The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Mark Hill, CEO of AABEX, and Brave Paws Interview

Episode Date: July 7, 2022

Mark Hill, CEO of AABEX, and Brave Paws Interview Mybravepaws.com

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. Get ready, get ready, strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times. Because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain now here's your host chris voss hi folks it's voss here from the chris voss show.com the chris voss show.com hey we're coming here with a great podcast we certainly appreciate you guys tuning in thanks for being here those of you who of course listen to the podcast on audio be sure to guys tuning in. Thanks for being here. Those of you who, of course, listen to the podcast on

audio, be sure to go to youtube.com for Chess Chris Voss. See everything we're doing over there. Hit the bell notification so you can do what's going on there. Also go to our big LinkedIn group on LinkedIn. It's called the Chris Voss Show and the Beacon's Leadership. Also go to our big LinkedIn newsletter. People

love that thing on LinkedIn. LinkedIn really is killing it. If you're not over there doing stuff, you really should be checking out what's going on. Also go see all our groups on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, and also goodreads.com for Chess Chris Voss. You see all the brilliant authors we have on the show. Today we have another amazing guest and that's all we really do here on the Chris Voss Show is have amazing guests. Mark Hill is on the show with us today. He is the CEO and President of AVEX Animal Health LLC. It's a parent company of a brand we'll be talking about called Brave Paws and given we just had the July 4th holiday with lots of fireworks, probably be important for those of you who have listened in

on what we have talking about today mark after a successful career in the animal health industry he founded avex animal health in 2018 it was founded to provide sales and marketing support to small companies seeking to enter the animal health industry which historically has been dominated by major companies and blockbuster products. He was born and raised on a dairy farm in Maryland and graduated with a BS in agricultural economics and an MBA from the University of Maryland. Mark has started in field sales in a territory in Virginia and progressed through his career to a variety of sales management and marketing positions. His last position was senior sales director for the U.S. large animal division of Muriel LTD. Through his career, Mark established a great track record of

hiring and developing high-performing teams and consistently exceeded goals. We'll be talking about some of that today in business, et cetera. Welcome to the show, Mark. How are you? Hey, Chris. I'm very good. And it's a real pleasure and honor to be joining you in your show today. So thank you for the opportunity. Thank you. And it's an honor to have you on as well. So give us the dot coms that people can go look up you and your company and stuff on the Internet. Sure.

So you can check us out at www.mybravepaws.com. So brave and then paws, P-A-W-S.com. And that will provide some information for some of the pet parents who may have stressed out dogs and who wanted to find some additional information. There you go. So give us an overview of what both companies do, ABEX and Brave Paws. Yeah. So thanks, Chris. So ABEX was established, you know, I was forced to have a really great career in corporate America, but I always kind of had the itch to do something entrepreneurial and I had an opportunity. So even at my age, I went out and did it and we've had a lot of fun and it really focused on what I found. There's a lot of great companies with great

technologies, really good products, but they don't have a voice in the market. It's difficult sometimes to access a marketplace that has a lot of various distribution systems and things in place. So we help these companies, kind of a Sherpa in a way, find their way into the industry and into the market and hopefully help them be successful and grow their business. So as part of that, I basically was introduced to Dr. Tony Durst, who had the Braves Pulse product or had the formulation, and we kind of hit it off and formed a partnership, and it was a product that I'm bringing to the market myself through AVEX Animal Health. Oh, wow. And, you know, going into the business of pet products, a long time ago, we owned a lot of different companies, me and my business partner, like 20 or 30 years ago.

And I remember getting dogs and getting my first Siberian Husky and seeing how expensive it was when I would go to like PetSmart or the pet stores. And relatively to what the prices are now, it was freaking cheap. Like, I don't know, I don't know who put gold into, what are those strips of animal tendon they sell that are like hugely, somehow have gotten hugely expensive. But I forget what they're called, but they're tendon strips or something that dogs love to chew on.

There's a lot of foods out there. And they've gone from like, they're more expensive than what you pay for baby food. Chris, you can't put a price on love, right? This is one of my first marriages divorces sound like. But all kidding aside, you can't put a price on them.

But evidently, their divorce lawyers were able to put a price on them. That's a joke. But no, I mean, these tendon, these different products, like I remember going in and seeing Kongs. And I'm like, it's injected molded plastic and it's $10? And so I said to my business partner back then, I go, we really need to get into the business of pet supply because holy crap. I mean, and I really wish I would have now seen the prices of what I have to pay. I don't pay an extraordinary amount for food these days and good food. But you help people navigate and get in that business like me that would, you know, we're not some big conglomerate corporation.

Sure. Yeah, no, it's a wonderful industry. I think there's 87 million dogs in the U.S. now, and they truly are companions, right? You see that, you know, a lot of the baby boomers with empty houses that you have the pet that's kind of a surrogate child, you know, go back to the millennials and, you know, now pets are with us at restaurants. So they truly are a member of the family. And just the companionship that they provide is, I think, very, very special. As they say, a dog is kind of a man's soulmate. And so for me, it's very exciting to be able to come to this market

and hopefully have a product that can help solve some needs and help people with anxious dogs. So the dogs do well and also the pet parents do well. And it helps address, you know, the anxiety of both. Yeah. Let's talk about the Brave Paws brand then. I think that's what we're getting to. And when did you guys launch it?

So it just came in the market in June. So basically, this was our first full month into the market as we're coming into July. So it's a fresh, fresh launch. And what does it do? So basically, Brave Pulse is a product that has two kind of primary ingredients. It has sorbia and it has a product called Platinum Spark. And it's kind of an interesting story, Chris, but the sorbia product is raised in Costa Rica. And a lot of the scientific literature shows that this product had been used by indigenous people for generations to help with anxiety. And Dr. Durst, who was kind of my business partner with this product, the scientist, really neat, bright guy in the research,

he became intrigued by this. And so he started to pursue a formulation that we could offer dogs, and we did scientific studies. And what it seems to do, it's a supplement, right? It's not a drug, but it helps modulate cortisol. Cortisol is the stress hormone that, you know, it's the fight or flight hormone. And so it allows the body to naturally perform and kind of modulate that cortisol, which is a trigger for many of the stresses that we see. Yeah. In fact, with my intermittent fasting and stuff,

cortisol is one of the big things to try and lose weight. So it would help me from what I just went through. We were talking about this pre-show where I've been dealing four days of fireworks and my two Siberian Huskies have been climbing the walls, just freaking out and they don't deal with it well. And so it helps them keep them calm. I know I bought calming different over-the-counter medications for them. I tried giving them vodka and evidently my friend says, don't do that, folks. That's a joke. We just do the jokes around here. Yeah. You know, I tried giving them vodka, but that doesn't work, but they didn't like it either. It's not good for folks. You might need some vodka if your dog is going crazy from fireworks, but you know, it's just, it's just amazing how long the fireworks go on too.

They get really upset. I mean, I know some dogs that will shake. They go hide. I've had my dogs practically climbing up into my lap, and they're way too big to climb up into my lap. You know, it's almost like they want to crawl inside me. It's like, get me away from the thing. You know, they're just really scared.

And I think they hear more of like the high-pitched stuff that maybe we don't notice and they and sometimes like they'll be freaking out and i'll be like what's going on and i won't hear the fireworks you know they're down the block or something but because of their high-pitched hearing they can pick it up and i'm sure those squealers that go you know you, those really probably piss them off. Yeah, it's I think you're spot on, Chris. It's really unfortunate, the anxiety that dogs, you know, kind of suffer from. And as a matter of fact, one of the genesis for me kind of pursuing this product.

So, as you mentioned earlier, I grew up on a farm and and sort of kind of had a love for animals early on. But we had a pet butterscotch who was a golden lab. And butterscotch would absolutely come unglued whenever we had a thunderstorm. Yeah, thunder. Tons of thunderstorms. So it always was the back of my mind. If there's ever a product that I'd be very interested in. As I went in my career with Animal Health, it was really exciting when we came across this opportunity. You know, they've done studies,

and I think studies will pretty much show that up to 70% of dogs have some type of anxiety. And if you're around, you know, everyone that has pets sees the anxiety all the time at kind of different levels. I think separation anxiety, one in five dogs has that. You mentioned like the noise phobia. You know, I've seen studies about 40, 45%. And kind of the interesting thing, or maybe the unfortunate thing for the dog,

is dogs tend to have multiple, they tend to be susceptible to multiple various stressors. So if I'm a dog and I get stressed out by a stranger let's say or loud noises i might also be more prone to separation anxiety so it's definitely a real issue yeah the thunder we had that recently too with the thunder and lightning stuff and that's again something i won't notice until they're yeah they're really upset and they're really freaking out i'm like why why am i so popular right now because they're siberians they're usually yeah pretty much doing their own thing are they ignoring me most of the time they're really upset and they're really freaking out. I'm like, why am I so popular right now? Because they're Siberians. They're usually pretty much doing their own thing. They ignore me most of the time.

They're just like, yeah, we don't need you. But yeah, dogs and animals have become really popular. I mean, I always joke that the more I get to know people, the more I love dogs. So there's that. And you've seen just an explosion of services and companies and products that are great for dogs and better foods and stuff like that. And what's the secret to the Brave Paws natural solution? And it's natural, I guess, huh?

Yeah. So the sorbia plant and the platinum spark, which are the primary ingredients, there's a thousand milligrams each one, that they are natural and that's where it's sourced from. And it basically is just a supplement to help the body kind of perform and do the things that the body does and primarily around regulating, you know, the cortisol. So I would say that's kind of the key driver in a product. Yeah. Separation anxiety is huge for me. I've had problems with that over the years. And fortunately, I learned a few tricks, but not all of them. Siberians are huge at being attached to you. And I think a lot of people have dogs that are attached to them. And there's, you know, I had a really bad spell for a while where I would leave for work and go to the office and I would get a call from my neighbors, your dog dug out.

And like within literally 20 minutes, my dogs, Siberians are massive diggers, they had dug onto the fence and, you know, I'd have to put stacks of rocks and they'd do it again. And yeah, every time I'd leave the house, they would really freak out. Sometimes stuff would get torn up. Sometimes on my trips, my dogs would give me like i come home and there'd be like stuff torn up for my little one it was like sometimes a roll of toilet paper she could get to the toilet paper and and they always put it somewhere where they know you're gonna find it it's like here's your message buddy here's your message that we're not pleased with you. And you're like, give me a break.

I went to the store for an hour. Yeah, they really do let you know, don't they? Yeah, I mean, it could be barking, as you might be chewing different things, like your favorite shoe, and they really do let you know when they're anxious. That's interesting. And so really with the Brave Paws, for example, your dogs, Chris, what you could do in that situation, you know, we have folks who kind of use it as a daily product because sometimes you're not sure, you know, when a specific stress-causing event will happen, right? So maybe it's easier to get one in the morning and one in the evening. So you could do that. Try it and see if you see an improvement, a reduction in anxiety.

We also have have folks who just kind of time it when when they have the anticipated event. So if there's a fireworks event like we saw this past weekend, if there's a storm, we just recommend you get a brave pause. Ideally, about an hour prior to the anticipated stressor. And you can also use it that way. Definitely. I mean, I've learned that the hard way over the years, you know, always keep that stuff around. So how is this different than other products that are on the market that maybe try and do the same thing? Yeah.

No, thanks, Chris. That's a good question. It's unique formulation. That's kind of why we got excited about it. And, you know, the product has clinical studies. So they actually, you know, perform some studies, some simulated thunderstorms and measure different behavioral parameters. They also, you know, that's what really kind of got me excited about the product. And there's not any other products actively marketed that I'm aware of that have the plantness, bark, and also have the sorbia plants. So there's a lot of CBDs out there, right? There's a lot of products that contain tryptophan, which you see in Turkey. So there's a lot of products out there for calming.

But I think these are very unique ingredients in the market, and that's why we're excited about it. And so yours are probably more natural than some of those other chemicals? Yeah, there's so many, it's hard to speak to it. I will just show you, though, this is actually, I don't know if you can see it, this is actually one of the brave paws. So this treats 20 pounds. But basically, it's compressed, the sorbia and the platenus. So it's kind of the real stuff is in there, right, would be the way I would say that. How do you usually get them to ingest it? Does it work good with food or a treat or something?

Yeah. So interesting, Chris. Most dogs will kind of readily accept it. Oh, wow. I have a finicky dog, unlike me, that likes all kinds of food. Apparently, he doesn't. So, what I'll do is we'll just put it in peanut butter. Some people put it in wet food.

Yeah, and they can take it that way. Some people actually will crumble it up and put it in a product. But the majority of dogs we've seen will ingest know, will ingest the product and like the taste. That's good. That's good. Because anytime you have a pill that they don't like to taste. I've had dogs that I've had to give, you know, they've had cancer and had to give them nasty pills. Yeah.

Had to do the whole finger down the throat thing. And they do not like that. And I can't blame them either. I wouldn't like somebody who does that. You know, that's not fun at all. Yeah. Now, palatability is a. I wouldn't like somebody who does that. You know, that's not fun at all. Yeah. No, palatability is a huge thing to get animals to accept medicine. It's just always a challenge.

Right. Peanut butter was my old trick, especially if you freeze it. It's pretty funny. I need to try that. Yeah. You can give them a little freezing. You can't give them too much peanut butter because it's got a lot of sugar in it. It's really not good but if you can make little packets of frozen stuff and they'll lick the crap

out of that because i don't know it's it's crazy but you know you can get them to eat anything you can do to get pills down them sometimes this is good where can you buy this yeah so basically chris you can go to our website w.mybravepaws.com, and the product is available there. We also have it on Amazon. So we're just bringing it to the market. So those folks who use Amazon can also purchase the product there. So anyway, yeah, those are probably the two most immediate places to get it. Those are the best places to get it when you want stuff fast.

Yeah. And I recommend keeping one, you know, always keeping a bottle of this stuff in your cabinet because, you know, you just never know. You never know when you get that crazy thunder. You know, when I lived in Vegas, we used to have the Raptors go over our house and they'd run from Nellis and go up that canyon up to Area 51. And they loved to hit the afterburners or something

either when they were coming in or going out of town i lived up on the edge of the northwest side of town and they love to hit those things and fly low yeah and and that would freak out my dogs just the just the planes and stuff of course yeah yeah those those raptors you shake the house you're like what the hell is going on and why is this always going on yeah welcome to the u.s government i guess yeah no yeah there's so many different things now that can get dogs stressed out um yeah yeah you know chris and one thing i forgot to mention if i if i can just kind of add that that's kind of we're probably kind of proud of about the product you

know i mentioned dr tony thirst who who is the scientist behind the product. But actually, it is raised in Costa Rica, right outside the rainforest. And there's a village there that raises this product. Then it's harvested and it's shipped to Canada and manufactured. So it does help provide income and sustainable income for a part of the the world that you know really appreciates it and it's a close partnership dr nurse gets there several times a year and they set up a co-op just to just to kind of sell sell the sorbia so we're real excited about that because we feel like not are we just you know helping pets hopefully and pet parents but

also really helping the folks in Costa Rica that are raising this. That's awesome. So you're helping some folks in some areas that always need extra money, you know? Never hurts, really, when it comes down to it. So what are some of the future products maybe you guys are working on for this brand and your line? Yeah, so very good question. We have, right now, we're trying to get this product out to the market, Chris, but we're also looking at potentially enhancements in terms of packaging,

different packaging, different formulations. So we're pretty optimistic. We'll have some other things coming down the road. There's always products in the pet space. There's a couple interesting products in the weight loss category that we may have down the road as well. So there never seemed, as you pointed out, there's all kinds of products and there's a lot of needs in there as pets are a member of the family. So there's always really kind of good technology and new innovative products are hitting the market. So we hope to have more. Yeah. I mean, dogs need all sorts of health products. Sometimes they get overweight. Sometimes, you know, when they get older and senior stuff, they need, you know, extra support.

Kind of like I do. I've reached the age of 54 where I've got more vitamins kicking around. Like if you're on my desk, like half the desk is vitamins, you know, that I'm supposed to take every day. And, you know, they're supposed to, I don't know, save me from whatever. And, you know, those aren't even prescriptions. Thank God I don't have a lot of prescriptions. I haven't gotten to that point yet. But, you know, it's just you reach that point where you're just like,

oh, I got to take more heliovitamins and I got to take this for testosterone and this for the blood flow and this for, you know, zinc and vitamin D. I mean, I don't know. For the first 50 years, I just ran on vodka and Doritos. And you did fine. I was fine. Yeah. No, I can relate on all the daily things we can.

It's not fair with you. Dogs definitely hit that wall sooner than us because they only have, they have a very short lifespan compared to us. And so they get really old. And it's like, you know, my one dog, she's seven or eight. And I can start seeing that, you know, weight is becoming an issue. She's slowing down. You know, I've got to keep an eye on her joints and, you know, keep checking her for stuff and make sure that, you know, there's not any growths or anything weird. You know, you got to start paying attention to them. So they need, they need lots of good health and stuff. Anything more you want to talk about

that we maybe haven't covered on your company and business, et cetera, et cetera? No, I just, I just really appreciate the, the opportunity to participate and, you know, we're excited of the pet parents out there. I hope it's a product that can help. And, and yeah, it's just, I think you have a lot of neat guests on and, and it's an honor and I hope, I hope we help some people and hope we help some stressed-out dogs and some stressed-out pet parents. There you go. That'll definitely do it because keep a bottle in the thing, people. Because it's bad. You know, I mean, I've seen people, especially with huskies,

they come home and they've torn up a couch. Yeah. Oh, I know. It's amazing what they can do. And it's a short period of time. Short period of time. If they get upset, they will do stuff to your house and you will not like it. And I've seen dogs tear up.

You know, you can go on TikTok and Instagram and see all these videos, YouTube. But, you know, I've seen dogs tear out of, I've had my dogs tear out of their kennel crates, you know, and just turn them inside out. And you're like, how did you escape from prison? And, you know, I went to the, I went to the store for like half an hour and somehow, you know, there you go. But they get upset. My little one still gets upset. Like when I leave, it doesn't matter what I'm leaving for or how long I'm gone. I'm usually, I've never gone long, but she will go to the gate. She will sit there and watch me leave. And then as soon as I pull in the garage, she's right there at the gate going. And sometimes she laid there the whole time and she's sitting there going, you're back.

And you know, they just have anxiety. Isn't it amazing? I mean, you could have a really bad day and you come home and your dog is just there ready to greet you. And it's like, this changes your outlook, you know? Yeah. They always love me. They always love me no matter what. Well, I don't know. Sometimes if I don't bring treats home,

they kind of look at me like, you got to go back there, buddy, or we're going to eat you when you're sleeping. You're going to be the next treat meal. But they're treat hoarders. They get so many treats, it's a wonder. Sometimes we've been so bad about treats here at the house that I'm like, they're not eating a lot of food. And I think it's because they're getting too many treats.

I think we basically turn the treats into food. You're just a good dad. You're just a good pet parent. I'm well-trained, I guess, by the dogs. You know how that goes. Anyway, it's been wonderful to have you on the show, Mark. Thank you very much for coming on. Give us your.com so people can find you on the interwebs.

Yep. Thanks, Chris. Sure will. www.mybravepaws.com. There you go. Thank you very much for coming on, man. Certainly appreciate it. Thank you for having me.

My pleasure. There you go. Thanks, Monix, for tuning in. Thanks for your comments and questions during the show. Be sure to go to youtube.com. Fortuna's Chris Voss. See everything we're reading and reviewing at goodreads.com. Fortuna's Chris Voss.

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