077 - Building a Family Business Legacy: The Flaman Story: Part II

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Producer Paul Boomer: Welcome back to connect and convert with Dennis Collins and Leah Bumfrey.

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I'm Paul Boomer producer, Paul Boomer.

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And last episode, we were speaking with Mark Flamin from the Flamin

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group about their family business, about their family dynamics.

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And succession planning this episode, we're going to be continuing that with part two, where Mark is talking about

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the three pillars, hiring practices, and memorable marketing campaigns.

Dennis Collins: 00:00:26

I have a question regarding kind of your three pillars that, that, that, you know, I studied

Dennis Collins: 00:00:32

your website and I saw three things that kind of impressed me, uh, customer responsibility, achieve goals.

Dennis Collins: 00:00:39

and make things better.

Dennis Collins: 00:00:41

Those are the three that I found on your website.

Dennis Collins: 00:00:44

Um, uh, talk to us about each one of them.

Dennis Collins: 00:00:47

What, what, what do you all mean by customer responsibility?

Dennis Collins: 00:00:50

What's, what's your responsibility to the customer?

Mark Flaman: 00:00:53

Ultimately, we work for the customer.

Mark Flaman: 00:00:56

So we feel like we're liable and, uh, personally responsible

Mark Flaman: 00:01:01

each one of us in the company for the success of the customer.

Mark Flaman: 00:01:05

Um, there are some times where there's a little bit of friction between a sales person or a sales

Mark Flaman: 00:01:10

manager and a customer, or, you know, oh, that never happens.

Dennis Collins: 00:01:13

That never happens.

Dennis Collins: 00:01:14

That's

Mark Flaman: 00:01:16

and the customer is always right, right.

Mark Flaman: 00:01:19

. But, um, but we really, we really put a lot of emphasis on treating

Mark Flaman: 00:01:22

the customer, even if sometimes we don't think that they're right.

Mark Flaman: 00:01:25

That, that they are.

Mark Flaman: 00:01:26

And there, there's, I I, I mean, I, I can't really think.

Mark Flaman: 00:01:30

Nothing comes to mind of a problem we've ever had with a customer issue

Mark Flaman: 00:01:33

that we haven't been able to solve through some sort of agreement.

Mark Flaman: 00:01:36

Um, so I mean, there's, because we're such a diverse business, obviously we have a lot to offer.

Mark Flaman: 00:01:42

So if it's something where we're, we're butting heads on a piece of product, then, you know, we have other.

Mark Flaman: 00:01:47

Other avenues that we can explore in terms of, okay, well, if that didn't make sense, then maybe there's

Mark Flaman: 00:01:52

some rental credits or, you know, um, and it's even little stuff.

Mark Flaman: 00:01:55

Like I, when I was younger, we'd have bins show up and we get a call from a truck driver that, you know,

Mark Flaman: 00:02:01

they're going to deliver an order of bins and they want to see if they can get unloaded that night.

Mark Flaman: 00:02:05

Well, we'd stay at work, you know, and we'd, we'd have a couple of pops and then the truck would roll into the yard.

Mark Flaman: 00:02:10

And pretty soon by the time it's said and done, we've got everything packed away.

Mark Flaman: 00:02:14

We're leaving the office at 9 30 PM.

Mark Flaman: 00:02:16

I mean, that happened Countless occasions, right?

Mark Flaman: 00:02:18

I mean, yeah, that's yeah.

Dennis Collins: 00:02:21

So I saw too, that everyone in the organization has a goal.

Dennis Collins: 00:02:27

Everyone has a mission.

Dennis Collins: 00:02:29

It sounds like, uh, how does that work out?

Mark Flaman: 00:02:32

Uh, it works out now, uh, myself, I'm, I'm not really involved in too much of a team atmosphere right

Mark Flaman: 00:02:39

now with, uh, the new sprayer drone project that we're bringing to market.

Mark Flaman: 00:02:43

But, uh, previously what we would do is we would make sure that we're doing a SWAT analysis.

Mark Flaman: 00:02:48

Um, at the start of each year, uh, for each department and for each person.

Mark Flaman: 00:02:52

And, and really what it is, is it's the executive level directors meeting with any person in the company to

Mark Flaman: 00:03:01

establish the goals that they want to achieve for the next year and to

Mark Flaman: 00:03:04

work with them on coming up with a game plan to achieve those goals.

Mark Flaman: 00:03:07

So

Dennis Collins: 00:03:07

it's the formal process.

Dennis Collins: 00:03:08

You, you, yeah.

Dennis Collins: 00:03:09

Yeah, this isn't just, Oh, hey, what do you want to get done next year?

Dennis Collins: 00:03:12

It's, uh, we do a little more than that.

Mark Flaman: 00:03:15

For sure.

Mark Flaman: 00:03:15

And our, our HR team, they're fantastic.

Mark Flaman: 00:03:17

I mean, it's part of our employer reviews every year that, you

Mark Flaman: 00:03:20

know, there's a large, pretty substantial form to fill out with.

Mark Flaman: 00:03:23

What were you looking to achieve this year?

Mark Flaman: 00:03:25

What part about that did you not achieve?

Mark Flaman: 00:03:26

And they follow up really well.

Mark Flaman: 00:03:28

So they'll, they'll get ahold of the right manager or the right.

Mark Flaman: 00:03:31

Uh, person in that hierarchical chain to, to follow up with that employee to make sure that, you know, we're

Mark Flaman: 00:03:36

doing all that we can to help them continue to try and meet those goals.

Dennis Collins: 00:03:39

Hands on and accountability, Tim.

Mark Flaman: 00:03:41

Yes, absolutely.

Dennis Collins: 00:03:43

And the third pillar was making things better.

Dennis Collins: 00:03:45

I think you've already spoken at length about that.

Dennis Collins: 00:03:48

That's about, you know, giving back.

Mark Flaman: 00:03:50

100%.

Mark Flaman: 00:03:51

It's about giving back.

Mark Flaman: 00:03:53

It's about, you know, one thing that popped into my head when, uh, when you mentioned that there.

Mark Flaman: 00:04:00

Don Flamin, our president and CEO.

Mark Flaman: 00:04:03

I remember about 15 years ago, somebody had mentioned, I'm going to go outside

Mark Flaman: 00:04:09

and clean up garbage for a few minutes while I'm having coffee this morning.

Mark Flaman: 00:04:12

And I said, oh, that's a bit of a weird thing to do.

Mark Flaman: 00:04:15

You work behind the parts counter or whatever.

Mark Flaman: 00:04:17

And they said, well, this morning, Don came into work, and we watched him walk across the yard, and he picked

Mark Flaman: 00:04:23

up five or six pieces of plastic or garbage on the way to the building.

Mark Flaman: 00:04:27

Went out of his way to go around to the lorries container and dropped them off.

Mark Flaman: 00:04:30

And he doesn't, he, he wouldn't have never done something like that for anything else than he just cares.

Mark Flaman: 00:04:36

And so when we talk about making things better, it's it's every single facet if there's something out of

Mark Flaman: 00:04:41

place, it doesn't take any more time just to readjust that one thing as you're walking past it, or there's

Mark Flaman: 00:04:47

a shelf that needs to be wiped and maybe we have a slow Saturday.

Mark Flaman: 00:04:50

So the guys are keeping busy with that kind of thing.

Mark Flaman: 00:04:52

So, um, yeah, making things better on a whole is just exactly what it describes.

Mark Flaman: 00:04:56

But if to granular, it's, um, it's making sure that we're looking after the garbage in the yard, making sure

Mark Flaman: 00:05:04

that We're looking after people who are not even within 4, 000 miles of us to make sure that they have clean

Mark Flaman: 00:05:12

drinking water and and eyesight and reading glasses and that sort of thing.

Dennis Collins: 00:05:16

That's amazing.

Dennis Collins: 00:05:20

Oh, I'm sorry.

Dennis Collins: 00:05:20

One quick point on that follow up.

Dennis Collins: 00:05:22

I love the fact that the top people you said Don is the CEO, right?

Dennis Collins: 00:05:27

Yeah, that he does that thing.

Dennis Collins: 00:05:31

He models what he talks.

Dennis Collins: 00:05:33

He walks the talk.

Dennis Collins: 00:05:35

And a lot of times we find in the, in a lot of family owned businesses and others, there's no walk in the talk.

Dennis Collins: 00:05:43

There's a lot of talk, but there's no walk.

Dennis Collins: 00:05:47

And then they wonder why no one's following.

Dennis Collins: 00:05:49

So

Mark Flaman: 00:05:49

there's a lot of finger pointing, right?

Dennis Collins: 00:05:51

Yes, there's a lot of, Hey, why didn't

Mark Flaman: 00:05:53

you do that thing?

Mark Flaman: 00:05:55

That's your job.

Dennis Collins: 00:05:56

Yeah.

Mark Flaman: 00:05:57

That's

Dennis Collins: 00:05:58

what, what, you know, that's not my job.

Dennis Collins: 00:06:00

I'm the CEO.

Mark Flaman: 00:06:02

Those words, they don't exist in our company either.

Mark Flaman: 00:06:04

Wow.

Mark Flaman: 00:06:05

Not my job.

Leah Bumphrey: 00:06:06

You know, it, the, the culture that you guys have You inherited it, but you kept it and

Leah Bumphrey: 00:06:13

you guys have cherished this culture that that Grandpa Frank gave you is a, you know, show me, don't tell me.

Leah Bumphrey: 00:06:20

It's easy to say, oh, do this, do this, do this, but to quietly show and when it's from the very top, and

Leah Bumphrey: 00:06:28

that extends to all the executive and then to all the people that you're hiring, you either fit in.

Mark Flaman: 00:06:36

That's pretty much it.

Mark Flaman: 00:06:37

And like I mentioned before, we do a pretty darn good job of vetting, you know, who belongs in the company and

Mark Flaman: 00:06:42

maybe somebody who isn't a great fit, but it's, it's, um, it's never like we're discriminating against somebody.

Mark Flaman: 00:06:51

We are absolutely everybody and and we also, you know, everybody's got the same opportunity to grow, um, both

Mark Flaman: 00:06:58

outside the company and within, but we always prefer to try and push people

Mark Flaman: 00:07:03

up from within the company before we start looking at outsourcing positions.

Leah Bumphrey: 00:07:06

So how do you, how do you vet people when they're coming in?

Leah Bumphrey: 00:07:09

Like when they are new to the company?

Leah Bumphrey: 00:07:10

What's, what's the vetting process?

Mark Flaman: 00:07:12

That would be a pretty good question for the people who do the hiring.

Mark Flaman: 00:07:16

Um, I'm not really involved in much of that at all.

Mark Flaman: 00:07:19

But, um, We, we have a habit of finding great people coming from companies that I wouldn't say aren't doing so well,

Mark Flaman: 00:07:30

but let's say if there's a corporate buyout of a, of a different, you know, brand of company or a different type

Mark Flaman: 00:07:36

of company, and maybe there's a little bit of friction there and then just throughout our network and especially

Mark Flaman: 00:07:42

with our, you know, the, the Western Canadian household name that is Flamin.

Mark Flaman: 00:07:47

Um, we get resumes all the time and, and, and.

Mark Flaman: 00:07:51

My cousin Kurt, he does a lot of hiring.

Mark Flaman: 00:07:54

One of his questions during the interviews is, you know, what is your, what is your opinion on lawn gnomes?

Mark Flaman: 00:08:02

On garden gnomes and or, or, you know, if you were a pizza topping, what would it be one time we hired a guy because he

Mark Flaman: 00:08:11

said his, uh, like, you know, we asked him that, that, that similar, uh, you know, if you were a pizza topping, what

Mark Flaman: 00:08:17

would you be in the guy says pineapple without even thinking about it?

Mark Flaman: 00:08:20

He says pineapple versus why is that?

Mark Flaman: 00:08:22

He says, well, I don't know how people seem to love me.

Mark Flaman: 00:08:25

Half the people seem to hate me, but I worked really well on most things.

Mark Flaman: 00:08:28

So that's all I got for you.

Mark Flaman: 00:08:29

Boom.

Mark Flaman: 00:08:30

Okay.

Mark Flaman: 00:08:30

You got the job.

Mark Flaman: 00:08:31

We're going to try you out.

Mark Flaman: 00:08:32

That was clever, right?

Mark Flaman: 00:08:33

Well, that's how

Leah Bumphrey: 00:08:33

you find out if they're your brand of crazy or not really.

Leah Bumphrey: 00:08:38

How do you react to something?

Leah Bumphrey: 00:08:40

Because the process of then, you know, uh, you know, being able to grow within the organization becomes obvious when

Leah Bumphrey: 00:08:46

they fit in, but it's that initial getting into the bottom of the pile

Leah Bumphrey: 00:08:51

as you, as you can use them to grow your business and grow themselves.

Mark Flaman: 00:08:56

And I stress that a lot to folks as well, you know, in the sphere of business and what I'm

Mark Flaman: 00:09:02

talking about business with, with other business owners and with, um, people who are perspective to

Mark Flaman: 00:09:07

opening their own business or wanting to elevate in some sort of way.

Mark Flaman: 00:09:11

I bring up the few examples in our company where, you know,

Mark Flaman: 00:09:14

okay, we hired somebody to sort, uh, bolts in the bolt container.

Mark Flaman: 00:09:19

We, we had a container full of bolts just for grain bins, right?

Mark Flaman: 00:09:22

And, and, and the bolts are.

Mark Flaman: 00:09:24

They're different sizes and there's nuts and washers and lock

Mark Flaman: 00:09:26

washers and stuff, but we would hire somebody just to sort bolts.

Mark Flaman: 00:09:30

And 20 years later, that person wound up being the CEO of our fitness division.

Mark Flaman: 00:09:36

And so we have, we have stories like that, that exist in our company on, on a number of different occasions.

Mark Flaman: 00:09:41

Yeah.

Mark Flaman: 00:09:42

Those are the best.

Leah Bumphrey: 00:09:43

You talking about the fitness division reminds me of the story.

Leah Bumphrey: 00:09:46

And I love stories because I think stories, they just exemplify what you're

Leah Bumphrey: 00:09:50

trying to say and what you are saying, but it was specific to the treadmills.

Leah Bumphrey: 00:09:54

And there was a treadmill that You had returned to you after like 100 years being out there.

Leah Bumphrey: 00:09:59

One of the originals.

Leah Bumphrey: 00:10:00

Tell Dennis and Paul this story.

Leah Bumphrey: 00:10:02

It's great.

Mark Flaman: 00:10:03

Yeah, so I don't know exactly how true this is, but I've been told that grandpa was

Mark Flaman: 00:10:06

responsible for bringing like the first treadmills into North America.

Mark Flaman: 00:10:09

He, he had a knack for, you know, he traveled to China.

Mark Flaman: 00:10:12

He'd go to, uh, uh, Everything under one roof type of a trade show.

Mark Flaman: 00:10:17

He'd find a cool product and try and bring it back.

Mark Flaman: 00:10:19

He was a little bit of a bull in a china shop that way.

Mark Flaman: 00:10:21

He was a little bit of a disruptor.

Mark Flaman: 00:10:23

So, um, and this, this will all tie into, uh, to that story that you're, that you're, that you're talking about.

Mark Flaman: 00:10:29

But, uh, first, I guess I would just mention how those treadmills got here.

Mark Flaman: 00:10:33

So Frank comes back from China in 1980, I think 1986 or 1987, somewhere around there.

Mark Flaman: 00:10:40

And he says to each of the three boys, to Rudy, Dawn, and Steve.

Mark Flaman: 00:10:44

Okay, we've got four containers full of treadmills coming.

Mark Flaman: 00:10:47

Nobody knows what these things are, but we're gonna figure out how to market them, we're gonna figure

Mark Flaman: 00:10:51

out how to sell them, and the first person to sell their container full of treadmills, I'm gonna buy them and

Mark Flaman: 00:10:57

their wife brand new 1987 Ford quad cab three quarter ton shop trucks.

Mark Flaman: 00:11:03

Oh!

Mark Flaman: 00:11:06

I'm going through a family photo album when I'm like 12 or 13 years old and I see this picture of mom sitting

Mark Flaman: 00:11:11

in this truck and maybe I was in the truck too or something like that, but there's a truck on the street and a

Mark Flaman: 00:11:16

truck in the driveway of our small house that we grew up in and, uh, and, and so there's only parking for one

Mark Flaman: 00:11:22

truck in the driveway and like these two trucks, these are shop trucks and dad says, yeah, well, here's the story.

Mark Flaman: 00:11:27

Right?

Mark Flaman: 00:11:28

So your mom drove one of these Ford three quarter ton shop trucks around for a little while because I sold my

Mark Flaman: 00:11:32

container of treadmills first, Frank Frank showed up with these two trucks.

Mark Flaman: 00:11:36

And so then with the, uh, yeah.

Mark Flaman: 00:11:39

The return to treadmill, um, there's a gentleman named Brian Rask who is still with us.

Mark Flaman: 00:11:45

He's been with our organization for about 35 years now.

Mark Flaman: 00:11:47

He, he wrote the original Flamin software program and we were able to, so this, you know, customer shows

Mark Flaman: 00:11:55

up one day and they said, Hey, we, we'd like to buy a new treadmill and this one works totally fine, but we

Mark Flaman: 00:11:59

need, we would like to upgrade with one with, with way more options.

Mark Flaman: 00:12:02

And so, uh, the salesperson or the fitness equipment salesperson at the Prince Albert store that my dad ran.

Mark Flaman: 00:12:08

Uh, he goes outside and looks in the back of the truck at this

Mark Flaman: 00:12:11

treadmill that they had brought to us to assess a trade in value.

Mark Flaman: 00:12:14

And he said, I have never seen anything like this before.

Mark Flaman: 00:12:17

Of course, back then a treadmill was only about four feet long and it had a lever that you

Mark Flaman: 00:12:21

would kind of pull to adjust the speed because it was a constant RPM motor and yadda yadda yadda.

Mark Flaman: 00:12:25

So like this thing is, it's, it's old, like it's really old, like older than dirt.

Mark Flaman: 00:12:31

And he says, yeah, I'm going to have to ask somebody else about this.

Mark Flaman: 00:12:33

I have no idea.

Mark Flaman: 00:12:34

So he goes and gets data.

Mark Flaman: 00:12:36

And this is maybe about 15 or 16 years ago.

Mark Flaman: 00:12:39

Dad comes out and he looks at this treadmill and says, I will be darned.

Mark Flaman: 00:12:42

This looks like one of the very first treadmills we'd ever sold.

Mark Flaman: 00:12:46

He got Brian to get a, uh, a computer that we would have had, um, or a

Mark Flaman: 00:12:52

computer that could run the version of software that we had back then.

Mark Flaman: 00:12:55

They cross referenced the serial number and that was the first treadmill that Flamin Fitness had ever sold.

Mark Flaman: 00:13:00

Wow.

Mark Flaman: 00:13:01

So now it's proudly on display at our PA store.

Mark Flaman: 00:13:03

Yeah.

Dennis Collins: 00:13:04

That's a great story.

Leah Bumphrey: 00:13:05

You guys gave the, gave that customer their

Leah Bumphrey: 00:13:09

pick of anything you had current on the showroom floor, right?

Mark Flaman: 00:13:12

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that they did.

Mark Flaman: 00:13:13

Uh, there was a, uh, you know, and I, and I think about this ties right into the whole marketing thing, but,

Mark Flaman: 00:13:20

um, you know, I think about the way that the treadmills were marketed.

Mark Flaman: 00:13:24

And of course we want to have that cool piece of history that anybody can walk in and go.

Mark Flaman: 00:13:28

Holy smokes, what is this?

Mark Flaman: 00:13:29

Oh, like that was the first treadmill.

Mark Flaman: 00:13:31

Oh, that is so fantastic.

Mark Flaman: 00:13:32

And we've been trying to collect a lot of the firsts, you know, my, my long term goal is to have

Mark Flaman: 00:13:37

a wall at some point, like a, like a hundred foot long wall.

Mark Flaman: 00:13:40

Uh, my cousin Mitch was talking about maybe doing like a big deckled timeline

Mark Flaman: 00:13:44

along the wall with when each division started, when each of the stores opened.

Mark Flaman: 00:13:48

That sort of thing.

Mark Flaman: 00:13:49

And, and, and this would be an excellent candidate just to have on the wall.

Mark Flaman: 00:13:52

Hey, this is the first treadmill that was sold.

Mark Flaman: 00:13:55

Um, but the marketing was crazy.

Mark Flaman: 00:13:57

I mean, yeah, you know, dad had sold a treadmill to somebody and that somebody

Mark Flaman: 00:14:02

had a dog and then this German shepherd learned how to run on this treadmill.

Mark Flaman: 00:14:05

So it was like around 1992 or 1993.

Mark Flaman: 00:14:09

I remember being at home in the basement in Prince Albert watching cartoons or something.

Mark Flaman: 00:14:12

And all of a sudden this ad comes on.

Mark Flaman: 00:14:14

And it was on a CTV channel.

Mark Flaman: 00:14:15

I'm pretty sure.

Mark Flaman: 00:14:16

And, uh, this ad shows, you know, Flamin fitness equipment, even your pets will love it.

Mark Flaman: 00:14:21

And then it shows this, this dog in an all out sprint on a treadmill.

Mark Flaman: 00:14:26

And it just, some of the, just some of the funny marketing stuff, right?

Mark Flaman: 00:14:30

You know, we've always been pretty good at that too.

Mark Flaman: 00:14:32

So

Dennis Collins: 00:14:32

that's, that's, you know, that's what we kind of do.

Dennis Collins: 00:14:35

Isn't that Leah?

Dennis Collins: 00:14:35

I mean, if, if, if it looks and sounds like an ad, we don't like it.

Dennis Collins: 00:14:40

We don't use it.

Dennis Collins: 00:14:42

That didn't look like an ad or sound like an ad that that's very

Dennis Collins: 00:14:46

very your grandfather was and your dad were way ahead of their times

Mark Flaman: 00:14:50

for sure.

Mark Flaman: 00:14:50

Yeah there was a trickle down effect I think between uh grandpa's brain and dad's brain for sure um again this is

Mark Flaman: 00:14:58

a this is this is it it's it's hard for me personally to remember how the

Mark Flaman: 00:15:04

whole thing played out but we were trying to figure out how to advertise.

Mark Flaman: 00:15:08

uh, water tanks more effectively at one point.

Mark Flaman: 00:15:11

So we sell water tanks all the way from 20 gallon small little potable

Mark Flaman: 00:15:15

water tanks up to uh, you know, up to 8, 500 gallon fertilizer tanks.

Mark Flaman: 00:15:19

Like any sort of a plastic tank, we sell it.

Mark Flaman: 00:15:22

So dad came up with this plan.

Mark Flaman: 00:15:25

We're going to Try and market tanks as if we're in the military and I I'm gonna call this guy who is in from

Mark Flaman: 00:15:34

you know Whatever community who's got his blasting license and we're gonna blow up a water tank And I remember

Mark Flaman: 00:15:41

being very very very young and thinking like I don't really understand how this stuff works But it sounds pretty

Mark Flaman: 00:15:46

cool And so as the ad played and this was a television ad dad's dressed up like an army sergeant And he says we

Mark Flaman: 00:15:53

are blowing tank prices Out of the water and then it, you know, the shot would go to a F 18 or something, or

Mark Flaman: 00:16:00

an F 16 that's flying overhead and it flies overhead and it's of course just B-roll from the military or whatever.

Mark Flaman: 00:16:06

And then it shows a couple missiles dropping out and flying off, and then it's a frame of a green.

Mark Flaman: 00:16:12

1, 250 gallon round water tank in the middle of the field.

Mark Flaman: 00:16:15

We did this, uh, behind our market.

Mark Flaman: 00:16:17

I remember this

Leah Bumphrey: 00:16:18

ad.

Mark Flaman: 00:16:18

Yeah.

Mark Flaman: 00:16:19

Have you seen it?

Leah Bumphrey: 00:16:20

I have seen this ad.

Mark Flaman: 00:16:21

Okay.

Mark Flaman: 00:16:22

Tell me, tell me what happened.

Mark Flaman: 00:16:24

So what they did was they filled the water, cause if you put dynamite into an empty tank, it's

Mark Flaman: 00:16:28

just going to blow up and the tank will kind of flex and whatever.

Mark Flaman: 00:16:31

But if you have a substrate in the tank, like a, some sort of a liquid or a water or whatever,

Mark Flaman: 00:16:36

so they filled the water tank up with water and they dropped like.

Mark Flaman: 00:16:39

I want to say like way more dynamite than what's necessary.

Mark Flaman: 00:16:42

They probably dropped in like five or six of dynamite And so the frame goes from steve dressed up like the

Mark Flaman: 00:16:48

sergeant to the plane to the to the jet flying overhead dropping the missiles And then all of a sudden it's

Mark Flaman: 00:16:53

this frame of just the uh, The tank out in the middle of the field and it

Mark Flaman: 00:16:57

explodes and you can't see anything because it's filled with water.

Mark Flaman: 00:17:00

So now it's Just a huge mist.

Mark Flaman: 00:17:03

And then there's green pieces of plastic falling down into the field.

Mark Flaman: 00:17:06

And it was just it was so out of control.

Mark Flaman: 00:17:09

You know, we

Leah Bumphrey: 00:17:09

got to find that on YouTube.

Leah Bumphrey: 00:17:11

We got to find that ad. That's a classic

Dennis Collins: 00:17:13

great story.

Dennis Collins: 00:17:14

So but there's something there's a burning question mark that you haven't answered yet.

Dennis Collins: 00:17:18

And I hope I'm going to have to ask it, I guess.

Dennis Collins: 00:17:22

Okay.

Dennis Collins: 00:17:23

Apparently, according to what I've discovered, you guys used to sell spy equipment.

Dennis Collins: 00:17:33

Okay.

Dennis Collins: 00:17:34

Are you allowed to tell us, or would they come and arrest you if you told this story?

Mark Flaman: 00:17:39

No, I don't.

Mark Flaman: 00:17:40

Uh, well, I don't know.

Mark Flaman: 00:17:42

I, we shouldn't politicize this podcast, but in today's day and age, maybe I might be.

Mark Flaman: 00:17:49

Hard

Dennis Collins: 00:17:49

not to

Mark Flaman: 00:17:50

these days.

Mark Flaman: 00:17:50

So.

Mark Flaman: 00:17:52

You know, I, I grew up at work with dad, you know, mom was going

Mark Flaman: 00:17:55

to, uh, school to learn how to do bookkeeping and stuff for the business.

Mark Flaman: 00:17:58

So I really, I, I grew up with at work with dad and I remember running around one day trying to

Mark Flaman: 00:18:04

find my roller skates to go roller skating around the shop or whatever.

Mark Flaman: 00:18:07

And, uh, this truck shows up and we start unloading all these crates and

Mark Flaman: 00:18:12

we're opening this stuff up in the showroom and there's bulletproof vests.

Mark Flaman: 00:18:15

Night vision goggles high.

Mark Flaman: 00:18:18

We had a, uh, it was a microphone, uh, set up kind of like what they use at the

Mark Flaman: 00:18:23

football game with the, uh, it had like the, the dish on it and all that stuff.

Mark Flaman: 00:18:27

So you could hear something.

Dennis Collins: 00:18:28

Not

Mark Flaman: 00:18:30

only did we have one of those, we had one that you could hear people talking from inside of

Mark Flaman: 00:18:33

a vehicle with the windows shut, like, like really high tech stuff.

Mark Flaman: 00:18:38

So Steve starts putting my dad Steve, right?

Mark Flaman: 00:18:40

He starts putting ads out for this stuff.

Mark Flaman: 00:18:42

Like, hey, we've got this stuff.

Mark Flaman: 00:18:43

And, uh, and we're trying the market just to see if anybody wants some of this stuff.

Mark Flaman: 00:18:48

And then he starts getting phone calls from the RCMP.

Mark Flaman: 00:18:51

And I think so.

Mark Flaman: 00:18:52

Yes.

Mark Flaman: 00:18:53

They had officers showing up.

Mark Flaman: 00:18:54

They said, what exactly are you doing here?

Mark Flaman: 00:18:56

And he said, well, I don't know.

Mark Flaman: 00:18:57

I just thought this stuff was kind of cool.

Mark Flaman: 00:18:59

Like night vision goggles, who doesn't want to set a night vision goggles that would take us out into the field.

Mark Flaman: 00:19:04

And, you know, me and a couple of buddies of mine late at night, and we'd go Instead of spotlighting

Mark Flaman: 00:19:08

coyotes, we're, we're trying to find, you know, wildlife and we're creeping around in the dark with these night

Mark Flaman: 00:19:13

vision goggles on and we just look like lunatics, you know, and so, uh, yeah, no, it was, uh, I mean, that,

Mark Flaman: 00:19:21

that part of the business was short lived, but what it expanded into is our surveillance and security division.

Mark Flaman: 00:19:26

So we had.

Mark Flaman: 00:19:28

a division of our company that specialized in the installation

Mark Flaman: 00:19:31

and and aftermarket care of security and surveillance systems.

Mark Flaman: 00:19:37

It was called Flamin Security and we had we had that going on in Prince Albert as well as Saskatoon.

Mark Flaman: 00:19:42

Yeah,

Dennis Collins: 00:19:43

that that is incredible.

Dennis Collins: 00:19:45

Let me ask you this, Mark.

Dennis Collins: 00:19:46

Is there anything that you guys wouldn't sell?

Dennis Collins: 00:19:49

If Frank could get a hold of it, you'd sell it, right?

Mark Flaman: 00:19:52

No, this is the one line that I'm taking credit for.

Mark Flaman: 00:19:55

Uh, sometimes I, you know, I'll walk into a sales meeting or, or, uh, or I'll walk out of a sales meeting and

Mark Flaman: 00:20:02

the guys are fired up and, and, and even I've told this to customers before too.

Mark Flaman: 00:20:07

Um, welcome to Flamin Sales.

Mark Flaman: 00:20:09

If we don't have it, you don't need it.

Mark Flaman: 00:20:11

And if somebody needs a building, we're prepared to start selling our locations too.

Mark Flaman: 00:20:14

If somebody wants to buy a building, everything's for sale.

Mark Flaman: 00:20:18

We'll sell inside the building and then we'll sell the building itself.

Dennis Collins: 00:20:21

Wow.

Dennis Collins: 00:20:23

We have, we have, I have just totally enjoyed this.

Dennis Collins: 00:20:26

This has been a great, uh, thank you for being so transparent and, and so forthcoming with your great stories that

Dennis Collins: 00:20:34

I think that those are so informative to our listeners and our viewers.

Dennis Collins: 00:20:38

Don't you think, Liam?

Leah Bumphrey: 00:20:40

Well, absolutely.

Leah Bumphrey: 00:20:40

And you know what, Frank would be proud because you embrace this culture that he, that he built you and your

Leah Bumphrey: 00:20:47

cousins and your dad and your uncles, you guys saw something beautiful and you're determined to keep it.

Leah Bumphrey: 00:20:53

And I mean, you talked about Jack, your two year old.

Leah Bumphrey: 00:20:55

Wow.

Leah Bumphrey: 00:20:56

His culture that he's grown up in, it'll be a little bit different, but what's the important parts of it are there.

Leah Bumphrey: 00:21:04

And I know our listeners are gonna just gain a ton from you taking the time to talk to us.

Mark Flaman: 00:21:11

Fantastic.

Mark Flaman: 00:21:11

I sure appreciate the opportunity.

Dennis Collins: 00:21:13

Yeah,

Mark Flaman: 00:21:13

this is,

Dennis Collins: 00:21:14

uh, yeah, this is, uh, our podcast is called Connect and Convert.

Dennis Collins: 00:21:18

I think that if you listen to Mark today, you probably found a bunch of ways to connect.

Dennis Collins: 00:21:24

And of course, take it from Frank and Steve and the gang.

Dennis Collins: 00:21:28

If you can figure out how to get it.

Dennis Collins: 00:21:30

They'll figure out a way to sell it.

Dennis Collins: 00:21:33

For sure.

Dennis Collins: 00:21:34

Great lessons.

Dennis Collins: 00:21:35

That's all for today's Connect and Convert.

Dennis Collins: 00:21:37

Leah and I will be back next week with another episode.

Dennis Collins: 00:21:41

Connect and Convert.