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Each season of Just Stories has a different eight-episode theme. The show kicks off with “Recycled Dreams,” featuring eight CEOs who have woven giving back into their business strategies.
These episodes will give you a blueprint for doing the same in the most efficient way possible, which is making their learnings your reality.
Solutions to problems tackled on this episode:
1. Easy advise for setting up a charity.
2. Motivation to begin giving back as a business and a potential partnership to start philanthropy.
3. How to grow an out of control beard!
This episode was so fun for me talking with Keith Moneymaker (yes, his real name) who is the CEO of Sweet Dreams and the founder of an amazing non-profit that WILL shape the next decade of small companies who want to incorporate giving back into their business strategy. You do not want to miss his exciting announcement that happens live on this episode.
Season 1 of the podcast is titled “Recycled Dreams” because each episode focuses on CEO’s who have utilized giving back as a part of their main business strategy. The purpose is to use the art of story telling to motivate our business communities into giving back more because when you do, everybody wins!
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Full Transcription:
Brett Thornton: All right, everybody. I am so excited because today on the just stories podcast, we have an unbelievable guest that fully embodies the idea around what the recycle dream series is all about, which is businesses who utilise giving back as part of their strategy. So, without further ado, I want to introduce Keith Moneymaker. Thank you so much for coming on to the podcast.
Keith Moneymaker: I’m super humbled to be here. This is only my second podcast ever. The first one was with those Marco, so just as humbled to be invited on to this one as I was on that one. I appreciate like, you know, people reaching out and seeing a story and wanting to kind of help me grow it and kind of have that same idea that I have about how business should work.
Brett Thornton: Yes. Well, what I want to do is, you know, the thing about just stories is that instead of kind of going into all the details around how people got to where they got or 10 step stores to success or whatever, like I really want to dig into some personal stories so, people can get to know you a little bit. And then we really want to dive into this giving back kind of philanthropy and how that all got going and out people can actually do this and companies can do this themselves. Right? And so, but before we do, I want to do an intro for you, right? So, people can kind of get to know about you. And unfortunately like in podcasts a lot of times you know, people are like, “Hey, tell me about yourself” and then it’s a 20-minute rant, and we don’t have time for that. We got to get into the good stuff, right? So, I am going to introduce you.
Keith Moneymaker: Okay?
Brett Thornton: So, think a spin Shira, right? He in the first movie goes to find Ray Finkle’s house and he goes up and asks for Ray Finkle and the guy comes out the dad points a gun at him and he’s like telling me about you know, what do you know about Ray Finkle, right? and he tells him. So, I’m going to do that for you. Okay, so if I miss anything major, you tell me. Are you ready? Okay, so everybody, this is Keith money maker in like 60 seconds. Okay, here we go. All right. Well-named Keith Moneymaker, yes, that is his real name, Moneymaker. It’s German. It’s a long line of descent. We’re not sure where it’s from. It could have been people who were really wealthy, could have been people who made money, could have been thieves, who knows. We’ll go with the first one. He’s from Pembroke North Carolina, grew up there, still lives there now. His parents own a US furniture and antique shop as he grew up so, he grew up in retail so, he’s all around it, playing hide and seek as he’s a kid so he knows sales, trust me. In 2002, though horrific, the accident happens. Roof burns down. They lose the store. His dad decides, you know what, I’m going to bounce to a new business of mattresses airgo. One day, Keith will take it over. He grew up, ended up going to UNC Pembroke #gobraves. When he came back, he ended up taking over “Sweet Dreams”, which is the mattress shop. 2014, he met his wife, Darla who’s the better half, obviously. In 2016, Hurricane Matthew swept through North Carolina, massive destruction and would change his life forever because, it caused him to create, in 2017, his non-profit dreams for all which is what we’re going to talk about today. In 2018, he and his wife adopted two baby boys from South Korea which are amazing. On 2021, today, his wife is almost pregnant, or she is pregnant, almost about to have another kid or have a baby, right? Which is really exciting. And in 2021, later this year, he will be dropping a ground breaking philanthropy that I can’t wait to talk about at the end of the episode.
Keith Moneymaker: Boom!
Brett Thornton: How do you do now?
Keith Moneymaker: Amazing except for, I’m from Pinehurst, live in Pinehurst. I wouldn’t even Brook, other than that, you nailed it.
Brett Thornton: All right, go back. Do it again. No. So, it’s a great story. And I love the you know, I love knowing why and how people get into retail especially, you know, just someone who wound up in the mattress industry like who gets in the mattress like who you know, grows up, like I want to be a mattress salesperson, not many people but, obviously from you actually living it and breathing as a kid is that kind of did you always know as you grew up, like, I’m just going to roll into this?
Keith Moneymaker: No, I just kind of worked actually. I just could never figure out why I like selling mattresses and what it ended up being more is I like dealing with the public and be able to solve, be able to problem solve a need, I poured a lot of you know, energy, for example, on a customer day to day basis, which has grown the company year after year and be able to embody that and show other staff how to do that. It’s not just a matter of purchase, somebody has to trust you, if they’re going to spend $3,000 on a big white rectangle because, they’re not going to cut it open. So, if they trust you, they’re not going to waste your time on anybody anywhere else. And the best you can do is be genuine and be yourself and just in and have knowledge about your product and it being served as well. And I tell all my staff sees and does everything with their own unique touches to everything.
Brett Thornton: Yeah, absolutely. So, before we really get into the giving back part like I said, I really want you know, myself and the audience to get to know you a little bit and so the way we do it, you know, as I told you ahead of time on the just stories podcast is that I ask you three stories, right? That I want you to think back to your career. It can have to do with anything but, I really want to know, what is just a really funny story something that happened to you throughout your career that that you know you’d love to share?
Keith Moneymaker: And I love to share it. Well, I think I can relate to a lot of mattresses, guys, family businesses that had mattress stores growing up, heck, maybe even guys that worked at master farm we don’t even know. But I think we can all say like our all of our funniest stories was that one night, we had to stay the night in our own mattress shop. And let’s not shy away from that. We all know we have done it. If you worked in the mattress, or you had the keys to the door, you stayed there one night. And I think that kind of like the funny story with that though, I guess, that will bring this next part is I slept too long, one Saturday morning and 7:30 am I have a complete, like 100 it’s probably like 75 feet across showroom, I’m one of the main entrances to Walmart. And it’s like 7:30 in the morning on a Saturday and I’m lying on a mattress against the back wall. There’s nothing on the glass and I hear the doors jingling to be open. And there’s two little old ladies, it was an older lady and her mom, Jelena on the door. “I don’t know if they’re open, I can’t quite tell if they’re open and I see somebody there”, and I’m like, I ain’t going to lie, I mean, I was in boxers, passed out of sleep. And I heard it but, I knew they couldn’t see me. So, I military crawled around the bed. I went through the bathroom door hallway, went to the back, got dressed my Polo on and I walked to the front door, “Hey, ladies house man and buy in to Tempur-Pedic Saturday”, so, you know, ended up being a good sale for the morning. But it was hilarious. Because it definitely, it’s yeah, I don’t know. I mean, I know we all slept in a store once or twice but, that was definitely a wakeup call. I had to quit doing that after that. So that was fun.
Brett Thornton: That is the layer, I can just see you being on the bed and like just army rolled right off the bat all the beds and trying to make your way back.
Keith Moneymaker: I have two entrances to my back rooms. I went out one, came out the other, act like I was never even here.
Brett Thornton: I can relate now on that not that type of level. But I did do it as well. I did it one time when I was in my young 20s and I was managing my very first store. And it was the lowest volume store in all of California. So, you basically get maybe a guest a day coming in. But it was my first job as a manager. So, I was really pumped. And I had a guy get sick. So, he was out all week. So, I worked five builders in a row. So, 5, 10 to 9 shifts, great with no help, no support. And unlike the third day, I had never seen a guest the whole day, you know, from 10 am to 9 pm. And at like 8:59, I see the car lights come on like, oh, you got to be kidding me. And a lady comes in like a warranty issue. She’s there till 10 pm and then she leaves and it’s 10 o’clock at night and I’m so tired. And I had an inventory check in the morning. So, I had to be at the store at 8am and it was like yours. I was just like, you know what? Forget it. I went upstairs. There’s like an upstairs, put on an adjustable bed. You know, like put a movie in. I’m like, I’m just sleeping here. Forget it.
Keith Moneymaker: Yeah, way to do man.
Brett Thornton: Like you said, well done.
Keith Moneymaker: So, you can only figure out how to turn their stories into like, try it overnight hotels without the current town frowning upon it saying somebody slept on it. I think we do better. “Can we test it out?” “Yeah, tonight. Here’s the keys.”, I tell people that all the time. But they don’t take me seriously. But yeah, I’ve done it.
Brett Thornton: Oh, man. So, I love that. So, obviously, that’s transition to totally different topic. But, you know, I want to know, because you’ve had a lot of ups and downs, and we’ll get into in a minute to what happened and why you started your foundation, you know, but what would you say when you look back at your career, up until this point? What’s probably has been the hardest moment or a huge challenge or a big failure that catapulted you into making a big change in your career or doing something different or having to evolve as a leader?
Keith Moneymaker: If I had to name anything that was one of my biggest life changing moments in my career outside of my personal family world, this actually dove right into personal. Let me pull a picture of this. And I only read this, I try not to. I know that this has always been in my past, but I don’t ponder on it often, but I had a good friend who shall remain nameless. We were friends since we were 12 years old. He had been working for me since my family came up with the company. So, I’m 32 now, company’s 20 years old. So, it had been right when we opened the store. He’d come after school and help me in my dad’s headboards delivery, just hang out and play Xbox in the back like we all did. Anyway, he had worked with me until about 2015 where the store got me really busy. I was still gallivanting between here and college, not taking things seriously but, I was selling beds. I was going to college three days a week but, I didn’t want to have some kind of a college life. I didn’t want to work it away. So, everybody’s freshman 20 pounds that you gain, I did the senior 20. So, my last year college was kind of my craziest year at college. So, I was back and forth. I wasn’t 100% into taking over the business quite yet. But I was helping out quite a bit and my buddy, he said you have this friend and I’ll do anything to help you end in a company I never recommend, in essence never abusing that power. Unfortunately, it served me the worst in a way but it has also helped me the best because I’ve been able to reflect on it. And he left me a letter one morning, resigning. I haven’t seen him or talked to him in seven years. And one of the things that that stuck out the most is it says, “Don’t pile a bunch of hard manual labour on an old man and woman speak highly of its importance. Then run off to gallivant around try Promoting a healthy work environment instead of playing dictator tycoon I no longer call you master I have nothing else pleasant or kind to say at this time Leave me be and had a few other things play the hand Murphy has dealt you quit feeling sorry and don’t hate giving people the shaft things.” That just said a lot of truthful things but, a lot of hurtful things we never communicated about, his discomfort working nor did I ask. He also didn’t say no. He wanted more work. I gave more work. It just came to this puzzling and it exploited and then a wakeup call. I haven’t seen the dude or talk to the dude since I tried to reach out once or twice after but yet, you have to cross paths or see him ever again. And he was one of my closest best friends so, it hit hard and is real tough dealing with that. I was not okay with that. But now that I reflect back and look on that, I was around that time introduced to a gentleman named Mike Irwin, who runs a couple national non-profits called the positivity project and team our WB which is enriching veterans lives after they get out of military service. He’s a good friend of mine, lives here in town and we just became really good friends. I went to a couple leadership seminars. And that was around the time that Hurricane Matthew happened and I threw the idea by about him I was like hey man, I thought about it, this idea of charity and since our stores called Sweet Dreams, dreams for all it just bust, worked it, dreams for all foundation. So, he said, right now I don’t know exact timeline of things. But he kind of directed me to get that off the ground as a non-profit before it became a non-profit. When I found out about Hurricane Matthew hitting North Carolina and in Robeson County in the southeast as some of the lowest highest poverty in the state. And now you hit it with flood which I don’t have flood insurance, I guarantee a lot of those folks did not. Like, a month or two after that, one of my friends posted a Facebook video of driving around down there and that’s when the dreams from him, it kind of came to him. I’m different moments, but I saw pictures in front of every single house of furniture piled in front from water, three to four feet on the floor, and a mattress on top of every pile and that’s what led me to create and start repurposing old bedding and sanitising and getting out to families in need. So, the letter and Hurricane Matthew are the two biggest sticking points that got me to where I am today in my business career.
Brett Thornton: Yeah, so, I want to dive into that a little bit more, you know, because the third thing that I always want to ask people is like, what was that defining moment? You know, what was the one story that really catapulted your business or you’re giving back or whatever it is? And I know we talked prior but, you said it really was Hurricane Matthew so, maybe dive into that a little bit further and just explain because, I saw the video and maybe I can, I’ll try to edit some video on here so people can see but, basically, there was just lines of people’s stuff, right? They had to put all the junk out that what was that so people could take it away.
Keith Moneymaker: Everything so that the trash, I mean they were at this point the water had finally gone away. There was like 600 plus families living in churches and school’s gymnasium. Schools were still closed like nobody was living in their house. And so, they finally started doing tear outs when the water kind of succeeded seceded away. And everything that the people had owned, water screws it up, man.Water messed it up. Every piece of furniture in every single house was filled with water and in a low poverty area, you already have probably cheaper furniture, press wood, things like that. So, this stuff, they have nothing in it and I was like man, the most important thing is a mattress and then we live in a nicer area. So, I was like we get nice beds all the time. So, I just made a Facebook call to call to arms and just started taking used beds. We took around 300 beds, just down there with friends, my own workforce to help me, we took beds down so, eventually, that was the big sticking point where it turned into more to just relief efforts after that which we can get into but, that was the biggest, like the most basic need here in Moore County. In Robeson County, 45 minutes away, people did not even know there are people not even sleeping in their homes, that this was going on. So, I made it a real aware situation. So, it’s been very prominent in my area with the press and everything and it catapulted. I mean, in a business sense, people want to support a company that’s giving back. So, the more beds I sell, the more money I make. The more money I make, the more I can put money into the charity, I can pay my employees, I can do more deliveries, the more used beds I get back, I can sanitise, it’s Yeah.
Brett Thornton: So, walk me through that process too, so when somebody, right now, someone comes in, they buy a bed and you go there to pick up their old set, right? So, what happens at that point from when you pick it up to getting to be able to donate it? How does that even work?
Keith Moneymaker: I’ve created a Facebook following on Instagram and Facebook. And for the longest time, we just took individual requests and people just tagged me in things about picking up a mattress or somebody needing a mattress or somebody starting over but, the process is, somebody buys a bed, we get a new bed back 90% of the time. I use bed, in about 60-70% of the time, that bed is clean. It’s just old but, it’s clean and it’s usable and I just did not want to take it to the dump. So, it comes back to our warehouse. We keep everything, the new stuff and the used stuff separate. We recently got a kiln where we sanitise our own beds. It is a 32-foot kiln. But up until that point, we had this gentleman come in with a trailer that essentially is legal to sanitise mattresses. So, he’s verified by the state of North Carolina, which we will be soon because we have our own kiln now. So, we’re waiting on our law tags and everything, the little yellow stickers, everybody knows how to use mattress in the industry. So, the plastic we take from that mattress, when we deliver a new bed, we wrap that old bed in that. The old bed goes to our warehouse, that old bed goes in the cooker for two hours. Once we have a full load, we pull it out, it’s tagged. We are connected to all the social networks in our area, the homeless shelters, domestic abuse centres, all the social workers at schools, the fire departments I work with closely when my house burns down. I want to make sure beds are immediately taken out of that family, which somebody did this past weekend, their trailer burnt down on a Saturday, we were able to get them beds and actually some extra furniture the community donated the next day on a Monday. So, we had a good agility spec with that. So, they had beds to sleep on. So yeah, that’s the process. I mean, it’s super elaborate. It’s taken me five years of reps to really figure out because, you know, people come in, and it becomes a word that you’re giving away beds and that’s a huge deal. So, you have to figure out the system and how exactly that works. And it’s turned into great companies like avocado, when somebody has a return, we’re actually picking one up tomorrow, believe it or not, delayed reached out and the customer reached out to us and seven lakes and they call us, we provide a donation receipt. That mattress, we bring it back, we cook it and that’s a 30-day old mattress that goes into somebody’s home. So, you know, having great partners like that, we actually end up getting more used beds than we typically deliver out because we are known and aware in the community of that.
Brett Thornton: That’s so phenomenal. So, tell me, you mentioned it briefly. But when did you start to realise like, oh, wait a minute, this is a Yes. I’m doing, our company’s doing something great for the community. So, that part of it amazing, right? Like, we love all that, you know, our community loves it, our employees love it. But when do you kind of realise, like, when did the light bulb go off that, oh, wait. Our guests love this, like our guests want to buy from us because of this thing. That’s a reason to come to your store, as opposed to, you know, the other sleep shops down the road.
Keith Moneymaker: So, almost instantly, Facebook posts that we were going to be doing this, like letting people know to reach out to us, made the awareness level there. And then our local press, the pilot wanted to reach out and do some publicity, it was almost instantly, people were hearing about what we’re doing. And you know, most of the time, it’s that we heard what you’re doing with these beds, we love you to get back to the community. The used beds aren’t costing any money. The people are donating. And people just like the idea, I mean, outside of the recycling factor, which is another whole entity of this is that I’m running a purposeful business about meaningful business as directly giving back to the community. And it’s changed our business on the forefront tenfold. I mean, I have a Mattress Firm in my town. It’s nice to have some competition in the town and stuff but, I’ve been so ingrained in this for the past five plus years, and then you know, even pushing the family business aspect for the past 10 years and we’ve been in business 20 total years, the relationships and the networking and the amount of people that I know in the area and the people that are working at the homeless shelters and like the word of mouth is so phenomenal. It’s not a day that goes by that somebody comes in to buy a bed. How did you hear about us? Oh, well we know what you do with the old beds or we know that you give back to the community or one of the other quick sticking stories my first charity annual event, thistle and I got a text message, but, the guy that was going to do the drone footage for my first charity event, I was really trying to do something cool, backed out the day before the event. My first fundraiser now, this coming year, October 21, will be our fourth fundraiser. This is the first year and he backed out. So, I scrambling to find somebody. Somebody put me in touch with this dude named Bobby Hancock who’s a professional photographer. And I said, “Hey, I really need to hire you for this. Please tell me how much it’s going to be. I want to get you on board for tomorrow.” He was able to do it. I was like, please tell me what I owe you. He was like nothing. You don’t owe me anything. Six months ago, my dad’s house burned down and you gave him beds. And man! Oh, let me tell you, that pulls your skin off and your hairs up on your arms a little bit? I had no correlation nor connection but, that was a cool sticking point that has happened numerous times now to people that have came in and bought beds to a family member I have helped. People walk in the store and we’ve got to a point where we have a decent amount of donations and stuff coming in that I’m able to help out gold star spouse families or injured veterans or somebody comes in the other day, and they were expecting to pay for a bed and there they had brought in a child they were fostering, hoping to adopt, but they needed a bed for them. And they were planning on paying for it. But I was like, no, I mean, adoption, obviously isn’t near and dear to me. But for the pure fact is that, I know the expenses and the hassle and just the heart to adopt and the willingness to adopt, I was like no, they came in to pay it, it’s like, we will cover it like not a big deal. We’ll take care of that it is a big deal. But that’s not what you need to be spending your money on right now. So, let me take care of you. So, I have the opportunity to, if somebody walks in the door for an elderly grandfather or somebody who’s maybe sickly or terminal, to just decline their payment and do that every once in a while, too. It’s a good genuine feeling and I’ve been able to be blessed to provide such a huge, such a plentiful entity of a mattress that because the quality of sleep is so important. And to sleep on a bed in general is so important. And so, you know, I found a lot of just, yeah. You can hear it.
Brett Thornton: I know, I love it, man. I love the story about the photographer, because, I feel that things like that tend to work out, you know, when I feel that people and businesses are purely being authentic and genuine with wanting to help or do the right thing. Those things just seem to come around and we see a lot of companies today that come the end of the year, November, December, they got to do a write off and they write some big check to a charity or something, hey, we’re donating XYZ and it’s great, hey, charities need money, organisations need money. But there’s a difference between what I call experiential giving, right? which is something that involves everybody. So, the reason why I love your story so much is because it really is an experience a guest walks in your store, they make a new purchase, they know, hey, you know what, I bought this other Tempur-Pedic eight years ago, things fine, it’ll probably look the same in 40 years and we had a protector on it, now I know, because I’m buying this purchase, right? Like, we’re going to donate this and then someone in need is going to get my bed and everybody wins. Everyone feels great. And then this person gets this Tempur-Pedic that maybe sleeping on the floor or whatever, going through a rough time. It’s a win-win for all and that’s what I love about it. So let me ask you this. So, imagine, I’m assuming, I grew up in sales, like if you’ve ever done an elevator pitch, like as a practice or sales technique, where you had to like pitch something?
Keith Moneymaker: Yeah, I have.
Brett Thornton: Alright, so imagine this. We’re going to get into an elevator. It’s going to be the top floor, so you’ve got literally 30 seconds, I walk in and I ask you what you do. You tell me, I tell you what I do. You know, I’m a business owner. Tell me in 30 seconds why I should create a giving programme for my business.
Keith Moneymaker: Why you should create a giving program?
Brett Thornton: Yes. So, I’m telling you I heard about you. I know how you do giving back and do the mattresses. Well, that’s cool. Why should I do that with my business?
Keith Moneymaker: Because if you have a business in town, you open a company, I don’t care what it is. If you were expecting that town to support you and support your business and you’re not doing anything to support that town, then why are you in business? What is your purpose behind outside of a bottom line and just making profits? Your purpose should be to give your employees something they want to be a part of and a purpose to be a part of and to give something back to the community that’s not so fortunate because, I guarantee no matter where you’re living, you can find a way to give back. And it doesn’t matter if you’re selling food, cars, mattresses or anything like that. If you are selling something, there is a way for you to help your community in a genuine manner, not to do it for profit and in the tenfold of things, it will in turn help your business because, that’s just how the world works and take care of them because other people matter. That’s what it just comes down to, it’s the right thing to do. Don’t expect profits.
Brett Thornton: Nice, man, I love it.
Keith Moneymaker: Boom.
Brett Thornton: So, you just keyed in on like that.
Keith Moneymaker: Yeah, I love it. I would be sold. I’d be like I got to do it right.
Brett Thornton: So, you just cheated on something that I really love, which is, you know, you mentioned, no doesn’t matter what business you’re doing, there’s always a community need. And I want to give you an opportunity because, I know that you have some really exciting news coming up on something that you’re doing. And I want to get an opportunity to talk about it but, before you do, I want to preface it with this, which is one of the purposes of doing this podcast, especially this theory called recycled dreams, right? When we’re talking to people like Keith is really that we want to challenge business owners, entrepreneurs, CEOs, and we want to motivate you guys to understand that you can employ a giving back programme, in lieu of a lot of the things you do now, but get back the same returns. I love the example that generally in a lot of companies, if you think retail, you think automotive, you think these different things, all these places generally drive traffic in by sales, right? So, they put products on sales. So, you’re paying all this money for an advertisement and then you’re discounting the product because, you got to get people in the door, right? So, then you’re losing out the money to the advertising, then the money to the discount, and then you’re making x. But when you do philanthropy, or things like this, where you’re driving this through Facebook or through your non-profit, all of a sudden, you’re now driving guests into your store but, now you’re not discounting anything, correct? They’re selling your normal products. But because of what you’re doing on the back end, you end up dropping all this business. And so, I really want to give Keith an opportunity to tell you guys what he’s doing, because I think a lot of you out there could actually benefit drastically from this. So, tell us about it.
Keith Moneymaker: Am I not choppy right now? I don’t know. What is this? Am I good?
Brett Thornton: Yep.
Keith Moneymaker: Okay. So, very early stages but, this is a programme that dreams for all. It’s like, how can I help more people? How can I take something? How can I do what I’m doing? I think it’s very easy. I’ve been doing these reps for five years, growing a charity and my company in the family business in the family name and this past year thing, a few things have kind of come to the forefront of me is like this is something we can scale. And to scale. I mean that we are in the early conversations and play books and business models of taking this to a national level of being able to help, not just our community but, giving any mattress store locally owned family mattress store, the opportunity to take our programme, and build our network to where you can help your community this isn’t going to benefit my business. We’re going to be franchising out dreams for all foundation as a 501c3. And to take this entity, use your existing used mattresses you’re already getting back and show you the programme and how it works to give back to your community. You cut your advertising back. It’s going to save tonnes of landfill space, you’re going to help local families not sleep on the floor. This is dire to set your business apart as the dos Marcos have talked about how do you set your company apart. Well, we all are in this ship together, we’re all a local family store in some different place, we’re all a company in some different area, trying to figure out how we can be different. Well, we can be different. But we can also be so tied together like we’re trying to grow this industry to be and do back for better than just the bottom line and for the good of people is that we’re getting used beds back. And we are and there is a way to make those used beds, extend the life of that mattress and help a local family in your town get off the floor, a local family who just lost their house due to fire, a local family whose father may be dying of cancer. We can take an eight-year-old Tempur-Pedic, sanitise it in two hours, wrap it back up and get it to a family that actually can use it and not waste space in the landfill. And we’re going to show people how to do that. It’s still in the early stages of it though. So, this is going to be huge. We’re working with the gentlemen Mike Irwin, who runs two national non-profits, and he’s helping us get this thing to scale. And I’ve got a couple young ladies here that are full time operations and an executive director that building this playbook out. So, if you show any interest, I’m sure Mr. Thornton here, can put you in touch with me.
Brett Thornton: Yeah, absolutely. 100% you know, I will.
Keith Moneymaker: Super excited to think about like, it’s crazy to think about.
Brett Thornton: Honestly, it is next level, you know, because really, even I love the term franchising too because, when you think of franchising, you’re normally thinking of, okay, this big conglomerate, I’m opening businesses, I’m going to markets where I’m taking over the local markets and taking over their local retail, whatever it is, this is like the exact opposite, right? Like, literally, I’m packaging up a way for you to give back to your community. So, I’ve done the work I’ve done, the five years of legwork, let me package this for you, give it to you, so, then you can go and help, which is amazing. Absolutely amazing. I love it. I can’t wait for it to roll out. And so, tell us, how can actually people get hold of you, so they want to get some interest? Hey, I know you’re rolling out down the road, but I want to be a part of this. How can they reach out to you? How can they get a hold of you?
Keith Moneymaker: So, baby boy, Gideon, do number three, number three do any day now. So, we’ll be taking some time off to acclimate and get our boys and everybody and just be together as a family. So, I’ve got the charity to run it up with Amy and Brent right now. So, the best thing to do, if you are showing interest, like I said, I will say I was kind of like 50 50 if I wanted to share this or not, because I know the traction, it’s going to catch. But if you are showing early interest, we’re going to run a few pilot locations this year to test the waters on stuff. So, I will say I’ve already got one on board. And so, we may be open to possibly two to three more, or probably less, looking at a realistic launch date of beginning of next year. This is super early. But it’s as I just explained it, it’s going to work, you’re going to make a difference in your community, for your company, for your business. And it’s not going to involve me. I’m going to show you how to do what I have done here in your town. And you’re going to send your own employees on deliveries, you’re going to have your dreams for all gear, you’re going to have the feeling of giving somebody a mattress who’s never been able to afford one, somebody who just lost everything to a fire, whose insurance is not going to pay out to take a mattress that you just got from a delivery and delivering a whole house full you picked up four beds, putting it in somebody at home. It beats any $10,000 or $5000 on Metro city overdue, and I’m going to show you how to do it.
Brett Thornton: Yes, love it. Well, hey man, thank you so much for coming on. You know, I think , as I mentioned in the beginning, this concept of what you’re doing is exactly what recycled dreams is all about, right? It is about highlighting people, companies, businesses who are basing their business model around giving back because at the end of the day, I can tell you this, because I see it every day and it’s growing, which is people want to deal with companies who are giving back, it’s just what we want to do. So, what I want to do, what my family wants to do, and that’s skewing younger, right? So, what’s the biggest buying generation in the world, you know, going to be it’s the millennials, right? They’re the ones working now, they’re the ones getting these major higher paying jobs and what they care about this, it’s important to them. So, if you’re a business out there, please get a hold of me, get a hold the key figured out, there’s plenty of things you can do to give back. And I’m going to have a little bit of a BT take coming up in a minute, where I’m going to summarise all this. But I will tell you, I can show you some really good and amazing data from the last five years I have as well about comparing given events versus events when you’re just selling product. And at the end of the day, you can drive the same amount of traffic and all that money you would spend on discounted products you can put towards giving events. So, you know when you create win-win-win scenarios, in my mind, that’s long term. So once again, man, I really appreciate it. Keith, thank you so much for coming on. It was a blast. And good luck with the baby number three. You’re going to be outnumbered.
Keith Moneymaker: Oh, I know, man. So, yeah, this is just exactly what Brett said, once somebody comes in and support your cause, you have a lifelong customer forever. You are building it, you’re investing in a relationship in your community that’s going to last forever that people move out of state and they buy beds from me because of what we do. It’s an amazing thing. And I’m still blessed at my age to be able to do something and create something like this that I’m Super excited for and I know you’re probably going to put stuff in the comments and but, if you want to kind of follow some of the things that I’m doing, I’m on Instagram “Keith. Mattress.therapist” and then “Dreams for All Foundation” as well. But you can also email us if you are interested in becoming one of our pilot locations. I’m announcing this right now. Oh man, no man, Amy and Britt aren’t here right now though, dreams4all17@gmail.com. If you want to reach out to us, just give us a follow on IG. Just watch what we’re doing. I’m constantly trying to keep the balance of work life and we know how much it melts together these days, so, you want to have a purpose where you work and where you give. So, invest in us. I appreciate you, Brett.
Brett Thornton: Awesome. Appreciate you, buddy. Have a good one, man.
Keith Moneymaker: Have a good one. See you.
Brett Thornton: Later.
