothing starting in his garage 13 years later you're doing four million but just in the last six years you went from four hundred and eighty-five thousand to four million you have tenfold increased your company words of wisdom to give these guys that are going I want to do I want to be like that what would what are they gonna do they can the truth is you can't give up can't give up you gotta can't give up and you got a higher good employees that's so I I smile from ear to ear as you say that because that's all I've ever said I'm not smarter I'm not better I just work way harder than anybody else that I've ever seen in my life I tell the guys I go to seminars or like hey what how do you succeed I said you start Monday at 5:30 and you stop Saturday night at midnight and they're like nobody works 24 hours a day says no but when I go to bed thinking about work they have my phone rings in the middle of the night I still answer it and when I wake up every single morning I'm at work when my kids are at the ball field I'm water working ha ha ha and you gotta have a supportive wife Oh Nadia for you so next we're gonna get to talk to Andrew one of your guys and he's gonna give us a shop tour and show us what happens behind the scenes at CMP attachments is that cool with you yeah yeah all right so you guys CMP attachments we'll check them out now I think I'm gonna be taking a few attachments home and testing them out what do you what attachments should I be well I would like to do a rotary grapple and uh I think the Hydra bucket is something that you know it's not for everybody but it's for a lot of people also okay and I think that one just needs a good response of what it's good for so people are educated because if you're gonna go out and do a large area I just wanted people to know like this what it's used for and where it benefits and if you're doing this kind of work it's probably not the right item then you do need a soil conditioner so I think that's a good one to educate what about your forestry head cuz that you of course we had that I've never seen any but I've never is there another one like it cuz I've never seen one like it no…