Bedros Keuilian Podcast Show - Aaron Hinde: An Inside Look - 048

Episode Date: May 23, 2018

In this episode, Bedros Keuilian and LIFEAID Co-Founder and President Aaron Hinde discuss how to carve out your niche in a crowded industry, just as LIFEAID did in the beverage industry. Learn how to grow your business and build your brand without going the traditional retail route. Watch or listen to discover how you can evolve your team and hire even better replacements.   “Find the vacuum in your industry and see how you can fill it with value.” - Bedros Keuilian   Here’s what you’ll discover:   1:53 - How to fill the vacuum in your industry and monetize. 4:27 - Why your product doesn’t need to be on the shelf to sell. 7:14 - How partnering with quality brands will earn people’s trust. 10:36 - How to effectively delegate the responsibilities of your business. 14:29 - Why you need to have an accurate view of your business’s potential.   “Comfort is the enemy of entrepreneurism.” - Aaron Hinde

How did you guys first penetrate this beverage market? Because, I mean, it's so full with Red Bull and Monster. Like, your competition is pretty steep. So sitting on a sea of known products with an unknown product is a quick route to failure. And so we knew we had to take a different approach after we started spending money doing the traditional game and getting nowhere with it. Hey, friends, welcome to another episode of the Empire Podcast and Inside Look. My name is Pedro Kulian, and I'm here with a very special guest today, the co-founder and president, of the Life Aid Beverage Company, Mr. Aaron Hyde.

Aaron, how are you? Be doing great. Thanks for having me. Thanks for joining. He is here on the Empire Podcast, my man. And let me tell you, Fit Body Boot Camp locations worldwide sell the Fit Aid brand inside their locations. Absolutely. I'm a big fan. We have your beverages here. But what is Life Aid, Fit Aid, Focus Aid?

And how did you think of it? Yeah. I mean, we're a very clean, nutritional beverage company for active lifestyles. Instead of taking, you know, kind of the, the, the, the, the, you know, the, the, you know, the, one product approach with multiple flavors, we really focused on functionality. So the supplement blend in a fit aid, which is for post-workout recovery, is very different than say the natropic blend in a focus aid, which is for, you know, brain and cognitive health. Yeah. So, you know, we really wanted to buck the trends of these very unhealthy energy drinks and, you know, quote-unquote

sports drinks that were truck full of high sugar, high caffeine, artificial colors, flavors and sweeteners, you know, just not the healthiest stuff. So I'm curious here. Would you consider your brand a disruptor or an alternative? Yeah, good question. I think we're both. We're a disruptor in a sense that no one's really done what we've done before. It's always been a flavor focus, not a function focus, where you're actually manipulating the formulas per skew.

But each of our skews is an alternative. so fit aid may be an alternative to Gatorade, FocusAid may be an alternative to a monster, party aid may be an alternative to coconut water, travel aid may be an alternative to emergency. Gotcha. That makes total sense. And so really what you've done is you found the vacuum in your industry, in the beverage industry, and you said,

hey, everyone that's going after flavor, I'm going to go after function. Exactly. Okay. And so you filled in that vacuum. So that's a very big entrepreneurial lesson to everyone watching this and listening to this right now is you want to find vacuum or the open space in your industry and see how you can fill it with value. And so what year did you did you and Orion start the company? 2011.

2011. Yeah, 2011. 2018. And, you know, you guys were a multimillion dollar company. And, of course, the Empire podcast is all about how one builds an empire. Yeah. Was it a home run right out the gate? No, not even close.

Tell us about some of the failures and pivots you had to make. Yeah, so I was a sports chiropractor for 10 years, had a successful practice, never brought in less than 350 grand a year in 10 years, 30 new patients every single month by referral. So great practice. I'll only put in 25 hours a week total there. But I had that burning, itch like a lot of your audience, I'm sure does too, to do something a little bit greater and affect people's health on a much larger scale. And so when we started a life aid, we really had to make a decision at a certain point in time. Like comfort, I think, is the enemy of entrepreneurism. And so, you know, burning the ships at the shore, so to speak,

and pushing the chips all in, going in with life aid as our sole focus to have something that we can really scale because in a fee-for-service model, you're only getting paid when you're actively there. And so I can only work on so many people in a day. Very good point. So as a chiropractor, and again, of course, I came out of the personal training space, so we have a lot of similarities. We really are trading our time for dollars. Yes. And so we start thinking, and when when we start thinking empire and we're thinking scale, and as we talked about earlier before the cameras and recording went on, going from a solopreneur to an entrepreneur, you start thinking about how can I leverage my time where, you know, a few hours invested gets me

reoccurring revenue on an ongoing basis. Yep. How did you guys first penetrate this beverage market? Because, I mean, it's so full with Red Bull and Monster. Like, your competition's pretty steep. Yeah, real steep. When we first launched, we tried to do what every beverage company out there does, you know, try to get some retail accounts going.

The problem with the traditional approach in any industry is typically it is so dominated by the major players. You mentioned Monster, Rockstar, Red Bull. You go into a convenience store, the average person is in a convenience store for 90 seconds. They know exactly what section they're going to, what kind of drink they want, usually what brand they want. It's not a place for discovery for new brands, okay? So sitting on a sea of known products with an unknown product is a quick route to fill.

And so we knew we had to take a different approach after we started spending money doing the traditional game and getting nowhere with it. And our mutual friend, Ben Altadana, introduced me to 25K. And I already knew a little bit about marketing. I've done some Dan Kennedy stuff and that kind of thing, enough to be dangerous. And I started taking my marketing game to the next level. And that's when we really learned to start leveraging marketing in non-traditional distribution channels, i.e. CrossFit gyms, with our fit-age drink that we really started to scale. You know, we were able to do direct marketing campaigns, automated email sequences,

irresistible offers. And I'll never forget, we used to, you know, ring the bell in the office every time we got a new gym on board. And then it got to the point where it was just ringing all the time and so disruptive, we had to quit that practice. But, you know, in first month we'd got 30 new gyms. Then we got 60 and then 100. And then we were cranking out 250 new gyms every month for a long, long time.

Yeah, so many great lessons you just shared. So many of our audience who are watching and listening to this have this idea in their head that if I could just get on the shelf, I'll make it. Yeah. Right, whether it's a shelf at the grocery store, convenience store, a department store. It doesn't much matter. Walmart. But the truth of the matter is, if it's not a recognized and known trusted brand, like in the convenience store business, someone's going in there for 90 seconds. And I just thought about the last time I went in there.

I went in there for a diet seven up. I wasn't, you know, a lot of that stomach. wasn't feeling good. I was like, I want to diet 7-up. I went in there and beelined it right to that cold box, knew exactly what I was looking for, purchased and got out. And anytime I've seen a new brand, yeah, the colors or whatever catch my eye, but it's a risk to me. I never take that risk. And so, you know, watch out what you wish for because if you end up on that shelf that you want to, you're fighting that battle to get on the shelf, if you're unknown, you're going to get eaten up alive, is what I'm hearing from you. Absolutely. You'll get eaten up alive. And a lot of times it'll

cost you money because in the traditional game, game, there's slotting fees or you have to pay for entry just to get the right to be put on that shelf. Yeah. So then you figured out, well, wait a minute, there's got to be this lower hanging fruit where I can actually influence people to try my drink. And the way I'm going to do that is go into a very niche, a very direct industry, I would say, CrossFit, right? So you wanted to CrossFit locations and you said, hey, look, here's a beverage, it's a great

alternative and a value add to your clients and it's a revenue stream for you. Because people already trust their CrossFit coaches or the gyms they work out in, right? Because now we have them in our Fit Body Boot Camp locations worldwide. Absolutely. Well, if you trust your Fit Body Boot Camp location or your CrossFit location, you're likely going to trust their judgment when they hand you a free can to try out, and that creates the pattern of repetitive purchase. Yeah, going to the point of avocation is critical.

So what better to give someone a recovery drink, right, when they need recovery. most after a workout. Sure. We have party aid at festivals and those type of events, right? We have golf raid at golf courses and golf events. Guess what? In a typical gym, there's not much competition from a beverage perspective. It's not like a 7-Eleven where there's a thousand products.

So in the cross-the-gims, we were the only drink for a long time. So we were able to create this groundswell, this social media army of of very influential and vocal people and advocates of the brand without having to spend the huge dollars that a lot of these big drink companies have as far as their marketing budget. So it's still possible to go in on a low budget

as long as you have some strategy behind it. Yeah, I think you have to be authentic. You have to be part of the community. It's not a type of thing that you just say, oh, there's opportunity here, so I'm gonna go dive into it and try to take advantage that opportunity. It's like we were part of that.

I mean, I've been a personal trainer since I was 19 years old. Part of that gym community. I'm not a great golfer. I'm not even a good golfer. Actually, but I have good golf etiquette. But I'm part of that community. I love golf.

I love the game, the mental aspect. I go to Burning Man every year. I'm part of that community. So when I'm talking party aid, fit aid, life aid, focus aid, travel aid. Like, I know those communities because that is me and therefore we're able to relate to them. I know you're a great copywriter.

Like if you weren't a fitness guy, It would be challenging to write fitness copy, you know, but being part of that authentic community, knowing what those struggles are, knowing what those wants, needs, and desires are, we're able to really connect with them. Perfect. So here's another great lesson I want to share with you guys. My job here is to take the nuggets and then say, here it is, polish it up. Don't, don't miss this nugget.

And what I got from that was that you've got to be authentic. And we heard this a couple weeks ago from founder and CEO of LiveFit, Randall Pitch, when he was out here on the show. And he said, look, you know, you've got to be authentic. you've got to be transparent in the industry that you're from. Otherwise, people can smell that you are an imposter. And he said, I surf, I like tattoos, I lift. The Lift Fit brand is for those people.

And that's who he markets to. And he's got a multimillion dollar brand because of it. He goes, sure, I can probably go into the BMX space and try and get Lift Fit to grow there. But that's not what I do. I don't feel authentic. And I think it'll be an uphill battle all the way. And this is exactly what we're hearing from you. So with that said, now we know it wasn't a home run right out the gate.

What were some of the big learning lessons as you were going from a solopreneur to an entrepreneur and now to an empire builder? Yeah, I'd say the biggest lesson that we learned, and I'll even back this up to when I was a chiropractor because I think it's relevant for any solopreneurs out there. If I'm at 350K in revenue and I want to go to 700, you know, the solopreneur approach is, okay, 350 times two is 700. So what am I going to do to get there? I'm going to work twice as hard.

I'm going to put in twice the effort. I'm going to start working Saturdays, whatever it is. Well, when you're looking to scale rapidly and go from, you know, one million to 10 million, I can't put in 10 times the effort because I'm already working 60 hours a week. So what can I do to get there? And I think one of the big decisions that Orion and I made, you know, several years ago, which we started at the beginning of our scaling,

is we had a very difficult conversation in a most of, conversation that was yelling, door slamming of what's your unique ability, what part of the business do you have ultimate authority over, and what is my unique ability and what part of the business do I have unique ultimate authority over? In dividing up the business and responsibilities and then, you know, further down as we're hiring people, hiring people that are better than ourselves to take over this chunk of my responsibility in this chunk and this chunk and this chunk. And we're building an army of a, players, you know, with everyone working in their unique ability. And when everyone does that, and now that we're at 65 team members full time, with everybody kicking ass, like, well, no wonder we're growing so fast. Like, there's only one result as a result of that over time. I love that. By the way, that was a great example because, again, many people watching and listening to this are going into business with a partner. And everything looks good. The skies look blue and the grass is

green when you're going to business because you have this hairy, fairy tale of how you're going to launched a product. It's going to go well. Everyone's going to buy and you're both going to go counting checks at home. But you figured out very quickly that, oh my gosh, we're going to butt heads and doors are slamming and arguments are happening unless we figure out what each of our unique abilities are as business partners, right? Yeah, absolutely. It's so easy to build resentment in a business partnership if the efforts are lopsided or if they're perceived lopsided. And we've seen that happen before. And another big takeaway I got from you there was that, all right, for us to grow to scale, if we're going to turn a million to 10 million and 10 million to 100 million,

well, you can't work 10 times more, like you said. So you have to find people who are as good as you or better. And we have a running theme here at the Fit Body Boot Camp headquarters. Everyone is welcome to move up in promotions, but it's your job to find someone who's as good or better to replace you. Oh, I like that. Yeah. I'm in corporate. Yeah. And so as long as, like, you know, the guy's behind the camera, right? Hey, you want to move up, go go take a VP position. down the line. Yeah. But in the process, keep replacing yourself with someone as good or better. And if we're constantly doing that, the outcome is success, right? Yeah, I mean, someone related to me the other day that business and developing as an entrepreneur is like a salmon swimming upstream.

And as soon as that salmon stops putting in the effort, it gets taken back out to the ocean. So we have to constantly be moving forward. Stephen Covey talks about, you know, sharpening the saw, right? is one of the seven habits, like sharpening the saw, upleveling our game, hanging out with people that are at an income level, at a business level that we aspire to be, right? It's a constant evolving process. And one thing that I can guarantee you is one year from now, five years from now, we're all going to be in a different place than we are right now. Things will be different. We will either reach our destination or heading towards our destination or we're going to be getting carried back out to the ocean. Yeah, very good example. Very good

example. So if you had some young entrepreneurs sitting here in front of you or some entrepreneurs maybe who aren't so young in age, but they're young in their skill sets and developing, they're leaving the corporate world and they're saying, you know what? I've got this idea, product, solution, service, software that I'm going to scale. What is the number one message that you would impart with them before we end this podcast? I would say the number one thing is make sure, especially if you have a family, this is a little like cautionary tale because I think I push the chips all in without totally thinking accurately and I put a lot of risk online and think out it worked out. But make sure you're thinking accurately about every aspect of your business from the product itself

with social media and review sites. If you don't have a kick-ass product that really solves a problem that's out there, then you're not going to go very far. You know, you're going to get bad reviews and you may make some short-term revenue if you're a good marketer, but things will crash and burn. So, you know, really be accurate about the product. about the timing, about the demand, about your partnerships, you know, your financial needs, just really think everything through. And the great thing about being entrepreneur today is you can test almost anything small. I mean, there used to be a time where I would have to print 220,000 cans just to test something.

Now with things like 3D printers and, you know, targeted Facebook ads and everything, you can test something with a very small, small budget without a ton of risk to see if it has the traction before you go ahead and push. Brilliant message. Brilliant message. So what I'm hearing you say, in addition to, obviously, you know, vetting out and thinking through your partnerships, your relationship with your family, etc. We now live in an era where you don't have to go, hey, I have a good idea. Let me go all in on it because you might just lose on that idea. But instead, you can test small, if it's successful, scale big. Yeah.

Which is a great an entrepreneur lesson. Yeah, so many entrepreneurs that I meet with, everybody's passionate. They're passionate about, oh, I've got this idea or I'm doing this or that. I think one of my primary jobs, and which was very helpful to me when we were first starting out, is having people that have kind of been there done that, challenge my assumptions, and then getting me to think about things maybe in a little different light, and not in avoiding some major pitfalls or failures, you know, moving forward. So let's talk about that real quick before we end this. You know, obviously someone who's a founder, both you and Orion are founders and you're the president.

you probably get challenged by way of feedback or by way of maybe someone saying, hey, I think I have a better idea or I don't think that's going to work. How do you interpret or accept challenges or feedback? With open arms. I mean, we encourage everybody on our team to constantly contribute and challenge. And some of us are pretty opinionated people. So we'll duke it out. But we all know, we have an understanding that there's only one goal.

and the only goal is what's in the best interest of the company and our customers. So if I'm very opinionated about something and one of my team is as well, and we have that conversation, good, we want the best outcome and you obviously are passionate about it, and I am too, so let's figure out what that is. And so we're constantly working that. A good example is I had our customer service meeting yesterday, which I'll still run. In every meeting, everyone has to bring one suggestion to the table once a week as part of their objectives and key results, OKRs as part of their bonus structure.

They're bringing one suggestion. This could be a slight change in email copy, a slight change in a sequence. This could be, you know, changing some verbiage or a macro, an email macro. It doesn't matter what it is because I figure if everyone's moving the needle and thinking that, oh, I'm getting bonus, I'm responsible for constant improvement that Kaiser approach, if I'd have one tenth of one percent from four people every meeting, That's what happens in a year and two years. Our whole systems are different.

Yeah, yeah, that needle really moves when you have the entire team given the feedback and contributing to the growth. Yeah. Yeah, beautiful. Thanks for your time, man. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you so much for joining us for another amazing episode of the Empire podcast.

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