What happened at the ISPA Expo? Ask the Marks!
It’s been four years since mattress industry nerds and execs alike convened together in person and they made the most of it. Quinn and Kinsley went live from Orlando, Florida and covered everything you are curious about. From foot traffic and exceptional products to trends in foam, fabric and technology, they covered it all in real time on today’s recap!
Special friends mentioned in this episode:
Hickory
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Mark Kinsley
ISPA, do you think we should do a magic trick when and automatically transport ourselves to the ISPA show floor where four years ago, they had the international seat Products Association Expo and it’s been off for a couple of years for years. In fact, and we’re going there live plus what is happening with the fam and one of the most creative innovative culture building retailers on the planet has a podcast that’s featured on the fam that does Marco show begins in 60 seconds driven entrepreneurs
Mark Quinn
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Mark Kinsley
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Welcome to the DOS Marco show. With Mark Kinsley and mark when were mattress and furniture leaders gather to grow, get the inside scoop, tell stories and take tequila shots. The galaxy’s greatest mattress podcast has lift off in
Mark Kinsley
Yeah, speaking of lift talk, when did I tell you that I went to space camp. I was Yeah, I was a kid of course, I went to space camp, the Saturn five rocket replica, the one that went to the moon was inside this building. Here’s one of my favourite things. And then we’re going to tell you what’s going on with a fam and Quinn made his own trip. But the Saturn five rocket replica was inside the largest space movie Museum in Huntsville, Alabama. And most of a rocket is a big container for gasoline for rocket fuel. So you can get outside of the Earth’s atmosphere get into outside of the Earth’s orbit and get to the moon. So most of that fuels used up in the first two and a half minutes. It’s a giant, longer, it’s longer than a football field, this rocket, and most of that, like I said, is the fuel to get outside of the Earth’s atmosphere. Now, if you go walk all the way more than 300 feet to the other end of the building, setting up on a pedestal, there’s an engine that could fit inside of a Volkswagen. And the rocket is what you need to get to the moon. But that little tiny engine that could fit inside of Volkswagen is all you need to get from the moon, back to Earth.
Mark Quinn
Wow, that is a crazy notion to even try to digest that. But you know, everyone uses the metaphor of Yeah, starting a business doing anything, it takes a lot of fuel to get the plane off the ground or, you know, listening to that analogy, it brings that point home pretty hard. But it
Mark Kinsley
absolutely does. It was just such a compelling visual. And I’ve got a picture of this, maybe I can toss this over to Adrian, we can put it up on our Instagram and Facebook. But seeing that in the foreground, that tiny engine and then the giant rocket in the background. Mr. They’re thinking like maybe, I don’t know, maybe we shouldn’t leave. Meanwhile, everybody else is like, we need to set up camp around the moon. And that’s why they’re gonna they’re developing Mars gateway, which they’re gonna dump the International Space Station into the Pacific Ocean by the year 2030. Then we’re setting up gateway, which is going to be in the Earth’s, excuse me in the moon’s gravitational pole. And then gateway is, of course, the gateway to the moon and the gateway to Mars. And they think based on the Shackleton crater that has 100 million tonnes of ice on the moon, you know, put under pressure and separated h2o, hydrogen and oxygen, you can turn into rocket fuel if you put it under pressure and liquefy it. So think about that little tiny engine. You don’t need a whole lot of rocket fuel as much to get from the moon to Mars because you don’t have all the dynamics of the Earth’s atmosphere. The world is going to change a lot. Let’s just put it that way.
Mark Quinn
There’s a lot to unpack in that like dumping the the space station in the Pacific Ocean Let’s start with that. We won’t do it now. But like even that part has my brain hurt. Well, wow. So did you. Did you graduate from Space Camp? Did you screw anything up? Did you stay out too late? Was everything okay? Did you get camper of the semester,
Mark Kinsley
I tried to touch the moon rock. And okay, they did not escort me off the property. I was there as a for a day and a half as a camp counsellor. But I’ll tell you, it was amazing to see the innovation that happens whenever we point all the right people out of problem at an opportunity at a project. And that’s why I’m really excited that we’re going to we’re here we’re at ESPA. I mean, it doesn’t look like we’re at ESP, if you’re watching the video right now. But here in a moment, we’re going to show you that we are actually at the ESP international Suite products Expo Association. show floor so that what’s going to happen just just trust me, okay. We’ve been doing some magic. I
Mark Quinn
trust you completely. We both went to wizard Academy. We’re both you know, wizards. We have graduated with a degree. So it’s not crazy to think we have that kind of ability. So you went to space camp. I went to megawatts the Siena megawatts Foundation had their first live event. Kinsley, I want to tell you like three or four years, yeah, there you go about that. And it was incredible. Fantastic. Had a great time. 250 people ish, where there didn’t have golf. We’re supposed to have a spring training game to go through. But the stupid baseball stuff that’s going on prevented that. But got to spend time with great people like Carl Glassman and Kathy Glassman, and Dave Perry. And of course, Roger and Liz and Vince, and just everybody who goes, I just met some great people. And it was awesome. It really was. And then the event of course, Dr. Van Hoff, and all the incredible team from T Gen, giving us updates and everything that was going on the Phil and Phil Show. They got some really nice awards for being so philanthropic in such a big part of what Maga wits does, so thanks to those guys for that. And yeah, man, it’s just special. It’s one of the best industry events very chill very little laid back. And for such an incredible job for such an incredible cause. And the best part was all the warriors, Kinsley having so many people fighting and battling pancreatic cancer stand up and tell their story. And it is impossible to listen to all that and not get choked up. Because they’re just fighting for their life and their family is there and everyone’s so proud of them. So I don’t know, man, it touches your heart. It’s a great reminder, if you’re listening to this, put all the bullshit aside of what’s going on with your day and the crap that you’re dealing with it work. Just take a minute and go you know what, I’m in pretty good shape. I’m grateful for my health. It could be worse, you could have pancreatic cancer. So anyway, God bless everybody at megawatts T Gen. All the Warriors, all their spouses, all the people that attended it was great to be with you all. I love that so much.
Mark Kinsley
Well, what a great event and the work that they’re doing and to see the progress year over year for improving life expectancy rates for people battling pancreatic cancer people, you know, going into long term remission. It’s incredible. And Dr. Von Hoff and his team just do amazing work. And thank you to Roger, and Liz and the whole team for all they do to raise awareness and raise funds to get these, this clinical research that is so important to making that incremental progress. It’s just like investing. It’s just like learning. It’s just like anything compounded over time. They’re making huge progress and it adds up. And hey, thanks for thanks for going there, man. I’m sorry, I missed it this year. And we love Roger. And speaking of stuff you might love. Like I said, we’re gonna head to the shows floor here in just a minute. So, Expo 2022 It’s been four years I can’t wait to see the componentry innovation, the product innovation. This is the International sleep Products Expo. It’s where new foams new springs, new ticking new innovations happening in our space. Unfold all the parts and pieces that make our beautiful comfortable mattresses. This is where you go to get to see him. But before we head to the show floor. Hey, be sure to subscribe to fam dot news Ray Allah Grayza The Godfather. If he gets a podcast we’re gonna call him the pod father. Ray Allah Grayza is writing the weekly newsletter focused on furniture for the fam and the fam of course means Furniture and Mattress so be sure you are subscribed because Ray is not repurposing press releases here. It’s called under the hood. Under the hood with Ray Ella Grayza the nitty gritty down and dirty of the furniture industry. He’s gonna give you his take his behind the scenes conversations. He’s gonna synthesise that into something meaningful for you every week so it helps your business. And on top of that, I don’t know if anybody checked out the retail our e t e ll podcast with Doug Stewart. Doug Stuart’s one of the greatest storytellers I’ve ever come across. And now he’s telling retail stories and talking about the power of storytelling. So check it out on fam dot news. And be sure to get connected to all the podcasts and all the media that we’re putting out. It’s, it’s pretty rich.
Mark Quinn
I want to add something to both of those people. Number one, Ralph grazer, I love it. Kinsley because, you know, when he came on board with us, he he hit us with a couple of story ideas. And he’s like, Well, you think you think we should talk about that? Or you think we could talk about that? He’s like, it might upset some people. And we’re like, hell yes, talk about that, let’s let’s rattle some cages. We’re not, we’re not going to play that game. And if there’s, there’s something that needs a light shone on it to, to bring it to the front of the industry. And it’s kind of one of those things where people are thinking about stuff, but maybe not saying it. So Ray is gonna do that he’s gonna attack some things that I think are highly sensitive. So I love that Ray’s going there. And then with Doug, you know, Doug’s, an author, a best selling author, and he’s also a, a Dale Carnegie speaker and TEDx speaker. So not just this year a friend and he’s like inside of our category, but you know, he’s done business with a lot of different types of companies. And so I think to be able to have him doing a podcast for the fam, I think is awesome. So can’t wait for both of those Kinsey, are you ready to go to the show?
Mark Kinsley
Yeah, but I gotta mention one more thing because I teased it up for don’t forget also, you want to talk about shining a light on something? How about taking an inside trip into one of the most meaningful cultures in retail in our industry? And I’m talking about right rod river retails CEO Charlie Maloof, he’s been on the show, you should definitely check out that episode. But Charlie Maloof has a new podcast. It’s called Stories from the river. And he sits down with his team, known as memory makers, and I love the purpose behind the name they give each other not employees, not team makers, we are memory makers, their furnishing life’s most important and best memories. And so Charlie sits down with the memory makers, you’re going to get an inside look at creating culture. And like Dr. V told us a long time ago before he introduced us to Charlie Maloof. Culture is what you create, or what you tolerate, not
Mark Quinn
what you tolerate, right. create it.
Mark Kinsley
So, Charlie, I love that we get it. You know, really a fireside chat view of what happens when you create culture and what his memory makers think about working in Broad River retail. So sign up at fam dot news. But in the meantime, Hey, should we do it? You ready to head to the show floor? Oh, all right. Let’s give me a countdown. Count it down in 321. Let’s go. Let’s go…
Mark Kinsley
And here we are. magic of editing magic. I love you just the magic magic.
Mark Quinn
Well, it’s good to see you in Orlando. It is supposed to be the happiest place on earth. Yeah,
Mark Kinsley
yeah. I mean, it’s the most human happiest place on earth, but maybe it is.
Mark Quinn
I thought the ceiling was gonna come in on top of this. It was raining so bad, but we’re glad you’re with us and we’re in Orlando at the ISPA Expo. So excited. Ryan, trainer, Mary Helen, have crushed it. The show has been fantastic. Kinsley, what have you seen?
Mark Kinsley
Well, the first thing I’ve seen is smiles on people’s faces. I think it is the happiest place on earth, because so many people in our industry are happy to be back through sir. effervescence. So that is pervasive here, just so happy to see people’s faces. It’s been what four years since the expo happened. And if you’re a mattress nerd, and you haven’t attended the show, then you’re really missing out. So it’s been really fun. I mean, I had a chance to go talk with Tim Weatherall from Hickory had a chance to talk with Doug Guffey from Atlanta attachment. We visited with our good friends from leggett and Platt like Jason Jewett, Boston is Cody Messner, and Tyson Hegel. And here we are at the Culp space. And
Mark Quinn
Maureen so this is some of their new fabrics. The polyethylene yarns feel how cool that is. Oh, my gosh, I love that. So the coordinates are there. And you’re right. It’s so they’ve done a really great job with the stretches. I had one of their fabrics. It was so stretchy, I swear to you, it was like a 12 inch. Why is it 12 inch stretch. And so it’s really pretty incredible. And it’s very cold. Now back to that same story. You know, when I was in the luggage space, they’re doing some really cool stuff with their phone, where they took this little thing of water and they dropped it down into the phone. And they showed how the phone because of closed cell technology, like literally drifted down into the foam. And you could see how it displaced moisture. So that was one part of it. And then the other part they talked about temperature transfer. And they have these foams where because it’s so tight, and it’s like a micro technology. The tighter the cells are, the easier the transfer is a feat So it literally transfers heat and the demonstrations. Kinsley, you saw them to the demonstrations were so neat, because literally the blue foam turned white and you could see the heat moving through it. I thought it was a home run incredibly well done.
Mark Kinsley
And that’s always a big box you want to check is can I demonstrate this product at retail, right? So I can help the consumer understand what it is I’m talking about and why it matters.
Mark Quinn
Tell me all this and show me I’ll watch involve me I’ll buy it’s got to be a device from before we move. So I get I forgot to tell you. So did you see the machine where they can take three layers of foam, you know, glue is not environmentally friendly. So instead of glueing, all of the layers, they literally take the three layers, and they stitch it. So they literally put a session and so now instead of one layer, you can literally take three layers, move it into your build your matches build station, and it’s only one layer of group set of glue, which is really great when you think about recycling and other things. So I thought Lego had a really good showing.
Mark Kinsley
Yeah, very good showing. The other thing I saw over at Hickory was Tim had a raw unit and they call it their Flexi core. And in a similar, you know, attempt I think or an effort to get rid of glue from the manufacturing process. You had this accordion style spring unit that came together and the scrim was ultrasonically welded to the top. So you don’t have any glue at all. So I think that’s one trend we’ve noticed also,
Mark Quinn
that technology came from I do Harrison spaying things there Mark Angelo, right.
Mark Kinsley
View wonderful technology, great use of microcoils real innovation happening on the spring side of things. And I’ll tell you, I laid down on that raw unit. And I’ve laid down on many, many pocketed coil units just on the floor, no phone, no padding, to see how it feels felt amazing.
Mark Quinn
You don’t need to look at it. Yeah, you don’t I mean, literally the other thing I noticed we had a
Mark Kinsley
long conversation recently about what’s happening in the home medical equipment and durable medical equipment space. And the team over at Hickory has a consumer friendly adjustable base that also raises up and that’s an attempt to, you know, allow family members to help some of their loved ones who may be bedridden, or may need extra assistance. You know, back injuries are a major problem with like in home health care. So I thought it was interesting to see more of a consumer play. And it wasn’t like a reimbursement play that you go through a hospital. So we’ll kind of keep our eye on that trend as well and see how that unfolds. And then just look around at all the different parts and pieces that go into a mattress and it just gets me jazzed.
Mark Quinn
It’s It’s exciting to see. I think you started it off the right way, which is everyone’s happy to be here. And so they’ve got probably all these innovations they’ve had in the closet. They’re like we got we got to wait for the Esper show, because it didn’t happen. So now it’s here and everyone’s marching out all this stuff. And so where you might come in where maybe there isn’t a lot of innovations to see not the case. If you’re not here, you’re definitely missing out. So put it on your calendar for the next ISPA Expo you will not be too dissapointed This is the place to go. When you want to see the future of what sleeve looks like in terms of raw material and manufacturing. It’s pretty cool. It
Mark Kinsley
is pretty cool. And I can’t wait to take some of the ideas that we’ve been gathering up and apply them in the lines that we build. I mean, this is where it really happens. So okay, make sure number one that you stay you subscribe to the newsletter at BAM dot news because we’re running around doing what we call elevator pitches, talking to a lot of these component suppliers, a lot of these contributors to this space to find out Okay, great. You’ve got this innovation. How do you sell it? Why does it matter? So it’s really fun to see some of those videos break down how this innovation will cascade down to retail and how retailers in our essays might talk about
Mark Quinn
you got Doug Guffey on camera.
Mark Kinsley
I love his bow tie on this
Mark Quinn
next time what he’s doing great stuff and you’re going to show that video too. So you can see Doug Guffey and the rest of it at the fam at fam dot news. So do us a favour always as always, it’s a campfire, let’s build it together. Let’s bring people to it. If you know somebody who doesn’t know about the DIS Marcos podcast or the fam website, please please please share that with him. And by the way, if you’re watching this and you were at the ESP Expo it’s some really important for Mark Aneta share the number of people that come up and grab us as we’re walking through the aisles is incredible. I love it, it the things that people share and the impact that what we’re doing has on them just want to tell you how grateful we are because that means a lot to us when we’re out here among everybody and you get to have conversations it’s so awesome. So thank you if we ran into you I really appreciate you guys love this audience and you guys make the make the whole thing work. From what
Mark Kinsley
I hear. Maureen will tell a global yeah number one fan it’s so great to meet Maureen and give her a hug and yeah, so well said thank you for following along. tag a friend in this send it to a friend Yes. And so yeah,
Mark Quinn
I just you know it just can you can have a minute go right ahead. I
Mark Quinn
have one of these men I met some guests. I just want to give them a shout out they’re so cool from Juna, these guys were in South Dakota and we want to get them on the show. They’re a factory direct doing some really cool stuff. So anyway, shout out to the junior guys. Alright, anything else?
Mark Kinsley
I think we’re gonna go off look at more innovation. We will catch you next time on The DOS Marco show. Bye!