March 25, 2026
Weathering The Vendor Storm And Forecasting hope
The fastest way to feel crazy as a small business owner is to do “everything right” and still watch people walk by with empty hands. We just got back from the Eastern Maine Sportsman Show at the University of Maine in Orono, and we’re giving you the unfiltered recap: booth cost, hotel, fuel, meals, the sales goal we set, and why landing at about half of what we hoped for still didn’t make the weekend a total loss.
We dig into the real-time signals we’re seeing at vendor events, fairs, festivals, and sportsman shows, especially the bag-to-person ratio. When you stop seeing bags in a crowd, you feel it at the register. We also talk about another trend that hits hard for traveling vendors: more people putting purchases on credit instead of paying cash. Pair that with rising costs and shrinking breathing room, and it explains why so many entrepreneurs are carrying the same two feelings right now, uncertainty and nervousness.
From there, we connect the dots with what we’re hearing from other small business owners across totally different industries, and we deliver a needed shot of hopium. I share my forecast for where things are headed, why I believe we’re going to see relief, and how to keep your head straight while you weather the storm. We close with gratitude, a big shout out, and a story about getting surprised with WWE Monday Night Raw tickets that reminded me why joy and community matter just as much as the grind.
If you’re building a brand, selling made in the USA apparel, or simply trying to make the next right move with your money, hit play. Subscribe, share this with a fellow business owner, and leave a review so more people can find the show.
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00:00 - Welcome Back And Mindset Reset
03:30 - Why We Tried The Sportsman Show
05:52 - Booth Costs And Sales Reality
09:12 - The Bag Ratio And Consumer Hesitation
13:58 - Family Wins From A Slow Weekend
20:38 - Credit Cards Rising And Business Anxiety
25:03 - A Summertime Forecast For Hope
30:56 - Made In USA Brand Mission
31:28 - WWE Night And A Big Thank You
38:52 - Where To Follow And Final Sign Off
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This week on Share the Truggle Podcast, we recap our most recent event, the Eastern Maine Sportsman Show at the University of Maine in Orno.
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And after several conversations with small business owners, two common things exist: uncertainty and nervousness.
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So today, I deliver the shot of hopium that we need, as we make a summertime prediction that makes everything oh so right.
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And I end the show with a much needed thank you and shout out.
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Let me tell you something.
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Everybody's struggled.
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The difference is some people choose to go through it and some choose to grow through it.
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The choice is completely yours.
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Which one you choose will have a very profound effect on the way you live your life.
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If you find a strength in the struggle, then it's obviously for you.
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What it do?
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What it do?
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What it hide did it do?
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Good low.
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Almighty, am I so excited to be back with you?
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Oh, it is true.
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It is damn true.
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Why?
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Because I love you, Boo.
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You already know that to be true.
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Episode 298, and I hope all of us are feeling great because we are gathered here together, again as friends, looking to do what we always do, to spread the good gospel, the positive vibe that builds the positive tribe, because we know that when we get together and we are bold enough, courageous enough to share our stories, the struggles that we go through together, we grow through.
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There is a rhyme and reason to what the is that we do.
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There is a truth to the matter that success leaves clues.
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We are going to succeed together.
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We're going to find the silver lining together.
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And today, we might start off a little somber, but together we're going to find that silver lining and we're going to end.
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Oh, so positive.
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Episode 298.
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Man, the pressure is on to do something extra great.
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As episode 300 quietly awaits.
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Don't forget to find all things podcast related at WW Share The Struggle Podcast.com.
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Find all the merch that you need to own, all the gifts you need to give, and all the great products you need to wear at www.loudamerican.shop, home of the exclusively made in USA apparel that each and every one of you just needs to own already.
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Okay?
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I don't know what's taking you so long.
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Actually, get over there and get that done.
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I started the show today letting you know we were going to recap our most recent event.
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We're going to dig into the road trip to the University of Maine in Orno, the Eastern Maine Sportsman Show.
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If you've been listening in, then you already know the Loud Proud American is trying new things this year.
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We're going to new places this year.
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We're applying and trying a lot of new things this year.
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And part of this whole mission that we're on this year is to try to broaden who we um like kind of appeal to, right?
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And maybe lean into some of the things that we already believe in that we haven't really put on the shelf as far as designs go.
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And part of that is leaning into a lot of our Second Amendment beliefs, a lot of pro-gun uh type of merchandise.
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So our dabble into the the Eastern Main Sportsman show, we thought was a great fit to kind of start to see how this feels as we really try to explore some different uh gun shows and and larger events, maybe sponsored by the NRA and stuff like that.
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I actually just missed out on this coming weekend.
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There's a big sportsman show in Augusta that I wish I was being a part of, but I have a different plan for uh next weekend that we'll talk about next week.
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But um yeah, so this was a whole different different crowd for us, right?
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We're different location for us, new location.
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Uh we obviously have our uh our genuine, uh tried and true, fantastic, loyal customer base that'll come and find us whenever we're in their area.
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And some of our best customers, hands down since day one, is the Tracy family, and they showed up and showed out when we were in Bangor over the weekend and uh actually made a massive difference in the success of this event for us.
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So, other than them, it was really a whole new audience for us.
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So we were excited about it.
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I went in this event with much higher hopes than what we achieved.
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If I let that spoiler alert out early, the event wasn't a wash, but it wasn't the success that we had hoped for.
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And we were extremely encouraged by the possibility and the opportunity.
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Now, part of this is you start to factor a lot of things into the evaluation of uh of your week and the success and if it was worth it, and and you start to analyze all those things.
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The first thing to do when it comes to dollars and cents, right?
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If you want to make a sense, it's dollars and cents.
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And this is kind of an expensive rental for the weekend for what you're given.
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We had a um 20-foot wide, 10-foot deep display, and that display cost us$800 for a Friday, Saturday, Sunday show.
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That's actually a pretty steep price.
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I know fairs that I can get into for less than that that give you more days than that.
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But I figured this is such a like a niche crowd that's perfect for what we do, that I justified that cost in being sufficient.
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So do you have the eight hundred dollars in that, do you have the three hundred dollars in the hotel, you have the hundred and fifty dollars in fuel, and then you factor in, you know, three meals a day on the road, and you start to weigh all of those things out.
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And the number that we attained at the end of the weekend was half of what I expected.
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If you guys have been listening through the years, then you know that I set these goals every time I attend an event.
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You have to forecast and try to gain a feeling for like, hey, what's the potential of this event?
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What's the realistic number for me to attain?
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Because when you start doing the simple bus math like we just did, if you do that ahead of a show and those things, you know, those negatives, those those entry costs and expenses, they you feel like they outweigh the potential that you're gonna gain at that event.
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Then you have to ask yourself, well, is it just worth the exposure or is just a bad decision?
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But I thought that we were gonna turn in a number that was twice of what we actually did.
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We had a really good Saturday, uh, but we had kind of some some real duds on Friday and Saturday.
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We started off Friday great.
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As I said, the Tracy family showed up, and Tracy was there and made our biggest sale of the entire weekend as soon as the doors open.
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So we thought we were gonna be off and running, but it just really fizzled out.
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There wasn't a lot to bring um people in, and I think there was a good amount of people, but there's an observation that I made at this show that I've been making at all of the shows, and that's a bag-to-person ratio.
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You look at the people that are there, you look at how many people go by your booth, and then you, you know, just kind of take a little bit of time.
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If it's a few minutes, and you just watch all the people that are coming by and pay attention to their hands and what they're carrying, and you try to get a little ratio of how many people that are coming by empty-handed, how many people are coming by with bags in their hands like they're buying something.
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When I started this little journey that I'm on here, I got accustomed to seeing most people carrying bags.
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That's not the case anymore.
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And it seems to be a trend where for every 20 people there's one person carrying a bag.
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And uh, those aren't good odds for for folks like myself.
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And as I'm giving you guys a little play-by-play as to what happened this week, I can connect the dots to what happened a few weeks ago, and we can take northern Maine and we can take Florida, and we can think about the mass difference between the two, and I can find some common trends that still ring true.
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And that bag to person ratio was the same there.
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People are just sitting on money.
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Uh people are are nervous to spend their money, and that's kind of uh that's kind of a scary time.
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So as I'm discussing and laying out the success of this weekend, when we start off with the dollars and cents, I was pretty disappointed with where we ended up.
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I was encouraged that we didn't lose money.
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We we made a few bucks and you come home and you move some things around.
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The difference is when you're making money off of gross sales, but you know the truth is off of profit, you're not really making the money that you should.
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So there becomes a real question as to did the profit actually pay the expenses, or did you kind of go on the hole here?
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You know what I mean?
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Like your gross dollars, they're above and beyond what your cost is, but when you start breaking down cost and profit, does it still outweigh what the cost truly was?
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And when you get to an event that's that close, when those numbers are that close, then you gotta peel back the onion a little bit and you gotta start thinking on a little grander scale and asking yourself, how valuable was the exposure?
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Did you get a new crowd?
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Do you build a new fan base?
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Are you growing that that tribe that you're trying to develop, that positive tribe that's out there beating the drum for your brand?
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Are you welcoming new people to your circle?
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And there's that part of it.
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And then is there potential to go back?
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Is there potential to go back and have a bigger crowd, a bigger um opportunity, a better year with a little bit more money and people looking to spend?
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Will you double that number that you expected?
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You know, when you get to those things, well, those things all work out.
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Unfortunately for us, we heard that they're gonna move locations, which I'm happy about the location.
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They're gonna move to a bigger, um, more uh attractive location, but they're gonna move the date.
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And when they move the date, it's now going to conflict with another event we do, and that event being bike week.
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So we're gonna have a couple of events to really decide, you know, what's the right direction to go here.
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So it's frustrating for me because I'm trying to fill an event calendar in Maine in January, February, March when there's nothing happening.
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That's the reason why I drive south, right?
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There's nothing really happening in my state.
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So when there are things happening where they conflict with the things that are already on my schedule, it's so frustrating.
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It's just so frustrating.
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I I wish that I could get two or three events throughout the wintertime to put money in my pocket and keep this business rolling, and I just can't find them.
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I'm at a and I'm also at a point right now where for the month of April, my plan was to go back down south.
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I was planning on going to Georgia, but as I sit back and look at it and analyze it, number one, I ask myself, can I afford it?
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Do I have the money for the entry fees?
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Do I have the money for the road?
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Do I have the money for the product?
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And number two, when I get out there, am I gonna get the same damn result that I've gotten at the first two events?
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And if I'm gonna take and risk my my financial uh comforts and I'm gonna risk time and sacrifice time with my family on this opportunity, and then go out there and just break even, or maybe not break even, all for the scratch ticket opportunity to actually turn some profit, it's pretty scary.
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And I can say, as April's about a week away, I still don't really know what I'm doing next month because I haven't gotten answers on anything local, and the big ticket opportunities to head south to try something new, I don't know if it's gonna be worth it.
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Because my experience in Florida and my experience in Maine are giving me the same results, and those results are making me nervous.
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As I finish the recap on this event before I get into the discussion that I've been having with multiple business owners over the past few weeks, the other layer of the onion that you ask yourself if it's worth it.
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You think about the dollars and the cents, then you think about the exposure and and the new customer base that you're that you're creating, the new opportunities.
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The next part of that onion is if that what does that event provide you?
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What does it give to you?
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Like when I go to Florida, it gives me the opportunity to spend time with some people that I don't get to spend time with, right?
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I hit the rope with Brian and Zach, we have a great time, and we've started to build an extended family in the South, and it's great to see them and connect to build those relationships to form connections.
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There's some major announcements coming from those relationships and connections that I'm so excited about.
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Those conversations moved even more forward today.
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I look forward to sharing those things with you in the future.
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So those are things that you think about when you start to analyze the event and if it truly makes sense.
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This weekend, one layer of the onion that really makes sense is it's an event that slows you down and provides you the opportunity to spend time with your wife and your daughter, and to get away from your normal routine and to do something different and to enjoy yourselves and to surround yourself with new people and new opportunities and new experiences.
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This event was truly great for that.
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It was busy enough to make a few bucks, slow enough to enjoy time with your family.
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Too slow at times, where you're like, you know what, we could be doing something totally different here.
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But this event provided some cool things for the family.
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There was things to entertain Paisley.
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We were basically set up inside the track and field center for the University of Maine.
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So there was a like a banked angled freaking runner's track all the way around the outside of um like uh where all the vendors are.
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The baby was cranking laps on that thing, running around.
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Everybody was so welcoming and so friendly to her.
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There was different cool things for her the whole time.
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Like they, you know, we're doing a lot of kids' events, making balloon animals.
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There's different dog training events in there.
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So there's dogs everywhere, and my little one is mesmerized by dogs right now.
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There's dog events where they're jumping into pools and doing all kinds of stuff, aquatic stuff.
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There's things to keep her busy and to entertain her little brain, and we set our um display up in a way where she was kind of corralled off, had the opportunity to play and do her thing.
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Man, on Saturday, you want to talk about a day for a little girl.
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She got there at 9 a.m.
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and we don't close until 8 p.m.
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That's a long ass day.
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And she only took like a 30 or 45 minute nap during the middle of the day, and she just absolutely loved it.
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If you guys have been listening this past year on the road, then you know when I went to the Scowhegan Fair, I met a young man there that has become part of our family, Isaiah.
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He's a great dude, he's a great young fellow.
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He gives you hope for the next generation, he gives you optimism for what's to come, that there are still hard-working young men and women being raised right in this country.
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He's just a um just a true, genuine, salt of the earth, hardworking young fellow with hopes and dreams.
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And um, we've formed a connection and a bond.
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He's become part of the family.
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Anytime we're within an hour to two hour radius of his house, we shoot him a message.
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And uh just like the last time we're in Bangor, Isaiah rolled up and he spent basically all Saturday with us.
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And it is amazing to me how little Paisley has just taken to him.
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She hasn't seen him since um before Christmas time when we were in Bangor.
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And um, she sees him, gives him his vendor pass, and the next thing I know, they're coming in uh the the venue, and he's holding her, and she's having a great time, and they just spend the rest of the day basically inseparable, just having a grand old time.
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So that little girl had the best of time.
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And every night, you know, you're you're eating out, you're on the road, you're you're staying in a hotel room.
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It was a crazy little time for her.
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Everything was different for her, but she did tremendous.
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Other than thinking we were probably gonna get kicked out of the hotel on night one because she was a little hepped up and and uh and yelling and screaming at us, not because she was mad about it, anything, but she was just so freaking excited about it.
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But it was a great change of um of everything, a change of pace for everyone.
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I've been gone on the road for a couple of weeks from Florida.
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I'm getting back into a routine, I'm getting ready to leave home yet again.
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So to have that little time with my little family, just just the three of us doing what we we had to do and getting the opportunity to spend every ounce of of every minute of every hour of every day of the weekend together, it was tremendous.
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You know, between the the two and a half hour ride north, her sleeping and and doing great with that, the the hotel, the setup, the check-in, like we're building our entire display.
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She's doing great, all of these things, man.
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Uh, it was it was incredible.
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We're truly blessed, we're truly fortunate.
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I don't know how long I'm gonna be this fortunate when it comes to her at these events, but this was tremendous, and it was so good to see her have a good time.
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Um coming home on Sunday, it was snowing like uh like a I don't even I don't even know.
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It was snowing, okay?
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I'm too tired for a good analogy here, but it was uh it was jumping the white stuff, okay?
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That didn't sound good.
00:18:39.680 --> 00:18:40.720
Lord, I apologize.
00:18:40.799 --> 00:18:41.759
It didn't sound good.
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The old white gold.
00:18:44.000 --> 00:18:46.559
The uh shouldn't have gone there either.
00:18:46.640 --> 00:18:52.319
It was snowing at a pretty good rate in the north, so much so that it was 45 miles an hour on the way home.
00:18:52.400 --> 00:18:56.319
I'm still new to hauling a trailer, so you gotta love that, okay?
00:18:56.640 --> 00:19:06.880
I went from never hauling a trailer to in the past month, I've probably got I don't know, three, four thousand miles of trailer experience, including snowstorms.
00:19:07.119 --> 00:19:09.759
So good times, good times, fun had by all.
00:19:09.920 --> 00:19:14.480
We made it home safe and sound with one detour, mind you, one detour on the trip.
00:19:14.640 --> 00:19:20.480
Because when we were at the venue, you know, for the last day, Allie had already checked out of the hotel, everything was good.
00:19:20.559 --> 00:19:26.960
She says, Well, we're gonna have to make another trip to the hotel because your daughter stole the remote.
00:19:27.200 --> 00:19:27.839
Yeah.
00:19:28.160 --> 00:19:30.720
Paisley has a thing for remote controls.
00:19:30.880 --> 00:19:34.799
She decided she should take the remote control from the hotel room with her.
00:19:34.960 --> 00:19:38.480
So we found that in her little toy supply wagon.
00:19:38.720 --> 00:19:43.440
So on our way home, we had to circle back to the hotel room and drop off the remote.
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Return the stolen remote of our daughter.
00:19:47.359 --> 00:19:53.119
I assumed at some point in time there would be a situation where my daughter stole something via accident.
00:19:53.279 --> 00:19:55.440
I didn't think it would happen before the age of two.
00:19:55.599 --> 00:19:59.599
I didn't suspect it to be a remote from the hotel room.
00:19:59.680 --> 00:20:00.799
How do you do?
00:20:02.559 --> 00:20:11.920
When we peel back all those layers of the onion, all things considered, then I think that event was worth it.
00:20:12.400 --> 00:20:18.079
And if it lined up correctly on my schedule again, I would take another shot at that event again.
00:20:18.319 --> 00:20:23.279
I'm thankful and grateful for the opportunity that I had and the memories that were made.
00:20:23.519 --> 00:20:27.200
I would have loved a little bit more money, but wouldn't we all?
00:20:27.519 --> 00:20:38.079
As I connect the dots between the past few weeks, the last two events that I've had, and as I made reference to the snow storm home, that's a common trend.
00:20:38.319 --> 00:20:42.079
Because I think we're gonna have to weather a few more storms, my friends.
00:20:42.400 --> 00:20:49.359
I'm sorry to say this, but I do think that we must weather a few more storms.
00:20:50.240 --> 00:20:59.599
With my observations being on the road, my old bag to person ratio example, my observations of people just not spending money.
00:20:59.839 --> 00:21:07.839
Over this weekend, when I looked at my final sales totals, I also noticed that nearly 80% of all my sales went on credit.
00:21:08.319 --> 00:21:18.720
Now, for what I do, some people might say, hey, that seems pretty common, it is what it is, but for what I do, I'm often more like a 50-50 split, sometimes 60-40.
00:21:18.880 --> 00:21:24.000
I end up dealing with a lot of cash when I'm at just the type of events that I'm at, right?
00:21:24.240 --> 00:21:27.200
Like uh bike rallies, fairs, festivals, those type of things.
00:21:27.359 --> 00:21:30.000
People come with a um like a budget.
00:21:30.160 --> 00:21:35.599
A lot of people come with like this is what I'm looking to spend, and I'm gonna hold that in cash, and when it's gone, it's gone.
00:21:35.839 --> 00:21:41.599
But I've been noticing that this year people are putting things on credit and they're hoping to pay for them later.
00:21:41.839 --> 00:21:44.640
So that's another trend that I'm seeing.
00:21:45.519 --> 00:21:49.359
If you remember a few weeks ago, I mentioned when we went to Florida on the way there.
00:21:49.440 --> 00:21:53.200
I think we were probably averaging about two dollars and fifty cents a gallon for fuel.
00:21:53.279 --> 00:21:57.359
By the time we were coming home, we were damn near four dollars a gallon.
00:21:58.079 --> 00:22:07.680
Over these past few of events over the past let's say months time I've had a lot of conversations with fellow business owners.
00:22:08.079 --> 00:22:12.960
I found myself comparing my experiences to others.
00:22:13.519 --> 00:22:29.440
The great thing about this message is that my group of friends, the circle of friends that I have, and then the people that I've met on the road, it is a vast, wide-ranging, eclectic group of business owners.
00:22:29.680 --> 00:22:30.000
Okay?
00:22:30.319 --> 00:22:36.160
I don't want to spell out what all their businesses are because I don't want to give any information about their business.
00:22:36.880 --> 00:22:47.440
But these are businesses that you wouldn't think correlate to each other in any way, shape, or form, but we're all feeling and experiencing the same things.
00:22:47.759 --> 00:22:55.759
So when I say prepare to weather the storm, my friends, I do feel like we are stole in the midst of some uncertainty.
00:22:56.000 --> 00:23:07.839
When I talk to all my fellow business owners, and I'm telling you, this has been eye-opening to me because of the vast differences in businesses but are similar experiences.
00:23:08.160 --> 00:23:12.960
As I said to open the show, there's a couple of things that that ring true.
00:23:13.039 --> 00:23:23.759
There's a couple of things that are common things that exist no matter what the business is, and it's uncertainty and nervousness.
00:23:24.000 --> 00:23:26.480
We are all nervous about what's going on.
00:23:26.559 --> 00:23:29.759
We all certainly feel rather uncertain about what's going on.
00:23:30.000 --> 00:23:33.680
We are all experiencing the fact that people are sitting on money.
00:23:33.920 --> 00:23:35.759
Folks don't have enough money.
00:23:36.079 --> 00:23:44.160
I can say it loud and not so proud that I've never been so financially um unsecure.
00:23:44.319 --> 00:23:47.119
I've never been so financially unstable.
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