On this week's podcast, Marcus sits down with Jerry Carl from the Mobile County Commission. Listen to this week's podcast to hear from Jerry about his journey in sales and local government. Jerry: Well, my name is Jerry Carl. I'm actually the county commissioner here in Mobile County in District 3, and just glad to be a part of this. Marcus: That's awesome. You came highly recommended by a couple of people, so I'm glad to actually get a chance to sit down with you. Jerry: Well, Bradley's one of them, and I've raised Bradley. So he knows where all my secrets lie. Marcus: Uh-oh. Well, we'll have to give him a couple of drinks and figure out what's going on there. Jerry: Yeah. Good. Marcus: But I know that besides your role as county commissioner that you also have a number of business ventures that ... So I feel like some of the questions that we have will definitely apply. But one of the things that we always do is we want to get the backstory of the person that we're talking to. So give us some of that information. Where are you from? Where'd you go to high school? College? Are you married? How did you end up here if you're not from here? That kind of thing. Jerry: Well, I was actually born in Mobile a number of years ago when Mobile was still just a very small city. My parents got a divorce, so we actually ... I moved from here when I was seven years old. I grew up in a small town called Sylacauga, which is up in central Alabama. It's a great place to raise a family. Marcus: As weird as it is, I've heard of Sylacauga before. Jerry: Yeah. Well, it's the hometown of Jim Nabors. There's an incredible private golf course up there if you're a golfer. Anyway, I grew up in that small community and went to high school there, graduated from there and went to a very small college in Florida. My focus was going to be forestry, which ... That didn't last as long as I had hoped it would. I saw my time in college as a waste. It wasn't required. So I actually came out, went to work for Alabama Power. Shoveled coal for Alabama Power up on their belt line for about a year. An old man I was working with told me, he says, "Son, you need to learn how to use your mind and not your back," although I do appreciate Alabama Power. They're great folks to work for and work with. I came out of that, moved back to Mobile because my dad was still here at the time, and one business has led to the other. I've always been extremely interested in businesses, and my mother has really fertilized that idea growing up. I grew up in a family-owned fabric store, so buying something at 25 cents a yard and selling it for a dollar a yard is not rocket science how you get there. Just you gotta make sure you've got enough of a margin there to pay the bills. So that's kind of my business background. I learned fractions pretty easy. I learned- Marcus: That's a fabric store joke, folks. Jerry: Yeah, it's a fabric store. Yeah. Well, I mean, you did. You learn your fractions. So I'm real good with fractions Marcus: I only know that because we built a website for a company that sold a lot of fabric, and one of the hardest things for us as programmers was to figure out how to do all the fractions of a yard that they may want and then calculate price on the back end of that. Jerry: Well, growing up in that business in the '60s and '70s, everybody made their clothes. You may have bought blue jeans and sweatshirts, but especially all the ladies clothes, they were all- Marcus: Dresses and shirts and dress pants and stuff like that. Jerry: Yeah, buttons ... So when someone would come in and pick out a pattern, you would obviously help them pick out the fabric. And then the ancillary stuff came along, which really made your money in the side stuff, which was the buttons and the zippers and the hooks. So you learn what these add-ons are, and people say, "Well, I don't quite understand that." Well, you drive through Florida and you see this big sign that says "Pecans: 99 cents a pound." Well, they probably paid a dollar a pound. That's their loss leader to get them in the door. It's the other stuff you buy around those pecans and that orange juice that make the profits. Marcus: For the longest time, people didn't believe me when I said that Home Depot and Lowe's actually lost money on their 2 x 4s. Jerry: Oh, sure. Marcus: Yeah. They sell 2 x 4s at cost or maybe even less. Jerry: It's a loss leader. Marcus: Yeah. It's a loss leader because they know when you come in that you need nails or screws, and you need shingles, and you may need some power tools or paint or whatever. You're going to pick up all this other stuff there, and those are the higher-dollar, higher-margin items. Jerry: Well, from that, I've always looked for niche markets. My businesses have always been based on niche markets, and some of them pretty broad, some of them pretty narrow. Marcus: For those that don't know you ... because we've met a couple of times, but I don't know a whole lot about your business ventures. What types of businesses are you currently involved in? Jerry: Primarily right now, a pharmacy. We do blood products. We deal with hemophilia patients and HIV patients. It's a high-risk business. It's a very small business. There's probably 350 patients total statewide. So for a pharmacy business, their focus is on the number of scripts that they make or they can generate per day. Ours is much different than that. Our average script will run about 50,000 per script, so there's high risk there. If something happens and we're not able to collect our payment on it, obviously we're going to- Marcus: You're going to feel that. Jerry: We're going to take a $35,000 hit. Right. Not to mention our overhead. So it's a high risk. Again, it's one of those niches. The real estate business that I'm involved in now ... In West Mobile, there were no office spaces with parking. You could buy an old shopping center, obviously, that had a lot of parking, but the office spaces had very limited parking. So I actually built an office complex based on the parking lot. It's a niche. Marcus: That's great. Jerry: Well, this was my focus. And I recruited a company that had 60 employees. They needed small cubicles, but they needed a parking lot for 60 cars. Marcus: They've grown. Jerry: Well, they have. They've gone on. They're a national company, and I've still got the building. I'm in the rental business. I rent office space, and one of my draws is the parking lot, well-lit parking lot. So it is still a niche. Marcus: That is so funny. I've never heard anybody say, "I built a commercial space around a parking lot." Usually, it's build the commercial space and the parking lot is an afterthought. But it makes sense because if you can't- Jerry: Yeah, if you have a lot of employees. Marcus: Yeah, or even customers that are coming in or something like that. Jerry: Well, in that case, a retail spot would work better. Mine never works as a retail spot. I didn't design in that way, but that's the way it is. I'm looking at high volumes of employees, and then you look after their safety. And the people that rent from you, that's some concerns of theirs. But in the early days, I actually got started in the funeral home business selling funeral supplies, the needles and the sutures and the packings and the waxes and everything except for embalming fluids and caskets. Needless to say, I was hungry. That's a business. It's a very niche business, but I made a fair margin on it. So I got started with that and also sold church furniture. I figured funeral homes need church pews, and church pews ... They kind of had a little bit of correlation there. So I got into the church furniture business and did quite well in church furniture. That was really my big start. So I went from that to healthcare. I thought healthcare was just such a unique market. If a salesman can sell one thing, he can sell anything. If he learns how to develop a base of customers, he can develop a base of customers in anything. Of course, you've got your fly-by nights. I've never been that flash in the pan that's been able to come in and sell you everything you want. But I'm that continuous guy that keeps coming back and forth you develop that relationship with. I'm a relationship type of salesman. So I got in the healthcare field, and I was selling primarily home healthcare equipment, hospital beds, oxygen, incontinent supplies. I represented about 60 different companies. I was teaching these small people, small investors, how to start a DME company because it was a real art because you have to bill Medicare. You have to understand the secondary insurance. You have to understand the insurance business also. The investors may have had the heart and the cash, but they didn't have the knowledge. So I was teaching them how to set up their billing cycle, too. One day, I woke up and I said, "Hey, I'm tired of all this traveling. I'm traveling from Arkansas to Orlando, Florida, by car." No flying because most of my clients are in small cities at the time. So I decided I would just start my own DME company, durable medical equipment, DME. I did, and that was very successful. I figured out how I could set up a bunch of them and develop the clientele through sales and marketing and then turn around and sell those to national companies. So that's where we really prospered, and again, it's a niche market at the time. Now, we kind of take it for granted. Our grandparents are on oxygen or something. But when I got into it, it was they were rolling big, green cylinders into a room in your home, and they had to basically set up a hospital bed. In a hospital environment now, it's much more user friendly. They came out with these things called concentrators, which I got in early on those. We were talking about Colorado earlier. One of the first companies was in Denver, Colorado, a company called Mountain Medical. And they figured out how to take molecular ... Or NASA discovered how to take molecular material and pressure oxygen room air through that and turn it into 99% oxygen. We got that smaller form, so it replaced the green cylinders. We're still in a niche market, but the COPD, the oxygen market, is really quite large. A lot of people you know personally are probably on oxygen, primarily at night. Marcus: Yeah. So you're talking about being in a niche market. It's been very interesting to me over the years that I've always gravitated towards not the mainstream of what just anybody is doing, but these products that are specialty products. For instance, when I was in Washington, DC, and I was doing a lot of consulting, I was a specialist and was speaking at conferences and stuff like that for a line or products that was ultimately bought by IBM. But Rational Software was the name of the company. But I always found that those were more lucrative because there weren't a whole lot of people that knew how to operate within that realm. But it's interesting that even with products that staying ahead of the curve or staying in the margins, that there's more margin and probably less competition than what you would find if you were dealing with the same stuff that everybody was dealing with. Jerry: I got in the pharmacy business because we were dealing with patients with respiratory issues, and these patients would get into some type of bad situation that had to be taken to the emergency room. And all they were doing in the emergency room was giving them a breathing treatment, as we know it now. So myself and a group of guys got to looking at that, and we figured out how Medicare could save money by paying for that drug for that patient to use it at home versus going to the emergency room. We did some lobbying. I did not get involved in the lobbying, but I was involved with the guys that did the lobbying. We got the medicine approved through Medicare, which was the only drug that was paid for by Medicare. But we convinced them that we could save them money by doing that in the field. So we literally set up a line, and we were dealing with about 1,600 to 3,000 patients at any given time that were taking the four treatments a day of this breathing medication. It was saving hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars from keeping these patients from going into the emergency room. But, again, it's still a niche. You understand what the needs are, and you just got to figure out how to back into it. In the healthcare field, it's always a coast factor. Marcus: I was just thinking it's interesting. If you're out there and you're listening to this as an audience member, don't be afraid of going into those smaller markets- Jerry: Oh, gosh no. Marcus: Yeah, because there's definitely some lucrative aspects to it. Now, do you remember your first job? I mean your first, first job. Jerry: Other than working for my mother? Marcus: Yeah. I mean your first real job, like flipping burgers, scrubbing toilets, that kind of thing. Jerry: Shining shoes in a drugstore. Marcus: Shining shoes. Okay. Jerry: Yeah. Yeah. Marcus: Were there any lessons that you still remember from that? Jerry: Be very careful of the guys wearing white socks. I had to pay for a pair of white socks and really got discouraged from that job. But I've had so many jobs doing so many things. People say, "What was the best job you've ever had?" I'd probably say scrubbing toilets for Alabama Power. Marcus: Really? Jerry: I got off that coal belt line, and I had 36 toilets in a line, and you learn a lot. I've never had a job that I didn't learn something from that took me to another level. When I try to work with young people ... And I try to give as much time as I can back to the community. But there's not a job that you perform that will not take you to another level. It may be 10 years down the road, but you'll look back and you'll view that. Marcus: Yeah. There are lessons to be learned at every step of the way. Jerry: Well, one of the worst guys I ever worked for was right here in town. I worked for Caterpillar Parts sweeping floors, and that guy that I worked for was probably the rudest, loudest, cussingest, worst-smelling-breath human that I knew in my life. Marcus: Somebody you really cared for, huh? Jerry: Well, no, I learned to love him. I did. I did learn to love him. Not at first. I was too hungry, though. I was scared. But I learned from him, and I think about him every day. "What would Smoky do? What would Smoky say?" Because he was trying to teach me. That was his way of teaching me. He was like an old drill sergeant. But I learned from that. I didn't take it personal. I took it as that was his job. His methods probably wouldn't work now. Marcus: Well, yeah. I can understand that. But it's funny that you mention methods because sometimes we get hung up on how things are being communicated. But if you look through how it's being communicated to what is being communicated, oftentimes there's some truth or some gold in that. Jerry: Well, even in my life now when things don't go my way, I tell myself, "Hey, you're not that important." Don't think it's about you. The big picture does ... You may be a part of it, but it's not about you. So don't take it personal. Just move on. Marcus: Do you remember the first business that you went into, maybe even the first sale that you made where you thought, "Man, maybe there is something to this life as a business owner"? Jerry: I do. My mother had these heavy-duty zippers, and I've told this story numerous times. So I know exactly how to answer this one. Marcus: Sure. No, that's good. Jerry: My mother had these heavy-duty zippers that she could not sell, and she wanted to get rid of them. So she was going to teach ... And I aggravated her. I wanted to sell those zippers. So she sold those zippers to me for a penny apiece. There was a bunch of them. She financed this deal. So I got up under the counter, and as the ladies would walk by, I'd reach out and grab them by the ankle and say, "Hey, you want to buy a zipper?" I don't know if it was out of sympathy. I don't know if I was that great of a salesman. But they would wind up buying a zipper. So I started getting into my mother's zipper sales, and she didn't like it. She wanted to buy me out of the zipper business, which I did. I sold them back to her for a nickel. So I made four cents a zipper. All this was in about a week and a half, and I was a rich man after that. It's not rocket science. Marcus: That's too funny. Jerry: You buy it for a penny and sell it for a nickel. Marcus: So funny. I just have this vision of a little kid scaring the crap out of these women. Jerry: Well, that's exactly what I did. I would be sitting up under the counter waiting for somebody to walk by to try to sell them a zipper. Jerry: That was my first taste of profits. I sold fruit that way. I went door to door selling peaches. I would ride with my mother to Atlanta, Georgia, and she would buy materials and I would buy a case of peaches and bring them back. I wouldn't sell a whole box of peaches. I sold peaches each and go door to door, because that one peach, you had to tell the story about where that peach was from and add value to it so somebody was willing to pay more for it. Marcus: It's all about a story, even with a peach. Jerry: It is. People can appreciate a good salesman. Not pressure, but a good story about how I got that peach. Marcus: You've said that twice now. What is your definition of a good salesman? Jerry: A good salesman is somebody that invests in your business that's willing to help you grow. They're willing to share their knowledge. They invest in your business. The growth of your business, you understand, feeds their family. So you're a very important part of their business. The flash in the pans that come in the door and they've got this great deal that's a one-time offer I'm very leery of. I am. But I always look. I've got one guy I've been buying cars from for probably 25 years, and most of the cars, I never see them before I buy them. I just call and say, "Hey, Ted. This is what I need. This is what I'm looking for." And I know I'm going to get a great deal. It may not be the best I can possibly get, but I understand Ted's got to feed his family. Marcus: Well, and there's also- Jerry: And I trust him. Marcus: Yeah. I mean, it's very interesting because I've always taken a consultant's approach to sales. So there's an educational aspect to it of helping somebody understand ... especially because we deal with some very technical stuff. So helping them understand the technical aspects of it, helping them understand the benefits and features and things of that nature, but then also just letting them know, "Hey, we want to prove ourselves to you and what it is that we're doing," because ultimately I'm not an idiot. If I prove myself to them, they're going to continue to spend money with us and continue to support our business. We've had clients that we've worked with, at least one client, since 2008, 2009. So they've been around for quite a long time, and that person that I'm thinking of has owned five different businesses in that time. And every time he goes into a new venture, one of his first calls is always to me. Jerry: As a salesman, you want them to call you for everything. You may sell medical equipment, but I wanted them to call me if it was floor-cleaning supplies because I would get them hooked ... I want them in the habit of calling me. I never want them to feel like it's bothering me. I use that same approach in position I'm in now as county commissioner. People call me for things that have nothing to do with my job, but I find the person for them to talk to. I want them to feel like they can ... It's the same mentality applied to the public service industry, and that's the business we're in as salesmen, too. We're there for a service. Marcus: Yeah. If you were talking to someone that wanted to get started in running their own business, what's the one bit of wisdom that you would impart to them? Jerry: Follow your dream, but be willing to make changes. Life is all about hitting a curve ball. Things will hit you and change, but continue with your dream, knowing that it's going to change at some point/place in time. But just keep following it. Most people fail because they give up too early. If you don't give up, that doesn't mean be hard-headed and try to change it to be your way. You have to make those changes and adapt to the situation. I call it being a chameleon. You gotta be able to walk into a room and become part of the room to be accepted in sales. But you've got to ... You can't just give up. That requires getting up and talking to yourself in the mirror every morning, too. Marcus: Giving up is the ultimate failure. You may have little setbacks along the way, and everybody's always afraid when they go into business of failure. Failure, failure. It's the big F-word. But the truth is the biggest failure that you can make is stopping too soon. There is a number of people that are prevalent on social media and stuff like that that they talk about the successes that they've had, and they've truly built businesses, like hundred-million-dollar businesses, that are worth listening to these people because they have something valuable to say, not these people that pop up and have not really accomplished anything. The one guy in particular, Andy Frisella, that I'm thinking of, he tells the story of really not making any money for like a decade. But then it was like years 10 through 15 ... He's a multimillionaire now and has Lamborghinis and nice houses and stuff like that because he invested ... all those years kept investing back in the business and back in the business and back in the business. And then, finally, he experienced the kind of growth that would be necessary for him to have that kind of lifestyle. But yeah, it's just, don't stop too soon. Jerry: Yeah. You gotta surround yourself with positive people. You gotta surround yourself with people that have somewhat of a focus for that ambition that you're pushing, and bring people with you. When I got out of the home healthcare community, the majority of the people that are in it here I financed. I've done something to get them in the business. They worked for me. I've helped them financially with equipment. You have to bring people along with you. It's no fun by yourself. Marcus: Yeah. Is there someone in the business world, the larger business world, not just Mobile, that motivates you, that you look to and think, "Man, that guy is ..." Jerry: Yeah. Well, I've got a gentleman up in Sylacauga that has always invested in my life, Mr. [Purcell]. He's just always been someone I could pick up the phone and call. He's certainly one of those quiet fellows that's made a tremendous amount of money, and he's back in the local community up there and I like that. I like that much more than the guy that buys him an NFL football team and stands out on the field with them. We need some of both. Don't get me wrong. But I've got some solid people that I've always watched and respected that way. Marcus: It's that millionaire next door, right? Jerry: Yeah. And he's very humble. He's very humble about it, and he can pick up the phone and do anything he wants to do. We have several here in Mobile the same way. They've really made a lot of money, and they came from nowhere. They've done well and they've invested back in their community. That's what it's about at the end of the day. We get old, and we're sitting in a wheelchair somewhere. We look around and we can say we helped start that or do that. And that's- Marcus: Yeah. It's about that legacy, isn't it? Jerry: That's the true value in life to me because I haven't seen anybody get buried yet with hearse full of money. Marcus: Yeah. Preach. Sell. Are there any books, podcasts, people, or organizations that have been helpful to you in your business life? Jerry: Not really. I think I've tried them all. I think I've listened to them all. I've always trusted my gut more than I have somebody that I feel like is trying to sell a book. Not to say that they don't have a lot to add, but you've really got to just get out there and get your nose busted a few times. You learn when to duck and when to stand up. That's just part of the process. Marcus: There's some good wisdom in that statement. Jerry: Well, I call it street survival. You gotta learn it. Marcus: Yep. Very much so. What's the most important thing that you've learned about running a business? Jerry: You've got to focus on your employees because you're only as good as the people that are taking care of things. At one time, I had all my companies set on cruise control. Before I ran for public office, I would hunt and fish every day. I would show up at a boardroom a couple times a year. I may take care of a few things over the phone. But I could go fishing for ... I traveled the world playing in a very small way. But I didn't worry about it because I had great people. I made sure they were taken care of. I invested in their families. It's a very simple cycle. You take care of the people take care of you, and it works. Marcus: Absolutely. This is usually the hardest question. How do you like to unwind? Jerry: I don't unwind very well. Marcus: Come on. Jerry: I love to hunt and fish, but I'm a reader. I like to just read various stuff. I'm working on Sidney Phillips' book, Dr. Phillips' book. It's a very simple book to read, but I read his heart in everything that he's written. I do a lot of reading. I do very little TV watching. I hate to watch the news, but I have to from time to time. But I guess reading, hunting and fishing. I enjoy my grandkids. I enjoy my family. Just the other day, I got a fire started, and we ran a fire for 24 hours at our house. I sat by the fire reading all day. Marcus: That's cool. That's very cool. Jerry: Grandkids crawling all over me and doing the things that they're supposed to do. But as I get older, I appreciate more stuff. Marcus: Yeah. We haven't talked about your role in local politics, but what made you decide to go down that path? Jerry: My son ... I've always been successful. Not at everything, but financially I've been successful and our family is taken care of. My son joined the Marine Corps, went off to active duty, to Afghanistan, and I'm sitting there. Every parent that sends a child into active combat, they're watching that driveway, afraid that car's going to turn in and bring them the bad news. I'm sitting there watching the driveway, and I knew he would be over there for eight months. So about four months into it, I got to thinking, "What have I ever done? Here I've raised a child that's willing to go to Afghanistan ..." Pardon me. I get a little emotional at this part. But he's willing to go over there and do what he's doing. So many kids are. What have I ever done? So I tried to join the Marine Corps. They told me I was too old. Marcus: I can see. Jerry: This is the truth. This is the truth. Marcus: How old were you when you tried to join the Marine- Jerry: I think I was 50-something. Marcus: That's great. Jerry: I said, "I may be over the hill, but I can drive a truck. I can do something. I can give back." Marcus: Oh, that's perfect. Jerry: They laughed at me just like you are. Jerry: Hey, in World War II, I would have been in high demand. But I got to looking, and I told my wife. I said, "We're going to pray about this, and we'll figure out what I can do to give back." I'm reading the newspaper when we had the Press-Register. There was an article about a local elected official that was holding permits up to prove to this company who was in control. Marcus: Come on. Jerry: I told my wife. I said, "That's exactly what government should not do. The people should be in control." I said, "We're going to run for that position." She said, "What is it?" I said, "Well, it's county commissioner." She says, "What is that?" I go, "I don't know. Let's Google it." Marcus: I don't know either. Jerry: So we Googled county commissioner, and that's how I got involved in politics. I really feel I love what I do. I enjoy serving people. I enjoy serving people at my church. I enjoy opening the door for the ladies. I enjoy serving. So it works well with my public service life. Marcus: That's just such an amazing story. I just love that at 50 years old, you called the Marine Corps and were like- Jerry: No, I went to a recruiting office. Marcus: Yeah. No, that's great. Jerry: Yeah. So I was there. All I had to do was pull the paperwork out, and the guy laughed at me. He goes, "How old are you?" I don't remember exactly. I'd have to go back and do the math. I said, "I'm like 51." He goes, "You just missed it. The cutoff is 50." He thought it was humorous, too. Marcus: That's perfect, man. Jerry: But I was sincere. Marcus: Well, Jerry, I really want to thank you again for coming on my podcast. Jerry: Oh, my pleasure. Marcus: Any final thoughts or comments you'd like to share? Jerry: No. Young people, especially wanting to get in business, don't get distracted by the billionaires and the millionaires. You may be the next one, but you know what? You may wind up just like me, being able to feed your family, take care of your family in a very comfortable fashion. That's important. And it's extremely important that we have younger people with newer ideas that want to do things better, come up in behind it, and take the places of us older people. I mean, that's just the cycle. I get excited listening to somebody trying to chase their dreams. I talk to young people all the time about it. Don't give up. Don't let somebody else set the target for you. You set it. You move towards it. Marcus: Get out and hustle and make it happen. Jerry: Yeah. Marcus: We actually ... Today, because we're actually recording this on ... What's today? The 22nd or something like that? January 23rd. So Bill Sisson's episode of the podcast was released today, and one of the things that we discussed in that was Mobile has 28,000 ... if I remember correctly, 28,000 micro-businesses. When he first said that in an update that he was giving as part of an executive round table or something along those lines, I was really struck by that. Mobile is open for business. There are a lot of people that are really hungry and wanting to take that chance. This is fertile ground for business owners. So I love what you're saying about get out there. You may not make a billion dollars, but if you can feed your family and do it on your own terms, then that's beautiful. That's a wonderful thing. Jerry: That's success. That person's just as successful as the founder of Amazon, which started very meekly. Now he's got 157 billion dollars he's trying to figure out how to- Marcus: It's a completely different problem, but yeah. He didn't get there overnight. Jerry: Yeah. It's a totally different problem. But you're in America. Anything's possible. Anything's possible. I don't care who you are. This is the greatest country in the world. This is the greatest time to be alive. Marcus: Absolutely. Jerry: And they talk about the millennials. They're running things now. The press talks about them in a negative way. No way. Look around you. They're taking over. I love it. And that's their job is to take over. Marcus: Yeah. It is going to be very exciting to see where we go in the next 5 to 10 years. Jerry: In my short life, I can remember when there were no computers. I can remember when telephone consisted of a party line. Now I send out messages to a half a dozen people at the stroke of a key. Where are we going to be 50 years from now? It's impossible for somebody like me to vision that. I just hang on for the ride. All I want to do is go into space. I'm pretty simple. I tell my wife all the time, "Just send me into space while I'm alive and leave me." I'll be happy with that. I'll die out there floating around. Marcus: Well, that's funny. You're one of the ... I've not met somebody that actually wanted to do the Virgin ride, the- Jerry: Yeah, for the 100 grand? I've been thinking about it. I'll do it in a heartbeat. Marcus: Yeah. That's interesting. I don't know that I would, quite honestly. I don't have that much interest. I mean, I grew up watching the space shuttle go into space and stuff like that. It was a very big deal for those of us that grew up during that time period. But for whatever reason, just going to space just has never been an interesting thing to me. I like terra forma. Jerry: No, no, no. I mean, I've always wanted to go to Africa and spend time on the plains. I've done that. My bucket is empty. I need some new things. Marcus: So space it is. Jerry: Space is it. I'm good with it. Send me up. Marcus: That's great. Jerry, I appreciate your willingness to sit with me and share your journey as a business owner. Jerry: I've enjoyed this. Thank you very much. Marcus: Yeah. It's been great talking with you. Jerry: All right. Take care. Produced by Blue Fish in Mobile, Alabama