In this episode recorded in December of 2018, we interview Duke Sorensen. Duke Sorensen is the Area Developer of Utah and Idaho, as well as a Team Leader with 5 stores and one of the most beloved members of the Sport Clips family. In this episode of the podcast, we discuss what drew him to Sport Clips 15 years ago, the importance of living the Sport Clips values, and the reasons he loves what he does.
| Episode Air Date |
Guest Name |
Guest Title |
Topic(s) |
| January 4, 2019 |
Duke Sorensen |
Team Leader and Area Developer |
Living the Sport Clips values |
Each episode of the Podcast is also available on iTunes and the Google Play store.
Transcription:
- Hey everybody, this is Chad Jordan. I'm the Director of Marketing for Digital Services here at Sport Clips. This is another edition of our Hall of Fame podcast. Excited because for the first time, we are also doing this as a video on YouTube. So welcome to all our YouTube viewers and subscribers. Glad to have you. But real excited because of who I have as a guest today. Why don't I have him introduce himself?
- Hey everybody, it's Duke Sorenson. I'm the Area Developer for Sport Clips out here in Utah and Idaho. And I've been doing this for about, man, 15 years, Chad. And havin' a ball, just havin' a ball.
- We're gonna get into a lot of that. We are actually filming this in beautiful Austin area of Georgetown, Texas. And I've been freezing because it's in the 40s and 50s here. And you're wearing shorts, short-sleeved shirt. You know you came in all sweatin' because you woke up yesterday and it was in the teens, I'm sure in Utah.
- Oh yeah, its been freezin' out there. We're at 15, 20 degrees out there when we wake up in the morning, and we get up to about 30, 35 in the day, so.
- It takes a specially tough kind of people to be able to do that, so God bless you. So, we're going to get into a lot of stuff today. A lot, especially culture, you know, what's working for you guys out in Utah and Idaho. One of the things that I want to get to right away is you said Area Developer?
- Yes.
- Describe what that is. You know we have people that'll listen to this, watch this, that might be familiar with Sport Clips, might not be, or might be familiar with Sport Clips that don't know what AD does. So, can you kind of give me a rundown on what that's all about?
- Oh yeah, you bet. So I basically am responsible to develop out the area of Utah and Idaho. I help new team leaders, which are owners of the stores, get involved. Get them trained, get their stores open, help them look for real estate, all of those things to grow the area. I started out with one store in my area. I now have opened, oh wow, we're at 44, as of tomorrow. We're opening a store in Park City tomorrow, so, yeah.
- And do you, as an AD, are you also a team leader? How does that relationship work?
- Yeah, as an AD, we are required to have one store ourselves, but I actually own five at this point. And it's been a great experience. We're able to help a lot of people and do a lot of fun things with our teams.
- Yeah, and you have such a fun market, we're definitely gonna get into some of that stuff. Having traveled there, the last time I was there, I mentioned I've been there more than I have any other markets, which makes sense to have you as a guest here. And for the first guest ever as the video on YouTube. So, we're going to talk about your market. We're going to talk about some of the fun things that you guys do culturally that you do with your stores, and with the other stores around there. But, one thing that I'm interested in finding out about you, so you said 15 years. You're at least 15 years old, maybe a little bit older. So, what were you doing right before Sport Clips? What kind of got you to this place where you woke up one day and said, "Yeah, I think Sport Clips might be a good option for me." How did you get here, what were you doing, what led you here?
- Yeah, well I actually was a manager of a boat dealership for about 13 or 14 years.
- In the Utah area?
- In Utah.
- The Salt Lake City area?
- Yup. We actually had two locations out there, and was doing that and we actually sold the business and I worked for the new people for a little while and just hated it. I've always wanted to own my own thing, be my own boss and I actually went to work for a business brokerage that sold the business, and right then, just when Dick Mueller came in, who was one of the sales guys for Sports Clips at that time, and he told us about this new concept coming out. This was back in about 2003--
- I was gonna say early Os, early aughts.
- Yeah, early aughts. And he told us about this new concept, and I absolutely loved it, 'cause I hated getting my hair cut at all those other places. It just, I just hated it. It was terrible, the experience. And so I went and checked this place out, we had one open in Utah. Nancy Vandiver was--
- Oh, Nancy. Yeah, you know Nancy!
- Yeah, yeah, okay! Nancy was a team leader out there that owned a particular store, and it was the only one open out here in the West at all. She actually worked for corporate and just flew in to Austin here,
- I was about to say, yeah. Did training and stuff like that for quite a while. She's been with Gordon for a long time.
- Yep.
- Went there and had a phenomenal experience right out of the gate.
- So, you went as kind of a client, kind of to experience it,
- Yeah! And get the first hand kind of view of what it would be like to get your hair cut there and think if I will like it and enjoy it, I bet others will so this should be kind of the place for me. Is that?
- Yeah, I was --
- The thought process? I mean, I was looking for a business to buy or something to start. I had no clue I would get into this business. It wasn't even on the radar, I didn't even think about this business. I went to check it out just to see if I could sell some franchises for the company. I fell in love with the idea, and man, the rest is history from there.
- Yeah.
- We fairly quickly got it all taken care of, locked down and got started on things, and it's been a whirlwind ever since.
- Well, is it safe to say now it's kind of a family business?
- Oh, yeah.
- So, can you talk me through that and who else in the family is involved with Sport Clips and what they're doing with the business?
- Yeah so, my daughter Kayla, who is my second oldest child, I have four kids. She came out of school and wanted to be a stylist. She decided--
- This was how many years ago? Oh wow, this was back in about 2005.
- Okay, so, you had already gotten your feet wet with Sport Clips?
- Yes. Right?
- Yes, I just opened my first store.
- Your own store?
- My own store, at which was the second store in Utah. All of the time we're trying to open other stores and get other team leaders on and stuff. Well, my daughter decides she wants to be a stylist, and so, she's going to school. So, we hired her as a receptionist, and it worked out perfectly. The team that I had there were awesome. They took her under their wing, they taught her as much as she learned in school, you know, by learning and working with the girls. She was ready to come on the floor right after she graduated and she started as a receptionist, she worked her way up. We gave her the manager position of that store a few years later. She turned that store from doing, it was probably 300 haircuts a week to doing 7, 800 haircuts in like a year and a half.
- Wow.
- She just really did a great job.
- And it's not like 300 is a shabby number.
- No, 300's a good number.
- Yeah, to double that is crazy.
- So, she did a great job on that store, and a little later, we decided to make her the area coach. So, she now goes around open stores with me, does training, is over all of the other coaches that I have in the area that do training and things. She's kind of my right hand person. I get to travel with her all the time and stuff, so it's great. It is a family business.
- And she's keeping the tradition. She's having kids now that are going to eventually be in the family business, right?
- Yeah, I should have brought my little granddaughter, Quinn. We made her a little hoodie right after she was born that says on the back of it Sport Clips stylist in training.
- I love it.
- It looks really cute on her, so yeah.
- So, what have been, I'm going to ask a two prong question here. I want to talk about your experience with Sport Clips, once you got here 15 years ago, and the questions are going to go this way. First, what were some of the major challenges that you experienced coming into a market for the first time, really owning your own business for the first time in a capacity like that, that you had to overcome the challenges and how'd you make it through them?
- Well, some of the biggest challenges were we weren't known at that point.
- Okay.
- We were really a young company.
- It was not in all 50 states
- No. by stretch of the imagination.
- Not by any means.
- You would tell people where you worked and they said, "What? Who's that?" Now when I tell people where I'm at they go, "oh, I love that place. I go there, my kids go there." That was probably the biggest challenge was getting the word out to people, as well as stylists. Finding really good stylists is difficult, and when they don't know who you are or what you're all about or what your culture is like or any of that kind of thing, they're a little hesitant to come over and so you have to slowly win them over and work on getting the word out to the clients that you're around and this is what you do. You know, we're different than everybody.
- You had two major challenges, marketing and stylists. So, what did you do? First, marketing, how did you start getting the word out when there wasn't a national ad fund campaign really helping you or kicking down all these options your way?
- You know, gorilla marketing was the number one thing by far. That makes all the difference in the world, in fact.
- Probably still is.
- My five stores, I do it all the time. It's really worked.
- What are some of the things that worked that you've seen over the last decade plus that worked for you?
- Some of my favorites are I like to get out as many coupons with as little effort as possible. So, just taking the stuff that Sport Clips came up with right out of the gate. We'll go up to a pizza joint. Domino's or somebody like that and talk the manager into putting them on all of the pizza boxes that are getting delivered. I mean, they deliver hundreds of pizzas every week. Dry cleaners are another place that works really well, you can staple them to the dry cleaning bag. You know, proms and all of those kind of things. You think about times when people are getting their hair cut and it's really about getting people to understand how different we are than everybody else because we're not just another haircutting place, and we have much bigger hook towards guys that anybody else does. So, when they figure it out and they see it, it's kind of a no brainer for most of them. They absolutely love it when they come in.
- The other challenge... the stylist, the recruiting. Besides convincing, brainwashing or whatever you had to do to get your kids to want to be stylists, what else have you seen work for finding, because you're right, it's not just about getting any stylist, it's getting the best stylist to work at Sport Clips, which is certainly what we have. So, how do you do that?
- Well, certainly back then, the big issue was trying to get people to understand who we are and what we're about. It was the first company that I had really seen that believed in their mission statement and their values. Most people have it up on their wall, behind their cash register, and you ask the guy about it, and they go, "What's that? I didn't know that was there."
- Yeah, there's dust on the frame.
- Yeah, there's dust on the frame and things. This particular company, that was one of the things that attracted me to them was they really do live the values. They love the culture and creating that fun place to work and something different. That's really what drew me to it. That was the answer to finding the stylists is show them what culture we want to build and build it. Figure out something that they want that's different for them than they've ever seen. You know, most of the things I heard when I very first got into the business was, "Yeah, I worked for a place and it was owned by some doctor or some dentist, and I didn't even know the guys name. I just saw it on a paycheck every once in a while, and I had no idea who it was." Well, we're so far from that it's not even funny. All of our owners are a lot more engaged. We know every one of our stylists. We do things with them and have a good time. I think it was really important, I really think that the culture was what really changed it and brought people into us.
- I don't want to table culture because it might be the answer to the second prong of this question and the next part I had was what have been some of the biggest changes you've seen over the last 15 years as you come in. Now you've built the market out, you've seen it kind of grow. What have been some of the things you've seen take place?
- So, this comes back to something, Chad, that kind of hits close to my heart and close to me is when I first got into the industry I saw so much opportunity because there was a group of people here that are really hardworking. Lots of them are single moms, they're living on next to nothing, you know, and the wages were seven, eight bucks an hour when I first started out. I was hearing some of my friends that were getting into businesses, and we have a lot tech companies in Utah and these tech companies would take their employees all out to a movie and they'd rent the movie theater and they'd do these really cool, fun things. I wanted to do that. I didn't want to be the one going to the movies, I wanted to be the one that actually built this and took them to have fun and do some things. I also wanted to help them out, because financially, they were really struggling, and it just ... I knew we could do better than that. And, now we're, shoot, we're $10 an hour base. My average stylist makes $20, $21 an hour. So, it's huge where we originally --
- Do you have a resume that I could --
- Yeah!
- Or a job application that I could put in.
- Ah, nobody wants you to cut their hair.
- Yeah, yeah, I know.
- No, and especially, I mean, early on 2007, 2008, 2009 when the recession's hitting, you're seeing all of that. So, for you to recognize we gotta do something better and get these people to great wage.
- Well, and the thing that I liked Gordon would always push that. Every time something came up, he figured a good way to help people. Just coming up with some of the funds that we do, the Wayne McGlone fund and things, is huge in the industry. Nobody does those kind of things.
- Yeah.
- That's the kind of company I wanted to be a part of and actually help create and do 'cause it's not always about the money, you know. The money will come. It's about helping people and getting them what they want. The old Zig Ziglar adage, you know, help enough people get what they want, and you'll get what you want. I firmly believe that and it's worked, you know.
- So, one of the things, and I knew we'd circle back to culture because I said what have you seen change in the last 15 years and that's really where you started to go with that you didn't want to be attending the movie premier with the rest, you wanted to be the one putting that all together and bringing your teams together, so can you, 'cause I think you are such a culture leader and you guys do such an amazing job, can you give me just a glimpse of some of the things that you guys do for fun? We'll get into Help a Hero in just a second, but some of the things you do as a market or maybe as a team leader for your group of stores that other stores or other markets could benefit from if they also did it?
- Yeah, we've tried to do things as a group as much as possible. We go to our huddles, our national conventions, things like that. Whatever city we're in we find something fun to do with the teams. So, my group last year was about 75-80 people and we were down in San Antonio.
- Had the best jackets of anybody at huddle, yeah.
- We actually went and did a Segway tour with all of us.
- Oh wow, riding on the little?
- Riding on the Segways.
- Yeah!
- Went all over the city and they had to bring in Segways. We had, I think, about 65 of us all on Segways at one time down in downtown San Antonio.
- I missed this social media video and now I'm upset because I need to see this.
- We had an absolute riot, but we try and do things like that at all of our different huddles and conventions and things, but one of the fun things that I was, two years in a row we rented a place called Cowabunga Bay out in Utah. It's a small waterpark and we rented the whole park for a couple of hours in the evening.
- For just the team members or their family?
- For our team members and their families and their kids, and you know, spouses and all of that stuff. We had burgers and hot dogs and all that kind of good stuff. We had all their kids out there playing in the waterpark and we shut the stores down a little early Don't tell Gordon.
- We'll edit that part.
- Edit that part out, yeah. We shut the stores down early and we all met at Cowabunga Bay and all of my team leaders kicked in and helped and we put this big event on. We had a photo booth, we had guys doing tattoos for the kids. The funnest thing though, I'm the guy, I love doing prizes for my team.
- Yes.
- As you know.
- Yep.
- But they --
- And we're not talking little retractable pens that have Sport Clips on them. You do some really cool prizes.
- Yeah, we do a couple of things, yeah, but that particular waterpark is one of those that has the great big bucket that fills up.
- Okay.
- The great big one and then after it fills up so long then it dumps it on the whole waterpark and everybody gets wet. So, we went and got, I think it was 200 plus ping-pong balls and we wrote numbers on all the ping-pong balls and we put them in the bucket with the water. The whole team, all the kids, all the stylists got underneath the bucket and it dumped the water and the ping-pong balls everywhere on them and they picked up ping-pong balls and then we had a raffle off for all the different prizes
- Oh, nice. and things like that. I'm almost embarrassed to say we give away, our favorite thing for our teams is purses from Michael Kors and I have a really good connection and I get a really good deal.
- What you just said I'm sure blew half the people listening to this mind and the other half are going, "Michael Kors, what is that?" But, I assume that's a high end purse?
- It's a really high end purse line and any stylist that's watching this will know what Michael Kors is
- Okay. Without a doubt. I've spent thousands of dollars on purses and things like that, but it's really part of that culture. It's about bringing around and creating that place that you want to be proud to say you work there. I'm so excited because I work here, I work at Sport Clips and I do this and we do all these fun things. We took our teams, we take them to a haunted house every year at Halloween, and we all go through the haunted house together and get hot chocolate afterwards and all that stuff. There's countless ones. I'm one of Santa's helpers sometimes and I visit the stores and hand out candy canes for Santa, you know.
- Do you have a white beard and you go all white or wearing the hat?
- Oh, I have the whole set up. Okay, okay, alright.
- We have the whole outfit goin' on, you know me, if I do something, I don't do it small. We go all in. That's just a little taste of the different things that we've done and we're doing and will continue.
- I know you guys are doing a great job there, even earlier you just began to talk about some of the charitable work that Sport Clips itself does. You mentioned Wayne McGlone. I want to get into some of that stuff that you guys do as well, but can you give us a recap for those that are listening who might not know what the Wayne McGlone fund is, how it got started and maybe how, if anybody, team members maybe might be listening to this and didn't know it existed, you know, what it's there for?
- Oh, yeah. So, the Wayne McGlone fund was actually founded after, there was an area developer that did the same thing I did, and his name was Wayne McGlone and Wayne passed away. We all miss Wayne, he was a great guy. But, we named this fund after him, and Gordon set everything up so that we can take care of our own people. There's always something around the country, whether it's one of the hurricanes that's going on, maybe somebody, their little boy has cancer or maybe, you know, somebody loses their house to a fire.
- Yup.
- Or something like that. There's all kinds of things that happen all over the country. So, all of us, team leaders, as well as some stylists and others, we all kick in a little bit here and there, and we developed this fund. It's designed to help out people that work for Sport Clips that have fallen into some sort of tradgedy of some sort. All they have to do is apply for these funds and let them know what happened and what's going on. There's a committee that sits down and decides and then they disperse the money out every year and do that. I know we've given out I think over a million dollars.
- Sounds right.
- I need to double check that and see but it's a considerable amount.
- Are you on the committee? I'm not on the committee.
- Okay. We donate to it all the time,
- Yeah. And do things. At our national convention, we're always fundraising and things there and having raffles and all kinds of fun things just to try and raise money. I've actually had two people in my market that have actually received money from the fund.
- Okay, that was my next question.
- Yes. I wish you weren't videoing this, Chad!
- You're an emotional person so I wish I would have bought some Kleenex for you so that's my fault, but can you let me know at least one of their stories or both?
- Yeah. So, there was one that stands out a lot. She actually worked for me personally and she actually personally had some heart problems and some heart issues and was in the hospital and was out of work for a few months and things, and went through some difficult health issues. I remember, back to culture and back to what it is, is, you know, I went to the hospital and just visited her when she was in the hospital, and I walked in the door and she started crying. Because she didn't think anybody would visit her. Just that one little thing made a lot of difference to her, and it was not a big deal for me. It was easy to go do, and I wanted to go do it and everything. I didn't realize how much of a difference it would make for her. She was really struggling financially and I told her about the fund and says, "Hey, we oughta apply for this and see what we can get." She applied for it and she got some money and some help and relief. She still works for us today,
- Oh my goodness. I mean, she loves it because what companies do those kind of things?
- I was bracing myself for she didn't make it and you know all that stuff.
- No, she did.
- Okay, I'm glad. It's got even a happier --
- It's got a happy ending,
- Okay, good.
- Everything's good. It was just, it was really --
- Very impactful.
- And it was because it was really the mission of why I came into this business. It really hit me hard at that point because it, making a difference is really important.
- Yeah, my question, I was going to ask it later, but I think you might have begun answering it now, so I will. What has been the best part about being involved with Sport Clips for you? It sounds like the people.
- The people.
- And the ability to
- Yeah. make a difference but I don't want to feed you that line, but that's where I feel like you're going.
- No, the people and making a difference, yes, is very, very important, but it's really that it's turned into a family. I mean, I'm an old guy. I'm 52 years now.
- Whatever years old.
- Whatever, yeah. Most of the people that I work with are 18 to 40 year old ladies,
- Yeah. You know, and they're all kind of like my daughters. So, it's really fun because you get to see them grow and I'm at the stage of my life where it's kind of the give back stage. I want to teach people, I want to help them, I want to help them learn, I want to bring in the new regime for the Sport Clips world, in part as much as I can. It's really fun because I see that happening. I see some of these 18 year old girls that would just spend everything they have and have all kinds of issues in their lives now are really growing up and learning how to manage money and learning how to grow and progress and move up in the company. I mean, there's lot of people now that have been with me. Gosh, I've got 5 employees personally that have been with me 10 years or more.
- Wow.
- So, and in this industry that's almost unheard of.
- What do you do on anniversaries? Do you do anything? Do they get a pin or a plaque?
- So, we do, I do a bonus.
- Even better, you do something green.
- Yup, I do green. They always like green. I do a hundred dollars for every year of service if they're full time.
- Wow, so ten years is $1000?
- I wrote a $1400 check last year.
- I bet you loved that. The more zeroes you get to add to that check the better.
- Absolutely. I wish I could write one for everybody now. I mean, that's really the reason I love doing this is the people and all of the different relationships. From corporate on down, I've made a lot of good friends in corporate that we hang out and do things with all over the country. And then, I'll come to a huddle or something and a stylist that I met in, you know, Kansas or whatever, comes up and we talk about things that are going on and things. So, it's not just my area, even. It's all over the place.
- Yeah, it is. It's a network, it really is across the country. A couple questions and then we will get to the final 10 fun questions. Again, back to charitable causes 'cause you are so involved in a number of them, we'll end with the Help a Hero ones, but I know you do some things locally in your market. Can you touch on what some of things are that you do impactful? I think there's something with Children's Hospital that you do and some other things. Can you mention what those are?
- Yeah, and these are some that we don't publicize a lot, you know?
- Let me pause with a comma, I know that about you and I know that you're not looking to toot a horn but I'm looking to find out what you do and how others across the country might be able to partner with
- Sure. Kind of the hospital or something and get an idea from what you've seen and able to give back, so let me just tell all that up front. I know you did not ask me to talk about this but because I know it about you, I want to know more about it myself.
- So, we've been involved with a number of organizations and doing things under the Haircuts with Heart. I love that slogan and we have shirts that we use and stuff and it's great. Carecuts has been one that we've done some things in the past with.
- Carecuts?
- Carecuts.
- Okay.
- Get on Facebook and look up Carecuts.
- Okay.
- They do haircuts for the homeless in Salt Lake and so we'll go out and --
- Is it a national organization or is it?
- It's actually a local one.
- Okay.
- Yeah, I know there's national ones out there that do things like similar to that. This is just some friends of mine that I came across and they were doing this, so we partnered with them and we've been doing some of that. We just got involved with Mike Hamilton in doing the Christmas Box House, where we are helping provide Christmas and Christmas gifts for some children that are wards of the state that have been taken out of homes and things because of really bad issues.
- This your first year doing that?
- This is our first year.
- Okay.
- Actually I'm going there to our event in two days for that and we're going to provide Christmas. We have a magic show going on and all kinds of things. I've also been doing stuff with Mike at Shriner's Hospital in Salt Lake and we go in, he has a Build-a-Buddy machine, kind of like Build-a-Bear
- Yeah. But a little different. We go into Shriner's once a month and we set up at Shriner's and the kids come in and they get to build bears and put clothes on them and take them home.
- Right there?
- Yeah, we let them. They crank the machine and we help them actually build their own bear and put things together for them. That one's really emotional and crazy.
- Yeah, especially for grandpa.
- Oh, yeah. There's some really amazing kids that have had some really difficult things in life. Then, we do the normal things that Sport Clips is involved with with blood drives and things.
- St. Baldrick's?
- St. Baldrick's, oh yeah. I shaved my head.
- Oh, you did! What year was this?
- This was three years ago.
- 2015?
- Yes.
- When Gordon? Okay
- Yeah, we had the whole group.
- You were on stage and you got a shave or did you do it in your store?
- I wasn't in the group.
- Okay.
- We had the whole, we were trying to break a world record.
- Yeah, okay, yeah. I remember that.
- Yeah, they shaved my head that night, but I was able to raise, I think I was number five or number six in the country. I raised it was over $8000 to shave my head.
- Wow.
- And so --
- That's a dollar per hair.
- A dollar per hair!
- Nice.
- And actually, my wife liked it. I was surprised.
- Oh, okay, kinda like that, you know, close shave.
- Yeah, as long as I keep the facial hair, she was good with it, but if that went, I would look too much like Mr. Clean or something.
- Yeah.
- But that one was really fun. St. Baldrick's was a great experience. We've had a number of team leaders that have done store shaves and stuff like that there, as well. And then of course our favorite one is Help a Hero.
- Yeah, let's talk about that a little bit. That just wrapped up a couple weeks ago and your market did some phenomenal efforts in terms of nationally what you guys did and where you ranked but tell me some of the things, some of the experiences that you guys got to enjoy with fundraising.
- So, this has been a long time fundraiser for Sport Clips. It changed a few years back and went from buying phone cards for all of our men and women overseas to doing scholarships as they're coming back and getting back in the community and you know, that group of people does so much for us and they're so underappreciated, but my stores really took this at heart and two of my stores, especially, personally jumped in. My one store in American Fork has always done a really good job. They always raise a lot of money. They've been in the top five in the country for money raised for the last probably four or five years. They had a specific goal this year to do about $8000 out of the store, raise eight.
- Which is an absurdly high amount of money for a fundraiser.
- For one store that's a lot.
- Fundraiser in one month to have that kind of money come in is amazing.
- They jumped in. They hit their goal, it was about two weeks before the end of Help a Hero. So, they called me up and they made a challenge with me that if they hit $10,000, which was another $2,000 than where they were at, that they could throw a pie in my face.
- You said a pie.
- It was supposed to be a pie.
- Okay, I think it was a pie per team member that you employ in the entire states of Utah and Idaho. I think the video showed.
- That's what it looked like anyway and felt like, trust me. They had designed it so they had a picture of every team member on board and whatever they end up with on the fundraising level, that team member got a pie in their face. I was at the top.
- So, they're all motivated not to be the one that got stuck getting the money raised on their face. They needed to get at least bumped up to the next person, the next person, then the next person.
- Yeah, if it stopped on them, they were out fundraising trying to find some more because they didn't want it either. The end goal was they all really wanted to throw a pie in my face.
- Right.
- Which I get. I'm kind of, you know, a little bit rough on them sometimes.
- Yeah, I'm sure. You're just there cracking the ... right.
- They ended up hitting $10,300 and some odd dollars in funds for the Help a Hero this year. I know they're going to be in the top five, I just found out. So, I'm pretty excited about that. We went one night and they were going to just throw one in my face.
- Was it American Fork? What store were you?
- American Fork, yeah.
- That's the store you were?
- Yeah, UT 102, American Fork, Utah. They were just going to throw one pie in my face and do it, and Chad you know me, I can't do anything small. I gotta go big, so I said, "No, let's let everybody do it."
- They all pitched in to help fundraise.
- Yeah, they all helped fundraise. I didn't think one person deserved you know, to have the, you know. Yeah. So, everybody got a pie, I think there was 13 or 14 pies that night. We had most of our team, but not all of them there. We have about 17 or 18 team members at that store. They brought me out and of course, I wore my three piece suit, because you know, if we're gonna do this.
- Yeah, you're gonna have to get dry cleaning no matter what you wore, might as well look sharp while it happens.
- They sat me down and they enjoyed every minute of it.
- Not only that, I'm going to attach the video of the, the Facebook video, to this podcast, the transcript, so people can go find it because you literally, especially afterwards, you looked like Casper the ghost.
- I did, didn't I? You were covered and just the eye, you know, the holes where you eyes are, once you open your eyes, that was the only part that wasn't covered, but it was truly something.
- I had pie coming out of everywhere.
- I didn't want to break it to you when I saw you today. I said oh there's some spots behind your ear I think you might have missed. But, it looked like they had a blast. You guys did a great job raising the money and nobody was harmed in the process.
- Nobody was harmed. No dogs were harmed.
- Yeah, yeah exactly.
- Well, it was nice because they work so hard. I mean, all the credit goes to them. They really work hard for this fundraiser. They go out and get prizes from other businesses all around the area and have some fun games and things for the clients to play and stuff during the whole fundraiser and it really brings awareness with it. This year our goal as an owner was to have two stores in the top ten or I'm sorry, the top five. We're waiting to hear, we don't know yet, but we've got another store, my South Jordan store, they raised it was 7400 and some odd dollars.
- Yeah, not chump change either.
- Not at all. So, we're really hoping they make it into the top five but we won't know that for a little bit, but hopefully soon.
- Fingers crossed.
- Yeah.
- I'll just say before we get to these 10 questions, you know, I do a fair amount of traveling around the country to see different stores, and I did a lot during the Help a Hero period, and your market was crushing it. I wish I could bottle it up and take it to all the other markets and show them or pour it on them and just instant Help a Hero grow. Chia pet kind of style because I love what you guys are doing so congrats to you and your stores. Your market did a great job.
- Thank you.
- Here's what I want to do. 10 questions to get
- Okay. you out the door. I can't ask follow-ups to these.
- Do I have to answer truthfully?
- That's up to you but if you could try not to cry during any of these 10 questions I would really appreciate it, so enough of that for one podcast. I'll ask these and then we'll get you on your way. We'll stop the podcast recording for the audio portion and then we'll do a bonus thing for the video portion.
- Oh, so kind of like the Cash Cab with the video bonus question?
- I think so, yeah. I think we'll do a little bonus for those that want to watch this on YouTube. They can check it out, but for these, let's go number 10. These 10 questions, number one is which super power would you most like to have?
- Oh. I'd like to fly.
- Fly?
- Yeah, I would fly.
- You're a Superman?
- Yep, absolutely.
- Number two, what is your personal motto?
- Oh. Just help others.
- Okay, I love it. You're doing that. Number three, other than where you live now, where else in the world would you most like to live?
- Well, my wife and I have discussed this, but we've got it down to two. We want to have a little shack on the beach in Hawaii.
- Okay, any island? Does it matter?
- Oh, without ... Maui.
- Okay.
- We're into whale watching and we love to go out and see the whales and Maui is a great place for that. Then, we took a trip to Alaska and had a blast. So, we got each end.
- Alaska in the summer and Hawaii in the winter kind of thing, yeah?
- Yeah, exactly, and you know, we don't need this big mansion and we just want a little shack in both places and we're all good.
- You're not picky, I mean, geeze.
- No, no.
- Number four, who is a celebrity you would most like to meet one day?
- The Rock.
- Oh, nice.
- Yeah, Dwayne Johnson. He's, yeah.
- Did you like him as a wrestler first?
- I did not, I don't like wrestling, but I really like him now.
- I mean, all his movies are clean and fun.
- Yeah, yeah, no, he's fun.
- Number five, which words or phrases do you most overuse?
- Um.
- We'll see in the transcript.
- Yeah, exactly. I would have to ask my team that, that's a good question. I don't know.
- We'll save that and we'll let them respond in the comment section.
- Okay, they can respond in the comment section. I guarantee you there's definitely something.
- They'll have like five or six right off the bat.
- Oh, yeah.
- Number six, what sound or noise do you love?
- Oh, that's ... yeah. One of my grandbabies sleeping on my shoulder. That's my favorite.
- Nice, and how many grandbabies?
- We have nine at this point.
- Oh, your oldest is?
- Oldest is 14, no, 13.
- Okay, 13 to two weeks, three weeks?
- Two weeks, yeah.
- Something like that at the time this was recorded. Number seven, what sound or noise do you hate?
- Oh. Anything that has to do with that gives me road rage on the road, so like somebody honking at me. Yeah, that's my worst.
- You start to have like P.T.S.D on the road.
- I do, yeah. I'm a pretty mellow guy, but I am terrible when it comes to drivers, yeah. That's a weakness of mine.
- Number eight, what profession, other than your own, would you have been good at or at least have wanted to try?
- Like a game show host maybe?
- Oh yeah!
- Something like that.
- Right up your alley. There's still time. Don't give up on that. That could happen. Number nine, what do you consider your greatest achievement?
- Oh, my kids, my family, without a doubt. Yeah, no doubt in my mind.
- Good answer. And number ten, if heaven indeed exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the pearly gates?
- Well done.
- That's a great answer, as well. So, I want to think Duke for being on this podcast, and finding some time for me while we're both here in the fine state of Texas. I'm really proud of him that we did not need a box of Kleenex after all. He was able to pull it together, reign it in, and still make it through.
- I'm terrible.
- Thank you so much, too.
- Oh, you bet. Thank you, Chad.
- Alright, I look forward to having you guys tune in next time. You can catch us on the podcast and also on YouTube. Thanks so much. Sweet, alright. We still got that one recording.
- Okay.
- So, one thing we didn't talk about is--
- Sorry, you hit me in a couple spots, dude. Oh, my gosh.
- Sorry, man. You know, kindred spirits here, you and me. So, I talked a little smack about racquetball last time I was-- I was totally not knowing you actually knew racquetball so give me a little history lesson on when you started playing. For those watching this, I love playing racquetball. I played since I was a teenager and it's the thing I do two or three times a week just to help me stay in shape a little bit, even though now that I'm in my 40's my body doesn't always cooperate as much as it should.
- Wait 'til you get to 50.
- So, I'm in big trouble by the time I'm 50, but give me a little throwback on when you got started, how often you play, you know, all that kind of stuff.
- Well, I got started in racquetball back in high school as well, when I was a sophomore in high school. We had a rec center right next to my high school, and we used to close down the challenge court every night.
- You and other buddies all your same age or they're older?
- Yeah, we were within about two years of each other. We had probably five of us that really got into the sport, and we ended up traveling all over the state and playing everywhere.
- This is Utah?
- This is Utah.
- Okay.
- We were the young kids that everybody hated because they didn't like to play us 'cause we were fast
- Fast, strong. Good, all the people that I hate to play now. It was just because we played a lot. We played every night, literally, probably for three or four hours every night.
- Wow. You probably weighed all of 110 pounds.
- Yeah, I was a lot ... not anywhere near as many Krispy Kreme's, you know? But yeah, I've been playing ever since. I did take a hiatus for a little while for probably about 10 years that I just didn't play.
- Was it physical related or was it just time?
- Time, just kids and stuff like that.
- Are you a morning or a night player now?
- I'm a night player.
- Oh, really? Okay.
- I don't do mornings very well.
- Oh, okay.
- Yeah, I don't know why. I'm up early, but I just don't really do mornings very well, so I like to play in the evenings. Ever since high school, I've played in tournaments all over the place. So, we started out learning and all that kind of stuff, and now I'm probably a good A player, maybe a low open player in the tournaments at this point. I'm too old to really be a good open player, but I can hang with some of those guys for quite a while, and get a few points on them.
- So, for those still watching this, that means, what are you right-handed?
- I'm right-handed.
- So, that means when Duke and I play at some point, he will play left-handed.
- Oh, no, no, no. There's no mercy.
- Yeah, you're right. There is no mercy on the court. I'm with you. Now, when I have to play somebody that's half my age, it's just, you know, it's a bloodbath.
- I haven't played --
- They're running all over the place, but yeah.
- This whole year, so this might be a good time.
- Okay, I'll try to get you. Keep that trend going and then next time you and I can connect, I'll bring my racquetball stuff. So, you said was it Ektelon gear head? What are you in terms of?
- I have a player contract with E-Force.
- Okay, E-Force, okay.
- I get new racquets and stuff. I'll bring you a racquet.
- Yeah, that would be ... I would actually love that. So, it's Christmas, so I'll give you my address. I like to wear headbands.
- I do, too. That's weird, Chad.
- Yeah, I have to wear a headband.
- But, I'm from the 70's so the 70's we wore--
- I just sweat a lot so I don't like it dripping into my goggles.
- I just remember wearing the tie dye, not the tie dye --
- Oh, the band, the little strip?
- The one that you tie in the back and everything. That's how old I am.
- So, that's something I needed to pick your brain about, and what you and I are going to do is--
- I think what we should do though, Chad, is when we play we should do something like $50 a point goes to--
- Oh, okay, to Wayne McGlone or Help a Hero.
- Yeah, yeah, something like that.
- Okay, let me see if I can get Gordon to sponsor that portion.
- To sponsor you?
- Yeah, 'cause you know I travel a lot. I don't want to start losing money when I travel for Sport Clips. I might as well go ahead and write the check out now. One thing that you and I had talked about doing off air is you brought in some Mountain Dew, of course.
- Of course, I gotta take care of my guy.
- Which might be making its way to huddle, as well. In some way, shape or form, and then you brought in some donuts, so I think what we, because I'm a Krispy Kreme fanatic, so I think once we're done here, we're going to go come up with the Mountain Dew, Krispy Kreme kind of concoction.
- Oh yeah, we might need some help naming it, too.
- Okay, that's it.
- Yeah.
- We'll throw that out there in the comments section or something. We can do that. Well, thank you for carving some time out for both. You're the first video guest.
- Hey!
- I will see what I can do about editing out some of the teary moments.
- Yeah, you know, I'm okay. Whatever.
- Yeah, it's fine. I wasn't really going to edit anyway.
- I knew you wouldn't.
- It's been a blast, so thank you very much.
- Well, thanks for having me, it's been fun.
- Alright.