CHURCH TIP: gearsupply.com

[00:00:00] Today's Church Tech Tip is gearsupply.com. To talk to us about this tip, please welcome

[00:00:05] to The Tech Arts Podcast, the CEO and Chief Gear Guru of Gear Supply, Mendel Rosenberg.

[00:00:13] Hey Mendel.

[00:00:13] Hey, how are you? Excited to be on the podcast.

[00:00:16] So tell me a little bit about that title, Chief Gear Guru. I guess that means you run the shop, huh?

[00:00:22] It does. It's a self-appointed title, but it leans into what we're doing.

[00:00:29] I really want to be running. I don't want to be known as a chief accountant or chief marketing.

[00:00:35] It's definitely gear focused. All of our sales reps are called gear gurus.

[00:00:40] The idea is like if you were in a Tesla dealership, they're not selling you on price.

[00:00:48] They're not pushing the price. They're selling you on the value of what they're offering.

[00:00:52] And they don't have differences in commissions based on what the price is. It's all just on the actual value.

[00:01:00] We run a similar model where our gear gurus should really be selling the product that we're selling,

[00:01:06] being able to tell you what this gear is worth, how it's going to be worth in the next two, three months,

[00:01:11] how it depreciates, et cetera. The best times to buy, the best ways to buy.

[00:01:14] I mean, we're definitely not the experts in installation. We let the installers do that kind of stuff.

[00:01:20] We sell to the installers. We're the experts in buying and selling gear.

[00:01:24] Yeah. Well, tell us a little bit about for our audience who doesn't know, what does gear supply do?

[00:01:30] An interesting story actually. For those of you who don't know, I'm an Orthodox Jew. You couldn't tell.

[00:01:36] And I am Sabbath observing, which means I can't use my phone, drive a car, definitely can't go to work on the Sabbath,

[00:01:45] which is Friday night sundown through Saturday night sundown.

[00:01:47] So I moved to Cincinnati. My wife was studying nursing. I was studying concert production,

[00:01:54] and I figured she probably has a better shot at paying the bills.

[00:01:57] So I moved down from Tel Aviv actually, moved to Cincinnati, tried to get a job in concert production,

[00:02:03] interviewed by a company, one of the biggest shops around in this Ohio region,

[00:02:10] and got the dial by name directory, hit Steve because it's an American company.

[00:02:15] There's probably a Steve working there. Sure enough, there was a Steve working there,

[00:02:18] and he's in charge of all the tech teams. And he said, yeah, why don't you come in tomorrow for an interview?

[00:02:23] He gave me an interview, gave me a job on the spot. And then I said, Steve, I can't work on the Sabbath.

[00:02:28] So Friday night through Saturday night, I'm off the clock. And Steve said, that's kind of an issue.

[00:02:35] That's half the work week. And I said, I get that. And I understand this isn't going to work out.

[00:02:42] But is there anything else I can do? And Steve was nice enough to say, yeah, there is.

[00:02:45] We got tons of used gear. He took my resume back and looked through my resume and saw that I sold things online.

[00:02:50] And he said, yeah, we have tons of used gear. Maybe you can sell our used gear online.

[00:02:54] And I said, yeah, that sounds cool. I'll do that. And my hope was that I'd get back into concert production.

[00:02:59] And I started selling off some of their gear. They walked me out to their warehouse.

[00:03:03] I think the warehouse is like 100,000 square feet. And you walk out and you're already about a fifth of the way through the warehouse.

[00:03:09] And I see this huge warehouse that you walk out and that's what you see in front of you.

[00:03:14] And then he says, now turn around. And they turn around and there's this side of the warehouse that's dark.

[00:03:19] And it's like 20% of the warehouse and there's shelves full of stuff.

[00:03:23] And I said, okay, yeah. He's like, all of that is gear we're not using anymore.

[00:03:27] And I'm like, whoa. Okay. And he says, grab a folding table and a chair and get to work.

[00:03:35] And I set up a little photo booth.

[00:03:37] And a buddy of mine who's very industrious and has a lot of business acumen and also comes from a wealthy family, so has money to play with.

[00:03:44] And I said, I definitely don't. He reaches out to me and says, hey, what are you up to?

[00:03:49] And I said, oh, I'm doing this and this, but I want to get into concert production.

[00:03:53] And he said, Menlo, why don't you find out if this is an issue that plagues other companies as well?

[00:03:57] Because maybe this used gear thing is actually somewhere where you could really provide value.

[00:04:02] And I said, yeah, that's a good idea, but I don't really know how I would help.

[00:04:06] And he said, call up a bunch of companies and start buying their gear, their used gear, if that is indeed an issue.

[00:04:13] And we'll split it. We'll go 50-50. You run the business, I'll put up the money and we'll go 50-50.

[00:04:19] And sure enough, that's how Gear Supply was born. I started calling production companies, realized this is not just a needle and a haystack issue.

[00:04:28] It's a haystack and a needle issue. There's every single production company basically has issues with used gear.

[00:04:35] And I'll get into the actual, what the company does in a second.

[00:04:40] But effectively, that's how Gear Supply was born, just because I couldn't work on Sabbath and told the guy, do you have anything else for me?

[00:04:46] And sure enough, got this role and started calling production companies.

[00:04:49] And sure enough, it was a very, very much needed issue that we were able to solve.

[00:04:54] So that was the start of Gear Supply.

[00:04:57] Well, I think that's cool because I think it says to our audience, you know, you can hold to your values and still do what you love.

[00:05:06] I think a lot of people feel like in today's world, in today's secular world, that sometimes they have to give up on their values and what they hold dearest in order to do what they love.

[00:05:17] So yeah, get into what Gear Supply does.

[00:05:19] I mean, I think based on that story, we kind of figured out it's used gear and you're kind of supplying used gear.

[00:05:26] But kind of tell us what you guys do.

[00:05:28] Yeah, yeah, sure.

[00:05:29] And just jumping back on that value side, I have found, and I talked to people in the community about this all day long, that a value driven company is a company that lasts.

[00:05:42] And we, when we hire people, thank God we have a decent sized team now.

[00:05:50] We look for people that have values, not necessarily the values that I agree with.

[00:05:53] Obviously, if somebody is unethical, it's a different story.

[00:05:56] But I don't always agree with people's, you know, political opinions or values, but I need to know that somebody has a backbone, because we're a company that has a backbone.

[00:06:04] And so, so value driven companies are companies that last and you read any of these legacy older, you know, GE, Microsoft's, obviously they become a little bit corporate these days.

[00:06:16] But you read how they started and how they really got their first 10 years into their business.

[00:06:21] And it's all about the relationships and the value and the backbone and really being a company that people can rely on.

[00:06:26] So it sounds like whether you're a global production company or a local sound guy, it sounds like what you guys are doing is making buying and selling AV gear simple, fast, affordable, and easy for those guys.

[00:06:42] Is that kind of sum up what gearsupply.com does?

[00:06:44] That's spot on.

[00:06:46] There's two sides of the business.

[00:06:48] We started just buying gear and we buy gear in bulk.

[00:06:53] And primarily we're buying it through trade ins.

[00:06:56] So, and we still do that.

[00:06:57] This is a very active part of our business.

[00:07:00] We work with integrators and we work with manufacturers and we work with dealers.

[00:07:04] And we say, hey, next time you go to sell a client, a system, find out what their old gear is.

[00:07:09] And usually the question starts a little different.

[00:07:11] Hey, do you guys buy back your clients old gear?

[00:07:13] And they usually say, no, we're sitting in an office number.

[00:07:16] Where are we going to put that?

[00:07:17] Or no, we don't have $300,000 to pay this church for all their old milos.

[00:07:22] And then I continue with the pitch.

[00:07:25] Okay.

[00:07:26] We'd love to help you.

[00:07:27] We can set up a trading program with you.

[00:07:29] And we work with the manufacturer or the dealer or the integrator.

[00:07:32] And they send us a lead and they say, hey, we're doing a deal on this, in this church.

[00:07:36] And here's the gear that they have.

[00:07:38] And we send them back.

[00:07:39] We say this gear in Times Square Church is worth $200,000.

[00:07:43] Great.

[00:07:43] $200,000.

[00:07:44] They go back to Times Square Church and say, Times Square Church, we're doing a $2 million installation.

[00:07:48] You only need to come up with $1.8 million because you have a $200,000 credit for your old gear.

[00:07:55] On paper, and if anybody has questions about this, they can email me purchasing at gearsupply.com.

[00:08:01] But on paper, on the back end, we do our deal.

[00:08:05] And with the manufacturer, the manufacturer gives the client credit.

[00:08:08] And then, this is the most important part, when they go to ship that new gear to the client, we show up the same day to take out the old gear.

[00:08:15] So it's like trading in a car, you drive on the lot with your old Nissan, and you drive off with your new F-150.

[00:08:20] It's the exact same deal over here.

[00:08:22] The client sees the new gear come in, sees the old gear go out, same day.

[00:08:25] We've done deals where we've been in and out within a couple-hour timeframe because they had a show the day before and a day after.

[00:08:32] And that install was happening exactly on that day, and we needed to be there exactly on the day to pull out the gear.

[00:08:37] So we're pretty efficient.

[00:08:38] We can buy gear anywhere in the US in under four business days, and we pay 70% to 80% of market value.

[00:08:44] So that's the first side of the business.

[00:08:46] During COVID, things got pretty slow.

[00:08:49] For those of you in the audience who don't know, COVID kind of destroyed our industry for a couple months.

[00:08:54] Although I'm sure everybody knows that very well.

[00:08:58] Because of that, we didn't want to lay everybody off.

[00:09:01] We had a team of great people, and we ended up pivoting to making a marketplace because we were really good at buying gear.

[00:09:09] We had the supply side of the gear down pat.

[00:09:11] That's what we call it gear supply.

[00:09:13] We had a ton of manufacturer relationships.

[00:09:15] We do trainings for L Acoustics, quite a bit for DMV, for JBL, for Meijer, for a bunch of the console manufacturers.

[00:09:22] We're doing trainings for everybody.

[00:09:24] For many of those, we're exclusive, and we're very good at getting the gear, but struggled selling the gear because we had to sell it through brokers and sell it through Facebook Marketplace and sell it through eBay, which is not designed for selling high-value items.

[00:09:38] We just struggled and struggled and struggled.

[00:09:42] We're so focused on growing those supply relationships that we never really cared that we're leaving tons of money on the table by using all those services I just mentioned, plus a huge headache to work with those services.

[00:09:53] And I knew eventually we'd create a marketplace, but COVID kind of sped it up.

[00:09:58] We put this marketplace out.

[00:09:59] We did about a million dollars in transactions, and it was a total duct tape together canoe.

[00:10:05] We were just plugging holes as we go, and the platform was not ready.

[00:10:09] We just did this proof of concept.

[00:10:11] We put $50,000 in it, sent it off on the water, and sure enough, it floated, and it actually traveled quite far.

[00:10:17] And we did a million dollars in transactions in the first three months.

[00:10:20] And we said, holy crap, like there is a market here, and people are ready to transact digitally online.

[00:10:28] Our biggest differentiator is that we only charge 6%.

[00:10:31] So if you use a broker, you can be paying 10% to 20%.

[00:10:34] Use eBay, you could be paying 13%.

[00:10:37] And there's issues with all those.

[00:10:38] You use Facebook Marketplace, you're getting scammed.

[00:10:41] So there's issues with all those three tools.

[00:10:46] And we said, we're going to just focus on core issues that people need us to help them with the transaction, the shipping, the marketing, and let people who know this gear well negotiate with their customers.

[00:10:57] They don't need us to do that for them.

[00:10:58] They know how to sell this gear.

[00:10:59] They know what it's worth.

[00:11:01] So we're not transacting for you.

[00:11:02] We're helping facilitate and close that.

[00:11:04] We're helping with the tax compliance, we're helping with logistics, we're helping with inventory management.

[00:11:08] But as far as actually selling the gear, our industry knows what they're doing.

[00:11:12] They know this gear.

[00:11:13] They pitch it to people on riders all day long.

[00:11:15] They can pitch it to another industry customer.

[00:11:18] And it's not fair to charge them 20% to just do two or three of those things, which we can technologically optimize and not need to actually have a physical person physically calling every single freight company.

[00:11:28] We can create freight tools that do that for them.

[00:11:31] And on the platform, it has all that.

[00:11:32] It sounds like between the marketplace and the trade in programs and the transparency and scale that you guys do, that sets you apart from some of the other companies that are doing this.

[00:11:44] And plus the personal touch with the gear guru that's kind of helping you through the whole process, depending on which side of the business that you're on.

[00:11:52] It sounds like that sets you apart from a lot of the other companies.

[00:11:56] Would you agree?

[00:12:25] Yeah.

[00:12:26] So if you're not going to sell it, we know it's worth $100,000.

[00:12:28] So we're going to offer $70,000 to $80,000 because we know that we can sell it.

[00:12:32] We know exactly how we're supposed to sell it.

[00:12:33] We have exactly the market to market that to.

[00:12:35] So on the direct side, we're always going to be paying more.

[00:12:39] The only person that's going to pay more than us is an end user.

[00:12:41] So, Mendel, I'm sitting at home listening to this.

[00:12:44] How do I get in touch with you?

[00:12:46] How do I get the whole process started?

[00:12:48] Sure, sure.

[00:12:50] There are a few ways that you can sell gear.

[00:12:53] You can sell it to us directly.

[00:12:55] If you're large enough, you can become a preferred vendor, which means we directly manage your inventory for you.

[00:13:00] Or you can list it as a community listing, which is 100% free, but you don't have access to some of the inventory management or payment tools that we give our bigger vendors like a PRG or a Soltech or some of the bigger production companies.

[00:13:13] So those are the three ways you can do that.

[00:13:15] If you go right into gear supply, you'll see right in the corner, it says sell.

[00:13:18] And if you feel like you should be a preferred vendor, reach out and we'll help you do that.

[00:13:21] Or you can just sell us the gear directly.

[00:13:23] So again, those are the three ways you can sell to us, list it as a community listing, or become a preferred vendor on the platform.

[00:13:30] To get in touch with gear supply, you want to go to gear supply.com.

[00:13:36] If you want to get ahold of Mendel directly, you have something there.

[00:13:39] It's purchasing at gear supply.com.

[00:13:41] If you have some questions about setting things up, you can go and email them at team at gear supply.com.

[00:13:47] But you shouldn't have any problems.

[00:13:49] You go to gear supply.com and click on sell.

[00:13:53] It is truly the easiest way to buy and sell used AV gear.

[00:13:58] So go to gear supply.com.

[00:14:02] Mendel, thanks for coming on to the tech arts podcast and telling us about your company.

[00:14:07] Awesome.

[00:14:07] Thank you.

[00:14:07] And now, I want to video by the news update on the game at a couple of years.

[00:14:07] The game for, you know, everyone here's the game that we have, and we are not happy about it.

[00:14:07] You're right.

[00:14:08] All right.