HOW Can you stay MARRIED to a contractor?? 4k

but we're gonna be talking about is something that I think is actually even more impactful and almost hits every contractor out there and that's how do you actually run a business and stay married I'm not here to hear how awesome things are I want to know the actual truth has there been rough patches how have you dealt with it how can these guys if they're dealing with a rough patch what can they expect when to shut it off and to talk about something else like when you're at home you're at dinner everything is about work and sometimes you may lose your identity like well as a couple because you're managing 30-plus people every single day as a team so when these guys are out there and they're managing people they can go hey you know what the strategies these guys are using to manage a 5 million dollar business running 30 plus people I can now implement you guys have an you know not an atypical business model yeah we have our business model is this so we attempted that at first and we found that half the customers were happy and the other half half the customers were not happy at all or happy with what they had and as a small business starting out even growing to a mid-sized business the company losing half your customers is a bad deal their life is you know their wife is the head of the household and maybe not as involved in the business what I do with my wife is I use her as a consultant it's the one way we come together without okay she's get she's nine to five inside my business she's not you know nine to five inside my company she's more of an outside consultant to help me and and she knows how I operate so she's gonna know how to speak to me right understand there's ups and downs in business and early on in working together you have to navigate through the challenges of who's position whose opinion is should be implemented remember your wife is not your significant other is not the person that is your dumping ground they're not there to hear all of your problems they are there to support you they are there to balance you out and build you up but if all you're doing is dumping on them they're not going to be able to fulfill help you fulfill your role right or wrong outs or when they actually women just wanted to be a woman's but they want to feel like they're half or even like they're 60% so even if they're half treat them like they're 60 70 percent alright guys in just a moment we're gonna be meeting with Robin Mechele and hearing how they built their business from scratch running 30 plus people today doing over 5 million dollars per year the real trials tribulations and the strategies that they've used so this isn't just their story if you guys have learned how to manage and cope with the running a business and being staying married and being successful in that that's a strategy that I really I'm asking you to please share in the comments down below because this is a this is a topic that is a sore spot for a lot of contractors out there because their marriages are not doing as well as Robin Michelle's are they're struggling and the strategies that you guys are finding that are successful please share down below so without wasting more time let's get into today's story with Robin Michelle from blades direct all right you guys I'm with the blades direct guys but we're not gonna be talking about blades we're not gonna be talking about jobs but we're gonna be talking about is something that I think is actually even more impactful and almost hits every contractor out there and that's how do you actually run a business and stay married these guys have been doing this these guys this is Rob and Michelle guys say hi to these guys for you guys that don't know who Rob and Michelle are I've been buying blades for you guys for how long forever 15 years 15 years these guys some of you guys have maybe heard me say this before but I haven't bought a concrete saw and yeah I haven't bought a concrete saw in a decade because I buy all my blades from you guys and they got this bundle deal but we're not here to talk about them what these guys did agree to do is talk about their journey together building this business how long ago did you guys build this business how long ago did you start it the business was founded we've got into the business in about 1999 and blades direct was founded in in the 2011 okay what do you do for them for blades direct yes I oversee everything from product development sales and marketing okay and Michelle what do you do for he's the front face of the company and I'm the back face okay so you guys are both the owners yes okay so that's the important thing so you guys have worked together for how many years now 15 years how's that been amazing it's actually great okay so this is kind of different because a lot of guys aren't experiencing what you guys may be experiencing has it always been great come on you guys I'm not here to hear how awesome things are I want to know the actual truth has there been rough patches how have you dealt with it how can these guys if they're dealing with the rough patches what can they expect and there's ups and downs in business and early on in working together you have to navigate through the challenges of whose position whose opinion is should be implemented who's right and who's wrong and who has the better strengths and usually the best breed the best result the best feedback is to always let your wife kind of you'll follow her lead and and if things go wrong then never say I told you so but then circle back around and we redevelop the idea or a program that you originally started out to but there's been ups and downs mostly we've learned that there's no insulting and respecting everyone's position and opinion and that's that's really the key okay I would say that you know just when to shut it off and to talk about something else like when you're at home you're at dinner everything's about work and sometimes you may lose your identity like well as a couple if we don't have this work that's bonding us together then what are we here for so it's good to kind of when you're somewhere just unplug and just make that about each other and that's that sounds really tough but that's really smart is there do you have like a strategy to unplug I mean because to turn work off tougher for her for me okay it's tougher for him but for me I do I haven't thought are I to like volunteering or I try to get involved in that so I kind of have that as my outlet and it's not 24/7 blades direct but um but yeah I mean the good news is we can work on stuff late at night and we can't help customers late at night and solve problems a little bit late at night and think of great ideas late at night and then the downside is you know for out somewhere late at night and we're out with friend I don't think they want to hear all day about blades direct but for the most part we have a happy medium okay Rob I'm looking at Rob you guys didn't rah rah rah it works out great the truth is if I'm if I'm too into the program and to and to work and Michelle doesn't want to hear about it I can get yelled at and that's when I know enough is enough so you get so much so what is Rob like so I mean is he strong headed easy like we're running we're going for it okay because a lot of guys a lot a lot of gals you're going to be married to a very strong-headed individual man because as an entrepreneur a guy that's willing to take on his own business you've got to be ambitious motivated driven willing to work harder than anybody else you've got to be willing to go the extra mile robbed of my summing you up because I'm summing up every 1,000 percent every entrepreneur that I've ever met that has ever succeeded right yeah how big is how big how many guys you run right now I mean how BIG's your organization so we get an idea 30 30 guys and girls work with Lee it's direct 30 guys and girls and like just give me some ideas gross what are you guys typically doing in a year our house oh as far as Bangkok so blades directing blades direct is upwards of five million dollars in sales per year okay so this kind of gives you and the only reason I asked these guys this is not gonna be about business it's going to be about I want you guys to get a sense of where these guys are at because you're managing 30-plus people every single day as a team so when these guys are out there and they're managing people they can go hey you know what the strategies these guys are using to manage a five million dollar business running 30 plus people I can now implement to do this together so we were talking about turning things off and managing a very strong-willed man is there any strategies for the other gals watching out there to deal with something like that or tell me about that it's almost like I am his boss because at the end of the day he's my boss he needs somebody to as the owner and the top of the company to bounce ideas off of and it's very hard to talk about certain things with even a close employee or or even our manager or an executive so we we talk about those things and I listened to him I'm kind of like a stress reliever too because he can't really complain it to another person at work she's the boss so but he could come home it can complain to me I kind of take the bits and pieces out of what's important what's not what we just move on from or what we deal with and it's been working yeah that's that's key Stan I know no pimple no complaining at work no one would always keep a great attitude people who are getting ahead there's the same don't give up they'll never give up mm-hmm and that's really the truth it pearl you know where where I'm speaking to the hardscape guys in the landscape guides it's a hardscape Brotherhood and I see these guys working so hard and building their their artwork and they support us at plates direct and it you know we reach out to our customers and we speak to their wives and their gatekeepers and they do amazing job protecting their husbands and the businesses and we respect that as a business here we know that they're we're speaking to family-run businesses there they're putting their heart sweat and tears into their companies we know what it's about we take it seriously we appreciate obviously the opportunity to sell to companies like yours and everyone else here it's an amazing it's been an amazing road find the best product amazing Road for us so I want to get into how you built your business together in just a moment but before we do that because a lot of you guys I'm going to share some of my experience because my wife is not as actively involved in our business as you are don't say that she's got a good idea okay but for the guys out there that you know they're out there they're the head of the business and their wife is you know they're their wife is the head of the household and maybe not as involved in the business what I do with my wife is I user as a consultant as an outside consultant that can get a different perspective on the business and it's so helpful like I'll be dealing with stress I'll be dealing with issues and she won't have she won't be so intertwined with it that she can't remove herself from it and so when I come home I'll say I need help I need your opinion on this what and she'll just sit down and she'll listen and when she talks it's amazing and what it does is it actually gets her involved more into what I'm doing so it's like it's the one way we come together without okay she's get she's 9 to 5 inside my business she's not you know 9 to 5 inside my company she's more of an outside consultant to help me and and she knows how I operate so she's gonna know how to speak to me right and so if you guys if your significant other whether your wife runs the business and you're the guy that's you know running the house well it doesn't matter but this is a strategy that I use that works and these guys have their own strategy but now let's talk about I actually want to talk about the blades direct story how did you guys actually build this business from was in 1999 so I got into the business in in the early in the late 90s as I had a lot of sales experience a lot of construction tool experience I met Michelle and in the mid-2000s we got married he forgets we got married we started out on a new business venture together we we were able to hit the ground running we got very lucky we had an opportunity we sold the business and when we sold the business we looked around and was that business we're in the marketing consulting business okay we sold the business and we looked around and said what could we do we looked at everything we looked at daycares we looked at and marketing companies restaurants and we realized that I have so much experience with the construction tool business and that was really fun and that was really a passion of mine for many many many many years so we thought well is this is this the time is this an opportunity and we said well let's give it a shot and we just thought what would be the right business model how do we I really start something that's meaningful impactful within an industry create a unique niche so that we have a competitive edge and and we chewed on it and chewed on it and we looked at some of the competitors and what they're doing and how they're selling and and we thought we had a better way and most of our competitors they're a dis diamond company or that diamond company and we realized that if we just went to manufacturers and made maybe these exclusives were eight great deals and then brought them to the customers direct and and here we are as blades direct and and from the very first customer to thousands and thousands and thousands of customers a decade and 10 15 years later it's been a it's been a roller coaster an amazing ride what is your business model for guys that are familiar with blades direct you guys have you know not an atypical business model yeah we have our business model is this so most most of our competitors most of the tools on the market locally guys get phone calls on their phone there are imported products there their Chinese products that company slaps a label on it they call it they're at their own and what we found with that kind of with that kind of product and business model it's been a 50/50 proposition we attempted that at first and we found that half the customers were happy and the other half to half the customers were not happy at all or happy with what they had and as a small business starting out even growing to a midsize business the company losing half your customers is a bad deal unless you're Coke or Pepsi and you have half the world 50% wasn't working we went on a search for we said what do our customers really really want and our customers want brand products that they can trust and believe in that work great and no sales pitch so we've about five years ago we stumbled upon our product of this relationship with some media it's been a game changer for us they branded a blade and tools for us and I can show you this is what everyone's been raving about this is a shock this is the shine like the backbone of you guys's business right yeah well this is this is an example of the backbone of our business so this this particular tool what the manufacturers done is put our logo on their tool right with them because they trust us they believe in us they know what we're doing that we're representing their tools tools right so we are we bringing this product from Germany forcing media overseas we put it in the stores here in the United States and Canada it's they'll direct to customers and it's no sales pitch so our customers know they're buying it's not just a blade with our name on it they're buying a brand name tool with our logo on it and that means they're getting premium products they're getting an incredible experience and they're getting a company that stands behind the Frog okay so you say a premium product but I typically will buy your 12 blade package and I I will burn through those I I will burn through the saw before I burn through those twelve blade yeah literally they'll only hold up that well so when we go to the Shocker blade that's like way above and beyond yeah it's cream in the crop so we have we've met a lot of customers out here one of our of our skate crews came about eight guys deep yesterday they came into the booth they were looking around they said what specials were on and they wanted to know the deals they want to know they had some new tools they wanted some pricing on we said you know we've run a great deals on the chakra blade today and he said well guys how many we have left he said well we still have eight left from the box of 12 we've got two years ago and I said well we're doing really great so one of the things that you know the reason I met you guys in the first place is you guys called me but I happen to actually I go through you know a fair amount of blades and I was always kind of Pio I was pissed off I'll be honest with you because I would spend 200 250 bucks on a blade and I would burn through it and I would burn through it and then one of your guys called me and I'm like fine send me out 12 days I figured I was getting 12 junk plates right but I wanted the saw I needed us off I'm like all right I'll burn through those twelve junk blades but I got myself a free soft score yeah well I burned through the saw and I still had six seven blades left and I'm like holy crap all right I wore a saw out before I wore out these blades but then you guys called again I bought another 12 blade package because I needed the saw I burned out myself now I've got like 10 blades left and I'm burning through the second saw so the saws that the blades that you guys are using are actually really high-quality lazy and then we then you amp it up to this thing and it's like well that thing will last us months and months on the GameChanger that's why we have our relationship yeah we worked really we worked extremely hard bring it in to me but you guys do more than just these blades I don't you don't you use don't you do grinder blades to fire yeah yeah so so we're we're blades direct so you've expanded your out you're whose idea was that to expand the offering is this that was this something you guys worked on together there's stuff everybody is different price point different goal in mind a different what sweet spot so we want to have something for everybody's sweet spot okay and whether you want a more premium lady want to segment Billy and you want to attorney a ten-inch child wait a semi quarter right there something custom we want to be able to get that for you and in a quick amount of time all right so let me see what Stan actually had one thawed year we're asking about how the relationship works and as you asked well how did you what other products you have we both started speaking at the same time but I know from experience and this is important to the guys out there that if if you're a partner your wife starts at the same time you probably want to let her speak first well it's not good tool you don't want to always over speak and always over talk this is they your partner has something important to say and usually it's smart and right so there's no one to find him I absolutely love that actually thanks Rob because I forget my manners a lot of times and an apology goes a long way you know you got to introduce your wife first you've got to always make sure you include your I like the decisions just the way you speak when you're speaking to other people remember now Michelle I don't mean to you you tell me if I'm wrong but what my wife has corrected me on is saying it's week not me you got to remove the me from my vocabulary and it's week we own and we do this together and guys you if your wife hasn't been saying this to your significant another just start to start to try to be conscious of being…