Monte Deere | The CEO of Kizik Shares How the Kizik Shoe-Brand Became a Trusted Shoe Brand for Millions of Shoe Buyers

Audio Transcription

Speaker 1:
On today’s show. We interviewed the CEO of Kissick shoes and he joins us to share how the hands-free shoe line that he created Kissick shoes has become a trusted brand for millions of shoe buyers all around the world. All this and more on today’s edition of the thrive time show on your radio and podcast

Speaker 2:
three

Speaker 1:
to one. You are now entering the dojo of mojo and the thrive time show

Speaker 2:
thrive time show on the microphone. What is this top of the charts in the category of business driven down on business topics like we are a dentist provided you with into shift like the points and we go so past that you might get motion sickness, grab a pen and pad to the NAB that’s stop the best. Some fruit bucks in Florida.

Speaker 1:
Three two, one here come the business Ninja. Yes, yes, yes and yes. Drive nation. On today’s show we’re interviewing the man and the myth. Marty, welcome on to the thrive time show. How are you sir?

Monte Deer of Kizik Shoes:
I’m doing so well. Thank you. How are you today?

Speaker 1:
I’m fired up to have you on the show. I keep hearing great things about the shoe brand that you have created and that you are leading. Tell us about Kissick shoes.

Monte Deer of Kizik Shoes:
Cusick shoes are hands-free shoes, meaning touch free shoes. You, uh, you step into these shoes without using your hands. Uh, they’re incredible. Uh, they’re our proprietary patented technology that allows either of those who want to put on their shoes with no hands or in the case of many, uh, need, need help putting on their shoes. Your foot just goes right into the shoe and the heel comes back up around and it’s a great and convenient experience for everyone.

Speaker 1:
Uh, do people like the, the, the, the way the shoes feel or does it feel like stepping on a nail? Tell us about wearing the kids shoes.

Monte Deer of Kizik Shoes:
Yes. No nails involved. Uh, you know, the shoes are both great looking. Um, but the best thing about them without question is they fit not like a slip on a, not like a sandal, but a dead set. You put your foot into the shoe, the heel pops up. Uh, you, you set the shoe either by tying the laces or, uh, we have other technologies where, um, there’s a hook and loop system where you can set the shoe for your size, but once you step into, once you set the shoe, once you step into the shoe and it’s on and you take it off and it’s, it’s, it’s less than a second on, less than a second off. It’s amazing.

Speaker 1:
Where did you come up with the name or who came

Monte Deer of Kizik Shoes:
up with the name for the kids shoes? You know, our founder, Mike Pratt, uh, he and his wife were talking about Mike’s invention of hands free shoes. And they just decided Kissick was the right name and it, they chose it, uh, several years ago and it has stuck.

Speaker 1:
Now how, how did Mike start the company? Tell us about the history of the founding of the company.

Monte Deer of Kizik Shoes:
Yeah, Mike Pratt, he’s one of these guys play that, that, you know, when you and I have a problem, we just get irritated. But for Mike, he’s a consummate serial inventor and so every problem is an opportunity for him. So he, he has built and was operating a company called Odo international. You may have heard of OTO golf bags. Uh, but anyway, he was, he was selling, uh, golf bags had invented a number of different kinds of bags and he decided, you know what, I liked the bag industry, but a lot more people wear shoes. And so he, he, he decided, I’m going to figure out how to help people get in and out, shoes, hands free. And because he’s an experienced in venture, he didn’t set out to find one way to step in and out of shoes, hands free. He decided to find every way. And so he, uh, he invented, he’s invented literally dozens of ways to get an a in and out of shoes, hands-free, um, and he’s followed each of those inventions up with patents. And so it’s, it’s a very nice company in that Kissick and its parent company, hands-free labs really own, uh, uh, a great space, a great place, uh, in because of proprietary technology. We have a little corner on the hands, free shoe technology market.

Speaker 1:
Now, uh, how did, uh, w after the company after the, these shoes were created? So many people have, you know, good ideas. Some of our listeners have a great idea for a product, but then they never actually sell them. You know what I mean? They make a prototype and they don’t actually sell them. How did Mike sell his first 10 pairs of shoes?

Monte Deer of Kizik Shoes:
Yeah, that’s a, you know, he had done it before. He had sold millions of bags before. So it is not an easy process. It’s not an easy process. He, it, it was hard, for example, to go find, uh, a shoe manufacturer, uh, someone that can, you know, he found an engineer who made, who helped him with bags before, who decided I would like to learn how to make shoes. And they started making, uh, the two of them started making shoes together and they had a number of prototypes that they tried. Uh, they chose what they thought was the single best way to commercialize a hands free shoe. First they tried, if they wore them themselves for, for awhile, uh, then they went and found a manufacturer that, that, uh, knows more about making shoes. They tried it. Uh, they did a first run of a few thousand shoes and they started selling them in November of 2017 and haven’t looked back.

Speaker 1:
Where can people buy Kissick shoes?

Monte Deer of Kizik Shoes:
You know that one sure-fire replaced a bike is excused. Is it [inaudible] dot com [inaudible] dot com. Um, there are on the website [inaudible] dot com there’s also a map, uh, a map function. Uh, I think it’s called locations on the top bar where, uh, where those who want to try the shoes on can go to our location bar and see across the country. We’re in a couple of hundred shoe stores today. Uh, I hope there are some of those shoe stores open. Actually. I know they are play, they’ve been closed. Of course for a couple of months. They’re starting to open one by one. Uh, and within a few weeks I think most all of them will be open. So, so that’s where they can find them on the locations bar on our kissick.com site.

Speaker 1:
Where did you enter into the picture? Like how did they find you? I mean, were you, were you out working at a club as far as a rapper at a dive bar? Uh, were you working as a DJ in like a, in like a Harley Davidson theme bar? Were you, um, a professional homeless person just roaming the streets and you went into a store where they were selling the shoes? How did they find you?

Monte Deer of Kizik Shoes:
Play the music and I’ll get rolling with my rap, uh, ad hoc here. Oh, no, I, I, I have no, I have no talent in that way. I ha I’m a lifetime, uh, business attorney, meaning I’ve, uh, I’ve been a mergers and acquisitions attorney for about 30 years and in salt Lake city, Utah, and have helped hundreds of clients buy and sell businesses. And I was, uh, I was physics lawyer and I loved the technology. I couldn’t stay away from the business. And, um, in fact there was a point where we, we licensed a technology to uh, the biggest shoe company in the world, Nike inc and I helped Mike Pratt was that deal. And after that he and I discussed it and I decided to come on board as the company’s chief executive officer. So I’m a, I’m a lawyer by trade.

Speaker 1:
So where, where are you based?

Monte Deer of Kizik Shoes:
We’re based in vineyard, Utah, which is about a half hour South of salt Lake city.

Speaker 1:
Now I’m going to say something that’s about politically incorrect right now, which is what my specialty is. And I’m going to go and boot myself going into this. Here we go. I’m just going. You’re in Utah, which is home of a lot of Christians and a lot of Mormons and I love Mormons. Now pertinent again, I know Mormons identify themselves as Christians, but I’m just telling you I am not a Mormon, but I am a Judeo Christian and I know that the Mormons identify themselves as Christians. But the point be the point, the point being every time I have hired a Mormon, their work ethic is outstanding. And this is not a message that is sponsored by the church of the Jesus Christ of latter day saints. I mean, this is just my experience working with Mormons. Do you have a lot of experience working with Mormons and what is going on? But what, why is their work ethic so phenomenal, so phenomenal?

Monte Deer of Kizik Shoes:
Well, first of all, I want to tell you this, uh, plate. I became a member of the church of Jesus Christ of latter day thing in Norman, Oklahoma. That’s where I’m from. I was in the cows here and I was raised in Norman and my dad, uh, my parents went to Oklahoma university. My dad played football at Oklahoma back in the sixties. Wow. So, uh, so I, I have part of my life, uh, before being a member of the church of Jesus Christ of latter day saints and in part after. But yes, I’ve worked with a lot of, uh, of members of this church, of Mormons over the years and I am one of them. So, uh, you know, I like, I appreciate that you say we have a good worth ethic, work ethic. I, I have found that as well.

Speaker 1:
Can I ask you why? I mean, I know, I know as, as a, uh, basically there’s this book one, we call that the old Testament, right? You got book one and I think our Jewish brothers and sisters, we agree on that. But there’s book two. That’s where the Judeo Christians agree on that with the Mormon. And then there’s book three, the, the, the bonus book here. Uh, the book of Mormon I believe, but in, uh, Colassians, uh, it reads, uh, three 23, 24, it reads whatever you do, work at it with all of your heart as working for the Lord, not for a human masters, not your manager. Since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord, not your manager as a reward. It is the Lord Christ. You are serving your manager. W is this taught obsessively in the Mormon church or what? What, where does that work ethic come from? And I’m not, I’m not exaggerating. I have hired dozens and dozens of Mormons and I have yet to have a single one that doesn’t bring it every single day. What is this just hammered from the pulpit or where is this, where does this come from?

Monte Deer of Kizik Shoes:
No, it’s a good question. Let me share an experience. Something that I saw just a few, uh, just a few weeks ago, the president of, of the church of Jesus Christ of latter day saints, um, his name is president Nelson. Um, he, he was meeting, he’s 95 years old and he, he runs the, you know, he is the senior apostle that runs the church and he’s still going at 95 years old, not only, he’s amazing. Um, and so he was sitting down with a group of children, seven, eight, nine years old, letting them ask questions and one of them asked the question, is your job hard? And he said, uh, apps. Actually it’s very hard. I go hard all day long every day. And that he, he made this statement, he said, the Lord loves effort it, and then he said something like this through effort, we get to experience as much of this life as possible and it helps us improve and become better, which is our purpose here on this earth.

Monte Deer of Kizik Shoes:
I thought that was a pretty good answer. Um, I also think as you, as you know, a lot of young 18, 19, 20 year olds, uh, go and serve for 18 months to two years as missionaries. I think that, I think that is a, is a real functional part of why you see, uh, why you see members of the church of Jesus Christ of latter day saints who from a very young age know how to work. Cause they, they volunteer with their time, their money to go and, and put it out there for 18 months or two years on their own dime, uh, working, they’re working their tails off for the Lord.

Speaker 1:
You know, um, you guys worked so hard. Um, and I know that the, the brand, uh, Kizzy the shoes are incredible. Uh, they look great. Um, I’m on the website right now. Uh, you have shoes that are very formal. You know, you could wear some formal shoes. You almost have like a tennis shoe look there as well. Um, can you talk about how many pairs of shoes you’re selling per year? Can you talk about that at all or just kind of tell me about the sales or what you’re allowed to, cause you guys are really gaining traction and I think it would be encouraging, but he, again, I don’t want to ask you for numbers, you’re not allowed to share, but it could you share, share with us about gaining traction at this point?

Monte Deer of Kizik Shoes:
Sure. Uh, let me talk about traction without talking about specific numbers. Sure. But, but keep in mind, we sold our first shoes in November of 2017 yeah. And, and so during all of 2018, um, we only sold a few thousand shoes. Of course we’re right out of gate. People don’t know who we are. Um, but we’ve, we’ve, we’ve more than quadruple our sales during 2000, uh, during 2018 and we’re selling, you know, we’re increasing. We’ll probably triple our sales again, uh, in 2020. Um, we’ve also found additional, uh, benefits for shoes. Getting the word out there, those who need our shoes is important. I don’t know if Matthew told you, but we gave away a thousand pair. Uh, just last month, two healthcare workers

Speaker 1:
now real quick before, before, before you talk about that, I want to, I want to tee this up because I’m so sorry to cut you off. I just wanna make sure the listeners know this. Yeah. Um, you guys, again, I don’t want, I don’t want to make this a political, uh, debate. I just want to share the facts here. Many of the listeners know that we do put out some pretty topical shows and I know dr Deborah Berks came out three days ago and she said she, I’m quoting dr Deborah Berks, the, the scarf queen from the press conferences. She says there’s nothing from the CDC that I can trust. That’s quote unquote, because she’s talking about the data, how it changes all the time. You know, Pennsylvania lowered the death totals and then they raised the totals. You’ve got the model out of the UK predicted 2.2 million deaths.

Speaker 1:
Then they adjusted that to be 88,000. And you and I know the numbers are floating around, but you saw a problem and you said regardless of how dangerous the Corona virus is or isn’t, we want to help the frontline workers out there. And my understanding is you guys put together a really benevolent gift. Uh, tell us about this gift. I just wanna make sure that listeners, cause it’s some of the listeners, listeners are going to hear the show, you know, a year from now or two years from now and they won’t understand the context of this. Can you, and so with that being said, tell us about why you decided to give back to the frontline workers and what you guys gave them.

Monte Deer of Kizik Shoes:
Well first of all, maybe we back up and talk about why we made the shoes in the first place. Yeah, we made them so that they would be convenient for everyone. Whether, whether you’re 10 years old or 90 years old, if you walk into your closet and you can put your shoes on and you know your favorite pair of shoes on in one second, you’re going to choose that pair of shoes over, something you have to sit down and reach down and tie for for a minute or two. Uh, and so convenience was the first reason. Needs was the second reason we, we anticipated that those who were older or have chronic health conditions would need it. We also knew that hygiene was an issue. If you can step into a shoe without touching your license or touching the bottom of your shoe, you know, whatever you may have stepped in is not going to get on your hands.

Monte Deer of Kizik Shoes:
And, but of course we didn’t realize the hygiene perceived or not otherwise. We didn’t realize that hygiene was going to be so important in relation to our shoes. Yeah. So, uh, what, what, what happened a few weeks ago was the CDC came out with a report saying the Corona virus can travel on shoes. And they found positive. You know, th they found that doctors in a hospital in UConn were tracking germs, virus out of the intensive care unit into other parts of the, uh, where there were no patients. And so, you know, we didn’t set out to create a shoe that would work during a pandemic, but you know, uh, we realized, Hey, this, this, this is something that, uh, it’s real for those who are putting on a mask every day care what people, they, they don’t want to walk out of the hospital with it.

Monte Deer of Kizik Shoes:
They don’t want to get into their car with, they certainly don’t want to walk into the house with whatever’s on the bottom of the shoes. And so, you know, there may be some debate about how much coronavirus is moving around, but our thought was, um, that these healthcare workers, they’re like, I mean, they’re like soldiers going to war. Uh, they, they are at risk. And we thought whether it’s a little bit of risk removed, we removed or a lot we’d like to reach out and help them so that they have peace of mind so that they know when they pull into the garage and step into their house, they can step out of the shoes without testing them and walk into the house. And, and uh, and that’s, that’s just a way for uh, for us to give a little bit. We wish we had, uh, like our, our, uh, friends at Nike, they were able to give away $32 million in the shoes. We were able to give away a thousand pair

Speaker 1:
thousand pounds. That’s awesome. That’s awesome. So you’re, you’re giving back to people out there and I get, I just want the listeners to know this. If you’re listening to this show a year from now and you’re like, well, the Corona virus wasn’t actually as painters. I just want to make sure that the time that you guys gave away these shoes, the fear level was at an all time high. The data that was coming out was pretty intense and I appreciate you guys doing that. Now a Monty, I have a question that could be perceived as a guy as a gotcha question. So I’m gonna give you time to marinate on this. Okay. I’m queuing up my, my mayor nation music. My final question for you. Okay, here we go. Go for it. What is something that you believe

Speaker 4:
that most people don’t believe?

Speaker 1:
Now again, I know I’ll go first. That way people can boot me. Okay, so people can boot me.

Speaker 4:
They don’t have to bill you. I think in Boomi they’re doing me right now. I like to wear the same thing every day because I don’t like to think about what I need to wear because thinking about what I need to wear requires thinking that I don’t want to do before getting to work. That’s something that very few people believe in. What is something that you believe in that most people don’t believe in? What it’s one thing.

Monte Deer of Kizik Shoes:
Yeah, well, I’m using my time to think here.

Speaker 1:
Okay. You could be a favorite food. It could be you believe a certain rare form of avocado is the best avocado. It could be. There’s a kind of, there’s a color of the kids. That shoe that you’d like to, no one else likes. There could be an infinite myriad of things. I just want to know what is one thing that you, you believe you could probably have that the star Wars episode that no one else likes is the best one. I mean, it really, I mean, you take it, you can believe that Keith van horn is the best player of all time. It really was. Steve young could be the best. What’s whatever you want to do? Where are we going to take it?

Monte Deer of Kizik Shoes:
Uh, you know, I believe that,

Speaker 5:
yeah,

Monte Deer of Kizik Shoes:
I believe that good things happen to good people. Uh,

Speaker 5:
[inaudible]

Monte Deer of Kizik Shoes:
that’s, you know, that’s probably not countering to it. That is it. Okay.

Speaker 1:
Well, I think a lot of people think you have to screw people over to get to the top. Cause that might be counterintuitive. You know,

Monte Deer of Kizik Shoes:
I think that if you set out in life to do good things, I mean, here’s, here’s the example that I just gave. We had, we had a couple ideas for why a shoe was, uh, why is you could help people. And you know, we might’ve had two, two ideas in mind and we get out here and we find out that a new invention no one’s ever wanted before. Now there’s a third alternative and I believe there’s going to be a fourth or fifth way that, that something we tried to do, uh, benefits others. Uh, let’s see. Clout. That’s not too counter intuitive, but I, I guess I just think positively. Not everyone does.

Speaker 1:
I’m going to give you a mega point for that answer. That was a good answer. My answer was a bad answer. My answer deserves a BU. It deserves the wrong answer, but my answer deserves all those things. But I, I appreciate you, Monty for being on the show. Uh, Matthew has told me so many good things about you, our army mutual friend of there. And, uh, I’m glad that all those things have been proven true. And, uh, I’m excited to, to buy myself a pair of Cusick shoes because now that I’m in the know, I mean I only have one way to go. I gotta go to [inaudible] dot com it’s K, I, Z. I, K, K. I, Z. I K Kissick shoes. These guys make incredible shoes everyday. I see Matthew at work wearing these shoes there. If they got formal shoes, you got informal shoes, you got the casual shoes. I mean you’ve got a variety of them. Go to [inaudible] dot com [inaudible] dot com and how much do these shoes cost? I mean, are you giving away for free? Are all the shoes free? Are they free for all Americans? Are they 50 bucks, 200 bucks? I guess my final bonus question is how much do these shoes cost?

Monte Deer of Kizik Shoes:
Yeah, keep in mind that some of them are knit and they’re a little bit less expensive. Some of them are full grain leather. So are the price of our shoes ranges from $99 to about $160. And as you can see, the full, the fully leather shoes, you know, that they’re more expensive for us to make. So we need to charge more.

Speaker 1:
They’re gorgeous shoes, man. Gorgeous shoes. I appreciate you so much for being on the show and I hope you have a great rest of your day.

Monte Deer of Kizik Shoes:
What a great, uh, what a great thing to do in the afternoon. I appreciate it.

Speaker 1:
Take care. And now, without any further ed two, three.