Unknown 0:02
14

Justin Trosclair 0:03
flipping the mattress on the industry. I’m your host, Dr. Justin Foursquare. And today, you’re hearing Bruce Browns perspective

for doctors who want a thriving practice and abundant homeless, listen as your host, Dr. Justin trust, Claire goes behind the curtain and interviews doctors and guess about real world

Unknown 0:25
practical tips and entertain from this episode, a doctor’s perspective.

Justin Trosclair 0:31
Welcome Potter castle. And today we have Bruce Brown, the co founder of element matters. Now as a chiropractor, and maybe, you know physical therapist definitely probably have this question all the time is that my back hurts. I don’t know what to get. And of course we’re stuck with there’s so many varieties, what do we recommend found out about this company in a really wanted to know more about the special phone? Is the phone type mattress? The special type of phone that they use? Why is it special? And then we’re attitude? You know what, this is an entrepreneur, it’s a small business, they only been open like that, you know, year to what are they doing for marketing? What can I learn? What can we learn from their marketing tactics? staff? What kind of goals in the Do they have there? How did they partner with? Do they partner with doctors? Do they just sell it? You know, an Amazon like how do they How do they produce it. So things that we can learn whether you are brick and mortar or if you’re trying to create products for yourself, or you just want to learn how you always was like, I would like to have a go to product, you know, sell vitamins, I sell this, it’d be nice to have like a mattress that I can recommend it with confidence. So hopefully that will help you today. He also had talks about some really great tips about in marriage and your kid. And I know I say that a lot. Because some people just give them more information. And he was very specific. So definitely listen to that one. It’s near the end, and really appreciate that. And he talks about a few podcasts that are really he’s really passionate about in some books, we always ask those questions, but he just did a really good job a fine job answering today. So I really think you guys are going to enjoy. The travel tip will be at the end of the episode. All today’s show notes can be found at a doctor’s perspective. NET slash one for let’s go hashtag behind the curtain. Ladies and gentlemen, I’m so happy to have on the show today. Bruce Brown, co founder of element mattress. Welcome to the show.

Unknown 2:23
Thanks so much. I appreciate it. Absolutely. I’ve

Justin Trosclair 2:25
been enjoying our pre chat trying to get to know each other, build a bond before we start talking. That’s always a good time for me. It is you know, and meeting new people is always the fun part of every day. So I appreciate the time we spent talk so far. It’s been a pleasure. So I’m gonna just jump right in and just decide like, how did you get into the mattress business? What’s your backstory for that?

Unknown 2:48
backstory for mattresses, it was really kind of an accidental an accidental happening through 2007 2008

Unknown 2:57
obviously, there was a there was a crash it may be reevaluate life ended up closing my company was doing some consulting work and my wife who we had two small children at the time, my wife was looking for something to do on the side. And as crazy as it sounds. One of those late night revelations at about 130. In the morning, I was browsing Craigslist and found an ad for some guy that was looking for somebody to sell mattresses direct to the direct to the public, basically out of a warehouse setting. And so we got involved that turned out to be essentially a buying group. And they really did a great job of training my wife and then at the time me as well in what people were looking for and kind of the dynamics of the mattress business as a whole. That was the start then we ended up working with a lot of nonprofits nationwide. And out of that, watching the, the

Unknown 3:53
the explosion, I guess it’s the only way to put it of some of the large e commerce mattress companies. That was really what drove us to begin creating and designing the original element that we launched about 10 months ago.

Unknown 4:09
And so that’s that’s it in a nutshell. You know,

Justin Trosclair 4:11
I I heard a podcast and they were talking about something random about mattresses. And they said there was this one town I got there’s actually a lot of towns in one strip, like the main strip, they might be like seven mattress stores. And like how how can there be so many mattress stores is just this huge booming? And then you find out that there’s other companies online like yourself, you’re like, Wow, I didn’t even know like there’s such a huge industry. For mattresses. You.

Unknown 4:38
Yeah, it’s it’s really incredible. And and I think one of the things that has always bothered me about it, since we’ve gotten involved has been, I guess the amount of marketing that’s put into it. I mean, when you look at so many huge companies, and the things that they say about the mattresses to get people to buy them really blows me away, you know, every experience that I’ve had in a mattress store have hated. And I think most people feel the same way. Like we everybody jokes about the furniture stores, I don’t want to go there because when I go in, I feel like a piece of me, you know, everybody’s just kind of hovering around like vultures waiting for me to stop so they can all Yeah, come in and feed on us. And that’s always bothered me. I think that we’re living in a time right now with e commerce influencing how brick and mortar is doing their business, I think we’re watching the transformation of not just the mattress industry, but but every industry. Because things have become so transparent. You know, if I want to know something about you, I can find out in you know, the flip of a switch just with the device, I’ve gotten my hand. And I think that’s a positive thing. It hasn’t eliminated all the smoke and mirrors that goes on. But I think that it has allowed people, smaller guys like us, and like some of the others that everybody is familiar with, to kind of come in and say, Look, it’s time to rethink how we buy these, it’s time to rethink what’s actually in them, it’s time to blow past. The idea that a phone memory foam, for example that was invented in the 60s is still cutting edge technology, because it’s not you things have advanced, dramatic way. But the guys that buy the mass quantities of raw materials, don’t want to push that Boulder. And so we’re living in an age right now where guys like us can come in, and we can say it’s time to do it different. And we can appeal to those buyers and reach those buyers and reach those professionals that are great. And that want to deal in something that’s actually new, instead of something that just says a new name on it.

Justin Trosclair 6:46
Right? So I’m going to ask the next it’s a double part of question. And then but I just want to give you freedom to explore, however you want. One is the misconceptions about maybe your profession, but maybe some of these, like confusing cells, marketing versus actual, what’s important. And then what makes you guys different like, so the audience of like, This isn’t like a big sales pitch per se. I want to know why they chose the materials that they use. Because we spend with a third of our life sleeping, it’s important. As a chiropractor, I can’t tell how many times they had to ask, Hey, what matches Should I purchase? And we’re stuck coming like, Well, you know, some people like this one, some people like this one, and gonna have to leave it like that. And so I’m really, this is kind of a passion for me, because I like to have a good night sleep just like everybody else. And maybe this can help you to recommend a product

for your own patients. Software.

Unknown 7:42
It does sounds very fair. And because obviously that end,

Justin Trosclair 7:47
got looked on your website, and I’m sorry, I looked at your website. And it was I was like, okay, they’ve got a lot of the foam is Scott all these trademarks to it and different things like I don’t even know this stuff is I hope it goes into it a little bit. Because it just seemed kind of beyond my intelligence at this moment. You know,

Unknown 8:05
and and that’s the tough part. That’s the difficult part. You know, we spend all day inside of these materials, looking at at what we would want to use and why we would want to use it and giving me the guys who invented this the opportunity to kind of pitch us so to speak, on why we should think about including this and what the benefits are. And then you have to take that and boil it down and try to make it simple to understand so that somebody who lands on your website can actually go, Oh, this does make sense, or Yeah, this will help me stay cooler or Yes, you know, this will help with the pressure, the pressure points that I have when I sleep. And that is a little bit of a challenge.

Unknown 8:48
I think one of the biggest misconceptions, or misunderstandings, when it comes to purchasing mattresses is that in the past, there’s been very, the resources are there to find out the various opinions and the truth and maybe some of the fiction of the materials. But there’s an enormous amount of confusion. You know, if you go to Google and you type in anything, trying to find out his memory foam good as memory foam bad, is white text good. Is latex bad? Are springs good or springs bad? I mean, type in whatever question you want. And the pages after pages of opinions that you will get

Unknown 9:34
are endless. And so you know, as human beings, what do we naturally do we go out and try to find the opinions that are pretty much in line with what we thought to begin with. And we

Justin Trosclair 9:42
want to know, is this the same material across three different companies with the different, you know, different name or the actually different? You know, I didn’t realize you had like six flavors of a phone?

Unknown 9:53
Yeah, well, we do. And that was one of the things when when we were working with nonprofits, and we were distributing mattresses all over the country that were being manufacture answered by some of the larger manufacturers, that was one of the most surprising things to us. You know, one of the guys came to us and he’s like, Look,

Unknown 10:08
here’s why you should work with us, because everybody’s buying phones, fabrics, and springs from essentially three or four of the same people. And we’re just layering it together differently. You know,

Unknown 10:18
that that rocks your world a little bit when you sit down and realize that when I go into the store, and there’s you know, 150 mattresses laying on the floor. And essentially, the only difference is the wrapper they put on and you know, and how many layers they put together.

Unknown 10:38
It was it was a paradigm shift, really and understanding. So when we started looking at being able to compress and roll and ship a mattress anywhere in the world, for that matter, but private focusing primarily on North America, in the United States, we thought okay, well if we’re going to do this, this has to be an no BS mattress. There’s this is not this is not going to be a recut rehash mattress, that’s essentially the same as everything else that’s out there with different marketing, different verbiage, different pictures to make it look like it’s new, shiny and worth buying. So we started there, we also ordered in an enormous number of mattresses, and tore him apart, looking for these the reasons that they either were holding up, or maybe they weren’t as special as everybody, you know, thought they were. And so through that process, we started finding out that in most cases, there were weak links in these mattresses, it may have a great top layer that feels wonderful. But two or three layers down is like the cheapest, you know, least durable foam that you could get. And so over the course of time when that layer breaks down before everything else, it creates that dip in that mattress, and even if everything else around it is there’s no way to get rid of Yeah, you got saggy about? Yeah, yeah. So we wanted to build something one that I sold my mom to that I would own. And that was worth what people were paying for it, I think is really what it came down to. And so we started with kind of a clean board and said, All right, here’s what we see selling out in the marketplace right now. This is what top this is what people love. Here’s what we want to build it out of and we want to make something competitive, can we build it the way it should be built for what people are selling it in the marketplace. And that was where we started. And so we started getting introduced to all of these new phones, we started having the companies that were manufacturing these bringing in these samples of phones that we had never heard of. Nobody was using, they were trying to find anybody who was willing to give it a shot. And so we started playing by they were purchasers to.

Unknown 12:58
Yeah, literally and and i think they’re in a similar position to us, they’re looking at the marketplace saying now wait a minute, a memory foam is not new memory foam is not special, it’s everywhere. And we’ve we’ve moved beyond 50 year old technology to something that actually you know, gives the same benefits and, and does everything people want but doesn’t have the negatives of sleeping hot or causing a crater in the bed when I roll over in the middle of the night. And they can’t find anybody to be a taker on it. So we thought, we’re going to try and do this different, we’re going to we’re going to bring in these new materials, we’re going to see what we end up with. And so, you know, it’s like, it’s like your child, if you’re too close to everybody thinks their child is beautiful. So, yeah, so we didn’t want to be that guy with you know, we didn’t want to be the company that built something told everybody It was wonderful. But the only people we had ever really gotten an opinion from us. So we can we started bring in both people that we knew who had industry expertise, and chiropractors, people who understand alignment, who understand support, who understand the function of the body as a whole, and the fact that everything is connected. You know, look, we lay on something for six 810 hours. I mean, I’ve been in I’ve been in a situation where I wake up in the morning, and I feel like I was in a bar fight all my you know, I mean, I just can’t move. And I’m 43. And maybe that’s part of it. But everybody’s had those mornings. And we wanted to create an environment that allowed people to get sleep to at least eliminate the mattress as being the problem. You know, maybe their sleep apnea, maybe their stress or you know, a million other things. But let’s at least give you something that you can be confident in its ability to support you to relieve the pressure points in your body to make sure you’re aligned with sleep. And so we brought in the chiropractor’s and really they were they were our guinea pigs. I mean, we started assembling these Franken beds and giving them to them and saying, okay, sleep on that for a week and see how you like that. Tell us what you think, tell us what your wife or your husband, and they played with us. And it was a lot of fun. But what we found were the new materials were giving us everything that people were familiar with, from a pressure relief standpoint, from being able to relax when they slept support, but they weren’t giving us the negatives. One of the biggest knocks against memory foam or phone that as a whole is that they slew hot. It’s one of the big complaints about some of the largest manufacturers out there is hey, I love the bed, I’m comfortable. Man, I wake up in the middle of an eye on just roasting. You know, and then you get into primarily, I think much more so women because of the chemistry changes in their body at 50. You know, you hit menopause and all of a sudden, everything is website all over the place. This is a real issue. And that was when we looked at building something, we knew that we couldn’t address everything we had to pick some issues support was one heat overheating at night was the other. So these new products for eliminating that. And we also looked at our covers, and what’s generally available in the marketplace as far as most of the foam beds, found the issues with that construction as far as and having airflow and corrected it by using a new process of quilting materials together with a special nonwoven fiber that allowed airflow, you know, for the hot air to chimney out from underneath you while you sleep. And allow that exchange. So we just kind of started from square one and rethought the mattress.

Unknown 16:51
And we ended up with the original element, which has been our best selling product. And the only product actually that we offered. Recently, we’ve now come out with a copper mattress with a cover that’s manufacturer for my fiber called q tech 29 which is a proprietary patented copper ion emitting fiber paired with copper infused latex foam in the top layer. So it’s it’s really created this dual copper ion healing system inside the mattress. We just launched that last week. So yeah, it’s it’s pretty incredible. The research that’s been done the fabrics not on the mattress, were the first company in the world to do it. But the research on the threads used in medical settings, in even veterinary settings have been incredible. So we’re excited about it. And I guess we could talk a little bit later about why you know what kind of why we decided to move into that the chiropractic market.

Justin Trosclair 17:54
Okay, so I am curious, being that I would say 80% of Americans are fat, that might be an exaggeration.

Unknown 18:02
Whatever.

Justin Trosclair 18:04
Is there a weight limit to your matches? Or is it like, Look, if you’re over 300 pounds, you’re going to get two years instead of the recommended five years? Or what’s your opinion? You know,

Unknown 18:14
that was one of the things that we looked at. Because if you go and look at the warranties of every company out there doesn’t matter who it is, they will give you a recommended way range. You know, look, if you’re over this amount, it’s going to kill the life of the mattress. And we know that, you know, if somebody is 400 pounds, they’re going to break the mattress down, it doesn’t matter what it’s made out of, we decided not to put a weight limit on ours, and to give a 10 year full replacement warranty regardless, because look, people who are who are overweight and have legitimate issues, aches pains do that. But they need something to live on to. And we we want to help them as much as we want to help anybody else. So we want to we we opted not to go that route, like many other manufacturers did, and just stand behind it.

Justin Trosclair 19:10
You have a I’m just curious now, do you have like a 30? Day 90 day 200 day sleep trial?

Unknown 19:17
We do yeah, we we offer a 100 nights sleep trial. And it’s kind of a no questions asked deal. So if you all we ask any customer is that they give it 30 to 60 days, I mean, some you know may not want to go that long. But we know that it takes time for a body to adjust to sleeping on something new or something proper. So we asked the people give it 30 to 60 days, if somebody just can do it. And we don’t have a solution either to soften it or you know, make it acceptable for them. Then it’s a free return, we pick the mattress up and in most cases, because we’re in Michigan, if somebody in California, we can’t cram it back in the box. We donate them to local nonprofits, and then we issue a 100% refund back.

Justin Trosclair 20:05
Always I had bought a mattress like that before. And luckily I enjoyed it. So it’s like how much was the this thing came in? Like a box? How much it’s gonna cost me more

than the US their warranty. So I was really glad that it worked out

Unknown 20:20
well, right.

Unknown 20:22
Yeah, the the vacuum seal SpaceX that you can get at Walmart don’t have quite the horsepower to crush and back down to get them.

Unknown 20:29
Once they’re out the genies out of the box,

Justin Trosclair 20:32
like that you actually give back that’s a so smart.

Unknown 20:35
Thanks. Well, you know, we started in the nonprofit business in 2000, late 2011. And we have we want to, we want there to be benefit. I mean, look we’re trying to we’re trying to impact people’s lives, both the chiropractor’s we work with the people who sleep on the mattress, and if if it’s not going to work for them, then let’s put it into be in a position to make an impact for somebody else. Whether it’s donated to someone or or whether they receive

Justin Trosclair 21:04
we can always learn something, whether it’s an eye doctor marketing, the mattress, company marketing, marketing, and goal setting, and how do you find good staff, all those things I want to get into with you. But first, you didn’t mention something about chiropractic. So please tell us about that. We,

Unknown 21:20
because we had chiropractors involved in the design of the mattress, they started sleeping on a mattress after we had settled on the design, they were all sleeping on it. And we were loving it. You know, it’s these guys know what they need. And so for them to be sleeping on it and give us an off the record type of endorsement was fantastic. It was a real boost for us. And about 60 days after we launched the mattress last April, they came back to us and said, Hey, so still loving it. Can I sell it to my patients? And the light bulb kind of went off? And we said well, absolutely. You know, so we started going to you’re trying to figure out how to do that, like, what does this business model look like? Because you go from from looking at selling something through e commerce, you know, most people think of Amazon and trying to to just reach as many people as you can to looking at these offices now and saying, okay,

Unknown 22:20
you have a business, you are a business. And although you’re in business to help people if you’re on making money, you can’t help anybody because you’ll be closed. So how can we contribute to that if you’re already being asked the question on a regular basis, and I think that was the big eye opener, is it was a surprise that they came back and asked, I didn’t realize that they were getting asked on a regular basis, hey, what matters should I buy?

Unknown 22:48
I knew that nine years ago, I asked my chiropractor, what matters should I buy? But I didn’t know that everybody else was I mean, I’m, I guess I think it myself is asking, you know, on the box sometimes. And so the original chiropractors that we worked with, we just went to him and said, Okay, we have an idea. We think this is how it’s going to work. What do you think? They said, We think that’ll work too. So all we did was test it with them for nine months, we had a little biscuit made an 18 inch by 18 inch,

Unknown 23:22
many mattress, I guess you would say, we said look, well, we’ll drop this off. And there was a little countertop sign that said your chiropractor recommends all the mattress. And let’s see what happens in those offices. When we looked back over time, they started to hit a an average, like you know, they weren’t even doing anything. And we weren’t supporting them in any way, really. But they their their patients were buying mattresses, just off the conversations. And so at that point, we realized there’s a benefit here for everybody, for the patient and for the office. Let’s try and draw this. And so we really went all in and committed 100% to chiropractic offices, we started developing the copper product out of requests that a few of them and come back to us and said, you know, what about copper. And we were trying to design a unique product, because what we thought originally was that the element would be kind of the you know, on the internet, the general population type mattress, and then we would have this specialty product for the offices. And what we realized was that we needed to be all in alongside every office in every aspect supporting them and supporting their patients. Otherwise, we were competition. And that’s the last thing we want it to be. So we made the pivot when 100% all in, develop the copper mattress sourced the both the yarn and actually the very first mattress covering material from a weaver outside of Toronto in and built it. And we had very first prototype on our office, we called everybody up and said, Come over and check it out. Like this is what we’ve got. And we’d like to know what you think. And they all came over, including the ones that sleep on the element now and they laid on it. And they said, Man, we love it. So we said okay, fine, this is it that and so now we’ve got the mattresses, we’re developing toppers, we also are in the process of developing copper and few sheets, because there’s there’s been a lot of conversation around the use of the copper as a real opinion and being very close to the skin, the closer the proximity to the skin, the more benefit there is sheets, obviously or what go over top of the mattress. So we’ve also been in development and are developing right now a new product and cooling product that can actually be put on any mattress right underneath the sheets. So you know you have either people who are heavier or women, for example, who are who are having hot flashes at night, men sleep pot, there’s something now that they’ll be able to add to whatever they have, and without having to replace the mattress to fix the problem if they like what they live on. And so it’s really taken us down a lot of rabbit holes. We’re working on a lot of things right now. But the short of it was that it made sense to us that chiropractors are being asked the question anyway, some of them are recommending certain things, but why not? Why not recommend something inside the four walls of your office, inside the relationship that’s built on the trust between you and your patient? and have it benefit the patient as well as your practice? So you’ve got some passive income coming from that. And we’ll take care of supporting everything. I’m guessing

Justin Trosclair 26:40
this is open for not just chiropractors, but medical providers of different sorts.

Unknown 26:47
Yeah, yeah, I mean, chiropractor’s it, it we had to choose, you gotta rock it somehow. Right? And so that, yeah, we had to pick a direction. So chiropractors are where we focused, but we have had some sports conditioning people that have that have talked to us about this. If somebody who’s in medical practice and wanting to really anybody could become a partner with us. But But chiropractic? Yeah,

Justin Trosclair 27:10
I’m hoping, you know, with the different varieties of doctors and things we have here, we’ll have a wide variety of, you know, we had a PT on in a couple of weeks or whatever. So for sure. Anyway, so that’s good to know that it’s it’s not just chiropractic, you’ll just have to pick some, you know, a niche that in that it fell in your lap. Yeah. So I am curious. So you have an e commerce, you’re pitching the chiropractor’s? What are some of your marketing strategies that have really helped to grow? You know,

Unknown 27:37
I think the, the thing that has been a founding principle of ours is authenticity. We don’t, we want to be as real as possible. And so if, if, if somebody gets an email from me, it’s, it’s, it’s me that wrote it, if somebody gets an email from anyone else in the company, it’s them the routed, you know, if there’s video, you’re going to see my face, like there’s no, there’s really no high production value in what we do. Because the information is where I feel that the power is that for everybody, that’s where the value is added. So we’re about delivering the value, the product will stand on its own, we know that and will stand behind it. All we want to do is give you the thoughts, the methodology is the the, you know, kind of the roadmap to how to navigate this, so that you can take advantage of the market that’s there inside your practice, I spend a lot of time as a student, reading, listening to podcasts, trying to, I guess, get a feel for what people are doing. You know, I think we live in an interesting age right now, Justin, where I’m 43. And so I remember what it was like not to have all the platforms that we have now. You can reach anybody that you want to in this day and age, it just takes a little bit of effort. And I remember making a comment to one of the DCS that we work with here in Michigan. And I said, you know, what astonishes me is every time I have a conversation with anybody in the chiropractic profession, it’s always fascinating. You know, they have different focuses, they have different ideas about how to treat. And yet, when I’m on the website, as a general consumer, I don’t Garner any of that. It looks like a website, it looks like a business. Okay, they can help me, but I’m not getting any of you as a human being. And I think, I think in my mind’s eye, I hope that as we continue to grow, and we continue to work with more and more DCs across the country, that in some way, we’ll be able to encourage both the exchange and the dissemination of all of these little areas of expertise, whether it’s on our YouTube channel, or whether it’s on our website, or, or a newsletter, some sort of a resource that will be able to help and both and encourage people to fire up that iPhone, because it takes a phenomenal video, and just throw it up there. It doesn’t have to be produced, it doesn’t have to be anything other than real. Because if you’re faking it, anybody can find out in 30 seconds now. So when they meet you, yeah, big time. So I think authenticity is what we what we’ve what we’ve really aimed for both in our marketing, the content that you see on our website, the content that you see in our videos, we just want to be us like, we’re human beings, just like you and anybody else that we work with. And that’s the way that we want to maintain the relationship as people. And we can use platforms to do that. So I’ve been a real student of how to use Instagram, how to use facebook, how to use their targeting, to just get the message out there and be able to communicate openly with people and kind

Justin Trosclair 31:01
of build some real and that’s how we got introduced Instagram.

Unknown 31:04
Yeah, you know,

Justin Trosclair 31:05
yeah, I think you like a hashtag. And then I said, this could be interesting. Check out a website, I like it, hey, let’s get you on the podcast, boom, ba boom. That’s the power of social media, if you’re not using it, the news?

Unknown 31:19
I think people are scared. I think it’s intimidating. You know, and, and I know it was for me.

Unknown 31:26
So but it’s funny, when you start to do it. It’s all of a sudden, not intimidating anymore, it becomes very simple.

Justin Trosclair 31:33
It’s just about communicating overly complicated, like when you listen to like a podcast, or somebody talking about all this deep strategies they go and so deep into it, that the minutiae does scare you. But look, just, it’s simple. You post the photo, describe it in hashtags, and then move on, you know, what are you offering in your clinic? So there’s lots of easy things you can do. And once you get familiar with that, then you can go deeper and deeper. But you just just start simple. Just put stuff out there a little it? Yeah, that’s my two cents, I guess. Yeah.

I think it’s good. I wish this kid with Stop screaming, can you hear that?

Let’s say that back and edit this out.

I mean, you probably have so much staff between the people who produce the phone, to the people who put it together and your office sales staff supports that. How do you find someone good? And go through that that process with me?

Unknown 32:29
Boy, that’s a that’s a great question. And I wish I had some deep philosophical answer for you and a great process that we go through. But we have really we don’t i don’t have that answer for you, I can tell you this, that we have been blessed is the only way that I can put it with unbelievable partners that have both introduced us to people as well as have amazing staffs themselves. You know, for example, the the mattress factory that manufacturers, the elements in the element, copper, they have been absolutely integral in designing everything at every step of the way. You know, every mattress, every element is handmade, so they aren’t so there’s not like a mountain of them sitting in a warehouse somewhere, they are all made by hand from start to finish. And the entire team of I think there’s 35 or 50 people there that that it takes to finish this. They’re incredible. I mean, they’re craftsmen, you know, but it also happens to be one of the oldest mattress plants in the country, it’s been a continuous operation since 1887. So you know, there’s 120 128

Unknown 33:39
years of, of knowledge inside those four walls that we were able to partner with, they happen to be right in our backyard, they happen to have the capability to manufacture and, and ship in a way that we needed to

Unknown 33:52
our fulfillment center is the brother of a good friend of mine, we’ve been friends for years. And it just so happened that they were moving into fulfillment as we were moving, as we were firing up element, Justin, I’ve just been really blessed at every turn to find the people that that really could do what we needed them to do. And they could do it in a way and at a level that I couldn’t find by just looking out there in the marketplace, you know, trying to find the partner. I hope that that continues, I hope that you know, as as, as we’re trying to be a valuable partner to others that that as we need things, you know, these people will all of a sudden show up. But I think it all boils down to dealing with people. I mean, I think that life is so fast now that we we oftentimes forget that everybody is just another person with a life very similar to ours with challenges that we have. And if you treat them that way, and if you interact with them, it’s really humid beings, it really is amazing how much benefit, mutual benefit comes from that type of a relationship. A great example is the lady that handles our social media, most of it, she is she she lives in Arkansas, so she’s not in our office here.

Unknown 35:17
She is probably one of the most emotionally intelligent people high on the EQ scale that I’ve ever met. We get compliments on the posts that she crafts and the things that she puts up on a fairly regular basis. Now they’re not for everybody. But she does a great job, you know, and she allows us to be people inside the company as opposed to a company that to quote Gary van der Chuck is always right, hooking somebody, you know, hey, hey, by the way, we sell mattresses, hey, by the way, we’ve got a website, hey, by the way, we’re running a sale. We all get tired of that, you know, we want we want to see things that make us feel good. It’s easy to find the negativity, we want to see things that make us feel good that make us think that make us realize that life isn’t as bad as CNN, MSNBC, or Fox News wanted us to believe last night when they ran all those stories about, you know, whatever it may have been, you know, we recently had the election and I mean, I, I’ve seen people that look like they’re about to jump off their deck, you know, because of things that are going on in politics. And I’m thinking, really, I mean, life is so awesome. How could you want to do that? You know, let’s, let’s focus on some good things here. And I think that

Unknown 36:32
I think we’ve just been blessed. I wish I had a more technical answer for you. But I think we’ve just been very, very fortunate in the partners that we’ve been able to find the let’s

Justin Trosclair 36:40
take us through Where’s what’s Bruce, what’s element going in five years? What’s your goals?

Unknown 36:47
That’s a great question. You know, I guess in my mind’s eye, I would like to be I would like element to become the go to resource for sleep, as it as it pertains to those sessions, July’s markets, you know, whether it’s chiropractors, physical therapists, I hope that we can create a community that contributes to it that can show us directions that we need to go give us the opportunity to find solutions that maybe don’t exist in the marketplace, or maybe exist in a different in a different manner. That’s my hope

Justin Trosclair 37:22
out that we can continue to ever feel like a company can have too many products.

Unknown 37:27
Yeah, you know what, I think? I think I’m a big believer of stay in your lane. You know, like, I mean, if we all of a sudden woke up one morning and thought, Hey, you know what we should get into orthotics.

Unknown 37:43
I would go now, wait a minute, you know, I don’t know anything about

Justin Trosclair 37:46
why he continues when there’s eight or 10 pillow choices.

I’m not, I’m not stocking eight pillows. I don’t care how good they are. That is too much. I’m not spending the money and didn’t have to like learn about all the nuances of every pillow talk just kind of how a manufacturer kind of born early stages, deals with that if it’s like a slow progression that they find people need or they’re just like, No, we’ve heard all these things are great. So we have to offer every style available.

Unknown 38:11
As tough. You know, if you want to find every style available, you can find it on Amazon and and your returns, they’re probably going to be simpler than anywhere else on the planet. pillows are really tough. mattresses are. mattresses are tough. I mean, look at so much of this stuff is personal preference. And there is no way for me to know what you think is firm or what I think is firm, soft, comfortable, not comfortable. We don’t know. So we’re really aiming for that middle 60%. There’s 20% that will love you no matter what you do. 20% that will hate you no matter what you do. And that middle 60% is with what we’re shooting for. It’s how we designed the mattresses. Pillows have been a recent topic of conversation almost daily. And it is intimidating because I haven’t found the pillow. I love Justin. I mean, how am I supposed? Are we supposed to come out with a pillow when I go to sleep at night? And I’m laying there thinking, Oh, I just can’t get comfortable. There are a million options out there. I know one of the chiropractor’s in Texas I was talking with the other day works with a company that that has, they already have like 100 products to choose from. And I asked him, I said, How do you do that? If somebody comes in and says, Hey, Doc, I need a pillow? How do you answer that question with with 100 choices, I

Justin Trosclair 39:32
got one better my favorite product line for nutrient universe supplements. They have a couple of products. It’s their flagship. And they’re like 100 bucks a bottle. And they’re very specialized. And I asked the salesperson is like, hey, so how do you what am I looking forward to try to sell this to somebody? And they barely even knew. I was like, Well, yeah, if you can’t tell me no, how am I supposed to sell this to somebody if it even if it is, you know, trademarked and all these fancy things in there. I mean, I’m confused.

Unknown 39:59
So anyway, I agree with you. I mean, I think that to the long term, the five year goal, one of it we we play with a lot of stuff here, I’ve been playing with a sleep tracker for the last five or six months. And it was a younger company actually found them on either Kickstarter, Indiegogo, love the product got it was really cool. I thought the app was cool, and thought there may be some applications. When it came to the chiropractic market as far as data, you know, to help patients.

Unknown 40:32
I’d love to be reviewing stuff like that. One of the things I don’t know, if you if you’re familiar with Tim Ferriss, I think most people are Yeah, one of the things that have made that amazes me about Tim is he’s like an ongoing experiment. You know, every podcast, I listened to every show by See, he’s doing something to himself, you know, in study. And I think we’d like to be that for sleep to a certain degree, because there is a panel sterilization, that paralysis by analysis type of idea where there are too many choices. How am I supposed to decide what to do with pillows and sleep trackers, fitness trackers, you know, sheets, toddlers, mattresses

Justin Trosclair 41:15
to toppers, pick your you know you like I don’t know, right? Yeah. same to me. I don’t know,

Unknown 41:22
right? That’s exactly right. That’s exactly right. I just want to be comfortable. I just don’t want to be in pain. That’s, that’s all I want. So it is tough. And I think it’s tough. Maybe that’s one of the reasons why, why so many docs don’t have a recommendation because they haven’t wanted to be in a position to make a choice. Or maybe they haven’t found something they love themselves.

Justin Trosclair 41:48
I get done, you know, and nobody wants that matches where you’re like, Hey, we can only make level your side of the bed because I weigh a little more and I got a dividend.

Unknown 41:58
Right? Yeah, you know, I it’s, I think there’s a lot, there’s a lot of sleep tech out there that never never sees the light of day. And, you know, we’re small enough and nimble enough that we want to start to play with that. Because if it’s not viable, in the eyes of a lot of the large companies doesn’t mean it’s not good. It just means they don’t want to stick the marketing money behind it to tell everybody about it. And with with partners, like all the offices that we work with, now, they don’t have to push it out to everybody, they’re talking to their patients about it. And if it addresses a particular issue they have, they have the conversation that don’t have to get somebody’s attention on Facebook to try and talk about it. So we want to play and hopefully, hopefully, we’ll be able to find solutions that are abused. But yeah, I do think companies can have too many products, I think that you need to stay in your lane, do what you’re good at, and and continue to always be better at it, which is what we’re trying to do.

Justin Trosclair 42:53
Let’s, if you don’t mind, move into a little bit more than those personal questions. This can know who gets to know who you are, and be authentic. So you’re an entrepreneur, I’m an entrepreneur, how much vacation Can you take? And how are you able to split that into your schedule? Because I’m sure if you’re running the show, all the questions got to come back to you if you’re on vacation, and something comes up. So how do you deal with that?

Unknown 43:17
That’s a great question.

Justin Trosclair 43:19
For early is a good answer to

Unknown 43:21
Yeah, well,

Unknown 43:23
I was trying to think of a nice way to put that. Yeah, I think I think, you know, as entrepreneurs, we we hear a lot about work life balance, family balance. And I don’t know that I’ve ever found a real balance. Because what I love about my life, is the flexibility to at three o’clock, go see my eight year old daughter’s play at school, better classes doing. But when I get home, I’ll make up for that later. And that flexibility, that freedom that that’s freedom to me, and I have a tremendous gratitude and appreciation for that flexibility.

Unknown 44:09
I don’t know that balance is there when when we’re running. I think that we I think that as entrepreneurs, we’re all running hard right now hoping that we’ll be able to take advantage of the time later. I think more than anything. For me what’s important is to try and be present, maybe it can’t be as much time, but to be present when I’m there to be engaged to not be the parent, or the dad, that is at the baseball game and is helping at the baseball game, but it’s constantly, you know, on his phone or talking, you know, if I’m there, I want to be there. Not that not that I don’t have to be that dad, sometimes because you’re running a company you have there are things that demand your time. But I want to engage I want you know, I want to time to talk with my spouse, I want time to sit down and have meaningful conversations with my kids. Because I think when I look back on, on on my life, my parents didn’t have balance.

Unknown 45:11
But when they went when they were there, and even to this day, when I’m with them, we’re engaged, it’s not watered down, its its intensity. And and it’s in it’s an exchange. And I think there’s an enormous amount of value in that as opposed to the diluted type of interactions that we often have now where it’s kind of surface conversation, because you’ve got, you know, you’re thinking about this out of the other thing that you’re going to do after you leave, I think it has more to do with quantity or quality rather than quantity. For me, that’s just

Justin Trosclair 45:43
an example of You said you had a daughter?

Unknown 45:46
I do and it says okay,

Justin Trosclair 45:47
so how how do you find time? And what does it What does being present me with like your kids versus your wife was like an actionable step that maybe you do you personally know that you do that they really appreciate?

Unknown 45:59
Oh, boy, for me, trying to find ways to you know, let their tenant eight. And if any, if you or anybody else has young children, you know, you see them after a day at school or after they’ve gone to do something nice. And your first instinct is to say, Did you have a good time? How was it expecting an answer? And all you get is I was great. I really nice. Yeah. You know, how was school today was great. Well, what does that mean? You know, I just try I’ve been I’ve been trying to ask them as many questions as I can to probe down into that, so that I can understand what’s actually going on in their head, so that I can engage them. And what I found is that if I come at them from a different angle, and I say something along after school, I’ll say, you know, it’s, it’s really great to see you, all of a sudden, the floodgates open up and I have to give credit to there’s a podcast called the good data project. And I happen to hear that on the podcast. And I thought you know what that, that sounds like it’s worth a try. I found that my kids open up and the drive back from school, which is about 25 minutes, it is a non stop one talking over the other telling me about their day. I love that. It’s amazing. You know, I think it has more to do. And I think life in general has more to do with the questions that we ask the quality of the questions that we ask, as opposed to the quality of the things that we say. So that’s what I try to fall back. Great answer.

Justin Trosclair 47:33
It resonates with me. So last couple questions here. Any kind of morning routine that you do that, or even at lunch, whatever, they get you grounded or excited for the rest of the day?

Unknown 47:44
Yeah, I’m not.

Unknown 47:47
I’m a guy that needs to be told what to do. I mean, that’s really that’s really what I think maybe that’s why I ended up being an entrepreneur. But I’ve tried morning routines, I’ve tried every everything I’ve read in books and and I haven’t been able to find something that I fell in love with so much that I can stick with it. What I can tell you is that what I find to be most effective for me is when I opened my eyes in the morning, if I can lay there for even 10 seconds, and find two or three things to be grateful for. and really think about those, it sets my mind in a different place than waking up in the morning and just kind of starting to run.

Unknown 48:33
I think it has,

Unknown 48:36
I think it has a therapeutic effect on my soul, if you will, to find something to be happy about. As opposed to kind of responding to whatever comes in, you know, the minute the phone goes on, or the minute that, you know, I stub my toe on the bone, that dog left in front of the bedroom door or any of that stuff, I think it allows me to take control of at least the startup my day of the launch of my day. And so you know, working out in the morning obviously is great. It certainly is a is a wonderful way to start today and really kind of ignited to me to go. But

Unknown 49:12
I don’t always have time for that. There are people who are listening, or we’re going to go, you just need to make time for that. And I under I get that I totally get that. But life is crazy. And to wake up in the morning. That’s the one thing that I can that I know I can always do every morning, that will put me at least in a place that I get to be in control of my day, I get to be the thermostat instead of a thermometer, you know, I get to control the temperature as opposed to just responding to everything all too. Absolutely.

Justin Trosclair 49:45
I got in trouble with my wife the other day, woke up and the first thing to do is check my phone.

Kiss me first.

Unknown 49:55
Right? Are we all guilty of that? I mean, look, we lived through these things. Now. You know, it’s amazing to me. I don’t know what the demographic specifically is of the podcast. But being 43 years old. I remember the very first conversation I had with somebody in 1992 about this thing called the internet. He was like man, if you ever have you ever been on this, he was going into computer programming. And I was like, What are you talking about? And I’ll never forget thinking that’s never going to take off.

Unknown 50:28
And now here we are, you know, 25 years later and this year? You know, we’re kind of living I heard somebody say yesterday, we’re already living in somewhat of an augmented reality or virtual reality because we live we view our entire life and the lives of others through the screen that would carry on our hip. Yeah. So maybe it’s maybe it’s, it’s like Pavlov’s dog. You know, the minute you wake up the phones just sitting there and it kind of it’s like a bell ringing that your mouth starts to salivate. You just have to pick it up. But I think we’ve all become conditioned for that. So

Justin Trosclair 51:00
you see here in 30 here you like a lot of misc notifications.

Unknown 51:05
I’d like to see that before I get my coffee.

Unknown 51:07
Right.

Unknown 51:09
Yeah, that’s right.

Justin Trosclair 51:11
Do you have you mentioned one podcast? Let’s talk about books, podcasts, even like your favorite phone app that you wouldn’t say that you really go to or you know that you just really like instead that you might recommend to to listeners?

Unknown 51:26
Yeah, yeah. Let me start with podcasts. Okay, I’ve become somewhat of a ravenous consumer of podcasts in the last, I would say 18 months. Because the ability to leverage the expertise of others is is a wonderful thing. And I think that’s one of the advantages we have now. My favorite podcasts and these are not necessarily podcasts that are going to appeal to everybody but my my favorite podcast is a podcast called the mF CEO project. And, and I’ll just you can check it out. It’s there’s a fair amount of language in the podcast, but as a podcast on by a man by the name of Andrew Andy for Sela

Unknown 52:10
who runs a supplement company out of St. Louis. And, you know, I find that podcast to be very grounding and very real. It’s one of the few entrepreneurial podcasts that is not

Unknown 52:23
fluffy, and all sunshine, and very nuts and bolts. And and I appreciate that. Because I think there’s very little of that out there. I think there’s a lot of people trying to sell a course off of you know, or, or trying to sell something in the podcast and using the podcast as leverage as opposed to making the podcast, a standalone benefit, just to throw something good out into, you know, into into mankind.

Unknown 52:48
I also listened to Gary van der Chuck a lot. I think that he is he’s one of those guys that seems to have not only an idea of where things are going, but he’s living in it, his business thrives in it. And then some others that I listened to. I listened to Tim Ferriss occasionally. We talked about him a little bit ago. I happen to love. There’s a new podcast out it’s about 10 minutes long, and it’s by Mike Rowe.

Unknown 53:15
Yeah, it’s it’s called. Is it the way I heard it? Yeah, it is. It is cold. Yeah, it’s fun. That’s the way I heard it. Yeah, I mean, you know, and and I listen to the story about how he created it. I have a lot of respect from micros human being. But he said he was really trying to continue Paul Harvey, the rest of the story. And I love the rest of the story. I worked in radio years ago, and one of the stations that I worked at was this am station where I had to run that and I was just glued, you know, always listening, trying to figure out what he was talking about. My kids love, love that podcast, they like to listen to it at night before they go to bed. They love all the stories trying to figure out who he’s talking about, then so I think those are probably my my top podcasts. And

Justin Trosclair 53:57
I was like my memory of Paul Harvey was driving on a 17 mile bridge straight bridge going to Baton Rouge on a country to morning station, go and see a family member. That’s how I always remember.

Unknown 54:11
bored out of my mind on that, yes, as a kid, you know, to tie it in to your audience, Justin, I would say, in pod in the in the world of podcasts. from a marketing standpoint, especially, there’s so much value that can be extracted out of so many of those podcasts, whether it’s methodology and applications and software that you can use, or if it’s just the idea of which way to start to look which platforms, you know, are the best ones to tackle right now. I’ve gotten a lot of benefit out of random podcasts, their marketing over coffee is really, really interesting.

Unknown 54:53
It is a little, it’s a little heavy for me. I mean, they release guys are deep into AI and you know, the future of marketing as it looks. And so I can feel a little overwhelmed after listening to it. But they really do a great job of making an understandable and so I think, you know, for the benefit of the audience, from a marketing standpoint, because that’s what we’re all engaged in, that is a great place to go shoot that, you know,

Justin Trosclair 55:23
to be honest, that’s where I learned. I’m not saying my podcast is a is up there with some of the greats. But the key elements in the show and how us put it together, how I learned stuff is listening to other podcasts. And like even the questions a lot of the way I format this is because I feel like the ones I was listening to don’t ask these types of questions. I mean, how many people get divorced? You know, they’re entrepreneurs, they gain the world, they lost their family. And that’s why we we ask these types of questions. And then of course, you know, any books?

Unknown 55:50
Go? Yeah. So I read a lot of books. I’m in the middle of a few of them right now all surrounding marketing and things like that. But here’s here’s a book that I would have I recommend.

Unknown 56:02
One is a book called The third the third circle theory. Excellent, excellent book really about kind of self awareness and and how to continue to foster that inside yourself. Probably my go to book all the time. That’s on my nightstand is a book called The butterfly effect. And it’s not the movie that everybody thinks about from the late 90s. or whenever that came out. It is written by

Unknown 56:33
he’s got a few other books and I can almost think of his name. We were just talking about him last night. He has another book called a notice or and all great books, but we want the No sir. No, sir. Yeah, and the show notes. I can look it up later. Okay. Yeah. Great book. AND and OR MD Anderson, I think is his name. Okay. Excellent, excellent book, it’s a short read, it takes about 15 or 20 minutes, and you will walk away from the book, realizing that even though we all have those days, when we walk through things, that we’re making zero impact on the world itself, that we have no idea just how deep our actions will ring out, you know, over the course of time, excellent, excellent, fantastic.

Justin Trosclair 57:11
Anything else? Now I’ll leave I have a hug people find you. What’s your contact, they want to reach out,

Unknown 57:17
they can find us on Facebook at element mattress is where they’ll find us on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook, love to have interaction. And so they can also email me support at element mattress how doctors

Justin Trosclair 57:32
if they want to get involved with your I guess you don’t know, if it’s called affiliate are just did that to sell it in their office? Is there a special way to get involved with it? You know,

Unknown 57:41
there’s a landing page that covers the the generals of it. It’s it’s separate from the website, and that the web address is copper, like the metal co PP er, Doc element mattress, com, they can find out information there or they can just email me. But I’ll lot of the contact that we get comes through that that particular landing page because they can go there, they can read about it, they can leave their email address if they want to get some additional information and we’ll send it over to them.

Justin Trosclair 58:09
So just reach out.

Unknown 58:10
Yeah, and and we’re so far we work with our we working with chiropractors, both in the United States and Canada. So anywhere they’re located, we I’m sure we can get a ship there.

Justin Trosclair 58:20
Man, that’s fantastic. Well, I have loved this interview. Really appreciate your time and being open and honest about relationships and the background of the story of the element mattress and learning so much about a quality matters and how you actually discovered all these new phones. I mean, that’s there’s so much there’s so much behind the scenes that we don’t know about when you present a product. So I really enjoyed going deeper.

Unknown 58:44
Thank you so much, Justin, I really appreciate it. I feel like I kind of drawn down for an hour. And I hope that wasn’t the case. I hope there’s some value for people to get out of there. But thanks so much for having me.

Justin Trosclair 58:57
Bruce, you did great. You brought a lot of knowledge. Thank you so much authenticity, being present with your kids being present with your spouse, asking follow up questions, learning about the copper matches, that’s something I need to go and explore a little more look at the research. Here’s one of my passions is learning about other businesses and appreciate the that that niche that you kind of created for yourself about trusting the the doctors who see people day in and day out, experience it themselves kind of know what they’re looking for. And then just kind of doubling down and knowing that that’s going to be a good way to test your market. So I really appreciate you being so open today, given us such good advice. And definitely check out his website, copper dot element matches com. All the show notes of course will have this at a doctor’s perspective. NET slash one for Remember, we’re entrepreneurs, our schedules should be somewhat flexible. use those to maximize your time with your family. As always, travel tips coming up.

They’re ready paperback Kindle versions are available on Amazon. As always, you can also snag a free copy if you’d like a doctor’s perspective net slash free ebook today’s choices tomorrow’s health small steps to improve health food choices and exercise learn how to go from a couch potato or a weekend warrior and have simple steps kind of personalized just for you three different blueprints for exercise how to cut some cars without hurting yourself a couple of changes in what and how you eat so that there’s not a lot of extra willpower and self control necessary to reduce how much you eat 12 exercises a 10 minute cardio that’s better than 30 minutes, three minutes stretching concept that won’t make you roll your eyes and boredom an AB routine you won’t quit exclusive Facebook support group yes and an entire section about a nervous system reboot discusses chiropractic civilizations and things like that look, if you want it again, a doctor’s perspective. NET slash free ebook it has a video explaining what it is a little PowerPoint presentation and then and put your name, put your email and then you can make a choice. If you want to support the show. We have merchandise. We’ve got Upper Cervical chiropractic t shirts, we’ve got podcast logo, t shirts, mugs, hoodies, as well as a generous by the host the coffee PayPal button if you want to know pressure.

If you want to follow me on social media, the easiest way to find me is to go to a doctor’s perspective. NET look on the top right, it’s kinda gray color has all a little social media icons. If you need to email me, I would love to hear your comments, critiques, etc. Justin at a doctor’s perspective, net Connect comment and I’ll reply back and if you can go to iTunes, go to Stitcher, wherever it is that you listen to this podcast, go to the site, give us a review. Hopefully a five star review. Let us know what you think it’ll help us with all the rankings and we appreciate it. And if you happen to get any merchandise, definitely take a picture posted on social media hashtag behind the curtain or you can do at whatever my tag is. And I’ll definitely give you thumbs up.

travel tip here we go. Try to get lost and then find your way home. Obviously don’t want to go into a scary area of town and end up in the dark shadows and get mugged

but just going into an area Oh man, where’s the map? I forgot? Oh, no, turn around. I’m in a really cool neighborhood. It seems okay, go explore. You can always grab a taxi or ask somebody for help. Right? I remember one time I was in Thailand there in one of the military coops. Anyway, I was walking. And then I had some guys like kind of say something. I don’t know what they’re saying. Well, I’ll walk another block. And I see all these x pieces of wood with Bob wire circled all around it. And I’m like, Oh my goodness, I’m exactly where I should not be, too I turn around actually ran back was like, so it’s kind of scary. But it was fine. You know,

got out of there, took a left. And then actually found some foreigners and we try to figure out how to get where we needed to go. Because I did get lost. And yeah, so anyway, I was OK. And it was a good time. It was a great trip and I walked a lot that day, I think 30,000 steps.

Unknown 1:03:16
All right, y’all have a good week.

Justin Trosclair 1:03:20
We just went hashtag behind the curtain and this episode has come to an end. I hope you got the right dose for your optimal life. Please spread the word about this podcast by telling to friends, share it on social media and visit the show notes on a doctor’s perspective. net to see all the references from today’s guest is sincere thank you in advance. Even listening to Dr. Justin trust Claire giving you a doctor’s perspective.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai