Personal Training and Entrepreneurship with Jesse Alden, Phoenix Physical Training

[00:00:02] What you want when you want it, where you want it. This is the MESH. Visit meko-rx.com or call 855-562-5679. Make O-RX, help care simplified. We're back. Welcome to the Entrepreneur Exchange on the MESH Podcast Network. It's your monthly

[00:01:01] podcast for conversation about startups and small business. We're here with some ideas and information to help you grow and operate your business more effectively. On today's show, what if you're a personal trainer? What does it take to start your own business and stand out from others?

[00:01:18] And what if you're doing it when you're starting during a pandemic? Our guest, Jesse Alden, got started during COVID and he's making it work and we'll hear his story. Plus, we'll have our lightning round.

[00:01:30] We've got some interesting small businesses that you should be checking in on our small business of the month feature. My name is Jeff Nouvelle, I'm your co-host. I'm director of the Manufacturing Solutions Center at in kind of our North Carolina.

[00:01:43] I'm joined by my co-host, Gary Mueller, who is Gary, what's your title now? What is it this month? It is Executive Union, Economic Development and Corporate Education. Wow. I'm glad that you had struggles with your new title. I know, I've only been in the lab.

[00:01:59] I've been in my new position for a couple of months. I should have it down by now, but I fall under about a year and I still don't have it yet. I don't have yours down either. It seems to get bigger

[00:02:10] as we go. So I hope things are going well for you. Well, you start with, we're back. It's perfect because we started the curriculum fall semester just a week or so ago. So we're excited about

[00:02:24] that. It's great to have student-son campus. Some of those students and cars I've seen on our campus in two years, so that feels really good. And of course our continued education program goes 12 months

[00:02:34] a year. So we've been jumping along and doing some great things in that area too. Oh, good deal. Well, I've got a little entrepreneurship news for you. Okay. I ran across on the interweb earlier this week,

[00:02:52] when I was doing important fantasy football research from our state-fansy football team. The Adams Adams is going to be our year. But anyway, I came across an article that released new rankings of the best states for entrepreneurs, which took into account concentration of new businesses.

[00:03:13] They're survival rate, a state's cost of living, salary levels and whatnot. What do you think? What do you think were the top five states for entrepreneurs for starting businesses? North Carolina. Number 14. Okay. Yeah, so you know, I said that because

[00:03:33] shameful plug, CBCC is one of the top 10 colleges in the country for entrepreneurship. Well, no, what would you do? Many things well. And so anyway, that's so good. So we're number 14. Okay. How about California? Number one. Good. Good guess. Texas. Number two.

[00:03:52] Okay. Florida. I think they were in the top 10. But the others, you might be harder to get. New Jersey was number three. That's the prize this week. Yeah, it's one of my brother is he started his own business there. So there's one.

[00:04:07] Illinois. Number four. It's interesting. And Georgia. Number five. I could see Georgia. Southern state. Yeah, with California has higher taxes. Yeah. But they apparently have a good ecosystem for starting businesses. And they probably have a good base of population. They're pretty big state.

[00:04:27] Yeah, so anyway, just I found that it's interesting. I'm, I'll pick them because of the biggest state that I am surprised that from an entrepreneurial standpoint. So I found that on a

[00:04:39] website called Luca.lo.ca.com, which is a website for that has some branding and design tools for startups. So if you want to check that out, go to Luca.com and you can sort of see where your

[00:04:53] state ranks. You know, which was the 50th state? New York. No, but it's actually a small state. Maybe the smallest state in the union. Delaware. Rhode Island. Oh, it's right. How do you 50th? I, you know, so, so I wrote, I hope we don't have listeners. Oh, no,

[00:05:11] it gets mad at me because my geography, not knowing the smallest state. Now you say, I think Delaware was not, was not good either. Although I suspect we see a lot of companies that

[00:05:20] incorporate their first, yeah, that's true. They do it for lake worries. Well, those were like the mega companies that I started up coming exactly. Anyway, let's welcome our guests. Jesse Alden with Phoenix physical training. Jesse, how are you doing today? I'm doing great guys. Good morning.

[00:05:36] Thanks for having me. Oh, glad you're with us. Jesse, you have been involved in fitness for 20 years. You know, Gary and I could make good at that claim as well. But probably not to the same degree,

[00:05:46] is you. We can make their claim. Not that it'd be true. Well, they were both, we are both thin. Well, relative for, for, yeah, I think, you know, I'm, for being over 30. I might call that

[00:05:57] one of the dad by the new Gary. But, uh, you started in high school. You were in the military? Yes, sir. And the free service. We appreciate your service. And, uh, you know,

[00:06:10] tell us a little bit about, uh, you know, how you decided to get into starting your own business and sort of what your, what your background is. Sure. So, um, I would say let's roll it back to

[00:06:23] my childhood. I tried to be pretty active. I'm growing up. But at the same time, I was also a little chubby. Uh, so I would say my background in fit not now, by the way. I'm listening. Just saying

[00:06:36] that we don't a lot of hard work. So my back, my background in fitness, I would say, um, really began in high school. Um, once I got into high school, I started taking weightlifting classes and just

[00:06:51] really liked feeling stronger and seeing the different changes in myself. Uh, after graduating high school, I went to the army and for the next nine years part of my daily life was morning physical

[00:07:02] training. So, uh, was that your choice? Uh, that was definitely not my choice. Um, it's one of those things that kind of grew on me, I guess. My son was in the Marines and that's exactly

[00:07:13] he went once he got in there. He started working out very good. And now he's continuing it for many more years after that. You know, I go back to the movie Stripes. I mean John Candy, we said that

[00:07:23] hey, this would be a great way to lose some weight, right? Yeah, so there you go. 100% correct. But it is real work. And that is true too. Uh, so through high school, um, most of what I experienced

[00:07:34] was the muscle building aspect of fitness. Once I got into the army, it opened me up to a different aspect, more of the weight loss. Um, I actually went in the basic training at 215 pounds. By the

[00:07:46] end of basic training, I was down to about 100 and 75 and 80 pounds. So I lost pretty good amount of weight and that kind of opened me up to like I said, the weight loss aspect of health and fitness.

[00:07:56] So what's your what's your playing weight right about now? I'm good, say 183. I'm sitting right about 200 pounds right now. But you're tall. Yeah, I'm about 62 and that's about where I have her. So. Okay. Okay. What are you about 120? Yeah. That one 60.

[00:08:14] Okay. Here's getting a guy. Tall this well. All right. Um, so it was a check no my time in the army that I really allowed me to kind of fall in love with exercise in general. It just made me feel

[00:08:29] so much better, it helped me perform better through my job. Um, so I just really fell in love with it. So as I got towards the end of my time in the military, uh, obviously I wanted to start thinking

[00:08:40] about what my next step was going to be. Uh, so I took, you know, my love for fitness and my love for training others and helping other people be better at whatever their job is or whatever their

[00:08:52] goals are. So I decided, well, you know, I could combine those two. I'll check out personal training and try to get into the fitness industry once I get out. So I did that. It came home in 2014

[00:09:05] and immediately got enrolled over here at CBCC for their health and fitness science program. So I went through there. I got a few certifications and we're going to few gyms start training

[00:09:17] during that time. Look at how you want to see if you see how to stand that to right me too. That was great school by the way. Shameless plod. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I mean.

[00:09:28] Uh, so outside of school, I didn't start working right away. I wanted to kind of take some time, readjust to the civilian life and focus on school. So then once I did start working about six

[00:09:41] months after being home, I did get into some gyms and started training and managing, working front desk, and to know people. So yeah, which is important because I know that when we talk to people who are trying to start a

[00:09:55] business, sometimes people are trying to get into a business that they don't really know much about. So I mean, the fact that you worked in the, in that type of business before you started it, no, and I think would benefit you.

[00:10:07] Absolutely. We use it for all of our programs at the college. It's taken internship or do something. So you may think you want to do it. But it, I'd refer to internships on the job

[00:10:19] interviewing for the student, deciding whether just what you just said Jeff, and also the company in many cases to see whether they like that student. But I mean, it, which you said is,

[00:10:28] it's really important to get a field and make sure you think it's good, but until you're lit it, you don't know. 100%. So I'd say, ultimately, through my own personal experiences with results, industry prevention, different recovery, I've had a few injuries in myself, which kind of helps me

[00:10:49] be more conscious about what I'm doing with my clients. It's one thing to see work out videos and someone who looks like great shape, early 20s doing all this crazy stuff. That's not most people.

[00:11:03] Okay. So just like I said through some of the recovery and injuries that I've had, it helps me be more comfortable with other people treating and training them to recover from the same stuff. So with all that, I'd say I just realized what exercise and living a healthy

[00:11:19] lifestyle can do for myself and what it's done for others. So you started your business in 2020, and as I recall, people were paranoid about gems, paranoid about being next to people. Yeah, I don't know if how starting a business during that period of time impacted you and

[00:11:49] whether it discouraged you or discouraged your clients, but how to be experienced of starting a business during a pandemic, how did you sort of adjust your thought process and working with people and get people comfortable continuing to exercise while they were afraid to breathe there.

[00:12:11] Touch anything. Right. Yeah, so the pandemic definitely hit every industry very hard. So like you said, I did create my business in 2020, however I did not start conducting business until 2021. So I spent about a year registered as an LLC, training here and there on my own

[00:12:34] because I was also at this at that time working for another company outside of the fitness industry. So I was actually in the building industry. We're going to get to the floor lumber. So after that,

[00:12:46] or during that time, I'm sorry. I used that time to kind of try to start building up some clientele and whatnot, getting my business planned together and putting all the pieces in place. Obviously with the pandemic hitting that was very, very big deal. Really hit the fitness industry

[00:13:05] hard. You know, you think of gems where people don't get healthy but at the same time when you have a pandemic, nobody wants to be around each other. And with all of the restrictions that we had at the time,

[00:13:17] the fitness industry was looking very bleak and needing to go undergo some changes. So a lot of facilities started putting up their barriers and implementing different systems, air purification,

[00:13:31] all that kind of stuff. So luckily for me as, you know, we kind of got through that into towards the end of last year, I finally opened up and started conducting business at my facility. So by that

[00:13:44] time, a lot of the restrictions had kind of been lifted and things we were starting to come through the pandemic if that makes sense. Yeah, for sure. But other than that, you know, daily,

[00:14:01] you know, the sanitation and cleaning is a must, you know, just all the different people coming in and out and where they've been and touching everything like it's not stopped. And I imagine that

[00:14:11] continues today. Oh, for sure, every single day. So to start this sort of business and you've got your own facility, I think, in kind of a, that's great. You've had to invest in equipment. I'm sure

[00:14:30] you've had some startup costs that you've had to incur. I mean, what's sort of challenges have you had with your startup? I mean, have you funded this yourself? Have you gotten assistance?

[00:14:44] So you know, we sometimes call it bootstrapping as you sort of do it on your own and have to find ways to get creative and, you know, run up that expensive credit card debt. You know, what, what approaches

[00:14:56] did you take with your startup and what were your challenges? So just to touch back on COVID, my original plan for funding back in the beginning of 2021 was to go to the traditional route,

[00:15:10] the apply for a small business loan. So I spent months and months working on a very detailed business plan on everything I was going to do, everything I needed, had it solid,

[00:15:22] was in was talking to a few lenders throughout the process. Once I got my finalized business plan sent back over to the few lenders, all of my responses came back that no banks were lending to

[00:15:36] fitness startup companies period. So, you know, I've, that's encouraging. Yeah. So I found myself almost back at sport one and not sure what I was going to do, but I did have some other

[00:15:50] lenders reach out to me and I ended up going on more non-traditional route. They called it credit card stacking. So basically a broker applied on my behalf for, you know, a handful of credit cards.

[00:16:08] With different perks, you know, some are benefits for cash back on this or that, some offered awards, pourings and whatnot, which very important, if you ever have to go that route, you want to be able to maximize the benefits, especially with credit cards and the interest rates

[00:16:24] typically being higher. You want to look for those, you know, zero percent introductory to 3-8 PRs, you know, for 12 to 20 months, you want to get the cash back deals and all of that.

[00:16:35] So that's the route that I ended up going with that. I was able to save some of my own money so I had a small investment in my own. I also started doing some fundraising. I did have a

[00:16:48] go-fun me accounts on as receiving donations from friends and families while so I was able to raise a little capital that way, but the majority did come from the credit card stacking. And with you on the surface, sounds like a slippery slope in that if you're not careful,

[00:17:07] you can really get whacked with those higher interest rates. So it sounds like you sort of route there making sure that as you got into that, you were looking at areas where you would have

[00:17:18] to pay interest for a period of time. Correct. Yeah, so that's, I guess that's sort of a bi-erby where. You definitely want to do your research on that and talk with the professionals

[00:17:31] that do it but do your own research as well because they're making money off of it also. So they're going to give you what's going to benefit them in those well. Just do your research.

[00:17:42] So you rolled out of the credit cards as the interest rates kicked in. Yeah, so ideally off with others. Yes, so ideally you want to have, you know, whatever balances paid off prior to the interest rates

[00:17:56] kicking in because you're going from 0% to 20 or whatever, you know, is a big deal. So be alert, be alert out there. I'm going to let it stay alive. So now they're certainly there are other gyms out there, there are other personal trainers

[00:18:16] out there and you know to me this is probably a pretty personal business and that I would assume that you have to build a relationship with your clients to keep your customers there. I mean,

[00:18:35] how do you go about distinguishing your business from other people in your industry and convincing them that hey, they should be working with Phoenix physical fitness and not, Joe's Jim down the road. Right. So like you mentioned Jeff, the fitness industry, you know,

[00:18:53] especially right around our area here in the Hickory Con over Newton try out area is pre-saturated. There's a lot of gyms within, you know, 510 mile radius. One thing to remember is that currently there's no state or federal laws that regulate the fitness industry. So technically

[00:19:16] pretty much anybody can call themselves a personal trainer or a group fitness or a group exercise instructor anything along those lines where, you know, it looks nice to have a certification but you don't necessarily need one. I mean, you look more the park there's a lot of stress.

[00:19:30] That's okay. Right. Why do you keep looking at me, Joe? So I think the difference there comes with education experience in part at least. You know, like I mentioned earlier it's one thing to watch YouTube videos and get ideas from other

[00:19:48] people and then try doing them on your own but it's another thing entirely to program workouts and programs for other people, you know, because you're basing it off their needs and their

[00:20:00] capabilities and their goals. So this is one area that I try to stand out with in my business. A lot of the gyms that I've seen around the area, you know, will offer personal training,

[00:20:11] have personal trainers. Some of them don't really promote at that much. Some are very relaxed days but we'll about it. Some don't really hold their standards, their trainers do higher standards. With me, I feel the education really backs the certification because it gives you a lot of the

[00:20:33] foundation on knowledge to be able to program for other people and understand how the body itself works and that other people's bodies don't work the same as yours. So I try to go that route

[00:20:45] and the second part or like I mentioned, I'm sorry is the education. Most trainers are happy to get paid and keep training their clients and as long as I keep coming. So with any business,

[00:20:57] you know, client or customer retention is pivotal to success, especially in the service industry. What I try to do is educate my clients as much as possible in terms of what they're doing,

[00:21:08] why they're doing it, what's happening in their body and what the results are going to be. The goal is to help my clients reach their goals and empower them to continue the active

[00:21:23] healthy lifestyle on their own. So it kind of plays a little bit with retention but I found that even if you, I were to lose a client through that route because they have progressed to a point where

[00:21:36] they feel comfortable. Chances are they're going to get a referral to me because they've made their achievements. They look so good. Right. So you know, today, today's market like I said, especially in the service industry just realized so heavily on customer service. This is the other

[00:21:56] part that I feel makes my business stand out. The customer service a lot of times and after, you know, the sale is made, the person signs the dot at line or even after the first interaction

[00:22:11] if they don't sign up. Okay. Sometimes they're just a complete lack of customer service. But I have found that great customer service is conducive to a few things including increased word of mouth promotion. So like I just mentioned, you know, you get the people the results you create

[00:22:28] and awesome experience for them. You know, it could be, you know, trainer A when you come in, do your workout, the clients picking up everything, put everything away, doing this, doing that, the trainers on their phone, whatever the case to where trainer B, you know, re-racks the weights

[00:22:48] for the clients. Wipes down on the equipment for the clients does not take the cell phone out of the pocket or even have them on. So it's these little things that just create this overall cut,

[00:22:59] just great customer experience. It's going to keep people coming back and increase the stories and times that they talk to other people about their experience. And also with, you know, the internet today and online reviews, you just get so much more exposure from what one person

[00:23:17] might have to say than you would, you know, 20 years ago. I think that everybody goes into business saying we're going to have great customer service, but not everybody actually follows through on it or doesn't know what to do to follow through on it. So I'm having that

[00:23:37] personal attention of, you know, when I'm working with you, I'm focused on you and not my cell phone and this, I think probably goes a long way. And I would also think that this is a very

[00:23:49] referral oriented type business. You know, it's sort of like when someone, if someone is going to come in my home and do something, generally I'm going to be asking my friends or what,

[00:24:02] not how do you who do you use for this? I don't know. I would think it's the same sort of thing for for your sort of business and it's not like I'm just going to go Google fitness trainers and say,

[00:24:12] here's the first one that came up. I'm going to go and say, you know, Gary, you're looking good, buddy, you're a personal trainer. I might not say it. You're not, you know, thank you for

[00:24:21] you thinking about that. You know, who are you using and getting that sort of, that's sort of personal reference, I think would be very important. Particularly in that industry. I mean, and that's exactly right. I would say, you know, probably three quarters of my clients are referrals.

[00:24:38] You know, that says a lot. Yeah. It just speaks volumes. You know, especially being a newer business, you know, you don't have the, you know, established in the community yet. So, you know, people are still getting the name recognition. But, you know, that's just how it is.

[00:25:00] I would think, you know, some things that I can suggest is to network, you know, as entrepreneurs want business owner. One thing I've tried to do is network with other professionals that are relatively close to the fitness and health industry, IE, chiropractors and slash therapists,

[00:25:21] physical therapists, nutritionists, et cetera, to help kind of create my own referral network with these people. And that's proven to be beneficial so far as well. So we've been able to kind of share,

[00:25:33] you know, I have one client I just picked up and no kidding. She visits one of the chamber members. It's a chiropractor, muscle Rx, you know, they do a lot of the physical therapy type stuff.

[00:25:51] She also visits one of the massage therapists from the chamber and now she's training with me. So that's just an example of how just, you know, something as simple as hey, you know,

[00:26:01] let me give you my business card if you have someone need something in XYZ, have them contact me and vice versa. So, sounds like you've gotten some traction and you do, you're plans to try to

[00:26:18] grow the business. I mean, what sort of challenges do you see out there for this type of business in your business as you go forward? Sure. So, you know, right now COVID and the other illnesses going

[00:26:32] around right now continue to be an issue. It's not really preventing anything at the moment, but we just, you know, you never know where that may go. We haven't had any monkey post cases yet,

[00:26:43] have we? I hope not. Did I get that? All right, well, that is far as we know. So, some of the challenges, you know, retention is always in the front of my mind. What I need to do

[00:26:55] to cater to my clients to keep them coming back to get them to bring other people with them. For growth itself, like I said, still being a new business. I'm still establishing myself

[00:27:08] within the community. Part of what's helped with that is from the planning process creating a brand. You know, you can go into a business doing whatever you want and just go full steam ahead

[00:27:24] without proper planning or, you know, thinking about the future. Or you can do like I did. I create at my brand prior to opening my business from the logo to the name of the business,

[00:27:37] the values, it's all centered around Phoenix, which has its own story. And it just helps so much with brand recognition within the community. So I can tell people, well, you know, why is this your

[00:27:51] logo? Why are these your colors? Why is it XYZ? This is why. This is what it stands for. This is what represents and this is what we represent as a business. For our listeners, the logo is really cool.

[00:28:06] So I would say with growth, you know, depending on where you're trying, how you're trying to grow. You know, that's a big aspect as well. Me currently myself, I try to have an online presence. So,

[00:28:21] you know, I tried to grow my presence there on YouTube Instagram TikTok Facebook while also keeping in mind how I can grow in place physically. So right now when the challenge is like face with

[00:28:36] that is available space. So right now where I'm located, I don't have any additional space on either side. So once I get closer towards the end of my lease or to a point where I'm ready to expand,

[00:28:52] that may be a limiting factor for me. That being said, I would say, second challenge to growth is just continuing to get people in the door. As my first year comes to a

[00:29:08] close, I've noticed that that's becoming easier. I would say my first few months, I had probably a dozen people walk through the door. Unfortunately, they were all looking for the business that

[00:29:20] was there before me. So that didn't help me out too much, but it was still exposure to some extent. At least people saw the logo, saw the name, found the place. So I would say, you know, just continue

[00:29:33] to get people in the door, which right now I'm doing pretty much everything I can to ensure that happens with the customer service and customer retention. But I would say as far as growth for me

[00:29:45] right now, those are probably my two biggest obstacles. What's your, our not uncommon for many businesses? So we'll run into those challenges. So just in terms of, from your startup experience, are there other pitfalls that you ran into that you might share that listeners couldn't

[00:30:13] maybe avoid. Sometimes you got to learn that on your own. But what's what other pitfalls have you seen out there? Right. So just a couple of things. With this, like I said coming to the end

[00:30:26] of my first year, I've actually learned a lot. The biggest thing that has happened recently, pitfall wise is, you know, starting at the beginning of the year, especially in the fitness industry,

[00:30:40] you have all of your new years resolutionists, you have people getting back to school after the holidays, after, you know, back to work, everyone's trying to get back into a routine or start a new routine.

[00:30:51] So you typically see a good influx of people coming in at least prospects. That usually lasts about a month or two and then it's almost like a cliff dive. So one thing that I did notice,

[00:31:05] right around, you know, going into the spring, getting closer to the end of the school year, I did have clients start taking time off getting ready for summer vacations. I put the babies here on man. Right. You know, so off their new summer bodies and everything.

[00:31:24] The biggest pitfall, I would say my first year so far, which I still have a couple weeks. Would be the summer. The last few months, unexpectedly, clientele did drop off a good bit. So business did slow down for primarily those reasons.

[00:31:47] Susan Allen, you have your business. Correct. Yeah, understand. Everybody wants to come in and get the summer body. Well, you're not going to get the summer body if you're starting during summer, right? Exactly.

[00:31:57] So, you know, as we're getting back into school starting back up into the fall and whatnot, I have started businesses picking back up. So the biggest thing that I've learned from that is what

[00:32:08] to expect moving into my second year. So I can, you know, broadcast much, or forecast, much more accurately, what to expect. So, you know, business is doing well up front of the

[00:32:21] beginning of the year. Let's say some of that money for the tail end of the year because if we had another slump, you know. So that'll be to be expected. The other thing I would say,

[00:32:36] proper planning just make sure you have plans in place. Plan A, plan B, plan C because when plan A and B fall through, which they will, you have backups and you're getting the ground.

[00:32:50] They will. They will. Because we don't know what we don't know exactly. Exactly. And yeah, there's just so many factors that play into any aspect of starting your business. They can affect it.

[00:33:03] Well, we very much appreciate you joining us and giving some of us, giving us insights into your business and sort of helping us understand some of the challenges that you are any sort of

[00:33:17] businesses going to run into. So don't go anywhere because we want to get a plan or lightning round. But before we do that, we also want to thank our sponsor, Make-O-RX. You know, in a tight labor market, which I think we still continue to see. Now we are.

[00:33:38] Yeah, it's a problem. Sometimes you can see employees leaving just for an extra dollar to each hour. Make-O-RX is a complete care as a quality healthcare solution that has allowed businesses to recruit and retain employees. To learn how make-O-RX can help your business stay competitive.

[00:34:00] Visit make-O-RX.com or you can call 855-562-5679. Make-O-RX Healthcare simplifying. Again, make-O-RX-O-RX.com or you can give them a call at 855-562-5679. So we appreciate their support and encourage you to check that out. So, Jessie, we're going to give you our quick

[00:34:30] lightning round here. It's very serious. Let's do it. Yeah, these are quick questions. Quick answers. First question. What is your biggest pet peeve? No turn signals on the highway. People not using their turn signals. I love it. With you 100%. Yeah, tell us what you're doing.

[00:34:55] You're crazy person up there. I mean, you know, let's let us know what you're doing. Okay, next question. I thought it's going to be people that get away from their new year's resolution. Very expected. What is your favorite vacation spot?

[00:35:14] Who? I would say, Tybee Island and that's right off the coast of Savannah. I have been to Hawaii. It wasn't for vacation. Still nice, but I would say, Tybee Island is a neat little place. Nice beaches, cool little area.

[00:35:33] And if you can get to Savannah, Savannah's an interesting walk for a portion. Very historical. This is an interesting one for our fitness guy. Favorite comfort food. Wow. You must fall off the wagon every morning.

[00:35:50] Tell us. You know, I speak in the microphone. I would have to say it's this one. I would have to say cheesecake. cheesecake would probably be number one. That's good. I don't even really feel bad when I eat it,

[00:36:05] but I try not to very often. Well, I should not do it often. Okay. Are you a Harry Potter Star Wars or Godfather movie guy? That is probably one of my favorite questions ever. So I definitely respect the Godfather as, you know, such a classic.

[00:36:24] I was always a load of the fans versus Harry Potter fans and one of my army buddies got me to start watching them. And then I really liked those, but I would say by far, I am just a huge Star Wars nerd.

[00:36:40] Oh God. We don't have this again. We're not judging this. So I'll divorce not. I'll just agree on that. Last question, if you have a super power, what would it be? Oh, wow. Honestly, if, you know, this is probably just because of some recent events,

[00:37:02] if I were able to take away someone's pain, whether it be emotional or physical, I would watch what a good one. What a very generous one. Exactly. Most of our folks are super-pain-minded to spike my enemies. That was an awesome one. You're trying to help the world.

[00:37:27] So you're an unusual guest for us today. Well, Jesse, if people want to find out more about Phoenix fitness, where should they, where should they be looking? Sure. So you can visit my website www.fenixpt.net. You can find me on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube. Okay.

[00:37:50] Looks like you got everything covered. Yeah, that's great. Well, we very much appreciate you joining us today. We're great. We always like to end our podcast with sharing some small businesses of the month. You know, all right, Jesse, you got anything you want to share with us?

[00:38:07] Uh, yeah. So I'll touch back on my referral network and shout out for new directions to heart-practice. Matt Kirkland doesn't awesome job over there. They actually have a parking lot

[00:38:20] party going on tomorrow, 11 to 5. So check that out. Music prizes. I hate to say it, but at the time just gets posted tomorrow ain't gonna be here. Don't go, don't be going tomorrow. Yeah,

[00:38:31] some tomorrow will get here, but not back tomorrow. Right. So yeah, I would say him new directions to heart-practice. Okay. Well, check out new direction for heart-practice. Are they in hurry? They are here in Hickory. Okay. Okay. We'll check in those out. Gary, what's a small business

[00:38:49] you have? I'm gonna go in the theme of referrals too because I've had some folks help me out personally and my family. First one I'll go with the affordable movers and storage

[00:39:03] as Jeff, you know, very well. We're fortunate to sell our house very quick. That's the good news. The bad news is we had to get out quick and we were referred to affordable moving and storage

[00:39:15] and trade Gilbert and they did an outstanding job. Okay. They reacted quickly and they did more than we could have ever expected. And so we're very high on them. They're in Newton, North Carolina.

[00:39:27] I'm also gonna have a shout out to Carropractors Rick Davis and Eric Goans because I hurt my back a month ago and as you know Jeff I couldn't walk up right for about a week or so. And within a month

[00:39:42] I am back to normal and actually probably better than it was beforehand. So now I can go to Jesse and start working out. Not that part. Maybe you should. I think you might, you're your

[00:39:56] very spell, you're very handsome man but in terms of building up that muscle tone so your back doesn't get thrown out again. You might want to consider that. That's going to say maybe the

[00:40:07] Lord's bringing all these things together in that month or over a caraprector and a fitness expert. Well, I'm gonna give a shout out to company I visited a few weeks ago in Oregon to North Carolina.

[00:40:21] Companies called the Material Return which was founded in 2017 to keep industrial textile waste out of landfills. So they process, they basically take lots of different types of textile waste. They process a process over 3 million pounds of textile waste to date.

[00:40:43] Take it from furniture, various apparel products and they transform it into a yarn that they called return text which is produced through their supply chain and they partner with local manufacturers and national brands to deliver what they call circular solutions in your products.

[00:41:06] They call 360 degree circularity and we're talking really recycling that helps manufacture reduce their environmental impact, great quality products and their supporting folks in our community. So I want to give a shout out to the material return group and you can find out more about them at

[00:41:25] www.themetarialreturn.com. So give them a shout out and please go check them out because they're doing some pretty cool things. So we appreciate everybody joining us today. We appreciate Jesse Alden, joining us for the Phoenix Physical Fitness. We want to thank the National Podcast Network

[00:41:53] if you want to reach us and if you have an idea for a small business of the month, you can send us an email at eXchangeatthemesh.tv. We also want to thank Makeover X for supporting the podcast again. You can check them out at www.maco-hifinrx.com

[00:42:13] and we look forward to talking with you guys again next month and everybody enjoyed the end of the summer. And be safe, stay safe and healthy. You've been listening to The Mesh and Online Media Network

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