Lean & Green: How LiveGood is Disrupting Supplements w/ Ben Glinsky

0:28Consumers are getting smarter. about now. What's up guys? Welcome to right about now. We're always talking about how to get right in today's world of business. We take the BS out of business, baby. Like it, there's, there's no time for the fluff. And that's what I'm saying. Cause today it's about getting lean. You see what's happening out there. You see what's happening in the markets. Yeah. Some of us have been kind of riding that train knowing that this was coming a little bit. Some people are a little surprised, but that's why I'm pumped to have our guests today. Cause we're going to talk about what it takes to run lean, mean, and get it going in today's economy.

1:04We got Ben Glensky. He's the CEO and founder of LiveGood. What's up, Ben? What's up, Ryan? How's it going, man? Good. Good to have you, brother. Thanks, dude. Glad to get your first podcast here. You know, we were joking before the episode. We get like 300 requests a month. Ben just kind of coasts up right into my email, and like a lot of people do, and it's usually delete, delete. And look, it's not an arrogant thing. It's just, you know, I need a, I need a pitch, baby. I need something that gets my attention. I got to look up in. I'm like, I like this guy. I mean, he's getting after it. He's running lean.

1:38He's running hard. And I like what you're doing with live good brother. Love it. Thanks man. Appreciate it. Thanks for having me. What is live good? Yeah. Live good. Highest quality supplements, lowest price. That's what we're doing. Disrupting an industry,$200 billion supplement industry who is doing it the wrong way. I mean, It hasn't changed in the last 50, 60 years. Companies are making a product for$8 to$10, selling it for$60,$80, even over$100. And people just can't afford it. And just like you said, it's getting lean out there. Buying habits have shifted. People are moving away from expensive, overpriced things, more towards affordability and value.

2:13And that's what the consumer is looking for. Yeah, yeah. I love high quality, low cost. I mean, who wouldn't like that? If only my wife believed in that. I'm just kidding. I I'm actually the bigger spender of the family, but, uh, but I do like, I do like value though. I'm a good value shopper. I mean, but I do like quality. So that's why I was like, okay, you know, I got to see it to believe it though, Ben. I mean, talk to me about what's it take to build a lean company these days? Yeah, that's an awesome question. And that's a question that most entrepreneurs need to focus on where I don't think there's enough focus.

2:52People think they need a big team. They need all these corporate officers. They need a CEO, a CFO, a CMO, a COO, whatever to run a successful company. I mean, we're doing over a hundred million dollars a year. We don't have any of those. I mean, I'm a CEO, but I'm not on payroll. None of our corporate staff is on payroll. Our highest paid employee is our warehouse manager, Lee, who makes sure all of our products are shipped out on time every day. And our customer support person, Michelle, who is awesome. Make sure everyone gets a quick response every day. But yeah, I mean, when you keep your overhead low, it allows you to have bigger profit margins.

3:25If you're spending all the money and or more than you're making, which is so weird to me that so many companies do and try to operate like that, it's not going to work. And at the same time, it gives you such a huge advantage. I mean, we've been in business for two and a half years, disrupting a$200 million industry by offering the highest quality products at the lowest prices anywhere. I mean, here's an example. You know, this company, I don't know if you've heard of Super Beets, good company, good product, 40 bucks for one product, not even organic. This is our Super Reds, higher quality. It's got the beetroot powder.

3:59Ours is organic. Theirs is not. Plus it's got 12 other ingredients for about half the price. I mean, once people see that, they're not going to go back to spending 40 bucks for a lower quality product. That's how we're disrupting the industry. But the point is, that once people, if you're managing your overhead, like nobody wants to compete with us because they can't operate. They don't think they can operate with smaller margins. If they're only making three, four or five bucks on a product, they're like, how are we going to pay our bills? And so if you can figure out how to cut that overhead, get lean, you're going to have a huge advantage.

4:34Yeah, man. Let me do that. I'm going to tell a quick story related to that. I've, you know, been an entrepreneur for about nine years and been in the ad agency business, started my agency and it was small, but like, you know, we got to like 10 or 12 people and you start to do things that you think you're supposed to do, Ben, you know, like, uh, perks here and there, uh, extra people doing things. Like you almost think it's like your job to sort of not, it wasn't really about like employee, like happiness or anything, but it It was just like stuff that wasn't really necessary. And you start adding that on, start layering on.

5:14You start doing things that you think are what you're supposed to do. And the next thing you know, all your costs are higher. You're not making any more money. You just got more people and more shit to manage. And it's like, what the heck happened? I mean, I went through that. And right now, I'm running as lean as I ever have. And it couldn't, I wouldn't say it can't be better. It's headed towards it couldn't be better. But it took me six years to learn that lesson, Ben. Dude, if you learn that lesson, you're going to be so much more successful, so much more profitable. And on top of that, I see a lot of entrepreneurs, and I'm going to call them wannabe entrepreneurs, who have themselves on payroll.

5:54They want to take investor money or whatever and eliminate the risk of starting a company by putting themselves on payroll. And I think that is a terrible way to want to be an entrepreneur. I mean, the whole point of being an entrepreneur is risk. I mean, without the risk, there's not the reward. And when you, so I don't think any CEO or corporate owner of a company should ever be on payroll. You want to make money, make that business successful. You have money left over at the end of the month after all your employees are paid, after all your bills are paid. That's how you get paid. And that also helps you get lean.

6:31Because if you're spending all this money on other people and unnecessary expenses, there's nothing left for you. So you eliminate them, more goes in your pocket. That's right. And we've got the tools to do it now. We can all fuss about AI, but it's here. And you can fuss about like, but sometimes it's not even just AI, Ben. It's like little things here and there that just add up. And I've never been on payroll. So I didn't fall for that trap. I know the risk. I got all the chips in, baby. So, you know, daddy eats when the company eats. That's how it should be. You're doing it right. Good job.

7:11Yeah, yeah, exactly. Ben, I mean, it sounds good. Best ingredients, lowest cost, running lean, no chiefs, you know, just a lot of people doing stuff. it's not that easy is it i'm glad you said that because yeah it sounds good because there are a lot of companies and brands out there that make stuff sound good but yeah when you try to get behind the curtain and ask them the tough questions and ask them for documentation or proof or just validation of what they're claiming they get silent or they come up with excuses i mean so many companies in i mean i know the supplement space that's that's what i'm in and you know the reason we decided.

7:59So I actually have been in this space for about 25 years. I've launched a lot of companies. I used to do it the old way, was fortunate to make a lot of money. But about six years ago, I walked away. I didn't want to be part of it anymore. Just didn't feel good about kind of, I don't want to say ripping people off, but selling products for more than I needed to sell them for. It didn't feel good anymore. But another thing that's happening in the space and And another, you know, you got to find if you're going to get into an industry, you got to find the problem and you got to create a solution to fix it.

8:30That's obvious. We all know that as entrepreneurs. So the supplement space, I mean, not only did I see that the products were overpriced, but when you say sounds good, there is very little transparency out there. I mean, they did a test of like 30 different Amazon products. I don't know if you heard about that. 17 of them didn't even have what the label said they had. And so I would like to say I'm surprised, but I'm not surprised. Yeah, it's crazy. So we're super transparent. Like a lot of companies, they'll have what's called a proprietary blend where they'll say, OK, there's 82 grams of their milligrams of this formula.

9:07And it'll just list a bunch of ingredients and not tell you exactly what's in it. So we show every single one of our ingredients on every single one of our products. We show the full testing, certificates, analysis, all that stuff on the website. So when it comes to sounds good, it's like, here's the proof. Like this is legit. This is what we're selling. And it just gives us even more, I guess, trust with the consumer and helping us grow. The supplements wild, wild west, man. Like it's having been dabbled in that a little bit. Like at times I was like glad it was that way a little bit. But then I'm like, but man, it's it's pretty crazy what can make its way into some of these formulations.

9:51And as a marketer, I always appreciated the marketing ring of proprietary blend. But once I got in to make my own stuff and realized how people were using that, I'm like, that's a little sleight of hand, I think. Yeah, but consumers are getting smarter. I mean, along with this buying habit shifting, they're also comparing prices, comparing value, comparing ingredients and all that stuff. But it's crazy, man. I mean, I saw a product called Organic Greens with zero organic ingredients in it. What is going on? It was a green can, Ben. Green can. I'm a marketing guy. That would have been me. I'm like, all right, let's make the can green, make the letters darker green.

10:31We are green. Put some lipstick on this pig, baby. Yeah. I put a lot of lipstick on pigs in my marketing career. I hate to say it. And I'm like, they're like, why isn't this selling? I was like, well, it ain't the marketing. I hear you, man. But yeah, so I know a lot of your listeners are entrepreneurs. A lot of them are young entrepreneurs. And you don't have to go into a business or an industry and completely disrupt it. I mean, it's easy to find stuff that's broken in literally any industry, whether it's real estate, cars, insurance, toys, clothing, whatever, and figure out a way to differentiate yourself, make it better, make it different, and do it right.

11:15And I think with just this shift that's going on out there, people getting smarter, buying habits shifting, if you recognize that and align yourself with the trends, you're going to position yourself in a much better place. And all you have to do is carve out a tiny piece for you. You don't have to go after the whole industry like I'm crazy enough to do. But you carve out a little piece. There's a lot of money in there for you. How does one go about like back to the whole lean thing? you got to be willing to work hard i mean that seems like characteristic number one because i think and i didn't i'm a hard worker i like to work like you know i i'm i just i came up that way i don't know if i was always that way but once i was not sure i don't mind working long hard doesn't matter but at the same time you do start to think you ah you know i can get some other i can get some help on this to free up some time over here.

12:11It's like hard to know when to hold them and when to fold them on like the stuff that you do. Right. Yeah. That's what I always struggled with. No, that that's totally valid. I mean, I'm at that point where I'm doing, you know, we're a hundred million dollar company now and I'm still doing posting stuff on Facebook. So like we can easily outsource. Yeah. So I, you know, sometimes it's a matter of, you know, learning how to delegate and that, that is an issue that I have. But at the beginning, I mean, you got to be everyone. You got to wear all the hats. You got to work your ass off. And, you know, there was an article the other day that I read about, they were comparing what truly makes people successful.

12:48Is it their grades in school? Is it how hard they worked? Is it their IQ? And it came down to one thing and that's grit. It's how hard you're going to grind, how hard you're going to work and how much you want it. And you make it, you know, you want it bad enough. You're going to figure out a way to make it happen. And, you know, when you don't have the resources, especially early on in a business. And I know you got a lot of listeners who hopefully this will resonate with right now. You don't have those resources. You don't have the money. You don't have all the employees or all the different guys that can post on Facebook or make videos for you, all that stuff.

13:21You know, you got to be the guy, you got to be the girl, you got to go out there and make stuff happen until you're making enough where you can start to delegate. And yes, you know, we're at a level where we're starting to do that now and bring it on more people to kind of take some stuff off my plate. Uh, but at the same time, man, I'm still in the trenches. I mean, we're not done. And until you're done, you got to keep the pedal to the metal. You got to keep the fuel on the fire. You got to keep working, keep hustling, keep making it happen. Keep finding ways to get better because the competition's coming and you got to stay ahead of them.

13:52Yeah. You know, you said a lot to unpack there, but I will say this, like literally, you know i've tried to step out of like you know we get to a certain place i could you could think you could step out of something if you're running the business and i love the word grit you said so many things there that resonate with me that's my favorite like you either have grit or you don't and if you don't you need to find it because grit is what's going to get you through to to it's the difference between average and non-average living an average life and a non-average life it is characteristic number one.

14:29If you want to live an average life, I will show you someone that doesn't have a lot of grit and not because they're not like they have to be monetarily driven or like, I'm not saying that. I'm just saying it just takes, I mean, you got to get in that mud, man, waller around like a pig sometimes and like, just take it, got to eat it. And like, and you don't have to like it, but you got to be willing to do it. It's just uncomfortable, man. And I think a lot of people, I think there's more education, like you said, Ben, that are coming around this. But I think early young entrepreneurs think that I'm going to mitigate risk by hiring people to kind of take the load off.

15:11I'm going to hire the market. I own a digital agency and a podcast network. I'm going to hire the agency. It's going to make all the marketing perfect. I'm going to hire the CFO who's going to make all the financials perfect. And I'm just going to make the decisions. you gotta be a practitioner you gotta do the shit and then once you say it it is just a i had a hard time coming to church not because i wanted to go eat bonbons and lay on the couch but you just you just have this perspective of what it is but you got to be willing to get in it and you got to know it you got to know how this works everything you don't know how to do everything right yeah i mean you don't have to know exactly how everything works at the beginning you're never going to.

15:56And you're never going to ever. Right. You have to learn it along the way. Exactly. You figure it out and obstacles are going to come and you can get frustrated. And yeah, it's sometimes it's going to be a pain in the ass. It's going to be hard. You got to work through it. But, and this is just about mindset. And I know a lot of you guys have listened to books on tape and read books and stuff. Mindset is huge. And if you are thankful for those challenges, thankful for those obstacles, thankful for the opportunity to get over them and get stronger, it's just going to make your business more successful.

16:29And it's going to make you stronger and better. And then you get to that next level and the next level and the next level. So I've always been thankful for everything, good and bad. Because the bad is opportunity to learn, grow, get better. And if you just stay happy, stay excited, stay motivated, stay confident, and believe that what you're doing is the right thing and is going to change lives. And at the same time, sometimes, you know, you never want to throw in the towel, but at the same time, sometimes if the market tells you that your idea isn't going to work, sometimes you got to accept that and move on and take the loss.

17:03And that's okay. But if you truly believe in what you're doing and the market's responding, obstacles are going to come and, you know, you work through them and you get to that next level. Ben, how? A couple of questions. Like, one's kind of a personal one. Yeah. You're like, you're to go get her. You crunch the numbers. You're lean as hell. Like, dude, you got probably more zeros in your bank account than anybody expects. But you don't want to spend any of it. What the hell makes Ben happy? You know, like, what's the end game for Ben? Like, you know, because guys like you always fast at me. Like I have, I'm responsible.

17:47Like I don't spend more than I make, but I like to spend money. You know, like you, I go, you don't. And so like, I could just tell that about you. So I always am curious about you as a person, like you got to make it, you got to be lean, you got to do all these things. But a guy like you that's just adding the zeros up, like for, to what, to what end? It's my favorite question. That, that is, dude, you frigging nailed me. I know you, Ben. I have my best friends are you. Like, I know you, but I don't know you. I don't. And it's like, I always wonder, though, because I know like me, like I enjoy the fruits of wallowing in that shit, in that grit.

18:32Like, I enjoy the fruits of it. That's why I'm willing to do it. But a guy like you, I'm like, he doesn't even really want to spend the money if he makes it and he does all this shit. So like, what is he, and it's not just the money, man, but you know what money enables things. So like, what is it? Yeah. Just the grind itself. I do love the grind. I mean, I love the grind of business. I love the grind in sports. I went mountain biking this morning. I worked my butt off, get my heart rate up. So I love the grind, but at the same time, I, yeah, it's, I do, I love the competition and I see business as a competition and kind of, you know, a game.

19:11and I just, I don't know. I like it, but at the same time, yes, I, you know, I've been very, you gotta wait back sometimes. Yeah. Yeah. So I, but that doesn't mean, you know, I don't spend anything and all I do is, is work. I mean, I I've got two awesome kids. I spend as much time as I can with them. We take a lot of awesome, fun vacations. We've got a house in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. We got snowmobiles. We got a bunch of toys, four wheelers, all that stuff. Um, um, do a lot of travel. So you let your hair down. All right. Yeah, dude. I mean, I, I, I mean, we're taking trips every month or bring all our friends.

19:48Like it's, I, I, yeah, we have fun too. Um, but at the same time, yeah, my wife is, is on me for, you know, exactly what you just recognized. Cause I don't need to work as hard as I do anymore. I'm very thankful for that. But at the same time, I, I don't feel like I'm done. And I, I, you know, because of this, this competitive thing that I got inside me and this DNA that I have, um, I, you know, I see people that are still ahead of me and I'm like, dude, if they could do it, I could do it too. So I just one more year, I'm almost 50 kind of my goal has been to retire at 50. So we'll see what happens.

20:20I don't think I'm ever going to completely walk away, but, uh, but we'll slow down a little bit. Oh, I had to ask. Yeah. No, awesome question, man. I'm pretty impressed that you, uh, you recognize that. I can just see it, dude. Like, yeah, I, I'm a good reader of people, and I just can see that in you. So it always makes you wonder, all right, okay, then what's it all about then? To what end? But I'm glad you got the snowmobile. When you said snowmobiles, I mean, that's a splurge a little bit. Yeah, we got six of them. Ah, there you go. There's only four. You got a wife? I mean, unless you're a Mormon or something, you got more than one wife?

20:58We got a bunch of friends, man. Everyone needs a toy. talk to me about live good i mean where do we source ingredients how do we put the best highest quality ingredients in live good yeah so that's you know that's the thing with the with the supplement industry it is as we talked about you know companies aren't transparent when it comes to ingredients they're selling stuff for way ridiculous prices again they're making a product for six to eight bucks and selling it for 60. And the challenge is not that they're not making money, but people can't afford that. I mean, and especially now with buying habits shifting, money getting tighter, people getting leaner and paying attention, paying more attention to where their money is going, how it's going out.

21:42They're not going to continue spending that. And that's why the average person only stays on a 60,$80 supplement for like three months because they can't afford it anymore. Because when something comes up, they got a cell phone bill or their supplement, they're going to pay the phone bill. And so, we wanted to create something where people don't have to compromise. Highest quality products, pure premium USDA certified organic ingredients. We show all the certificates of analysis on the website and we sell them at just a few dollars above cost. We do it like a Costco type membership model. So, for$10 a month, people get member prices.

22:16Or if you don't want to be a member, you can pay a few bucks more for retail prices. So, So, if you're buying more than two products a month, you're saving more than the$10. But we've got a ton of amazing products that are really helping people change their lives. From basic stuff like a multivitamin to magnesium to vitamin D, even our factor four, this is our anti-inflammatory, most powerful anti-inflammatory ever created. Just$18.50. It's got garlic, curcumin, CoQ10, and fish oil. Only one of its kind out there. You'd have to buy four different products to get everything you get in that. We've got a men's vitality hormone support.

22:56Amazing for, I mean, as we get older, our testosterone starts to slow down. Our strength starts to slow down. Our mental clarity or cognitive function. This just keeps you, keeps you rocking. We've got organic coffee. We've got super greens. We've got a pre-workout product, probiotic gut support, whey protein, collagen peptides, lots of awesome stuff. And how many products been? How many? We've got about 30. 30 so far and adding more every month. Do you see yourself as, you know, there's these fine lines between fitness, workout, supplements versus healthy versus weight loss. I mean, like, are you creating verticals or is it, you know, one segment or another?

23:41That's a great question. I mean, I think most people can fall into one category as far as what they're looking to do. Either they're looking to lose weight. they're looking to build muscle or they're just looking to get healthier and so we've got products for all that stuff but um you know really what it comes down to is just fundamental health i mean and supplements are easy they're like the easiest way to to get a little bit more healthy but i mean if you really want to get healthy you got to focus on what you're eating you got to exercise you got to sleep good supplements are just one piece of the puzzle and it's the easiest piece because all you have to do is take a product either mix it with water or swallow a capsule like it doesn't get much easier than that.

24:18And, you know, when you've got the highest quality supplements at prices, people can afford, it just makes it that much easier. A hundred million, all D to C online, a hundred million, all D to C. And that's at prices about a quarter of what most brands are selling it for. How, how are we acquiring customers then? So like, I like to say, once people see it, they can't unsee it like we talked about earlier i mean no one's going to go back to spending 40 bucks for this non-organic product when they could get the better one for half the price so word is spreading quickly we have a lot of affiliates out there we're starting to to spend some money on advertising on social media uh we've got some podcasters and influencers begrudgingly yeah it is i mean i could see ben writing a check for that facebook ad what's the cac what's the ra what's the how many downloads yes i know yes yeah we look at all the numbers and it's uh yeah it's tough to acquire a customer these days but at the same time um but 100 million sales you got i mean how many customers is that how many we've got 1.8 million members around the world and primarily because i'm hearing you're just now starting most of that was not done by advertising, correct?

25:37Most of it was done through affiliates. So I've been in the affiliate marketing space for a long time. So affiliates refer people. They get their own replicated website, livegood.com slash affiliate name. They send people there. They get a little commission if a person makes a purchase, and that's how it's been growing. I don't know what to think about this. That's not been my – I know all about it. Not all about it. I know enough about it. But like talk to me about the affiliate thing. I mean, is it is it here's what I always felt like it was. Let me tell you what I think it has been. And then you can prove you can tell me why it's why I'm wrong.

26:16At least like for podcasts, I'm not giving you free awareness in hopes that I make a sale for you. You know, like you have to pay for awareness.