How Small Rep Firms Compete and Win with Micah Moseley

[00:00:00] . Tell us about Cornerstone, the story of Cornerstone and then what market do you serve

[00:00:07] and just tell us a little bit about what you do.

[00:00:09] Sure, yeah.

[00:00:10] I love the name of Yelts Program flow because I'm in the plumbing industry.

[00:00:14] Perfect.

[00:00:15] Yeah.

[00:00:16] And I always say pun intended but you've got to be fluid to be a rep because if I want

[00:00:20] to scare myself, I'll just look back five years ago, 10 years ago, 15 years ago, and

[00:00:26] if I were still like that, I probably wouldn't be in business just because the dynamics of

[00:00:32] the changes, whether it's distribution, manufacturers, whatever doesn't matter.

[00:00:36] But you always have to be looking to change or willing to change and sometimes forced

[00:00:42] to change.

[00:00:43] So I grew up my dad worked in East Texas.

[00:00:48] He was a plumbing salesman for a large company down there that had multiple divisions

[00:00:52] and plumbing was just one.

[00:00:54] And then he, my senior year started his own supply house company and I was off to college.

[00:01:01] Like I said, never would be in sales, never would be in plumbing, not even on my radar.

[00:01:07] And I actually went to grad school here at Tulsi University and then got out and the path

[00:01:13] I thought I was going to take, I decided that wasn't the best path.

[00:01:16] So just working here and there, finding my own way.

[00:01:20] And in 1999, the company I was working with went out of business.

[00:01:26] Before that, some wraps out of Houston, Texas were calling on my parents and one of them

[00:01:32] said, hey, you know what?

[00:01:33] We're fixing to expand out of Texas and end oak, lollman, Arkansas.

[00:01:37] And my mom said, my son lives up in Tulsa and the company he works for is about to go

[00:01:42] under.

[00:01:43] So I always tell people I was hired then.

[00:01:45] And my parents had a good name, but they still wanted to meet with me.

[00:01:50] I met one of the principals in March of 99 at a trade show.

[00:01:53] I remember he called him as a Saturday.

[00:01:55] There was snow on the ground up here.

[00:01:56] He said, hey, once you come up here and talk to me, I said, I'm going to sweatshirt and

[00:02:00] ball cap jeans.

[00:02:01] And he said, no, no problem.

[00:02:02] Just come up here.

[00:02:03] He was at a home show and someone there and later I found out he called after meeting

[00:02:07] with me and told him, yeah, we got our guy.

[00:02:10] But they weren't ready to go with a hurry up here until October of that year.

[00:02:17] The company I worked for went out of business in June.

[00:02:19] I did some freelance work that summer and got another job.

[00:02:23] And then October 18th and 1990, now is when I became a rep and I covered all of Oklahoma

[00:02:28] and Arkansas.

[00:02:29] I drive about 4,000 miles a month.

[00:02:31] I usually put the babies to bed and my wife to bed sometimes and I would head out at nine

[00:02:35] o'clock at night and drive three, four hours into Arkansas to be ready together next

[00:02:40] day.

[00:02:41] I tried to minimize my time away from home, cut it shorter now in 2001.

[00:02:46] Some things had changed with the company I was with and I heard about this guy named Ted

[00:02:51] Perry and Oklahoma City who was looking for someone just for Tulsa.

[00:02:55] So I met with Ted and the one consistent description I would hear about Ted as he's

[00:03:01] a bulldog when he's on to something he doesn't let it go.

[00:03:04] Like he's a very good aggressive sales guy.

[00:03:07] And so I decided to go to work for him.

[00:03:10] That was in 2001, 2003 we partnered 2005.

[00:03:14] I took over the finances of the company and in the 2010 he wanted to scale back.

[00:03:19] So he moved from the Oklahoma City area to Tulsa and he's been doing our job quotes ever

[00:03:23] since.

[00:03:24] So he works half a day, five days a week with he knocks out over 500 quotes for us per

[00:03:28] year.

[00:03:29] We're heavily into the commercial specification work.

[00:03:32] To in between all that time, there's been another partnership.

[00:03:36] But as of 2019 came back as sole owner of Cornerstone sales.

[00:03:40] We were Ted Perry sales and Cornerstone sales at HMK and then been Cornerstone sales

[00:03:46] again.

[00:03:47] So that's my journey.

[00:03:48] I've worked primarily in Oklahoma.

[00:03:51] We have had Kansas and Missouri and Arkansas as part of our territory throughout those years

[00:03:58] and currently even have a manufacturer that will work with and have part of North Texas

[00:04:03] for their line as well.

[00:04:05] So that's the five minute version of almost 25 year career.

[00:04:09] Yeah, right.

[00:04:10] That's a lot.

[00:04:11] And you mentioned to me, we were chatting back and forth that your perspective might be

[00:04:16] unique in that you have a smaller territory than some reforms might but in some ways

[00:04:22] you're saying that's a pro and a con.

[00:04:25] So talk about that a little bit.

[00:04:26] Yeah, when we started talking, I was thinking the first time you reached out to me, I said,

[00:04:30] if you think I can offer anything any kind of information that's helpful, I'll be happy

[00:04:34] to talk with you and I got to thinking that is a challenge.

[00:04:38] There's a lot of small markets out there.

[00:04:40] I saw one of your programs.

[00:04:41] You had a new rep.

[00:04:42] I think he was in New York.

[00:04:44] Of course that I know there's a Northern New York reps and there's some that just cover

[00:04:48] New York City and I think the Northern New York reps have more of a smaller territory.

[00:04:53] Yeah, that we see a lot of challenges but I said there's also benefits to a smaller market.

[00:05:00] Let's talk about the good things about it.

[00:05:02] One good thing about having a rep and a smaller market is number one you've got the owner in

[00:05:08] that market working that territory.

[00:05:11] You don't have a salesman who's traveling into a market and that's what we see a lot

[00:05:16] and a lot of my comparison will be Texas versions of Guaoma.

[00:05:20] There's no doubt that sometimes we're just like a side car.

[00:05:23] A lot of manufacturers will hire someone in Texas.

[00:05:25] The Texas guy will say, hey, we go up to Oklahoma two or three times here.

[00:05:29] Can we have Oklahoma up there?

[00:05:31] That just that we have is number one, we are able to see everyone.

[00:05:36] I know over the years talking with other reps and different divisions of the plumbing industry

[00:05:42] that in some markets they just have their core group.

[00:05:46] They actually don't even touch every single distributor that they possibly could in their

[00:05:51] territory.

[00:05:52] Because either they're too far apart, too much travel time, not enough employees.

[00:05:57] Maybe too many lines that they've got to keep up with.

[00:05:59] They've got a target specific accounts that they know where they can grow their business

[00:06:03] and satisfy the manufacturers for us.

[00:06:06] If a manufacturer regional came to town, for instance, we could go see every purchasing

[00:06:11] agent in one day in Tulsa and probably make it one day in Oklahoma City but just say

[00:06:15] two.

[00:06:16] Technically in three days in the two major markets then we have some other good accounts outside

[00:06:21] of those markets.

[00:06:22] I would just say in four days you could cover the entire state of Oklahoma.

[00:06:26] A lot of other larger territories can't do that, especially large cities.

[00:06:31] It may take them an hour and a half to go from one call to another.

[00:06:34] I remember in my early days I could cram in five engineer calls in one day and some

[00:06:39] of the regionals were shocked about that because yeah, if they're in Dallas or Orlando

[00:06:45] or Los Angeles, they may get one or two calls a day.

[00:06:50] So we're able to impact our territory faster.

[00:06:53] How does that also help if we can see our customers and that sort of time period, that allows

[00:06:59] us to expand into the full sales channel.

[00:07:02] So we have relationships with end users, school districts, colleges, hospitals, any of

[00:07:06] the large facilities like that that we can now go and talk to our products about.

[00:07:10] Also architects, we do architect calls, we do engineer calls, we do contractor calls.

[00:07:16] So we can actually impact every stage of a project development, like I said, we do mostly

[00:07:22] commercial by having the time to do that because where the money and product is the transactions

[00:07:29] are done through the distribution, we're able to see them in a short amount of time and

[00:07:34] allows us to expand.

[00:07:36] So that's definitely one positive thing about having a small market is you have more opportunities

[00:07:40] to reach out to help pull the sell through.

[00:07:42] The other thing is in some cases we're able to go beyond just the plumbing industry.

[00:07:48] Throughout the years, there are some products we've had that we're able to develop into

[00:07:53] other type of industries, whether it be irrigation which something might think is plumbing

[00:07:58] that's a completely different type of sales channel than plumbing or water works.

[00:08:03] We've even had a stocking distributor in the concrete supply business and that because

[00:08:11] we have a small market, we're afforded the time to go and develop that as well.

[00:08:14] Whereas you go to some of the larger markets, one manufacturer may have three to four different

[00:08:20] rep agencies to handle three or four different industries that their products are sold in.

[00:08:27] So that's for a small rep that gives you opportunity to okay how can I get growth?

[00:08:31] I have X amount of distributors have X amount of contractors, engineers to go see who

[00:08:38] may actually be able to expand your market within your own territory just by now seeing

[00:08:43] I know this product is sold here as well.

[00:08:47] Is there someone that's actually calling on those types of accounts?

[00:08:51] In a lot of cases, they're not in a smaller market.

[00:08:54] Like I said, largest cities, there may be three or four different reps designated per industry

[00:09:00] but that's one thing that a small market rep can do is start to grow their business

[00:09:04] within their state outside of their normal scope.

[00:09:08] So you can expand because it's so efficient essentially, you can expand other more

[00:09:13] lines, different products within the same people you already already meet with.

[00:09:18] Yes.

[00:09:19] So you can get like he's saying to you, you're getting into different verticals like plumbing

[00:09:23] to me, I would have thought plumbing and irrigation were maybe one of the same but that's interesting

[00:09:28] that gives you if you're focused on plumbing, but if you've got the time and dedicate

[00:09:33] to the irrigation vertical, then that's a whole other set of business relationships

[00:09:39] that he can go develop and then turn that into really a whole other market.

[00:09:45] And then do you find like what percentage of your business is these new different

[00:09:50] verticals?

[00:09:51] I would say 10 to 20%.

[00:09:53] You never want to ignore your core.

[00:09:55] That's where any type of company can get in trouble.

[00:09:58] Do what you do best to make sure that's taken care before you start looking at other

[00:10:01] areas.

[00:10:02] But sometimes you're surprised at how quickly another area will develop.

[00:10:07] I've mentioned earlier, we've been in other states as well and that provided growth for

[00:10:12] us at that time but also realize that there was just so far that we could go without having

[00:10:17] someone physically in that market.

[00:10:20] And I think that's one of the advantages again a small market rep can have because over

[00:10:26] the last couple of years, we've had some opportunities to take on lines from reps that

[00:10:32] still had the product in a larger market.

[00:10:34] We were able to actually show significant growth to those manufacturers just because we're

[00:10:38] here.

[00:10:39] We live here, we know the people here, we've been in this market for over 20 years.

[00:10:44] We're not driving into this market once a month, once a quarter, whatever time period

[00:10:49] was, we're here every day working it.

[00:10:53] And because of that when we have those kind of relationships even if I go call on to

[00:10:59] a plumber with brand A, it helps brands be through D as well because that relationship

[00:11:06] is such that if I take care of that plumber or that distributor or that engineer has really

[00:11:11] always had to sell a service.

[00:11:13] There are different faucet companies out there now, they're different valve companies.

[00:11:17] Really the service is what we have to sell because most everyone's product, but they

[00:11:23] have to go through code approvals and everything else like that or good products.

[00:11:28] So if you go and take care of people and they like working with you and all of a sudden

[00:11:33] they're not just buying brand A from you, they are buying brand BCD and E at that point.

[00:11:38] And that's another key thing about being able to maintain and stay within a small market

[00:11:44] is that relationship building over years because there are sometimes there's things going

[00:11:49] to happen to a rep that you can't control.

[00:11:52] You've not done anything wrong and there's all kind of decisions made out there where

[00:11:55] there are manufacture, the size to go, we want our own factory direct salespeople or

[00:12:00] a merger.

[00:12:02] And it's the relationships that you've built over the years that helps you recover and

[00:12:06] weather those changes and make it through.

[00:12:09] I think you hit the nail on the head.

[00:12:11] We've got a bigger footprint geography wise in the utility space.

[00:12:15] We cover from Maryland, Delaware down to Florida over to Mississippi.

[00:12:20] I kind of honed in on one thing you said is you guys live in your territory right?

[00:12:25] You wake up every morning and you figure out how am I going to sell more product in Oklahoma.

[00:12:31] And I'm a big believer, I don't care what size you are, you got to have number one, you

[00:12:37] got to have the right people.

[00:12:38] And then number two, they have to be in the territory.

[00:12:41] I want somebody in Richmond waking up every day thinking, all right, how am I going

[00:12:44] to sell more product in Virginia?

[00:12:47] If you're coming in once or twice a year, you're not accomplishing anything in my opinion.

[00:12:52] You can be effective if you've got one customer up there, but if you're truly going to

[00:12:56] cover a territory, you need people that are living it and breathing it every day, 365.

[00:13:01] So we're a little bit bigger and that's the way we do it, but I think we agree on the

[00:13:05] same front that you have to have people that are dedicated living in a territory that

[00:13:11] build those relationships ever appear to time.

[00:13:13] And that gives you the ability to develop that territory.

[00:13:15] And then that's when more lines come and that's when you can start you do a good job

[00:13:19] here.

[00:13:20] Okay, we need some help here.

[00:13:21] We start making some business decisions, but I think the main point is is that you got

[00:13:25] to have people dedicated to a particular area 100%.

[00:13:29] Yeah.

[00:13:30] Absolutely.

[00:13:31] Interesting point you brought up is they service right services essentially what you're

[00:13:36] selling and as a business owner, I'd be interested to hear how do you ensure that that

[00:13:41] service is top notch?

[00:13:42] There's probably a lot of things.

[00:13:44] How do you hire the right people or how do you train them or how do you ensure that the

[00:13:48] service you're providing your folks is what you want it to be essentially?

[00:13:52] That was a great question and I'm definitely not an expert that you have.

[00:13:56] I've had successes and failures both like everybody in the business world.

[00:14:00] What we strive to do is at least have an answer back to our customers in an hour or less.

[00:14:08] And the reason I say that number one, we try to be experts in our own product because

[00:14:13] that way we can respond quicker.

[00:14:16] But there are sometimes, especially with today's dynamics, the difficulties with the workforce

[00:14:20] with everyone, sometimes our answer has to come from a manufacturer and the person

[00:14:27] or contact there may have to get an answer from someone else who may have to get an answer

[00:14:31] from someone else.

[00:14:32] So the key is I think though, is as long as you're staying in communication with your customer

[00:14:39] and letting them know the steps you're taking or the difficulties that you're having

[00:14:44] to give information or maybe if why maybe someone's out of town keeping in contact, I think

[00:14:49] speaks volumes because I know number one that you haven't forgotten them.

[00:14:53] It's not gone cold.

[00:14:55] Their concern is also your concern.

[00:14:58] So that's one of the things that I think as far as providing service is just try to

[00:15:02] maintain key contact.

[00:15:04] We all get busy.

[00:15:05] There's things sometimes I'll see something and I'm like, I can't believe I forgot to do

[00:15:08] that.

[00:15:09] So I just try to immediately take care of it, apologize, hey, just want to let you know

[00:15:14] where we're at with this situation.

[00:15:16] I think also knowledge is power.

[00:15:18] I love schoolhouse rock when I was a kid and that's one phrase from it.

[00:15:20] I remember knowledge is power and like I said, I think the more you can be an expert

[00:15:25] with what you sell, the more benefit you are to your customer.

[00:15:29] One of the things that I really enjoy is the teaching aspect of being a rep and I love

[00:15:34] also working with the designers and engineers.

[00:15:37] And I have a group of designers and engineers who email me or call me and ask questions

[00:15:43] and I will get them answers even if it's not one of my product, I've even connected another

[00:15:47] rep with an engineer one time who I didn't have a product that would meet their needs.

[00:15:52] I felt like they were had a good product and also have respect for that rep.

[00:15:56] I'll connect them.

[00:15:57] So I want to be the first point of contact for any type of problem they have to help

[00:16:02] them with a solution.

[00:16:04] I think that's the other part too is just that willing to serve, willing to do service,

[00:16:08] our customers is key.

[00:16:10] The rep business is not for everyone.

[00:16:13] There's a lot of working parts to this.

[00:16:16] Being in a small market we have multiple manufacturers that we work with.

[00:16:20] You have to be under toes with who's in whose distribution center, who's in whose buying

[00:16:24] group and things like that and help satisfy any type of needs that their customers have

[00:16:30] whether it's with pricing defectives, that's a big thing.

[00:16:34] Being on the spot to help troubleshoot that goes back to knowing your product.

[00:16:38] So those are just some things that just off top of my head I'm thinking of that.

[00:16:41] I think that's what our customers want most.

[00:16:45] They want to know that someone's there to support them when they need it and whereas

[00:16:50] I feel like we have thousands of skews to sell maybe hundreds of thousands, our distributors

[00:16:55] have millions of things and they can't be the expert in every single thing that they

[00:17:00] sell.

[00:17:01] But if they know someone that they can call, that they know can help them out facilitate

[00:17:05] a sale, facilitate a problem, that's where the strength of a rep can really shine.

[00:17:10] I think that's just good business in general right?

[00:17:12] If you're the guy always helping out as much as you can even if it doesn't like your saying

[00:17:17] you refer a business even if it doesn't directly impact your bottom line it still helps

[00:17:22] out the customer still helps someone find a solution that they need and you guys, right?

[00:17:26] It's a very consultative kind of a scenario that you're usually in right?

[00:17:31] That's right.

[00:17:32] That's what it is.

[00:17:33] However you can.

[00:17:34] So that's cool.

[00:17:35] But you've had some big successes, big failures.

[00:17:37] Can you maybe just one of your favorite stories of one of the major successes you had

[00:17:42] in your company and kind of what led to that and what you learned from it?

[00:17:46] I would say this last year we had a situation where we had two major manufacturers had actually

[00:17:52] decided to do two different things.

[00:17:54] One went with factory direct reps, the other one was bought out and then there was a lot

[00:17:59] of shifting and rep changes.

[00:18:03] I thank God for this.

[00:18:04] I'm a believer and there's some things that have happened last year that have been completely

[00:18:08] amazing to me that have never happened in my 20 plus career.

[00:18:12] We lost 75% of our income in November 1st of 2022.

[00:18:17] So think about that.

[00:18:18] God, say you live off a hundred dollar bill and then all of a sudden you're living off

[00:18:21] $25.

[00:18:22] You're trying to take care of your family, your employees and their families and what

[00:18:27] do you do?

[00:18:28] And there had been some things that had actually been in work ever since 2021 that I didn't

[00:18:33] even know that I would need but it already started to come into play.

[00:18:38] That would be exactly what I needed when this happened.

[00:18:40] So this last year one of my favorite things to say and the thing that I feel really good

[00:18:45] about one of the manufacturers that we partnered with has been fun working with them.

[00:18:49] It's been fun selling there were one of the things that happened in 2021 that I didn't

[00:18:52] know how much of an impact they would be on our business to keep us going and while

[00:18:57] we're still here today, but in about a two and a half year period before we became their

[00:19:02] rep, I was what their sales numbers were.

[00:19:06] And this last between July and October, our total sales of that period was greater than

[00:19:13] what they had done that two and a half year period.

[00:19:15] And then actually this last December, November, those sales were greater than what they had

[00:19:21] done in a two and a half year period.

[00:19:22] So that kind of thing is fun because you're back against the wall.

[00:19:26] You're not even sure you're going to be here the next day.

[00:19:29] The way business works, this could all end tomorrow and that's the way it is but you know

[00:19:32] what?

[00:19:33] It's been a great ride and there's no regrets and it's what I was meant to do now.

[00:19:37] Maybe there's something else later on.

[00:19:39] But that's one of my favorite stories I've told people about recently who asked is that

[00:19:43] yeah, we got our legs knocked out from under us but we had a plan.

[00:19:48] We followed it.

[00:19:49] We believed things would happen and we were able to see some successes happen in 2023

[00:19:55] to help ride us back.

[00:19:57] So I consider 23 the recovery year and then us getting back on our growth pattern this

[00:20:03] year.

[00:20:04] That's impressive.

[00:20:05] You lose a line like that.

[00:20:07] It's 75% in your business.

[00:20:10] That's yeah.

[00:20:11] It was two different companies and both manufacturers, it affected many reps.

[00:20:15] I know of one rep on one of those that had to lay off multiple people and they are in

[00:20:20] a bigger market.

[00:20:21] And that's maybe one of the benefits to being a smaller market is impacts can be a little

[00:20:26] bit less than in larger markets because they have to serve us so much more and have

[00:20:30] some much more personnel that this company had to lay off more than 10 people just for

[00:20:36] one line.

[00:20:37] But yeah, it's two different companies and like I said, it's I've never felt like I shouldn't

[00:20:43] still be doing this.

[00:20:44] That's one of the things that's kept me going.

[00:20:46] I never felt like I needed to go search for something else right now or anything.

[00:20:50] I've been doing this for 20 something years.

[00:20:52] I know how to do this.

[00:20:54] I believed in the manufacturers and I believe in myself.

[00:20:56] And that's the other thing to talk about success.

[00:20:58] I shouldn't even be talking anymore without saying that sales team I have, that people

[00:21:02] have on my team that do the things they do and I tell them how important every one of

[00:21:07] them they are because if the inside salesperson is not taking care of order entry and customer

[00:21:12] service issues, then the outside salespeople can't be out trying to generate new business.

[00:21:18] The outside salespeople is now generating new business.

[00:21:20] The inside salespeople won't have a orders to enter or customers to take care of.

[00:21:25] Or if the quotations person start putting out new quotes and outside salespeople won't

[00:21:30] have jobs to go on and try to earn the business.

[00:21:34] So I know a lot of times a lot of companies are segmented and some people hire elevation

[00:21:40] to certain departments, but for us, strictly everyone's on the equal playing field and I

[00:21:45] associate it like with football.

[00:21:46] Yeah, we know who the stores are.

[00:21:48] You're not going to get VIP if you're offensive line isn't there to block.

[00:21:53] So that's a big key to success at ISRA team and I couldn't have done all this without

[00:21:59] them.

[00:22:00] So I definitely want to say that too.

[00:22:01] Two things, I'm big on sports analogies.

[00:22:03] I think everyone of them I've always incorporated into our podcast but we believe the same thing

[00:22:09] with it in T.S.

[00:22:10] It's it's a truly a team sport being a manufacturer's rep and just because you don't take a

[00:22:17] right guard and put them out at wide receiver, but they're both equally important because

[00:22:23] they both got a job to do to win the game and 100%.

[00:22:28] I think you hit the nail in the head.

[00:22:30] I think the successful reps out there are the ones that realize that hey inside sales

[00:22:35] is just as important as outside sales and in vice versa, but we can't do it out each

[00:22:40] other and we all got to be going run at the same play.

[00:22:43] You do your job, you do your job and then we all get it across the goal line.

[00:22:48] The second thing is you talked about going back to the 75% piece, that's what keeps.

[00:22:54] I think a lot of us as reps up at night are these things you can't control.

[00:22:59] These manufacturers they get balled out and we've all been through it right and I think

[00:23:03] we've all probably been through it where you might win, you might get that line.

[00:23:08] There's two different reps you get to line but there's a lot of times you don't.

[00:23:11] It's not a matter of hey this rep maybe did a better job than you sometimes it's just

[00:23:16] a politics behind it.

[00:23:18] Big guy buys a little guy then it all of a sudden, but just basically it just works out

[00:23:23] that way.

[00:23:24] Sometimes it doesn't work like that and that's the part that I think you're mentality of

[00:23:29] okay we're going to take ourselves up by the bootstraps and we're going to work as a

[00:23:33] team and we're going to dig out of this and sound like you guys are poised for more growth

[00:23:37] in 2024 so I think that's awesome.

[00:23:39] That's a heck of a story to tell.

[00:23:40] I enjoy telling it and another side note too I just thought of that's also cool that

[00:23:46] another great thing about being in a small market is even your competitors or friends

[00:23:51] and we actually gained five new lines from three other rep agencies.

[00:23:59] A couple of them approached me as soon as they had heard what the second company when

[00:24:04] the decision was made, I had two approach with that same month saying hey one had a situation

[00:24:10] to where they had a merger so they were having to make a decision.

[00:24:13] Hey would you be interested in this line and yes the other one was actually a product

[00:24:18] line that we had been the rep before I had merged and when it was back with the original

[00:24:24] cornerstone name and he said but it's really not that fit and what I do is more commercial

[00:24:29] engineer design product he has that would you want it back?

[00:24:32] I said absolutely.

[00:24:33] And then the third one, an owner of a rep company in Oklahoma actually sold out to a larger

[00:24:39] firm in Texas and he called me this last August and said hey I'm selling out.

[00:24:44] I haven't fully announced it yet just one enough if there are any of my lines that you

[00:24:48] want and he named off four of them and we were able to join forces with three so even that

[00:24:56] some of those things like I said like things that I've never seen in my life.

[00:24:59] What other industry, what other territory does your competition actually help support you

[00:25:04] and help you get back on your feet?

[00:25:07] It's just a real cool testimony to the people we have here in Oklahoma.

[00:25:11] Yeah, that's awesome.

[00:25:13] And I think it's the rep community as a whole there's always friendly competition out

[00:25:17] there and I think it makes us all better number one.

[00:25:20] We've experienced the same things and it's a unique community when you're talking about

[00:25:25] the reps and that's a neat story.

[00:25:27] Talking about that right there.

[00:25:29] That's cool.

[00:25:30] Yeah.

[00:25:31] I know we're a little bit past time here.

[00:25:32] We appreciate you coming on.

[00:25:33] Is there anything else that you wanted to share maybe with the audience that you've

[00:25:37] learned or maybe people have questions?

[00:25:40] Maybe they're in a similar situation as you and they want to reach out and chat and get

[00:25:44] your perspective on things.

[00:25:45] How can people reach you and close out with that?

[00:25:49] Yeah, first I'm on LinkedIn.

[00:25:51] That's how you found me.

[00:25:53] So, Mike and Mosley, CPMR for any rep, I definitely am a big proponent of CPMR.

[00:25:59] It's a certified professional manufacturer's representative course.

[00:26:03] When I took it, it was in Austin.

[00:26:04] I think years ago as an Indiana and even at Thompson Phoenix.

[00:26:08] It's three year program and it's helped me out.

[00:26:12] Some things I found that I was doing okay and some things I found out I needed to change

[00:26:17] or have a different perspective on so they can reach me.

[00:26:20] I don't know if you can give my number out.

[00:26:22] It's totally up to you.

[00:26:24] Yeah.

[00:26:25] I probably started out with an email, Micah, M-I-C-A-H at cornerstonecels.net.

[00:26:33] If anyone wants to reach out to me and then we can schedule a conversation, I'll be happy

[00:26:37] too.

[00:26:38] I love helping people out so they have questions or anything.

[00:26:41] I'll give my half a cent of information to know if it's a full two cents but yeah, anything

[00:26:48] different, buddy.

[00:26:49] Sounds great.

[00:26:50] That's cool.

[00:26:51] We appreciate it, Mike.

[00:26:52] We're coming out here and chat with you.

[00:26:53] This is fun conversation.

[00:26:54] Yeah, man.

[00:26:55] Thank you very much.

[00:26:56] Nice to meet you.

[00:26:57] It was fine.

[00:26:58] Nice to meet you all.

[00:26:59] Stay in touch.

[00:27:00] Hope it was helpful and it will help somebody.

[00:27:02] Thank you.