Success Stories with Marshall Atkinson

Success Stories Ep 62 - "Act Like a Fly on the Wall"

February 08, 2023 Season 3 Episode 62
Success Stories with Marshall Atkinson
Success Stories Ep 62 - "Act Like a Fly on the Wall"
Show Notes Transcript

One mark of success is how you inspire or help other people on this planet. On today's Success Stories podcast, we'll chat with King Tilley about his life's journey has helped him focus on giving back to the world.

 Buckle up and get ready for a moving and inspirational journey that also has a business edge to it too

Marshall Atkinson  0:06 
Welcome to Success Stories brought to you by S&S Activewear. I'm your host, Marshall Atkinson. And this is the podcast that focuses on what's working so you can have success too. A hallmark of success is inspiring or helping others. Today, we'll chat with King Tilly about his life journey and how it's helped him focus on giving back to the world. Get ready for a moving and inspirational journey with a business edge. So, King, welcome to the Success Stories podcast.

King Tilley  0:47 
Thank you for having me, sir. I'm honored.

Marshall Atkinson  0:51 
Yes, I think it's going to be a really fun show. I haven't met you in person, but I think we've crossed paths. I see you everywhere on social media, always doing things, mainly outdoors like hiking and lifting weights. You show a passion for life and the industry, and I thought, "That's the guy I need on the podcast." I think it's going to be a really fun story.

King Tilley  1:22 
Yes, I remember you mentioning something that caught my attention. And I mean, even I would have said yes to you anyways, and you asked to do the podcast, you did something special that stood out to me. You sent a personalized video in your email. I was sitting on the couch with my wife when I received the email. I opened it and saw the video and was like, "No way." You were talking directly to me and my wife was sitting next to me. It was a surreal moment, to be honest. Two years ago, nobody really knew who I was, even though I owned my own shop and was doing the social media thing, making cool videos and running my press. But I was still offering value. Fast forward two years, I'm being invited on podcasts by industry leaders, and it's really cool.

Marshall Atkinson  2:22 
Thank you for the compliment. That's really fun. And this is why I want you on the show. If you think about it, things change. I think, from my own marketing and journey, what really makes an impact is consistency. It's showing up every day, not worrying about what other people say. I don't care what people say about me, I just do my own thing. Right? And that's exactly what you do. You're on your journey, you're doing it every day, and you're showing your truth. That's authentic, which puts you in the forefront of the industry. Because I think a lot of people fake it. Right? And that's not you. You're like, "Here's me, imperfect. Let me show you all my flaws, and you'll love me." And that's why I like about you. Thank you. Okay, cool. So I've got some questions. Are you ready to get going? Yes, sir. All right. So I want to start with your origin story. Maybe not everyone listening really knows who you are or anything, so I want to take everyone back to the early days and why you originally started a clothing brand. So I want you to go all the way back to that and then walk us through that early part of your career.

King Tilley  3:42 
Okay, well, this is actually kind of a crazy story. I didn't just start screen printing one day or anything like that. In retrospect, when I look back at my life and some of the things I was doing when I was a kid, I was already doing what I'm doing now. What I mean by that is, when I was probably 12 or 13, I had this little computer with maybe 500 MB of RAM. It was just a little dinky computer and had a program on it called Microsoft Paint. I would open it up and make T-shirts using the line tools available on the program. Then, I would go on the internet and find images I liked, crop them, and put them onto my T-shirt templates. I thought, "Man, I think that looks cool." And so, I started doing that early on when I first started using a computer. Then, I took an art class in high school. I was so serious about taking this class that I had to take a zero period and be there before school started. We had an assignment in that class where we had to create a stencil for a T-shirt.

And at the time I was really into breakdancing and so I made these three characters in these three different breakdance moves on a shirt. They were just stencil form, and I don't We remember how we made the screen or the stencil that that part I don't remember. But I just remember printing it on the shirt and having the shirt that I created with my little breakdancer guys on it. And I was like, This is amazing, you know. And then fast forward. Another probably five years from that point is when I was strung out on drugs, and I was homeless, pretty much I was sleeping on someone's couch was a futon they had in a garage, they had a three car garage that was separated by a wall. And so the single car garage is where I slept in, in the corner with spiders on this futon. And I remember, my buddy who actually lived at the house came into that room, or the will the garage room that I was in. And he's like, man, you want to start a clothing company. And I remember I vividly remember this I was laying there.

 And I think I was playing Mario Brothers on the Nintendo or something like the original Nintendo. And I look over and I was like, man, anything is better than this, like anything. And let's do it, you know. So what we did was he knew a graphic designer who was a skateboarder who lived in Riverside, California, which was about 30 minutes away from us. So we would go pick the skateboarder up, bring him back to Moreno Valley where we were. And then we would sit there and say, Alright, this is what we see, make it digital. So we would tell them all these designs we had in mind. And my buddy was a tattooer. So he understood art really well. And then I just had an imagination. So the two of us combined, we were able to articulate these really cool designs, and then that guy was able to manifest them in a digital form. And so we started making this like off the wall stuff. And we were like, Okay, so now, how do we get it on shirts? Like, how does that work? You know, and so we started doing some research. And at this time, YouTube was it. You know, I don't even think Ryan Moore was even doing his videos at this time.

Marshall Atkinson  6:45 
This was that far back. He was still in a band.

King Tilley  6:49 
Probably this was a long time ago, like I want to say like 18 years, maybe 17 years ago, something like that. And so we started doing some research, and we end up in Irvine, California, or like Orange County, California, somewhere out there. And we run into this place that sells what was it's called a TeeJet. And it was a red DTG machine, it was just like a standalone thing had a printhead that just moved back and forth over the pallet. And it could only do like a small image even smaller than what I'm wearing right now, which is probably I don't know, 13 inches wide by four inches tall. But the image itself that the DTG was capable of like the area was really small. And I was like man, like with the designs that we made earlier, I was like there's no way that we were trying to go from basically color to the scene like all the way the whole shirt, we wanted to print the whole thing. So what we did was we took it back to the house. And the first thing I did was go to Home Depot and I bought some plexiglass and I created a bigger palette for it. Because it only came with a small palette. So I created this new palette, then I adjusted the printheads to compensate for the amount of the height or the thickness of that Plexiglas I laid it over their original palette. So I offset that. And then I went into the software and I manipulated the software to put my design in a bigger area. And then I was like, Alright, I did everything I think I'm supposed to do. Let me just try it. And then granted, this is like a $30,000 machine we were just experimenting with. And I push start. And it did the entire shirt. And I was like no freakin way. Like it worked.

Marshall Atkinson  8:18 
You jailbroke Scott Fresnos TeeJet? Is that what it was? So Scott, right, who does T SEPs t jet was his vision. And he's like the really kindly or origin of the direct to garment printer. And I remember the t jet came out. I saw that. Back then the big show wasn't Long Beach. It was the ISIS tamper show. But that's just an amazing story. And I think, you know, that type of mechanical prowess is reason why you're doing what you didn't rally. I'm sure that feeds into it.

King Tilley  8:50 

It's just naturally tinkering with things. Yeah, right.

Marshall Atkinson  8:53  
So what happened, then you printed this awesome design all over the shirts? Did you sell them? What happened with that?

King Tilley  9:00 

Okay, well, this is phase two of that operation. So now that we were able to manifest the product, so now we have ideas, we went from, basically conception, and then now we have to the point where it's ready for consumption. So we have the product, we have the images on the shirts, and then it was like, Okay, what does the branding look like? We didn't understand branding and marketing at all. Granted, we're 2021 years old at this time. We didn't understand how that stuff work. So we just kind of mimicked what we saw, like on MySpace with like, popular clothing, brands and celebrities. There was a boost mobile, I don't remember if you remember that that company was Malay. So they were like early in that timeframe. They were really, really popular. The chirping phones and flip phones was cool at the time. And I remember seeing all these ads of like celebrities endorsing these phones. So what I would do is I would do a photo shoot of myself I had a boost mobile phone, and I would do a photo shoot. And I would take that photo, and I would make it look exactly like the boost mobile ads like I was endorsing that. So I'd be wearing our T shirts in these ads. So I would mimic popular ads that already knew we're working. And then I would just kind of copy what they would do. And it was like this unique thing that I did that stood out. I also had a really big network at the time, I was really popular, sad to say, but I sold drugs in my early 20s. That's kind of why I got stuck in that situation in the first place. And so I became really popular because I was that guy that always had everything. And I was always in the party scene. So a ton of people knew who I was just from that alone. And so when we started promoting a product, they naturally were just buying it and wearing it. And it was in Hollywood, it was everywhere. It's everywhere that I was my brand was everywhere. So we were able to gain traction that way. And then I just understood, we started paying attention to the branding and the marketing. And so we just started doing that just like really making unique ads and standing out. And then so we were selling all of our shirts for E commerce. So we didn't have anything in store. And a lot of people were saying, hey, how do we just buy the stuff in store because they didn't want to always have to come to us for everything. So we started looking into how that works. And so what we did was we created like a brochure, or like a wholesale packaging, like basically showing our designs, blah, blah, blah. And then what we did was we got one of those rolling hanger things, you know, where you can put all the shirts on it with a zipper like a vinyl thing that went over it with a zipper just to make it look really nice. We had custom made hangers with our logos printed on him. And then we took all over designs, and we would roll into the mall with our packet and our rolling t shirt thing. And we'd roll into the stores and just pull the owner out of the back office and have a meeting right then and there. That's how we knew how to do it. Literally through the mall and rolling with a rolling rack of shadows.

Marshall Atkinson  11:48 
So awesome. I can't tell you how many people that I talked to their sales staff is scared, right? They're scared of making the call. They're scared of cold calling. And it's because it's the fear of rejection King, you know that. And you're just let's go we're gonna barge in with our tank through the door, and you're going to meet with us?

King Tilley  12:11 
Well, exactly, that's how I've done a lot of things in my life. It's like, look, if I want something, we're going to figure it out. And we're not going to say sorry, none of that. It's just like, let's say we're at a concert, right? And you want to be front row, but you got all these people that are standing in your way. And like, let's say you're in the middle of the crowd, and you want to be in the front, I'm just going to force myself to the front. That's just how I operate. I'm just gonna move people out of my way and get what I want. I want the good seats, I want to see what's up front, if anything, let me get my stuff on stage to if I can. So that's kind of like the mindset is just like just, I don't need to worry, I'll respectfully move people out of my way to get where I need to go. That's just how I operate. So with that we wanted to get in the stores, we wanted to start having our brand be taken more serious. We wanted our posters in the windows at the store with our clothes on it and all that cool stuff. So we were like, how do we do this? And we just asked a few people that we knew. They said, Men, this is kind of how it works. And so we just bum rushed it. And so we go into the stores, and we're talking to these owners, and it's like, we love your product. You guys are doing something new, something unique. These designs are rad. What's wholesale, I was like, Well, right now we have the shirts at like $16 wholesale, and they could have literally spit coffee out of their mouth. You know if they were drinking at that moment, because they were so insulted that I said I was wholesaling my shirts for $16. And I was like, What do you mean, they're like, Dude, we paid like $8 or less for the shirts, every shirt that's in the store. And I'm like $8 I was like, Dude, it cost me more just to make this shirt. You know, I mean, like, because the ink of DTG at the time, I'm sure it's still expensive. And everything that goes into it, we got some really good blanks. I was hand sewing those little logos or the labels on the bottom, we had neck tags we had Dude, we did everything, we touched all bases. And I was like, There's no way bro, like, there's no way that I can let these go for that much like I would be paying you to put my stuff in your store at that point. I was like, that's not gonna work. So we decided, let's go back to the drawing board. Let's figure this out. And so we've cut the E commerce stuff going but we really wanted to get into stores. So then I started doing some more research and I come across this technique where you just push in through a stencil, and it puts ink on the shirt and you just create like a negative image into a positive image. And I'm like, Okay, are you mean screenprint? And so I started seeing I'm like, What is this shit? And I'm like, I see all this stuff. I was like, how are they wholesaling? $8 to you How is that even possible? And then I think that's where he said that they're screenprinting and I think that that's when I started doing my research on that part. And then I find out about screen printing. And then we go and we buy like this manual press. It was a blue one. I don't remember the brand. I think it was like four to six colors. Four to six stations something like that. And little dryer and again, there's no YouTube at this time. There's no right More say, Hey, this is how you put in motion on screen and exposing does so I have to just go by whatever the suppliers are saying like, alright, yeah, just do it like this or do it like that. And so I'm testing, beta testing and stuff and nothing's working. And then eventually what I do is I find a screenprint shop with this guy that ended up being a mentor to me for a while, and he would burn my screens for me. So I would go there with my art, he would burn the screens for me, charge me for it, all that good stuff. And then I come back with good screens. And so I did that for a while, until I learned how to burn screens. And then at that time, I was getting further and further invested into printing. And my partner was like, his work ethic was going the opposite direction. So I was getting up at 5am, every day, crushing my day, and he would wake up because he was a tattoo artist, you know, they run by a different schedule than most people, he gets up at noon, one o'clock in the afternoon, you know, and I'm like, Dude, I've already been up six, seven hours doing this, this, this, this, this, this, this naming off a whole checklist of things. And I'm like, I can't keep pulling all the weight. And you just roll out of bed, whenever you feel like it's a start helping out. I was like, it ain't gonna work like that. And so what I did was I started a secondary brand, this was all me, I took all the data that I learned from the first brand that I built with my partner, and I just applied it in a much faster timeframe. So all the lessons basically, everything that I had learned at that point, boom, I redid it again, really fast. And I gained traction really fast. And my website was doing good things. I have photo shoots and sponsorships. And I was moving forward. And I was screen printing now. So now I was able to get my stuff in the store is at a wholesale cost. And he pulled me aside one day he's like, Look, dude, this is a conflict of interest, man, like you're giving all your energy to this new brand. And you're like giving less to this. And I was like, Yeah, because I'm doing all the work over here for you to gain everything from it. I was like, that's not fucking cool, man. So I'm gonna go ahead and give my same energy to my own project. And the hours that I invest in the time that I invest is I'm going to reap the benefits, not other people. And so he was like, well, then you gotta get out of here, dude. And I was like, Cool. Overnight, I had to figure out where to place all my screen printing equipment. And my mom happened to be a manager at electrical supply warehouse in Riverside, California. And she's like, Dude, I got a little back corner, where we have some scrap wire, you could just go back there and set yourself up over there. And so she loaned me her box truck for the company, I pulled up to his house, pulled everything out, loaded up. And I went on MySpace, and I just started marketing myself on there to do jobs for other people. And so I was putting other people's stuff while simultaneously building my brand. And then I got myself into a warehouse. Once I had my own space, that's kind of where like, everything kind of took off for me.

Marshall Atkinson  17:39 
And then eventually, you made the jump for the men are prestone Otto, so talk about the story about how that happened. And what you learned from that experience, because I think a lot of people go through that uncertainty. And then you know, like, because it's a big investment and like, you know, everybody's scared. And then, but nobody ever goes back to Ron just a manual. No, like, yeah, that leap of faith, right? So kind of talk about that.

King Tilley  18:06 
Okay, so this is when I decided that I wasn't going to do a clothing brand. And I was going to do a business where I was going to do business to business transactions. So we're I'm praying for the local community, you know, all the events pretty much well, printers do now. So when I converted from printing my own stuff to printing for other people, I went into that business with the same tenacity as I did with branding my own clothing brand. And so I was like, you know, how do I dominate my sector, my area. So I did all the same techniques I use before that worked really well to gain popularity, got that, with that came a lot of work, because everyone knew who I was at that point. So I was manually printing for a very long time. And I was standing at the press for like 18 hours a day, I would say six to seven days a week to the point of where like, I didn't even see my kids anymore. It was getting pretty bad. And I was like, Dude, I got to scale up. I can't do this. There's no way. And so I started looking in. I knew Ryan Moore at that time. And so I knew that he started moving towards the rock direction. And so I started looking into the auto presses. And obviously a bill that big was kind of intimidating, you know. And so we flew down to California to Long Beach. This was like 2019 when they had like the really big one. I think sublime was there playing and tone, whatever. MoGraph guy, whatever his name is Mark McGrath, or Yeah, it was there at that time. That's when I originally met Ryan in person. And then I got familiar with the press and I got to see how it actually works. I had never seen one in person. And so I went back to the shop after that, and we knew it had to happen, and we made it happen. What's crazy, is I bought my auto privately. I didn't buy it through rock. So I flew out to California to go buy it myself or to go disassemble it myself. When I was in Idaho at the time. I flew to Central California was in Sacramento flew to California with a bag of tools, not knowing what I needed to even disassemble this thing. I literally had a duffel bag with a bunch of rocks Some tools in it. I go, I walk into this guy's shop and he's like, Yeah, this is it. Where's your rock tech? Is he gonna come disassemble it and move. It was like, No, I'm here to do it. And he was like, Do you know how to do this? And I was like, No. And so I just started looking at the press. I'm like, Okay, that looks like that does that that looks like it does that. Okay, this is a hinge point. Okay, these wires plug in right here. Okay, I see the air goes in right there. And I just disassembled it what I thought was the right way, put it in the moving truck, drove it up to Idaho and reassembled at my shop the same day. Yeah, I got to the shop at like 2am and build that thing by like three or four. And then it sat in my shop for months for like two months, because I was so scared. I didn't know how to use it. I had no idea what to do. I just built it. And I was like, I don't even know how this thing works. And so I remember my buddy on the gym next door, and he comes over one day. He's like, Hey, man, you use auto yet. And I was like, Nah, man, he goes, Richard, stop being a bitch, I expect you to have this thing running by the end of today. I was like, Damn, that was exactly what I needed to hear. So I go back through the screen. And this was an auto screen, there were different from the manual screens, I was used to trying to figure out how to lock this thing in and bring the printhead down and make it work. And the first print I did was so bad. I think I even popped the screen, the first one I did. And I was like, There's no way I'm gonna figure this out. To be honest with you, I don't even know how I figured it out. I just started playing with him playing with him playing with it. And eventually stuff started making sense. But I'll tell you what, the only thing that was scary about the auto for me was the price. And obviously not knowing how to use it. Nowadays, people don't really operate like I did, where you're just buying stuff out of nowhere and not knowing how to use it. You buy it from rock, they have a tech come out and they train you how to use it the right way the first time. Aside from the money part that was the only other part that was scary to me was learning how to use it. So at the end of the day, once I got it figured out, that was the greatest investment I ever made when it came into my business. Because all it did was magnify my sales. I don't know why. But when I put that thing in my shop, it's like things 10x It was so crazy. I've always heard the saying, you build it and they will come. This was one of those things in that exact scenario. I have multiple cases where people the exact same thing has happened, where people were scared to get this auto in their shop, they got it and all of a sudden, without telling the world that they got it, all of a sudden their sales are just spiking through the roof. I think that there's an energy that happens subconsciously, that you now know that you are able to have a higher capacity available to you. And just naturally the universe gives you those things because you know you're ready

Marshall Atkinson  22:32 

for them. So do be clear. You bought your press use from somebody, which is the reason why you didn't get the support that rock always gives folks right? I mean, just want to make sure people understand like you did it on your own. It wasn't like rock let you down.

King Tilley  22:50 

Yes, 100% rock had no idea. I bought it. Okay, I didn't know anybody rock at the time. All I knew was Ryan. And he was still kind of Ryo net at the time, you know, kind of merging with rock at the time. So this was like during that transition period, so he was still really new to the rock presses. And so he was my only resource, right? But he gave me every technicians number and I would call him like man, I don't know what this is. I don't know what this is, and the rock team would help me and I wasn't even a customer of theirs. They had no idea who I was. They were just like they just knew this guy bought a rock press privately and they still supported me. They still spent hours on the phone with me when I needed.

Marshall Atkinson  23:27 
Like what you hear so far. Be sure to subscribe so you can get the latest from Success Stories. And now here's Zach shortly with her S&S Spotlight if your

Commercial  23:37 
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Marshall Atkinson  24:11 

And so you're running your auto you're doing great things. But eventually we kind of moved into brokering jobs out so like, let's talk about that for a little bit. And then what you've learned along the way about that?

King Tilley  24:24 

Um, well with that situation. I didn't stop printing because I wanted to, we were kind of forced out of our business. Because we had gotten into a situation where we were exposing a group of people for abusing children, like multiple locations. It was a daycare that was just abusing kids left and right. When we found out about it, we brought it to the police attention. They were like, Oh, well, there's nothing we can do. It's gonna this investigation could take up to 18 months. Now like 18 months. Imagine what's going to happen to these kids in the next 18 months, bro like That's unacceptable. I was like you got to do something now like something has to happen right? and they refuse to move an inch. And I was like, alright, well, then I'm gonna bring light to the situation, I'm going to hold court in the streets. So I decided to get on my social media. And I explained what I knew was happening at the building next door to us the business next door to us. And out of nowhere, I think that video got like 1000s and 1000s of views, like right away, like it went crazy. And then all of these people were coming forward with their stories from their children being at these facilities and the things that they endured, and then going to the police department and the police fire and doing nothing about it over and over and over, probably at least 100 cases. I was like, Oh, wow. And I knew somebody at the news station. So I called them. I said, Hey, we got this story. They were like, we'll be right there. So they came down, we do a news thing about it. It gets blown up even bigger. Now. We got even more parents coming forward with their stories. It got so much attention. It will always was weird. To me. It was the police vote, were fighting against me the entire time. Like don't do this. Don't speak up, stop doing this, like, let us take care of it. And I'm like, Dude, you guys don't do anything. You guys are doing literally nothing. If anything, you're enabling this to happen. I was like, I told you, I was going to take care of this if you weren't going to. And just like I do anything else. I bum rush the stage. And I took care of what I had to take care of. And it was like no, who telling everybody the flood is coming. Listen, these people are hurting your children don't go there. And so these people come to find out had family ties all throughout the police department and through the state because it was this money hustle because they were just taking money from parents from the government because they were taking low income families. And they were taking just government checks from every kid that would come through the door. So they were cramming as many kids as they could in there. They had teachers that were there that weren't even remotely capable of doing that job. They had zero emotional maturity. They couldn't handle kids screaming. So they're hitting these kids or putting them in dark rooms. They it was bad, bro, it was so bad. And so I'm gonna shorten this story. We started getting attacked by the police department, they pulled up in front of my shop, they scrambled my phone, they scrambled the phone of my main witnesses, they tried to break into our home, it got to the point of where there was death threats that were being passed back and forth. So much so that Ryan Moore sent me a bulletproof vest that I was driving around with every day. And this was going on for months. And I'm driving around with my AK with me, I had my hand gun on my hip. My wife has guns on her. Anybody who's traveling with us has guns. It was that bad. It was that bad that it was literally we were at war in our city between the police department myself and these people. And so one day, we're sitting in the shop, I had just hired some new people, I was training them on breaking down screens, cleaning screens organizing shop. At that time, I'm also putting the job. So I'm standing at the manual press and I was printing a test print, and my wife pulls up to the front of the shop. It was a rainy day. And she said, Hey, I need to talk to you right now come out here. So I go out in front of the shop. We're sitting directly in front of the shop and further to the business doors of students like opening doors. We're sitting right in there in the suburban, we're talking and this guy with a hoodie on. He's looking through the window of my shop, like through the glass door, got like try not to be seen. He didn't realize we're sitting there watching him. And like, what is this guy doing? And my wife, she's one of those people. She just says what's on her mind. She doesn't hold anything back. And she pops off on anybody at any time. So she's naturally just gets in defense mode. She opens the door. She's calling this guy out. What are you doing? And he turns around, he's like, he's like, Oh, is this a tattoo shop. And everybody knew who we were, there was nobody that confused our business with a tattoo shop ever. It was really, really ominous. And so I stepped out of the truck. And I have my hand near my piece on my side. He has his hands in his hoodie pocket, mind you the whole time too. And then when I step out, he tries pulling something out of his pocket. And if I know you can see me on camera, he's going like this and can't get whatever it is out of his pocket to try to pull out on. We didn't give him that opportunity. So we kind of charge them a little bit. He takes off running. He runs to a completely different parking lot where they sell used cars. He had his car parked in the used car parking lot, jumped in his car and takes off down the street, the main street, my wife jumps in her suburban, she's like, I'm gonna go follow him. She's like, so she takes off out of the parking lot and starts darting towards this guy. She's driving while filming. And he's blowing through every light in the city blowing through stop signs just going through. And this is early in the morning. And this is like eight o'clock in the morning today just started. And so they finally get to a school zone where there's a bunch of kids and all that so my wife backs completely off. The guy still flies through all of that. And then she backed off and she comes back to the shop. And I'm like, I gotta go talk to this detective guy right now. This should have Stan I'm over this. So I drive to the police department. I go meet with this cop guy. And he was telling my wife just moments like before that I needed to shut my mouth to stop talking that they want me to stop talking on the internet. Take the videos down to the stuff I posted there threatening that I need to stop all this right now or it's just gonna get worse. And I walk into him, I look at this guy in his face and I'm like, You know what, man? You guys when I'm going to stop talking, you guys can continue with your little child abuse ring or whatever it is. I'm out of here, man. I said what I had to say, clearly there's something going on here. I'm out. So I stood up, I walk out, I'm wearing a bulletproof vest in front of this guy. I stood up, I walk out, I get my truck, I go pull up next to my wife. And I'm like, Hey, we're no longer safe here. We gotta go. And she's like, Yeah, I know. And so we go back to the shop, I make a phone call to another shop owner that I know. I'm like, bro, put this number on, write a check for this number. And everything I have here is yours. And I need it within two hours. I gotta go. And he was like, fuck, let me see what I can do. calls me back, like 20 minutes later, gives me a counteroffer. Yeah, fucking whatever. Come on. So he just pulls up with an army of people, trucks, they come in with tools and everything, they strip my shop down. By noon, that same day, my shop was completely empty other than orders and blanks that I had. And I'm sitting there just like, it's fucking over. Like, everything we just did is gone. And so we all we did was we grabbed anything that we could of value out of the shop that was still meant something to us. We went home, we grabbed all of our clothes, anything that was meaningful, or letting stuff pictures, you know, birth certificates, all that kind of stuff. And we left, we filled up my Escalade, we fill the purse of bourbon, and we left Idaho. And that's when Ryan Moore called me he's like, What are you going to do next man? I was like, Dude, I don't even know man. Like, I don't even know how to process this, right. And so we go into hiding for a few months, we had some family somewhere else in the US. And we stayed there for a few months, I got rid of my phone number, my social, I got my social media, I got rid of everything just disappeared. I went from everybody knows who I was to just literally gone. Everyone thought I had died. There was a lot of weird things that happened, I got a new phone number. And I only gave Ryan more than number. And the only reason I gave him that number was because I still had his bulletproof vest and I wanted to get it back to him. And so months had gone by and he had reached out I was like, man, like I have an opportunity for you when you're ready. And I was like, I don't want to do anything right now, man, like, I'm still trying to figure this shit out. And so during that time, I was like, What do I do? And so I still had clients that were coming to me that didn't know what was going on. So I would take their jobs. And then I would go to local shops where we were staying at the time and was like, Hey, I got some jobs coming your way. I need you to print for me and ship into clients. And then I kept doing that. And just the shipping alone was kind of killing me a little bit because against clients didn't know I wasn't in town, so I'm not going to charge them for shipping. And so that's kind of what inspired the idea of contracting and and so I was like, You know what, I'm gonna lean into this a little bit more of a figure out how to do this better. And then I called Brian back. I was like, yeah, man, you know, I'm tired of sitting around. What do you got brother? He's like, look, you can live wherever you want. We'll fly you to wherever we need you to go to do what you got to do. And we discussed, you know, rates and how it works and all that good stuff. And I was like, Alright, I talked to my wife. I was like, Look, this is what's on the table. We can live wherever we want. Brian's company's gonna fly me around, and I'm going to do a good job wherever I go. She's like, all right. I was like so with that said, if you can live wherever you want, where would you want to live? And she says, I want to live on the beach. I missed the beach because we were from California. And we lived in Idaho for years. And so going from beach to snow is a drastic change. And so I was like, Alright, pick a beach. So she started doing research. She picked Pensacola. So White Sands beautiful Gulf like so we're like, okay, so we go find a house in Pensacola. So I live in Pensacola and I'm flying in and out of the Pensacola airport. I'm driving back and forth to Clermont Orlando area where the warehouse is the rock warehouse. And it was just becoming exhausting, because I was going to the warehouse so often. And I was driving that driving, it's a six hour both Wait, you know, six hours each. So it's like 12 hours of driving the week. I'm leaving at 2am on Monday morning to get to the warehouse by 8am or 9am. You know, that day and then Friday, leaving at 4pm to drive back home to get home by like 10pm. You know, and it was just Saturday, I could take out my family Sunday. I'm doing laundry and packing to leave again for the week. It was getting exhausting. And I was like, look, let's just go to Claremont. This was beautiful Pensacola, let's get over to Claremont. So I could just work out of the warehouse and not have to do all this back and forth driving. So we move over to Claremont. And then I do the warehouse thing and doing tech work. And this is where I start exploring. This is where I start like, Alright, how do I go from what I know in this world, to working for somebody else? And then, like, I've been an entrepreneur on my own for dude, 1517 years, if not longer, then I'm working for somebody else. And I'm not used to this. Like I'm used to just making decisions on my own, getting things done, not having to go through layers of people being the shot caller being you know, and now it's like, I have to kind of conform to this new way of doing things. And that was actually really challenging. I still kind of deal with some of the things of that a little bit to this day, but I've gotten a lot better at They understood me a lot better. And we kind of like work together really well. But yeah, so that's what started all that was just me exploring like, Okay, how do I add value to this where I'm at now. So I became a really good tech, I started, like really understanding that how a press work, and the mechanics of it, and understanding the software and everything just really understand the machines to the highest level, then it was like, okay, where else do I add value? Okay, now, it's the experience, the experience that I have with people, when I go to their shops, it's like, there's a whole thing that happens when I come there. It's not just me coming there building, you're pressuring me to use it leaving. Yeah, so

Marshall Atkinson  35:32 
this whole story is like a movie. So you know, and I've just been sitting here listening, I'm like, holy smokes, this is not what I thought you were going to say, and I can't believe it in. That's just really amazing. And I just want to kind of throw that out there is like, I'm really happy that you stuck up for kids. And I'm sorry that the people that we should trust, obviously, are untrustworthy, and you had to make those decisions. But I'm really happy that you've landed somewhere that you've made such a big impact, right. And so before we get into the rock part of it, you know, I just kind of wanted to say that, right? So let's talk about when you go into a shop, and I go to shops all the time. And I can tell you, from my perspective, the ones that are really killing it and doing things at a super high level, are immaculately clean. They're super organized, they have processes, they have standards, they have really great leadership, they treat their people fantastically, they have great culture, right? So I would love to hear because you do this too, you go to different shops, I would, you know, end up calling anybody out. But you know, you see the good and the bad, right? So I would love your take on that when you go into a place to install a new press or give a shop tune up or whatever, what are some of the things that you've learned going into these things, and maybe somebody listening, whether you're a rock customer or not, can learn about how they might do things better with what they're doing?

King Tilley  37:13 

Okay, that is actually a really great question. And there's a lot of different parts to that, what I've noticed, and this, I don't want to sound insulting to anybody, because some people may get, you know, insulted by this, but all the businesses that I've ever been to, and in this isn't just screen printing, I've been an entrepreneur for a very long time, and I understand how things work. The business is a direct reflection of its ownership. Okay, so if you have a sloppy nasty shop, it's most likely because the owner has those type of habits, all right, and maybe the owner themselves may not have those type of habits, it might be that their people have control over them. And they don't have control over their people. So their people run their shop, and they don't run their shop. So you have people with bad habits that run the shops, like the actual production part of it. But I think the best thing you could do man is just to run a very clean shop, there's a lot of practices that I see that if people just thought with a little bit of logic, they would realize they're doing things, you know, asked backwards. Like, for instance, cleaning screens, a lot of people, you know, they move they take a screen from here to here to here to here, they move it all over the place. And when they're doing that, they're giving opportunities for ink to get all over the place when they're moving a screen from here to here and squeegees and flood bars. You know, mixing inks and then you got in containers over here and over here. If there was a system for that to work, like an actual flow thing that a lot of people need to just this is what I did in my shop was I just acted like a fly on the wall. I walked through my whole process from the moment a customer walks in to how they're greeted to what they see around them to how that order was received. On the other end, how was that person treated? How was that order received from the person that took it? How did they implement it into our computer system? How was an estimate generated? How was it communication, I went through every step A to Z and I even went through production, I went through tree production, I went through the art department, I went through the darkroom, and I just figured out all the easiest ways of doing things. But at least for my shop, and how my flow went to where I can be the most efficient. And I think a lot of people don't take the time to just think for a second about their systems they use to get into it, and they just run with whatever they have going. And there's not like there's never an evolution of their systems. It's just like, hey, this is how we do it. And we're gonna do like this way forever. And that, again, is a reflection of the owner not being open to new ideas. So all of it everything that the most successful people that have seen in the businesses are well educated, they have really good habits. And the culture is incredibly important to, you know, again, that goes all the way back to the owners like everything, all the accountability lies in the owner and how they run their ship. You know, right,

Marshall Atkinson  39:57 
right. And as a lot of people Pull no one of my favorite books about business in general is Extreme Ownership by Jacko willing neck and the best quote ever is in that book, which is it's not what you preach, it's what you tolerate. So as a leader, you know, somebody, you maybe have an employee that's always late, or maybe you've gotten cold over your buckets, or maybe your stuff was constantly Miss registered, or you're printing with a 14 Newton screen or whatever, right? These are the things that you're tolerating. And you don't have to be a jerk about it, we just have to, like, resolve these challenges in this industry is all about reducing variables being consistent, and having standards. And I know that you see that when you go into the shop, right? With people that are really honed in on their stuff, they have this stuff dialed into like a micro degree right now you see,

King Tilley  40:55 

yeah, well, okay, so that just was Extreme Ownership. So as an owner, like, how well do you know each department? Like do you understand how screens are burned? Do you understand about lumens? Do you understand about all this? Are you actually like paying attention? Or are you just trusting the knowledge of the person that you implemented? And how far does that person's knowledge go? And aside from that, what is that person's habits look like? Does their darkroom look like shit? Is that the screen technician? And your darkroom? looks terrible. Your screens are always messed up. What's the education level of that screen time? Because you make excuses all the time? Is there always a reason why this is happening? Instead of just you know, actually, like any type of resolution, anything? And then same thing on press? Like, do you know how a press runs? Do you know how registration works? Do you understand about pressures? Do you understand about angles? Do you understand about diameter? Do you understand about any of this stuff? You don't have to know every specific detail, but know enough? You know, and a lot of things that honors are a lot of them might just be business people. So yes, they know how to put people in positions to put make numbers make sense. But what is the level of knowledge that the person that you have like in that position, like where are they at? And then what are you doing to help them advance their knowledge? I think that's another thing. As leaders, they just accept things at face value. Like, yeah, this is my guy that does this. Well, if you want to scale your business, that person needs to know more than they currently know. Because if all they know is what they know, now, all you're gonna get is what you currently have. Education is a huge thing that I think a lot of people lack in their businesses. When I had my debt collection company. We had weekly scenarios where we would do like mock calls where we would do fake calls, just to get the people practicing and practice scenarios over and over and over and over and over. And what to do in this what to do in this situation. So that they were always prepared for these situations. And when they were better prepared, our money increased because they were making all these fumbles along the way. So the same thing goes for any other business that could translate into anything like everything. As an owner, you have to know at least a little bit about a lot. You know, and I think a lot of people don't. Oh,

Marshall Atkinson  42:55 
that's awesome. And All right, so we're gonna run out of time here. So we got to wrap it up. So any last thoughts for people listening right now about how they could do something better in their shop,

King Tilley  43:07 
it just starts with yourself, you got to want better for yourself, start with you first, before you start worrying about your shop. If you take up one new habit for yourself first, start there, and then start introducing new habits to your shop. Because you can't just preach to people all the time, they actually have to see that you're going to in order for them to respect you. They have to see that you're you talk what you walk. So I always say, don't just practice what you preach, but preach what you practice.

Marshall Atkinson  43:30 
Ah, I love that.

King Tilley  43:32 

Let them know. Yeah.

Marshall Atkinson  43:33 

So all right, gang. So thank you so much for sharing your story of success with us today. If someone wants to learn more about what you do, or how maybe you can help them what's the best way to contact you?

King Tilley  43:46 

I'm pretty much just on Instagram. So at King underscore Tilly T i l l EY. That is how you get a hold of me. I'm easy to get a hold of I'm not when I was pupils to cool to respond to people. I'm always happy to help the you know, so even screenprint related stuff, business related stuff, life related stuff, being sober. Anything you may need, you can reach me at King underscore, Tim.

Marshall Atkinson  44:07 
All right. Well, thanks, man. Appreciate it. Yep, thank you. Well, that's our show today. Thanks for listening. And don't forget to subscribe, so you can stay up to date on the latest Success Stories episodes. have any suggestions for future guests or topics? send them my way and Marshall and Marshall atkinson.com And we'll see you next time.