I am Charles Schwartz Show - $55 Million with only 5 employees - Kris Dehnert

Episode Date: September 24, 2025

In this high-energy episode, Charles sits down with Kris Dehnert—founder of Dehnert Media Group and the driving force behind Dugout Mugs—to unpack how creativity, resilience, and systems thinking can turn simple ideas into multi-million-dollar brands. Kris shares the origin story of Dugout Mugs, where a concept sketched in a kitchen grew into $55M in sales, MLB licensing deals, and a brand loved by fans, athletes, and corporations alike. He breaks down the lessons from his entrepreneurial journey—from early wins in print-on-demand apparel to painful setbacks in restaurants, cannabis, and crypto—and why he believes you fail your way to lasting success. Together, Charles and Kris dive deep into the mechanics of building lean but powerful organizations: how to scale with small teams, empower people through ownership, and leverage AI and systems to multiply output without multiplying overhead. Kris also reveals his personal philosophy—why fun, family, and reflection matter just as much as profit, and why firing yourself from the process is the real key to freedom. This isn’t just a story about baseball mugs. It’s a masterclass in turning setbacks into systems, ordinary products into extraordinary brands, and entrepreneurship into a life you actually want to live. KEY TAKEAWAYS: -How Kris turned a simple idea—baseball bats turned into mugs—into a $55M brand with MLB licensing deals -Why failure in industries like restaurants, cannabis, and crypto taught him the resilience to build lasting businesses -The importance of systems and small, empowered teams to scale without unnecessary overhead -How “firing yourself” from the process creates freedom and long-term sustainability Head over to provenpodcast.com to download your exclusive companion guide, designed to guide you step-by-step in implementing the strategies revealed in this episode. KEY POINTS: 01:22 – From idea to $55M brand: Kris shares how a simple sketch of a baseball bat mug turned into Dugout Mugs with MLB licensing and millions in sales—while Charles highlights the power of turning passion into product. 05:10 – Failing forward through industries: Kris opens up about losses in restaurants, cannabis, and crypto—and why failure became the tuition that prepared him for future wins. 08:48 – Scaling with small teams: Kris explains how lean operations and empowered people drive efficiency—while Charles reflects on why bigger isn’t always better. 12:30 – Firing yourself from the process: Kris discusses the art of stepping back, creating systems, and letting others take ownership—while Charles points out how this unlocks freedom for founders. 16:42 – Building brands with fun and family: Kris reveals why joy, reflection, and relationships matter as much as revenue—while Charles ties it back to building businesses worth living for. 20:25 – Leveraging AI and automation: Kris shares how AI and systems amplify impact without ballooning costs—while Charles notes how smart tech creates real leverage for entrepreneurs. 25:55 – Redefining entrepreneurship: Kris closes with his philosophy: entrepreneurship isn’t just about profit—it’s about lessons, ownership, and creating brands that people love—while Charles emphasizes the legacy of building with purpose. Exclusively for Proven Podcast Listeners: If you’re a true baseball fan, there’s no better way to enjoy the game than with a Dugout Mug—handcrafted from the barrel of a real bat. Right now, you can take 30% off sitewide at https://dugoutmugs.com/discount/PROVEN30 with code Proven30. Whether it’s for your collection, your next tailgate, or the perfect gift for a fellow fan, this is your chance to own a piece of the game at an unbeatable price.

Welcome to the proven podcast, where it doesn't matter what you think, only what you can prove. On this episode, Chris shares how he bought his business back from bankruptcy, turning into $55 million a year with only five employees. This one's unforgiving, unrelenting, and it's just trying to help. The show starts now. All right, everybody, welcome back to the show. Chris, I'm excited to have you on. Thanks for having me, man.

So for the few people don't know who you are and the success you've had, let's give a little bit of debrief who you are, what you've done. My name's Chris Dinnert, and I sell cups. No, I'm just kidding. So I do sell cups, right? You do. That's usually the story I tell people I don't want to talk to because that ends a conversation pretty quick. But when you dig in, we did some really fun. We turned baseball bats barrels into mugs, probably one of the coolest mugs on the planet.

And we started with an idea. It started in a kitchen that went to a shed, that went to a garage that went to $55 million in sales. national, international distribution, every stadium, every state, hundreds of athletes and celebrities and players. And we just make cool stuff, man. We make really cool, high-quality, premium made in North America, giftable stuff. And baseball fans love it. But it's actually transcended that.

It went into corporate gifting and wedding gifting and the list just, it keeps getting more and more broad, which is amazing to be at the helm of that shit, man. Yeah, there's two things you've done. One, you're selling a product I don't need, but I want, which is challenging as hell to do it. And you've also done it on a shoestring group of people. Like, you don't have a big staff that's doing this, which has been really amazing. And it's funny because you sent me one of the mugs, which again, thank you for one of the mugs. I haven't physically touched it yet because my team won't let me near it.

They're running around with this. And they're not even fricking sports fans, but you engraved the logo and they're running around with this thing. And now all of a sudden it's become this mascot of my org that they're taking it and they're going out to eat with it. And I'm like, what the hell is happening with this mug? So everybody loves it. But this isn't your first business. You've created multiple businesses before. This wasn't an accident.

What are some of the other successes you've had? I think you learn more from the failures. And you know what I mean, right? Like, I've had some. But yeah, I did really well in the apparel space. And I think there was a direct correlation between that and this because the dugout mug, to me was just another canvas. The world of print on demand, you know, there was that big, like, boom of print

print on demand T-shirts. Right. One of the companies at the, you know, at the center that was a company called T-Spring. And I was one of the first guys on T-Spring and I kind of brought it to the social media world because I had massive audiences. I had a bunch of fan pages probably, I don't know, six or seven million fans, probably closer to seven. So it was just push button, make money and talk to the fan base. Hey, what do you guys want? Oh, we want Christian shirts.

It's like, all right. There you go. And it really allowed, and we were doing that whole business with like three people. And we did over $20 million in sales of T-shirts with, I think at our highest point, we had six people. And three of them were designers because they're just cranking stuff out. One of them was an ads guy. And then one was customer service and one was me. Right.

So that was a win. If you go into like real life, I think I won at the gym business. I started off at Gold's Gym. I was selling memberships. And, you know, I figured out a way to leverage social media, this new website called Facebook that came out and how to drive just massive amounts of people, connect with people before they knew that it was kind of like going to be the new norm. That was back in 2003, you know, I guess five, six, seven, eight, somewhere in there.

So, yeah, I did really well in the gym business, but, you know, you hit that ceiling pretty quick when you realize you're working for somebody else and it's like, okay, so what am I good at? You know, and I talk a lot about reflection. I'll probably mention a few more times, but what am I good at? what am I bad at? And one of the things I'm really, really good at is sales promotion, marketing, networking, things like that. So it's like, okay, well, I can do that one to many. And that just, what a, what a domino effect that's had in my life, learning how to leverage technology. I'm not technical, but I know how to leverage technology, right? And that was really cool. And just,

we have one thing after another. And, you know, here I am selling, again, I sell mugs, right? And having a lot of fun doing it. So we talked about this. Right in the beginning, you said, you know, you'd learn for more from your failures and you will for your success. And we talk about this all the time. You will never succeed your way to success. You will fail your way to success. And most people don't get that. And I'm like, well, look at your kid. When your kid first started walking, it fell. And it fell. And it fell and it fell and it fell and it fell and it fell. And you didn't sit there after the 50th time goes, screw it. I'm going to put it in a wheelchair. You just kept pushing. But we take that out of our kids and our world in school. Let's talk about some of those failures. What are the failures that you learn the most and what were the lessons you learned from them. Well, I think to your point, what people do is they take away the pain. And pain and pleasure. Those are the two things that really drive people. And when you fall, it shit hurts. And you fall again.

And again, you're like, that is it. I am tired of hurting. I'm just going to walk. Right. And I think that's what the pain is. The first time I screwed up, I didn't dial in my contracts and somebody got me for like quarter million bucks. That shit hurt. Yeah.

I didn't have a quarter million bucks to lose at the time. and, you know, you learn, okay, now I'm not going to do that again, dialing in my contracts on the front side with partnerships and deals and collaborations and joint ventures. The restaurant industry, we made a bunch of money selling T-shirts and me and a few friends and thank God in this deal, I was the least, I was the smallest equity holder, but we lost seven figures doing a restaurant, you know, the old saying, the best way to make a million bucks in restaurants is to start with two, or start with two and open a restaurant. That's the best I'll make a million bucks.

But yeah, like, it, that's a really funky industry. And I had no business being in it. I just had money. So we were just throwing shit at the wall and see what sticks. And it's like, I don't know about that. So, again, from an investment standpoint, I lost a lot, learned a lot. And I believe you're winning or learning. Like, those are your options.

And whenever we're losing, we're learning. Okay. Don't do that again or do it again, but different, right? So the restaurant industry got me. The cannabis industry got me. The crypto industry got me. Now, I still hold a very aggressive portfolio with crypto, but I learned what not to do. And again, so again, winning or learning, you learned to stop.

The pain made you stop or the pain made you change. And then when you start doing things right, like dugout, you know, there's been pain in this company. You know, but the pleasure of it far outweighed. So this is one of those things that the pleasure is what's driving me. you know a year and a half ago when my partner and I decided he was ready to be done ready to retire awesome dude he's like you know what I'm done had just had a kid just got married just built a house all the things and it wasn't part of his path anymore and it's like okay we could sell it and walk away but I'm like I'm having a lot of fun and it's kind of broken

and I really kind of want to fix it and really drive it fast again and that was my driver there So I think you learn as much from pain. You learn more about yourself in pain. And then you really learn what you want with like the pleasure push. You know what I mean? I think is a okay way to say that. Yeah, I think I agree a thousand percent. I remember when my first company I ever had was an IT company, we were closing like 90-something percent of our sales and I exploded.

I was like, what are you doing? I go, if we're closing that high of a level, then we're not risking enough. If we don't have enough pain, so I made everything go up and that we radically increase the company. When you talk about having partners, it's challenging because, you know, I want to get to the idea that you're building these empires, these, you know, nine figure companies with a shoestring. There's just nobody there. How are you doing this with five people? We'll get to that because that's the important part that I think that's really sexy. But when you talk about partnerships, what are the pain lessons that you've learned there?

Because, again, we've all done it. We've all gotten in bed with people who we just shouldn't have gotten in bed with or we've turned friendships into partnerships and it ruined the friendship. What are some of the struggles you've run into with that? Well, the struggles I've run into, again, I'd rephrase it, what are the lessons I've learned, right? It thinks a better way of saying it. And I think reflection, again, on the front side, you know, partnerships and deals are one at the beginning, you know, asking better questions at the beginning, understanding what someone's blueprint looks like at the beginning. Look at a marriage. I want three kids.

I want none. Hey, that shit ain't going to work. Somebody's going to be pissed sooner than later. You know, in business, I want to do this forever. I'm only on a four-year plan, right? I'm 22 and full of piss and vinegar is like, which I'm 45 and I'm ready to start slowing down. Like, you have to look at these blueprints. And I don't think enough people do that.

They get blinded by cash. And cash is only a singular currency. There's so many other currencies out there, in my opinion, time. experience, fulfillment, family, like, there's other currencies that are involved. And if you're only basing your decision making off cash and money, I mean, in fairness, that's one of the most common currencies that we just print that shit. It's not even attached to anything, right? Yeah, here's more, right?

And to ever make that your North Star is foolish, in my opinion. So I think there's not enough reflection on the front side with partnerships. And I got blinded by that. Like, I got in business with a family member. And it went super sideways. And at the end, I was just like, here, take my half of the shit, I'm out. I can't do this no more. With, I mean, other partnerships.

Yeah, I mean, trust your gut. I don't think people do that enough. How cliche is that, right? But really, some friends and I, we always laugh, are like, I only want to do business with people I'd go on vacation with. It's like, okay. Because, you know, you got to realize if you're spending this much time, with folks, you know, I say it all the time. A good day with bad people can still suck and a bad day with good people can still be really awesome, right? What you're shooting for is a good day

with good people and then like, you know, pour the champagne. But the people in the deal are more important than the deal in most cases, at least in my world. Right? Because I don't just do things transactionally. Like, this is my life. You know, I don't honestly believe in work life balance. right it doesn't exist sometimes you're working sometimes you're golfing sometimes you're parenting sometimes you're crying like it's life you know um so i try to do life with people i like and and with people i want to be around right so it's funny because every time we've talked within probably four or five sentences you talk about your kids it just comes out and talk about you like there's some of my family around first like the rest of this

i'm sorry this is more important to me than anything else every time we've spoken when you're starting to build the systems and there's a difference between systems and processes. Processes evolve people. Systems don't. That's just people need to understand that really quickly. You've built empires, a ton of cash, you know, amazing businesses with very few people because there's so many times where even I've gone into businesses and they're like, oh, I've got 30 staff. I was like, cool, how much you're making like a million a year? I was like, what the fuck are you doing? What do you, what do you, this is broken. This is an ineffective model. When you go into that and you're starting to scale, how have you done it? What are the things that you do every single time.

okay, I need this, I can outsource that because there are different conversations. I think understanding what people's core competency, you know, what is their superpower kind of thing, don't ask a fish to climb a tree, you know, the whole adage, right? I always laugh and said, there's a reason I'm not jumping hurdles. I'm old and a little fat and I got bad knees. I'm not going to do very well, right? So I think what you do is you identify the pillars in the company that needs. attention and need to be managed by a person, and then that person has a particular skill set.

So you're like, hire the person, teach him the job, right? You hire, you know, I'll give George, our guy at the front. Like, this guy is meticulous. And I hope he watches this because he's epic, right? He's meticulous, OCD kind of guy. Dude doesn't miss anything. So he's in charge of logistics, right? we got Eric who was you ran commercial kitchens you want to talk about processes and boom boom boom boom

boom okay that's your dude right um again like you just find people and you and you lean into them like people god i've heard it so many times and i hate it uh you know partners of mine said it and i hated it it's like oh if you don't know something you should go learn it it's like fuck that if i don't know something, best case scenario, I'm going to be mediocre if I go in time, energy, effort, and resources to figure this shit out. Best bet is to get somebody else, I don't mow my own yard, my pool guy was here earlier, he's cleaning the pool, he's going to do it better than me. I'm up here chatting with you, though your long guys are about to be here in a minute.

It's just like, we do it in so many other areas of our life. My point back to your question is, I find people, I find out what they do best, and then I try to inspire them to go for the vision that we have collectively put together and if people feel ownership in the vision that's been created buddy they're going to be behind it and behind you all the way and and i like to step away you probably heard me say it in the past but like give direction not directions that was a funny way of us explaining it internally that really kind of stuck with me and it was you're really good at this jared and you're really good at this george and nate and Brian and Eric and Tony and Tina and Milagos, like, y'all are good at what you do.

Can we all agree that this is where we're driving, all in our own little car, our own little lane? And they're like, yeah, I'm like, all right, I'm out. They just drive there because they have ownership in what we're doing. You know, they believe what we believe. They see what we see. So I think asking better questions, empowering people to think freely and operate freely, the micromanagement world blows.

I don't think it's a good model. People hate it, and they're hating it more. And the group of kids that are coming up and group of workers that are coming up, they hate it even more. But you got to have, that's where the systems, that's where the technology and some of this other stuff comes into play, you put up these roadblocks so they're not jumping you off a cliff. You know, that's kind of, it's kind of a hybrid. It's interesting. We always talk about this. I don't care about the how.

The how's irrelevant to me. You're going to figure that out. If I've hired well enough, you're going to figure it out. I'm going to let you go through this environment. I'm going to put basic bumpers in you. He's like, hey, if you get too far off track here or there, but I would rather you ask for forgiveness and permission. Going down to say, like, this is what we're going.

I really don't care how we get there. I don't care for, on a simple, very watered down version of this, I don't care if you're on a Mac or you're on a PC. I don't fucking care. I don't care if you work at night or if you work in the day. Just go. I don't go. You're writing a damn letter.

Get the message out. 100%. And like, we had this literally in my org recently. someone was putting together an email and they reached down and say, hey, I don't know if this email's right. I'm like, does it have all the key things? I'm like, yes. I'm like, I don't care what the email sounds like.

Go, they're like, well, can I use chat GPT? I'm like, I have hired the wrong person. So we're already in the process of replacing that person because I'm like, if you don't, if you're that person who needs to be guided on that level, you can't make systemized, streamlined teams. So one of the fears that people have when they build teams is like, okay, I need to have coverage. You know, I've hired Susie. Susie is in charge of sales. What happens if Susie wins a lottery?

he gets eaten by a purple dragon, whatever else it is. How do you offset that? Because Susie one day may, you know, win the lottery or get hit by a bus or whatever it is. How do you offset that fear? I don't have a solid answer for that. I think what it really comes down to is having documented processes

and systems. I mean, with AI, and we touched on it, but like with AI, buddy, especially with what I do. And I think it's unique, right? I think people's journey is unique. Their businesses are unique. They have a lot of the same components.

I'm not foolish. I know that. But I think how those components work and interact. And also the person running it and managing it has a lot to do with it. Like, I'm a big hands-off guy. So, yeah, we're leaning into AI. You know, we just replaced customer service with AI. It's not that the girl was bad.

She wasn't great. But she wasn't bad. But it's like, so AI is going to work 24-7. And it's infinitely scalable, midnight, two, three, four, five in the morning all the way through Christmas when we normally have to double or triple our team. I'm like, yeah, okay, we're going to do that. You know, it just makes sense. Design. I make these designs for the mugs.

Well, AI is doing a really good job ripping these things out. Okay. Right. So then that and then with the API and integration with ecom in particular and with my, that's why I stay so lean. You know, we're really lean. The only thing we're physically doing is engraving, cleaning, packing the mugs. that's it uh we went from a 12,000 square foot facility we're in the process in the next 90 days we're going to be down to 8,000 we cut a third of our of our space by becoming more efficient we

identified what do we need what do we not need again ask better questions we don't need this 4,500 square feet over here full of additional overhead and seven extra people we could just put that on this other side you know that again it's just It's understanding what you're doing. And then it's like, you know, the back in the day, the index cards on the table and move to shit around. Like, how does it work? It sounds basic, but like, that works. I mean, you got to understand the moving pieces of the company.

And it's like, well, the 80-20 rule. I mean, pick your, you know, pick your cliche. Well, 80% of our stuff's coming from over here. Why the hell we got 80% of our people working on the 20? Well, how can we be more efficient? So there's a couple opportunities I'm looking to roll up right now because of it. perfectly into the systems that we have. They'll fit perfectly into this new streamlined system at the 8,000 square foot place.

And the strengths here, and the strengths here are like they click. It just, if your plate's more clear by not getting in the weeds, I feel like you can put better things together. And that's where I try to focus. So I have to be hands off. So when you talk about asking better questions, you know, everyone talks in platitudes all the time. what are the tactical these are the questions that have always had the best ROI for me like these are the questions I ask every single time on any single project when we get stuck or if we're going to expand or anything else what are the ones that you're like these are the questions I asked where are we you know what's going right what's going wrong what do we need to do different I mean I've I've said that hundreds of times if we understand what we're doing wrong like right now I'll tell you what we're doing wrong we're not as forward facing on social media as we once were we got two and a half million people on TikTok. I got 100,000 on, you know, 120,000 on Facebook. I got another 100,000 on Instagram. Like, we got a lot of people. We're access to a lot of people. Our email list is like 800,000.

Our SMS is a couple hundred thousand. Like, this is a stack of people, right? We're not doing a good enough job communicating with them as we once did. So, and I know, like, this is my style. I love it, bro. I love sticky notes. They stay right next to me because I know, and I can only put like three things at a time on them. So I'm like, check, check, check, throw that shit over there. So like for me, I know one of the things we're doing the worst right now was forward facing. So I started hopping on more podcasts. I was like, all right, well, I can certainly tell my story a little bit more and talk about the company a little bit more. So I committed to that. I'm doing that. And again, it's just that's what I ask. You know, what are we doing wrong?

Our conversion rate sucks. Okay, you, you're only focusing on conversion rate right now. And then what are we doing right? And we just kind of put that on ice. Right now, we're manufacturing mugs. We're doing a really good job. Our fulfillment's on point. We don't need to, you know, where could we, where could we shave? And we're like, well, with AI in particular.

It's like, well, we can shave design and we can shave customer service that saves us like $5,000 a month. That's $60,000 of your bottom line. That's not massive numbers, but those don't matter, right? I think it's the conversation people talk about all the time. Like, how do, how to become? wealthy. You're not hitting grand slams. It's these singles. Singles get on base. You know, for, you know, the idea of the dugout, just get on base as quickly and as intensely as you can. So figure it out later. Like, yeah. Ready fire aim. Like make a move, measure the move and

be ready to adjust. I mean, these people that just get on the bus and ride it until the damn wheels fall off. I mean, you can do that. I don't suggest it. Randall and I made a great move whenever COVID came around. It's like we could have kept pushing what always worked, but we decided not to do that, we decided to change our marketing from people at ballgames and tailgating to backyard barbecues and living rooms, right? Because we're marketing to people where we were. If we would have stuck to this other thing, you know, that's the, you know, that's the blockbusters. That's the service studies. That's the Kmart's. If you try to do the same thing, you know, the wheels fall off, you're asking, the wheels are going to fall off. So I think being fluid is really,

really, really important. When, so when you have a small team, they see your growth. Right. They're in there. They're with you. They believe with you. And that's why it's important to work with people you actually like. But also one of the catches here is they're going to see your profits as well. How do you work with that compensation thing? We're like, hey, guys, you did a great job. We made an extra $10 million this year. How do you deal with compensation on that level? Do you incentivize them? How integrated are they in that success? I've had very open conversations with those who can wrap their head around the content of the conversation. probably a third of my team will meet. So we do Monday meetings. We're always, we link up Monday 10 a.m., what's going right, what's going wrong, what do we need to change, what do we all need to know about, who's leaving, who's coming, who's going, what's, you know, is there a fire we need to collectively put out, right? So everybody's kind of just got this team atmosphere. It's easier to manage when it's smaller.

As far as the profits, I explain in a way that they understand what I'm saying. Vanity metrics are not worth even looking at. Oh, we did $10 million. It's like, yeah, but if we only made a million and we had $600,000 in overhead, that means there's only four. So I don't mind guiding people and talking to them and being transparent. I think transparency, I mean, people aren't stupid either. You know, I think more now than ever, access to information is everywhere. So you don't want to treat, and I don't want stupid people around me anyway, but you don't want to treat people, you know, assume they're ignorant.

So I'm actually more about being transparent with them. And they're well paid. Actually, when I first bought my, you know, when I stepped in, I took over the company. we were in not a great place. Like seven figures in debt, seven figures over here for the buyout and fucking a half a million. It was ugly. And I was like, okay, well, I know I can't do it without these people. So let's talk to the people.

Half the team got a raise on the first day. And it was about me committing to that. And they knew it's like, hey, not a good spot, but you're getting a raise because I need you for this. don't drop the ball here's the ball go right and i in some of the response to that has just been tremendous when you have faith in the people like that so i've been really transparent about um now there are times where they see thousands and thousands and thousands of mugs going on they just like oh this guy's just getting fat and happy over here um and we do you know we we do bonuses and we do incentive stuff. I've looked into some

employee stock options kind of thing and ownership, right? Like, I don't need it. I'm actually really basic. You know, I'm flops and t-shirts and hats pretty much every day. So as long as my bills are paid, my kids are happy, and I'm living the lifestyle I want. Like, I don't mind sharing the wealth. These are the people making it happen. And that's just the mentality I have. Right. You mentioned other currencies, man. Absolutely. And I don't think people understand that.

I really don't think that if you think money is going to make you happy, it's not. It's never going to happen. It makes life easier. It's a great tool. I love being able to use it and, you know, be in first class, being a business class. It's a great tool, but it's not going to make you happy. It isn't. A lot of people talk about AI and the integration within.

You've optimized it. What are some of the AI tools that you're using now to make your life easier? Basic. I mean, I use Claude. I like that one. My CEO, Jared, he's, he used. is chat GPT, and I think he got like the upgraded one. And then obviously, Grock is doing some interesting stuff.

Anything Elon's touching is interesting. So that's pretty much it. Now, we use our CRM. We use gorgeous. And it has an AI component in there, which has been really impressive. So the teams got on and integrated that with our customer service. And, I mean, it's, I'm getting emails back from me. it's like hey check this out

don't forget to click here and it just walks you right through it and responding and I'm reading some of the responses it's like that's like 95% on point and then the more you teach it the better it's getting so I'm like okay we're doing that's what we're doing it right now Q3 because when Q4 hits this thing's going to be on

point and infinitely scalable so that that's probably the one we've used the most I've seen there's some other guys Mike Weiss shout out to Mike and I know Glenn Dietz doing some stuff too, where voice AI, some of the stuff that's going on there is, because I'm in a mastermind, board of advice, so I meet with these guys every quarter

and listening to some of the stuff they're talking about, dude, it's wild. Like the voice AI, the outbound, infinite calling voice AI, setting up stuff and lead gen, and just dropping them right onto a calendar. There's some pretty cool stuff happening. Gotcha. So the one that you're using where you've, you know, replaced customer service, that's gorgeous? Yeah. So we were using Gorgeous in the past and we were manually doing it. It's kind of just like a hub where social and email and blah, blah, blah. And they launched their AI piece a while back and it took us forever to get to it. And it's like, let's take a look at that. And Jared, he's, you know, he's my right hand man and dug out. He's like, dude, I'll figure it out. I said, okay, dude, figure it out. Let me know what you come up with. He jumped in, boom, boom, boom. And yeah, bro, it's rocking. It's. It's. It's, you know. It's rocking.

So normally when we go through these and we break things down step by step by step, if someone wanted to come in and do this, what has been proven to work more than anything else? Outside of hiring right, you know, keeping it lean, asking the very specific questions, what is working, what is not working, you know, what do we need to fix right now? What are some of the other things that you've run into that are like, hey, this, if I took everything away right now and I had to start over, what are the proven things that you've done that have created radical success?

I think success is a unique experience. I think it's unique to each person. So what I would do is I would go back to a place of peace and balance and try to understand what I really want. Right? So for me, you know, when my daughter was born 10 years ago, you know, I got super sick, almost died. Like, that really sucked. Best thing that ever happened to me, honestly. But I came out the other side of that and I was like, okay. um what's important to me and it's like well i don't really want to be away from my house anymore you know i've been i've been working from home since before it was cool right uh and you know so it's it's about really understanding where you're trying to end up and and then understanding who around like i only take advice from people where who are where i wish to be so it's like understanding who your um core uh support group and and community is that's why I'm in the mastermind right um and I so like that's not like a tactical answer but I think the how to do stuff is not nearly as difficult as people make it out especially

when we're in the age of technology and learning right I think it's understanding what success looks like feels like sounds like and then you know then everything that lands on your plate it's like it is or isn't black and white it is isn't in the direction of where you want to go. Like, this is where I want to go. This is what I want to be. I want to make $10,000 a month with that with working 10 hours a week. And I want to be able to go to every single dance and softball game and baseball game with little Billy.

And I want to take my wife on a date night every week. And I want to have some investments so that when my kids are, you know, like that, bro. The understanding what that looks like, I think is really what it's about, not the, not the tactical measures to do it. I also think now if you do need that advice, I would say I'm a huge fan of create a system you're not a component of because my goal is to be irrelevant in the system. I want to be the beneficiary, of course, but I want if I'm always in the weeds, I can't, you know, be over here where I want to be. So I would tell people create a system you're not a component of. I would tell them to really do due diligence on anybody else who's going to be a decision maker in the venture. I would say identify like make sure it's fun.

And I know that sounds weird, right? Because to me, funds a major currency. But there has to be a release at some point in what you're doing because it's not always easy. It's not always going to work. And I think having fun along the way will allow you a lot more resilience and durability so you can last a little longer because you're constantly getting a release along the way. I think those things are what I tell people. Yeah, I think it's rare to have someone show up with the honesty and the vulnerability you have, which is start with the filter, which is, I don't want to be involved.

I want to be at my kids baseball games, Ballet, Ballet, that's my filter. So if I got offered a job making a bazillion dollars, but I'm never going to be home, it doesn't work for me. So put your filters and play. Where do you want to go first? I talk about this all the time. If you're going to shoot an arrow, you don't fire the arrow and then think where do I want it to go?

You identify your target first, then you filter out from there. So most people don't do that. The second step is having the confidence enough in yourself to know, I'm not important. I'm irrelevant to the process. So I need to fire me from the beginning. If it relies on me, then I've just made a prison, not a business. And most people don't have that conversation.

Most people are coming and going, hey, I'm special. This is what I know how to do. I'm amazing. I, you know, my grandmother made great cookies. Therefore, hence, I have to make great cookies. My hallucination is you did not grow up wanting to sell. fucking mugs. That just wasn't your ballgame. You're like, hey, I'm going to make mugs for everybody. It wasn't a line on career day, dude, but I'm kind of glad where I landed. Now, if I look at what my

core competency is, sales, networking, promotion, like put me on TV. I'm in, right? I can do it. So I understand the prison sentiment you made a minute ago. You didn't make a business created like a prison cell and I'm currently in the process of this now all this shit to daily practice okay yeah absolutely oh shit I got it no it's a daily practice you know just like taking a shower bro you're dirty take a shower this is constant repetition some other all learning right so for me um I'm currently trying to build out a sales team because that is what I do best I've been able to stay in my power, my power zone in this business, my superpower in this business, almost the entire eight years. And that's why we've seen some of the success that we've had. The majority

of it, I would say, is because of my ability to just push and drive and connect and make shit happen, right? But I also realize that it is starting to be heavily reliant on me to bring the sales on the front side. So now we're putting the people in place, right? Um, What really sucks is if you get stuck in a corner that you just don't know how to clean, you know, or you don't know how to handle. Like, that's, that is brutal. But you were talking earlier, I got stuck in my power zone. But even that, even that, I'm in the process of trying to remove myself. You're talking about post-in-notes that you have.

I literally have a post-to-notes the only one that I keep on my computer that says fire yourself. Like, it sits above it and like fire yourself. If I'm mission-critical to the process, I have failed. I have created a prison. I have not created a business. It's a different conversation. The stuff that makes me the most money, I'm not involved in. So I'm constantly working every day.

And I love that you said, it's like going to the gym. You've got to keep doing it over and over and over. And it's an everyday practice to sit there and fire yourself out. Because yesterday's success isn't going to ask yourself. Again, when you're asking about your questions, if I was an employee, would I fire me? A lot of people don't ask themselves that. And you're like, oh, I'm kind of fucking show up late every day, leave early every day. I have a beer at noon.

You know, I don't know if I would let me hang around. Wait, I'm not supposed to do that. Wait, I'm not, that, that's not normal? Shit. Well, hey, if you would fire you, maybe you're the problem. Right. See, my goal is to make it. Yeah, that's my biggest thing.

My goal is that I am not mission critical, that I don't matter. And that, to speed that process up as fast as possible. Now, you mentioned earlier, you're running through some struggles, which is, hey, you know, we've dropped the ball and we haven't been social enough and I'm doing the podcast and you're doing all that. When you're asking better questions there, what are some of the ways that you're like, hey, why did you decide podcast versus about a million over different ideas that? As many as you said that, I was like, well, shit, I've got this laundry list of what I would go do. Why did you decide this was the best path and allocation of time? I had a lot of people. It was easy. I had a lot of people asking. They're like, dude, you got to share your story with me. Can you hop on? Can you hop on? I'm like, nah, I don't have time for that. I don't time for that. Right. But it's like, you know what? I mean, really, I did a podcast one time. And I shared the story when I got sick. And a guy reached out to me, he was in another country. He reached out to me and he said, hey, dude, I listened to that podcast the other day.

And it saved my life because a week later, this and this and this happened. I don't want to share his business. But this, this happened. And I remembered what you said. I immediately did, went to the hospital and they said, I ought to wait another hour. I'd be dead. I was like, that's crazy. So you never know what kind of ripples you're putting out there and impact of those.

They could turn into a tsunami, right? of good somewhere else. And I think I owe that to people. I'm speaking tomorrow morning at a high school for emerging leaders. There's a charity called R2 CARES that I work with here locally. And it's my alma mater. I graduated 25 years ago from there. And I'm going to go speak the inaugural speaker at this night,

like an auditorium full of people, talk about emerging leadership and leadership and all this. So it's like, I feel like that's part of success for me. me um i'm not i'm dude i'm not that guy that's like all stoked about leaving a legacy like that's fine as long as the people that matter care about me and remember that's right did my job um but but i feel like putting the good out there as part of your responsibility as as uh um an influential person and i like that and it was and it was it was a lay down um i'm fine on camera i got plenty of shit to talk about what I think is cool, fun, and sexy. And, you know, people buy it.

Like, at this point, like, the corporate gifting side of what we're doing is really interesting. So I mentioned to you, like, we're making mugs for Coors and Miller and Coke and Pepsi and Yamabon, hard rock and Celsius and T-Mobile, Capital One, like, crazy. So a lot of business people have been buying our mugs, you know, 36 here, 75 there, 100 here, and they're gifting them out. Just like you say, your team, right? Like, they're gifting them out because these things kill. And, you know, the podcast is a great way to do that. Podcast hosts give them out to guests. It's just a lot of cool stuff.

And it only took an hour here, an hour there. I can do it on the fly. I could do it if I'm in, you know, traveling. It's not the only thing we're doing, right? Like, I'm also doing a lot of PR. Like a few days ago, we were on Good Morning America, launched our Savannah Bananas line with our MLB line. And we did okay.

You know, we did pretty good. So mainstream media PR I'm doing, this kind of fit right into that. I've been, there's a couple of magazines that just did a write-up. I was in Valiant CEO, Tampa Business Wealth, Fast50, Business Journals, Forbes, Entrepreneur.com. Like, there's a lot of features. And again, it's just I'm building a personal brand. You know, this isn't my first rodeo with Doug Alley. I haven't nine other companies before this.

So my personal brand is going to outlive this company. me. So I'm just constantly doing things and taking little steps in the right direction. You can have two broken legs, dude. But if you're moving, like, you're still moving. You're still moving. You're still moving. Or feet or just moving. And until some of these other things shake out, like the paid ads and the traffic and the algorithms that are, you know, adjustments that are happening and all this kind of stuff, I think, just keep moving. You know, keep moving.

So why do you think in the print on demand, which was a very saturated market, what made you stand out? How did you succeed and win where other? didn't. Speed to market principle and the fact I took that shit serious. So the speed to market was I didn't sit around and wait. I saw an opportunity and I jumped in and I jumped in with both feet. You know, I didn't just trickle my toe in the water. It's like, all right, dude, we're going to do this. We're going to do this. We're going to fail fast fall forward. We lose, bro. We're going to lose now and we're going to be on the next thing. And that's why I actually got out of POD. So we jumped in and I treated it like a business. We had business meetings. every week. We had the designers. Here's five things I'm thinking about. What do we want to try? Hey, this just happened.

So our company was called chasing trends. And that's what we did. It's like, this happened on this reality show. Everybody's losing their mind over it on social. I need five concepts around that, right? And then we ran it like a business, not like a hobby or your moonlighting doing something. We took a shit serious and we won. And also, we were in the market fast.

And then we were fluid enough. to identify when things started, like, changing. So whenever the, you know, I ended up being the piece. So I helped T-Spring kind of write their affiliate program because I identify, it's like, okay, well, this market's getting saturated. So everybody's going to want, they wrote an article about me, like, you know, guy makes a million bucks on T-Spring or something. And so I started getting a lot of people reaching out.

And I was like, all right. So I'd put an affiliate program in place where I made 50 cents a shirt in perpetuity. Very special word that. perpetuity and on anybody I bring to the platform. So then it's like, hey, I'm going to launch a digital mastermind. So then they paid me for me to show them what to do. Then I referred them to here. And then I'm making residuals over here. We sold like three million T-shirts through that program. I made a million and a half dollars, 50 cents at a time on shit. I never sold, touch, nothing. And so again, like you have to be fluid and not be scared of changing. And, and

And sometimes that can really land in your favor. People are scared to change, but the only thing that is consistent is change. And I think that is why we won. We went in hard. We knew when to move. We treated it like a business. And anything, you should just treat it like a bit. It'll be as serious as you are.

Right. I think. And if you don't take it serious, it's not going to work. That's just the reality. You either go all in or you don't. So what is next for you? I know, I know dugouts going and you're expanding it and the mugs are just, You've infected my entire team, you bastard.

I have to buy mugs for them. Yes. And I have to buy more mugs from you. So, but what is next for y'all and what y'all are doing? Synergy, identifying synergy. There's, you know, a digital company that's out there that's very much in line with what we're doing. There is some woodworking stuff that fits very well with what we're doing. There's another company that's out there that is, there's systems.

are not as clean as mine. So I can roll up a company that's making X dollars and literally double the revenue double the bottom line just by bringing it in-house and, you know, and plugging it into my efficient systems. So trying to find ways to grow by acquisition versus just grow by additional sales. Because when you force that, you can really lose your ass because you're blowing ad dollars just

might as well light it on fire. Right. So I'm trying to grow by acquisition and continue to groom the people within my company to replace me so that I'm more of a consultative like role. I think that's what the next two to three years looks like. And now that the company's all mine, honestly, I'm not really in a hurry. The events I get to go to and the things I get to do and the people I get to hang out with. I own a golf company as well, big golf. Um, so I have a cigar line, you know, so I have beer and baseball and golf and cigars and and breweries and fun stuff. Yeah, it's like, what else am I going to do? Yeah, it's the stuff as a teenager. You'd be like, this is going to be great. So when you talk about your systems are more efficient, walk me through that.

What do you mean by your systems are better than others? And then how did you develop those? Because I'm a systems guy. If you want to talk about, there's very few things in the world to get me more excited than systems. Um, you know, it's where I, I just walk in there. And so my daughter, my 10 year old goes up there with me, you know, and busy. times. I'm like, hey, baby, we're going to work today. She's like, all right, dug out mug's shirt on, hat on, let's go. And she's just taping

boxes, slapping stickers, you know, doing everything. Just loves working with dad, you know, which is one of my favorite things, too. But I walk around and it's like, hmm, that's a step I didn't need to take. Why? Why are we doing that? Oh, that's how we've done it. It's like noted. I go in the, just yesterday. I went in there and there's a whole table. Like 200 mugs in the back. It's all teams and custom and stuff's everywhere. And in one big table, it's like a brick of mugs on top of this massive eight,

10 foot table. I'm like, what's this? And they're like, oh, those are the ones that either had a little dent in it or the thing was a little crooked or this and that. So like, y'all just set it here and walked away. And like, yeah. I was like, all right. Okay.

But now we just blow these out, turn mugs back into money. One of my favorites recently was we had, we had the mugs on a rotary device like this, dude. And this laser's hot. Sometimes I just freak out and zap a hole right through this thing. So they were just throwing this whole thing away. So I walked, I was up there. Let me say, I know I got one here sitting here. I know I do.

Let me see if I can find it. I had, I annihilated some stuff this morning. Oh, here, it's literally right in front of my face. So you're going to love this. So this thing, we would just throw this away. Instead, I take, I cut off the bottom, starting right here because all this is solid wood. So then we started making back slices turned into ornament, no, ornaments and ornaments. There you go.

Now you want to Philly's keychain or a Yankee's keychain. So this was trash and we're just throwing them out, dude, because what are you going to do with it? Right. So now I can turn it into six key chains that sell for 20 bucks a piece or 15 bucks a piece. That's $90. I turned trash into $90. Right. That was an efficiency.

I walked up there and I just, you know, again, I just put my. I put myself out of the situation, and I just look. We had two big-ass shipping containers. I'm like, why do we got these? And they were like, oh, a few years ago, I was like, stop right there. Yeah, right? And I said, what's in them? And they said, well, we got golf balls in this one, and it's about half full.

And we got some other random shit in this one, and it's half full. I was like, so what you're saying is we can make one of them all the way full, and one of them can leave. And they're like, yeah, I was like, okay, well, guess what we're doing today? and everybody shifted over one to this, filled one up, sold it for like $1,100. It's only $1,100, but dude, I'll take $11,100 every time you want to give it out. And I think to me, it's just a common sense. And I know it's not common, right?

I know how I think is unique. I walk in there and I'm like, why do we have these boxes only stacked four high? Well, because the roof's only eight feet, nine feet. I'm like, okay, so if we had a 12-foot roof, we would, wouldn't need as much floor space. We could just stack up. And all these dudes just stack here until we pull them down and engraved. They're like, yeah, I said, okay.

So the new facility, guess what? 15 foot ceilings. There you go. And it's these little details that changed it. How many times, count, how many times you come down these stairs a day? 30 or 40. Okay. So what you're saying is if we took downstairs and we set it down next to downstairs,

I'm going to save time. We could just go in a circle. And they're like, yeah. I was like, well, guess what this new place is? 4,000 and 4, 4,000. side by side holes in the middle holes in the sides it's like it's not hard but i think constantly looking for holes or improvements and and never take your eyes off of that so when people bring deals and i have a lot of deals laying on my desk right um the first thing i do is i poke holes

because i know when i can't poke a hole in it that's a winner right so that's what i do with my business. I walk around and I'm like, why do we have two versions of a Red Sox mug in the system? It's the same damn mug. This one says Red Sox on the tag and this one's a Red Sox logo, but it's the same mug, but it's just printed up different with the skews. Like, I don't know. Well, guess what? You're going through the system today and you're going to wipe out every duplicate that's in there and we're going to simplify it. It's just stuff like that, man. It's really not complicated. It just find the problems, find the holes and fix one. one at a time. I think it also starts again, you know, you got that filter first. The first

filter is I'm not going to go pull 40 hours a week. It's not going to happen. I'm going to be with my daughter. I'm going to be with my family. That's the thing. So how can I make sure that it's efficient? If someone's starting through this and they're struggle busting and they're like, hey man, Chris is amazing. I'm not going to be at this high school reunion thing, but I want to get a hold of them. I want to be part of this. I want to get to this process. How do people get a hold of you? How do they reach out to you? What's the best way to do that? The only social I have that's public is LinkedIn. I find there's more serious people over there.

My Instagram is friends and family. Sure, I could grow it and get a whole bunch of likes. And those are the vanity metrics that don't matter. They don't. So I pretty much just made everything private other than LinkedIn. I still do consulting. It's not as common that I do that. But I'll do 90-day sprints with people.

Like, hey, I got a product. Hey, I got a company. Hey, I got an idea. I help them get dressed, get ready for the party, go to the party, connect the dots, I'm out, right? I still do some of that. But again, it has to check the boxes, right? Can I play with my friends? Can I leverage my network?

Would my kids be proud of me? Is it going to be fun? Does the other person suck? Like, these are real check boxes, man. Yeah, they're real. And if you check all those boxes, like, okay, this is a deal I'd probably play around with. You're buying my time. You're doing it for three months.

At the end of that, we can have a conversation. do I continue as from an equity standpoint because we really got something humming here and it's not going to really work without me. Then I have that. So that's how I got into dugout is I got 40% equity in the company on the front side for no money down because of my involvement in what I was able to do. And then my golf company, I own 60% of that company for no money down. And it was a brand that had over half a million. in golf ball sales right off the bat.

So it's like, does it fit my lifestyle? Can I play with my friends? Can I have fun? This is, you know, all these questions. So I still do my consulting. That's why I leave LinkedIn. And I'm really pretty responsive over there. But I would say that.

And then obviously dug out mugs in big golf. I mean, check out what we're doing. What we're doing is awesome, period. Yeah. So we, yeah, absolutely. When we get sent stuff, because we get sent shit all the time, it normally lands flat. Your stupid mug. I'm actually a little pissed with

they fucking love this thing My entire team won't let me touch it at this point They're running around with it And so they're amazing So if people want more of the mugs Where do they go? How do they get access to it? Dugoutmugs.com

Um, that's the place to get it. Now, if you want to do some custom stuff or get like some corporate mugs or something, just shoot us a message. Um, there's right on the site, right on the site, just pop it in there. Hey, saw Chris on a podcast.

We wanted to chat about doing some custom stuff. And we're officially licensed with Major League Baseball, the Savannah bananas, like we got it all. So you can do like Yankees mugs on one side From your friends at XYZ Corp on the back We can do all that good stuff So yeah, pretty much

And if you want to come up with something awesome Let me know And what I loved about it was how fast it was Literally it was like within two days It was like what just happened. It was sick These guys are dialed in They only do what they do best And they don't do anything else

I don't walk up there and say hey Eric Looks like you're really managing shit well Can you go clean this thing? No Or, hey, Tina, you're really just on top of getting everything out the door. Can you go run the lasers? And that's what people do. And I've seen it.

I'm guilty of it. That's why I know it screws stuff up. Is you find what somebody's doing and then you have them go do something up. I do it. I'll tell you a little story and we can wrap because I know you got a roll. I was at my mastermind the other day. And this guy, his name was Phil. Actually, he just put in an order this morning.

for mugs so shout out phil but he's like all right write in cursive with your dominant hand write your name and everybody did and you had like 10 seconds to do it because who remembers cursive he said now write it with your left hand in the same amount of time and uh gave you 20 seconds right more time and and it looked like trash yeah horrible okay but what he said is like this is an example of what's happening in your business so people are more focused and they take twice the time to do a shittier job because what you ask them to do is so far outside of their comfort zone. Right.

Like what a, what a great example. What a great example. Good job, Phil. To execute. It's like you can do a okay job if you know what you're doing. Then you can do a half-ass job in twice the time if it's not your lane. But all the time, people are applying unnecessary pressure on employees by asking them to do what they're not best at.

And I thought, and that really landed, right? No, that was a really good one. That's huge. so man i appreciate there's so many different insights and things and i've got to talk to you about mugs but chris man thank you so much for coming on the show i really appreciate it yeah i'm always down to jump on man if you ever want to wrap about something else let me know i'm around sounds good man i appreciate it see it all right that wraps up our episode chris is one of those few entrepreneurs who just gets in your face the only buys what he loves he only does what he loves we jokingly talked about it

after the call where he's like dude my entire life is sports booze and cigars i get to do that every day and then go back to my family. What other life could you want? Talk about the proof of her entrepreneurship right there. I hope you guys enjoyed it. I'll see you in the next one.