In this episode, legendary business builder Jason Friedman joins Mark Kinsley to recap Sleep Summit 2023.
More than 100 mattress professionals gathered for the first-ever event featuring 18 speakers. One retailer said,
“I took 14-pages of notes!”
Sleep Summit attendees enjoyed two-days jam packed with networking, professional development, amazing food, and an exclusive evening at the world-renowned Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.
Did you miss Sleep Summit?
Good news for you mattress entrepreneurs and business builders — there’s a path forward!
You’re invited to join us at 2 p.m. EST on Oct. 17th to be part of this EPIC announcement.
Full Transcription
The first ever sleep summit event has wrapped up. We did it in beautiful Bentonville, Arkansas. A lot of people had never been there. Wow. What an amazing experience with incredible speakers. And I have one guy who took the stage. Actually, it took a stage a couple of times here to talk about his incredible message and why it’s important to entrepreneurs.
The sleep summit show begins right now.
📍 📍 Oh my gosh. Welcome to the sleep. So I show I am like riding a high after more than a hundred people converged in my backyard in Bentonville, Arkansas for sleep summit, 2023, the first ever event of its kind. And Jason. You’ve done a lot of events. You’ve been a lot of places.
You’re backstage at an event right now. First of all, thank you for taking time to be here. I just got to get your hot take on Sleep Summit.
First of all, like, thank you for involving me. Um, and you should be on a high. I mean, the event was unbelievable. My LinkedIn has been blowing up from people. Tagging me and talking about how amazing their experience was.
I got invited to this Facebook group and people are talking about it’s the best event that they’ve ever seen in the mattress industry. So kudos to you, man, you, uh, Tara, Adrian, the entire fam team know how to put on a show and a half and deliver amazing, amazing value. So, uh, yeah, kudos to you and the entire team.
like kudos to everyone that like made the trek to Bentonville and got their butts in those seats and played full out. Like it was an amazing, amazing event, amazing experience. And I’m just, I was so touched. I know drew and I both were touched to be there and to just be, uh, just a part of something that was really epic.
Well, I can’t thank you enough for being there and making the trip and letting me continue to drag you and drew back into the mattress business. I feel like we got our hooks in, you know, people love you guys, dude, you,
you hooked us. I don’t know why or how, or I, it was kind of like that boiling a frog, you know, you’re in, in the pot and all of a sudden you realize like, Oh my God, I’m, I’m boiled.
Right. We just, we’re there and we were stuck. And I feel like. It sounds like it’s like a lot of people’s stories. Somehow they got into the industry and it’s, it just like snatched them up and like they’re stuck and that’s where they are. And 20, 30, some people, 40 years later, they’re still there. And so, uh, we’re noobs, total noobs, but, uh, uh, super stoked to be part of
this.
Well, and you’re more than noobs. You guys have been in the, uh, the sleep space in various capacities through your previous businesses. And, uh, let me actually. Do a proper job of bringing Jason Friedman into the show here because Jason, um, I’ll, I’ll give everybody the intro that I gave you from stage at sleep summit, which is Jason is a legendary business builder, a serial entrepreneur, a sought after speaker coach, and a dear friend of mine.
And you’ve built multiple seven to nine figure businesses and sales. You’ve served clients in nearly every industry, help universities like Harvard and Stanford raised billions of dollars and coached and mentored top entrepreneurs across the globe. I personally call you and drew the Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen of customer experience and business building, because.
You guys have chops, you know how to win, and you’ve done this in a variety of categories. And then we got right into your speech, the nine shifts to massive growth. And I gotta ask you, for the podcast today, why was that the message you chose for this audience? The nine shifts to massive growth.
Yeah, it’s interesting.
So, um, if we go back to Dream Camp, right? So, you know, I think everyone that’s listening to this probably knows that you do this amazing kind of experiential deep dive event called Dream Camp. Um, and we, Drew and I were like, just super honored to be brought in as the guides, um, in, in April in Key West.
And we had a transformational experience, and I think some of the… Most of the attendees there did too. It was just a wonderful sharing and, and I just, I don’t know. I’m not gonna, I’m not gonna label it right now. It’s just amazing. But here’s, here’s what happened as we were there and we were kind of guiding people through, you know, how to, you know, add more to their customer experience, how to refine that, how to think about it differently.
What we realized is that there was a piece of like. How to really grow and scale your business that was missing for the people in this space that were there. And so I remember I asked everyone, I said, Hey, listen, part of what we teach in customer experience is you got to give people what they want, but you also have to give them sometimes what they need.
And so I remember asking the question, Hey, I know you’re here for customer experience, but are you open to me giving you something else that I’m sensing? I’m feeling that you need right now. And everyone was like, hell yeah, like, yeah, absolutely. We’re in. And so we spent some time and I went through that presentation.
I’ve done it for a lot of groups because what it does, if we want to grow our business, the first thing we have to do is we have to grow us and it helps, you know, it’s, it’s what it is. It’s kind of like. Like me thinking back on my journey of the key things that I had to do, I had to learn, I had to go through, coaches had to, you know, hold me accountable to doing.
It’s just, it was kind of like, what are the things through my journey and my experience of growing these businesses that we had to do in order to like have that next step. You know, break through that next ceiling of complexity, break through that next barrier that was kind of holding us back. And so I saw like, there’s, there’s entrepreneurs that had, you know, multi multi million dollar businesses there, but they were like 20 stores.
So each store might have been a million dollars, but they couldn’t break through that million dollar ceiling in that store. And so it looked very, it was very clear to me of to where we, where we needed to go with that. And so we did that and everyone was like, Oh my gosh, thank you so much for that. I needed that.
And so. Like as we brought more entrepreneurs, more sleep industry, more mattress industry professionals to the table, knowing that they were there to grow their business, to find different ways to expand what they’re doing now, both their team personally, professionally, um, make their lives richer. I knew it was a message that people needed to hear and I wanted to be able to bring as much value as I possibly could.
And, uh, the message is not just about business. Like I said, it’s about how do we, who do we need to become to get everything we want out of our lives, out of our businesses, what do we need to do to break through those barriers? And so I just thought it was a timely, important message. Um, For everybody that was there and, uh, I think it was pretty well received.
Like it was, it was fun to share it and, uh, I heard lots of amazing takeaways as you were asking people, like, what did they get from it to do it? Um, the only regret I have Mark, the only regret is that I was delivering it on zoom. I, I couldn’t be there that day that we did it. So I was there on day two. We surprised everybody and I flew in overnight and was able to be there, but I couldn’t be there.
So it was, uh, It was a message I knew they needed to have. I knew they needed it on day one so that they could go to sleep that night and think more about some of the shifts and things so that they could come in on day two and be present to the messages that we were leaving for them. So, uh, yeah, I mean, that’s, that’s my, that’s my story.
I’m sticking to it.
Well, I’ll tell you this. I was in the back of the room whenever you went on stage, on stage virtually through zoom and Harry Roberts, the original co founder of mattress firm, he and I had just done a fireside chat up on stage, which was very well received. And that’s one of the guys in the room who had.
Experienced massive growth. He grew that company and he sold it. So it really kind of fit right together. So he’s in the back of the room and he goes, this guy’s on zoom and he’s killing it. So it was really, it came
across great. I love him. I like, what an amazing guy to be there also sharing. It’s like.
This is what it was like sleep some if you weren’t there. I hope you’re feeling some FOMO right now because like FOMO, fear of missing out. Like if you don’t know what that is, like you should be feeling it right now. It was amazing. And I hope that you get your butts there for next year because it is the place to be.
It was just such an amazing event. Oh my gosh, and you have icons like Harry there and like just amazing speakers, like people talking about so many great topics, like I learned so much being there and just seeing how people shared information and, um, people ask great questions. And, and just, I saw people like writing notes when all the speakers were on there and then, you know, then you brought in like, you know, television stars to like share some of their journey and they were reinforcing some of the messages, like just, holy cow, it was phenomenal, dude, like just amazing.
I got pulled aside at the end. We had this incredible evening at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art where we rented out this private space and I just saw their people’s eyes light up like what is this magical little gem tucked down here in the Ozark Mountains and, and their guy pulled me aside when we, when I was there and he said, Hey, I just had to come and tell you something.
I am so happy. I have a long flight back to Maine, the state of Maine, because I have 14 pages of notes from Sleep Summit that I want to sort through, consolidate, pull out the top most meaningful moments, and share with my team. That to me was such an important moment.
I believe it, man. Like, it’s, I almost, I saw that happening with so many people.
Like, that’s an amazing story. And there was probably. 40 more of that same story. They’re going home with amazing value, amazing information, breakthrough insights, epiphanies that they and actionable things that they can start doing, you know, with their team, with themselves, with their family, with their business, what a, what a blessing, man.
Like, so like, again, kudos to you for bringing those people together and just having the vision to do this for this industry. I know how committed you are to it. I know how passionate you are to it. And honestly, I don’t want to let the cat out of the bag, but this is how you wrote me in for what I’ll call phase two.
I don’t even know what else to call it, but I am more excited. I I’m at this event now. I, I got the, like the privilege of speaking at like a couple of events this week. So it’s been a wild week for me. I’ve been flying all over the place and all I’ve been talking about here is how amazing the mattress people are.
And everyone’s like mattress people, because this is an event for like marketing people. And they’re like, why are you talking about mattress people? I’m like, I fricking love this event. Like I got so much out of it. And, and I’m doing something really amazing with that, with this guy, Mark Kinsley. And they’re like, what, like, why aren’t you talking about this event?
I’m like, cause that’s more awesome.
Hey, just bring this back to him because we’ve talked a lot in the furniture and mattress industry about how marketing driven the mattress component. Of this entire ecosystem of products is. So when you look at where the dollars are spent for furniture and mattress stores, tons and tons of money is spent on marketing mattresses because inherently you can just have so much more fun with the category.
You could be much more promotional. So you tell your marketing folks, we’re thinking about them and we appreciate everything they do as well.
You know, you know, Drew, like Drew’s like, uh, like a quick study, right? And so Drew, uh, for those of you that know Drew, Drew’s my business partner in CX formula, and you’ll hear, maybe, maybe we’ll tell you a little bit more about what we’re doing with Mark, but you’ll see a lot more of Drew as well, but here’s the thing, right?
So Drew, we came back here and one of the speakers was talking about, you know, the importance of a script. Right. And like the most important when we’re when the words matter, there’s always a script when the words matter, there’s always a script. And he gave us great examples. Like, I don’t remember, like, the Declaration of Independence, like all these great things.
Right. And so Drew has been teaching stuff that he learned. A mattress, a sleep summit from, from mattress people to the marketers because they’re going out there and they’re doing their marketing and they’re winging it and they’re missing all the key moments. And he’s like, when the words matter, you need a script.
Bob Monkel right there. So like we’re learning straight. We’re sharing stuff from different industries. It’s just. Phenomenal, dude.
And it sounds like you guys are having a really good time. Like there’s some singing, some hooping and hollering
in
the background. I love it. Yeah. We’re on a break right now.
And the next act is like on stage right now. Like, I don’t know if you can see this back here. Like we’re backstage. I’m backstage. What’s going on? And like, there’s people on stage, like with guitars, like there’s going to be a rock concert here. I don’t even know what’s happening right now. But I, because I’m a speaker, they’re like letting me hang out backstage.
Like there’s like hundreds and hundreds of people out front. It was just so loud. I couldn’t even find a spot to like record this right now. That was like, not crazy.
The fact that you could shoehorn it in and give us one more moment. And I’ve got to ask people to hop on board with something that we’re going to do as phase two here in a moment.
But I want to go back to your speech just for a second, because when you were talking about Bob Munkle and writing those scripts and when the words matter, you need a script. You also had some people, everybody at sleep summit, do an exercise and that exercise at the end of day one, when you spoke was right down your high definition vision.
And I tell you what happened that next morning. I said, anybody do Jason’s homework because having that high definition vision gives you the words around the vision that create the script for where you want to go. And I tell you, some of the top performers in that room that I know have significant operations.
They’re the ones that wrote down their high definition vision, even though they have one, they had new high definition visions and you’re creating high definition visions around the moments that need scripted as well. It’s such an important concept. 100%.
Yeah. Yeah. Like I can’t. I can’t, uh, overstate how important that is and I was just, I was so glad I was, I was, obviously we kind of surprised everybody that I was going to be there, but I was kind of hiding in the back listening to all of that and was just like blown away, like seeing that and hearing what some of the people were doing.
So yeah, like totally awesome. And for anybody listening, like think about it, like doing a jigsaw puzzle. And if you didn’t have that picture on the front of the box, how much harder it is to put all the pieces in place and make the picture work. You need that vision so you know where you’re headed. So you know what the, what it looks like.
So, even if it changes, even if it changes, just get that vision down, set yourself in motion, and make it as clear as you can. And even if you don’t know what it is yet, make it up, it’s part of the game. So yeah,
totally. One of the things that, that I said at the very beginning of sleep summit was I want to go from connections to community.
I want to go from curiosity to commitment, and I want you to go from committed to a level that some might call crazy because the ones that are really committed, sometimes it comes across as a little out there. And I had so many people that, that said, I’m in. I am going to a level that’s beyond committed.
And so as part of that, you, you know, me in this industry, I feel like number one, I just have, I have such a responsibility to, to this community after 550 plus podcast episodes and every event under the sun and saying, Hey, we’re going to do, you know, some new events that bring new energy to this industry.
You know, having that level of commitment is so important to me. And I feel like I have to be a good steward of that. And one of the ways I wanted to do that was, I was like, Hey, Jason, um, I need you, if you can be here, like, if you can do this more for some of the people that are in the mattress industry, we, we, and I would be forever grateful.
And we’ve got some really special things that we’ve, we’ve cooked up.
We’ve got some amazing things that I, I mean, my level of enthusiasm are all we’re doing because I know what the impact is going to be like, I’ve seen it before. I’ve done it before, but would not with. I shouldn’t say not with. This is a very special group of people that you brought together.
You built the fam, right? People that are members of the fam are, um, exceptional. They’re just exceptional people, exceptional human beings, exceptional entrepreneurs, exceptional business people. And, um, what we’re about to do. Is gonna be, I mean, I know I said the word epic a lot, like, that’s the word that keeps coming to mind since Sleep Summit is like, epic, epic, epic, because it is gonna be, um, and I don’t know man, I, I, I’m excited to share with everyone in your audience that wasn’t able to be at Sleep Summit what we’re doing.
But I don’t think I can do it right now because like, this is about to start. Like, I don’t mean to be like that guy, but, um, can we, can we call you the troops maybe like another day this week and get everybody together and share what we’re doing?
That’s what I wanted to do. I wanted to make sure, like, before I lose you here to another main stage.
Um, okay. You got your calendar up? I’ve got mine up. Yeah. Let’s do it.
Yeah.
Okay. Let’s go. I hope this works for everybody, but, uh, all right. You got, you got a blank space, Tuesday. the 17th, October 17th,
October 17th. Yeah. Like I’m flying all day tomorrow. Cause I got to get back. But Tuesday, like dude, anytime after.
How about 2 p. m. Eastern, 1 p. m. Central? Does that work? 1 p. m. Central.
Wide open. Wide open for me. Okay, so let’s do 2 p. m. Eastern, 1 p. m. Central. That would put it 11 Pacific. So that’s good before lunchtime for our friends on the West Coast.
Yeah, totally. And let’s just like hop on Zoom and like, like, like see everybody and share and, and just, let’s just talk about what we’re doing because it is epic and it is going to be changing some lives and I can’t, man, dude, it’s just so exciting.
Just so exciting.
There, there are a lot of people that came to Sleep Summit who know about what’s going on. They know a little bit about what’s going on because they said yes and they deepened their commitment.
Oh my God. Yeah. If you know it, don’t tell anybody. Like you don’t want to surprise. Like, like if you’re listening to this and you know what we’re talking about, like zip.
There might be something in my hand right here right now that I will reveal at some point. Hold on,
hold on, hold on, hold on. There might be something in my hand. There might be something in my hand too.
You know, it’s uh, you gotta place it in the perfect location, superhero.
I’m just saying here. I’m just saying.
I, I I may have said too much. But. Well hey, it
was a, it was a summit event. And it means that, you know, if, if you’re going to go on a journey up a dangerous mountain. You’re going to want to do it with people. You’re going to, you’re going to want to be together. You’re going to want to have resources.
You’re going to want to follow a guide that’s been there for before. And I think for people who don’t know your story, Jason, you took, you and drew together, took a business from zero to 150 million in annual sales in 12. Years, and you ended up selling that business, but you’ve done it in multiple industries, multiple categories.
And so the fact that we get to, uh, have, you know, even a sliver and a slice. Of what falls out of your brain in your mouths, you and drew both, uh, we’re, we’re, we’re just beyond lucky or truly. Yeah, yeah.
Well, it’s like correction. It was 150 million in total sales, not per year, but, but, but it was still a lot of sales and, and.
Uh, we learned a whole lot of things, some because we figured it out, like, and it worked and some because we got spanked really hard and we lost our shirts and we learned a lesson. So, so, like, if we can share some of that and help other people, like, that’s, that just feels good. And we believe, as you know, you believe we, you, me, drew, we believe that entrepreneurs are a big part of the solution to make the world a better place, to create more jobs, to create more impact, to get more freedom for ourselves.
So. Uh, yeah, man, this is, uh, this is just a gift and you have given us this gift to be able to be involved in this group. And, uh, you know, we joke about, you know, getting stuck in this industry, but the people have just been, uh, amazing, like just the stories that we’ve learned, uh, people’s journeys that they’ve shared with us, the kindness, the generosity, the giving back, uh, to the community, uh, just.
Yeah, just amazing. So, uh, again, it’s been a gift for us and we’re doubling down. We’re, we’re putting our heart and our soul in here with you. Um, we’re proud to be partnering with you on, on some stuff that, uh, I know we can’t tell everybody what it all is right now. Um, but dude, it’s going to be. Epic. Epic.
I’ll tell you what we’ll do. That’s the word. We’ll put the, we’ll put the link so people, I’ll have Adrian from our team put together like a little registration link, um, with you guys. So you go to the show notes, uh, if you’re on the podcast app, you can do that. If you’re on YouTube to get, just do a little dropdown, it’s going to be in the show notes and then we’ll send out emails to everybody.
So maybe, maybe you’ll see that email. Um, you can text us if you go to fam. news and you text us like, Hey, I can’t find it. What the heck’s going on? Just shoot us a text on our podium number and we’ll get that to you. But we want to see you at, we decided 2 PM Eastern on October 17th, because you’re not going to want to miss out.
If you already missed out once, don’t do it again because it is EPIC. It is epic. I’m so excited.
And it won’t be that long. We’re not even going to take that much of your time. Like, just come. Like, we’ll, it will be less than an hour. I promise you, we will keep it tight. We’ll keep it, uh, we’ll keep it tight.
But don’t, you don’t want to miss us.
Alright, hey man, thank you again for just going all in on Sleep Summit. We had you up on zoom. You made like the overnight trip next thing you know, you were on stage. Drew was there. I just can’t thank you guys enough. And obviously that moment, whenever you came on stage and we surprised everybody, you know, you had Kelly Charles, you had Samuel, uh, you had Keith moneymaker, you had James present.
All they wanted to do is give you a big hug. Set speaks volumes.
What is mutual? Like, I was just so proud of them sharing like the stories of what’s happened in the past six months that we’ve had the opportunity to kind of like. Meet them, help them, coach them, support them. Um, these are people that are taking massive, imperfect action and getting massive results.
Like, I have so much respect, gratitude, and love for them. Um, just being able to see them in that moment and hear their stories. And they didn’t even know I was there. It was just, it was, it was… Epic. I don’t know. It was, it was, and it, and it, it really nurtured my soul though. So like, it just felt so good to see them.
I was just so proud of all of them, you know, um, each and every one of them, uh, has done so much and have come so far. And, and the crazy thing, dude, it’s just the beginning. It’s just the beginning. Like you keep saying, these are beginnings that, that have this through line and, and what we’re creating now gives people another vehicle to help them go to a bigger place.
And so, yeah, it’s, uh, it’s pretty special, pretty special. Well, we’ll,
we’ll hop on there and it’s coming up Tuesday in the, in the meantime. We know you have a lot of other people on the other side of that curtain to go inspire. Yeah. And, you know, I’m surprised we’re not hearing the chants
yet. Free Moon!
Free Moon! Wait a minute. No, no, no. This is not my event. Like, I’m just, I’m just one of many. But, um, they’re about to let people in. It’s going to get loud and crazy in here. They, um, They’re almost, it’s, there’s a lot of parallels. Like maybe we’ll talk about that on Tuesday too, just a little bit more if you want, but, but there’s a lot of parallels between the crazy marketers and the crazy mattressers and they both start with them.
So I don’t know what else there’s that in common, but there’s a lot.
Mattresses, marketing. We’ve even seen people from the therapy side of the world and mattress people in the same room. Maybe we’ll tell that story as well.
I know, actually, one of them was here, one of the women that you met that was in that workshop with us that was a therapist.
So I have a lot of stuff to share with you. I can’t wait to do it again, man. But yeah, I gotta, I gotta jet now, but, um, thanks for bringing me on. Thanks for letting me share, uh, a little bit in this, in this journey with you really, man. It’s, uh, super profound.
Absolutely. Um, my pleasure and an honor and thanks again, man.
It was great having you at Sleep Summit. Likewise, buddy.
