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Mr. Biz Radio: The Science Behind Supplements and Understanding How They Work

Unedited transcription of the show is included below:

Welcome to Mr. Biz radio, Biz. Talk for Biz owners. If you're ready to stop faking the funk and take your business onward and upward, this show is for you. And now here's Mr. Biz, Ken Wentworth.

0:00:19

All right, welcome to another episode of Mr. Biz Radio, me, Mr. Biz Ken Wentworth. And we are going to talk about something today that probably impacts almost everybody, if not everybody, who's a watcher of the show, viewer of the show, I guess you'd say, and listener, you're going to talk about the good, the bad, the ugly, and some insider secrets of the supplement industry. If you take a multivitamin, if you've tried some, I don't know, weight loss pills or some pre workout supplement stuff or you take a protein supplement or anything like that, we are going to dive into that. We have an absolute expert who not only knows a lot about this, knows so much about it, he runs his own company that produces supplements and sells.

0:01:01

And so this week we have Mr. Trevor Nolan Bower. He's someone that previously had a complete .commistrust in the supplement industry, now helps people reach their fitness goals with the right information community and supplements. He owns AdvancedSupps.com. We'll put it in the show notes as well. It's a retailer for vitamins and supplements in central Pennsylvania. Over eight years, he's fostered a community of over 10,000 people and has supplements on the shelves of retailers around the world. Trevor, welcome to Mr. Biz radio.

0:01:30

I'm glad to be here. Thank you for having me.

0:01:33

Yeah, so we were talking a little bit before the show. I told know I'd competed in powerlifting and had a sponsorship or two here and there in the supplement world back then when I was competing. And so I was very curious to have Trevor on the show because I too had some mistrust and some issues. I was a drug tested athlete and I had to be very careful about what I took and if it was properly tested and all that kind of stuff. So very curious to dig into some of the stuff with Trevor. But Trevor, before we even go into all that, tell us a little bit about your entrepreneurial journey and how you got to owning and running Advanced Supps.

0:02:07

Sure. Well, I really got into fitness in my college years. Over my four years in college, I wanted to transform my body and didn't quite happen. Made a lot of progress. But what I used to do was shop from supplement store to supplement store. I did a lot of research on my own and I did get a lot of conflicting information and I found a lot of gimmicks and it became a real struggle for me to know if I'm on the right track, know if I'm making the progress, and know who's actually there to support me.

0:02:50

In the year following college, two guys that I had known from a supplement store before decided to go out on their own and open a supplement store. They asked for my help with web design and online marketing, which is what I was doing during and post college. And so I joined them and we started and two and a half years later, I ended up being on my own. The partnership didn't work out and I was running this business by myself.

0:03:23

And eventually I had a huge weight off of my shoulders because I realized I could do whatever I wanted to do with the business. And that feeling of, okay, I can just kind of completely let the curtains down and be very transparent and incorporate these new values of communication and openness with our community and create products that did something that hadn't been done before, was really cool to do.

0:04:07

And we have really fostered this community around us. And it's been almost nine years now in business. And every year, obviously, we had Covid in 2020. Every year has been quite the journey. Some ups, a lot of downs, a lot of sideways. But every year we've built a stronger foundation and we've helped more and more people and I've learned more just working with so many people and wanting to just continue those principles of communication and transparency.

0:04:47

And that's really been the foundation of everything that we've done since we've started. And it's just a really good feeling to be able to make such an impact and continue moving on this path forward.

0:05:03

So I have to ask you, because there are some, I'll just say, at least based on my experience, there are some companies that are a little unsavory in their tactics, don't need to mention any names, but so being that you are taking a basically contrarian approach to that and just saying, hey, I'm opening a kimono, here's what we're doing. Have you gotten any blowback from anyone in the industry on that?

0:05:31

No. I do feel like there's a lot of good companies, and obviously you have the opposite in every industry. Right. And I think doing business your own way, just focusing on yourself is the right way to go about it. So, to be honest, I don't focus a lot on what other companies are doing. I'm just going and I'm doing my thing.

0:06:03

Yeah, it makes sense. I was just thinking again. And I've been out of the game. I haven't competed since. Gosh, I think the last time I competed was 2016. So I've been out of the game for quite some time. And I still take some supplements here and there, but I had a little bit of an unfair advantage back then. At least I felt that way because I had a nutritionist. And so everything I put in my body, everything I sourced, I mean, the chicken I ate, where I ate, everything, went through them first. Right. Because I had to be so careful about everything that I consumed, being a drug tested athlete.

0:06:37

And even with the supplements, same sort of thing. And all the bombastic claims, you, oh, my gosh, take two pills a day, in ten days, you're going to lose 20 pounds. And all this kind of craziness, I'm sure it still goes on. Especially you're an online marketing type person. You started out. How do you sort of go against that and to do your own thing and not with those crazy claims that are outrageous?

0:07:00

Yeah. To be honest, we focused on our local community and really just having great products and great service, and it really kind of expanded from there. Everybody would kind of tell their friends, hey, I got really good service, really good products here. And we kind of grew that way very organically. I shied away from a lot of online marketing because I didn't see how can I compete with these companies that are making these not just bold claims, but these claims that aren't true.

0:07:34

Right.

0:07:34

And I'm not going to stoop to that kind of level. I don't want to market that way. I am the kind of person that I'm going to explain what the product does and let you choose if you want to take it. I'm not going to overhype a product or lie about what a product can do. A product can help you with your goals in certain ways, but I'm not going to make the claim that it's going to do it for you. So I could not see with my products, I'm putting more money into my products than a lot of my competitors, and I don't have the margin that they have because I'm also trying to sell it for a reasonable price. I'm trying to make much better product, sell it for a better price, so that doesn't give me those big margins.

0:08:21

Without being able to have those crazy ads. I can't get that kind of return that these other companies are going to get. I can't spend tens of month in advertising. So I only recently realized the past few months that, you know what? I can really put myself out there. I can put my brand and my products out there and just go, just play the long game, stay to my values and focus on what I'm doing and keep promoting my business the way I want to promote my business.

0:09:04

And I'm holding to that.

0:09:06

Yeah, good stuff. Good stuff. We got to hit a break here. We're going to come back. We're talking with Trevor Bower again, AdvancedSupps.com. We'll put it in the show notes again. Come back after the break. We're going to give the Mr. Biz tip of the week. Continue talking with Trevor about some of the good, bad and ugly of the supplement industry.

0:09:23

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0:09:54

Got a question for Mr. Biz. You want answered on air, email it to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Now once again, here's Mr. Biz.

0:10:05

All right. Welcome back. Show. It is time for Mr. Biz Tip of the week. And this week's tip, actually, I learned when I was at the wonderful company of JPMorgan and the person who's CEO and chairman, he's actually still there, Jamie Dimon. I heard him say this, gosh, it had to be 20 years ago. And it has stuck with me. And I use it in business. I use it in my personal life. I use it everywhere. Matter of fact, I'm pretty sure my Mrs. Biz and the Biz kids probably get tired of hearing me say this.

0:10:34

It has been rewarding, though, because now the biz girls, they'll repeat this to, and it's basically a quote and it's problems don't age well. And I know that sounds kind of obvious, but so often I think when you get the chasing fires in your business and there's a lot of things going on and something goes wrong and you go, oh, man, you know what? It's Wednesday. But we just get through the end of the week. We'll take care of it on Monday.

0:10:57

It's not going to get better between Wednesday and Monday. I don't care what it is, especially if it's a people problem. Right? If you've got a bad employee, that's just a bad attitude. Things like that. I'm not even talking about. They're not doing a good job. I mean, that's bad enough. But really, the bad attitude, things like that, they don't age well. And I actually heard a different way of saying this. I want to make sure I get it right.

0:11:18

I just heard this today. I was listening to a book called the Road Less Stupid. Very good book. I'm almost done with it now. But he had basically same way of saying it. He said different way of saying it. Problems deferred become problems multiplied, same sort of thing. And so that's a big important thing when you have a problem in your business, especially a people thing. I keep bringing that up because those are those things that, they're a little awkward, they're tough to have those tough conversations with people, but you have to address them very quickly or you end up losing some of your star performers because they get tired of that person with a bad attitude or the person they have to pick up the slack for constantly. So very important problems don't age well.

0:12:00

That is Mr. Biz tip of the week this week. Getting back to talking with Trevor here again, AdvancedSupps.com. You can also follow him personally and his business, Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn. So Trevor, we touched on this a little bit, I think, in the first segment. But in today's world, right, in today's short sound bites, TikTok, everything's fast. And I feel like in the not only fitness world, really, just in the world in general, people want results instantly, right?

0:12:35

And what I see is that people, first of all, I'm sure you see this, I'm probably preaching the choir on this one a lot is people don't want to put in any work and they say, oh, well, I need to lose weight. I'm not going to change how I eat, I'm not going to work out. But I'll take this fat loss supplement and instantly I'm going to lose, whatever, 30 pounds in the first month. And they get two weeks into it and they go, this supplement stinks.

0:13:03

I've lost two pounds. I lost three pounds. This is not working. That has to be so frustrating. I can't even imagine how do you deal with that, especially on the supplement side of people expecting instant results? Never mind it took them ten years to put on that 30 pounds, but they want to take the 30 pounds off in like a month.

0:13:22

Yeah, well, first of all, supplements are there to supplement everything else that you're doing. They are there to help you improve your diet, improve your workout routine and improve your sleep. So they are not going to do the work for you. You need to know how they're working for you and let that complement the things that you're doing and continually try to improve the other things that you're doing.

0:13:54

So that's number one. Secondly, you really don't want to lose weight fast or you don't want to gain weight fast. It's not healthy and it's also not sustainable. Now, you can have freakish genetics, but if you had, you might not be as desperate to lose weight or build muscle as you are anyway. So there are individuals that have these transformations and these stories and they're legitimate. Where they had this crazy transformation in this certain period of time, most of the time those transformations being promoted are not accurate.

0:14:41

You're not seeing everything or that's just not realistic for your body type, which is the majority of people losing weight. Yes, you can lose several pounds a week for a certain period of time, but with your metabolism slowing down, you're not building good habits. There's a lot of things that are eventually going to cause you to plateau. And plateauing is natural and it's normal, but it's not the healthy way to do it.

0:15:20

And I don't condone that. And I also don't condone taking supplements as the easy fix. Supplements will help make it easier and it can help you get there quicker, but they are not doing the work for you.

0:15:34

Yeah. So way back in the day, I was a personal trainer and so I dealt with some of this stuff myself as a personal trainer. And I agree with you 100%, Trevor. The way I would talk to clients is, first of all, to address the first thing you said. Supplements are called. Wait a minute, what is that? Supplements? Look up the definition of the word supplement, let alone nutritional supplement. Right. It's to supplement everything else you're doing. It's not replacing it, it's not going to take the place of it.

0:16:07

And the other thing is, I would talk about lifestyle changes and I would emphasize what I alluded to a little bit earlier is a lot of people would come to me and they're 50 years old and they say, oh my gosh, I need to lose 30 pounds. And I say, oh, okay, well, let's talk about that a little bit. In your fighting weight, how old were you? Oh, man. When I was 35, I felt really good. I was still in really good shape and this and that, and I'm like, okay, so between 35 and 50 has kind of gotten to where you don't want to be.

0:16:41

Yeah, I'm like, okay, so keep in mind it's taken you 15 years to get where you don't want to be, right to this, whatever, 30 pounds overweight or whatever it might be. You have to have the mindset you're not going to change 15 years in like two months. It's not going to take 15 years. If you do it the right way, change your habits. And I would talk about that too, is let's change two to three habits a month and do them for 30 days.

0:17:08

And then once we have those down, let's work on two or three more. Most people in that situation have such bad habits and develop such bad habits that there's some low hanging fruit there that they can get some decent results just by not drinking a twelve pack of coke every day, for example, and things like that. So I definitely feel you on that. But again, back to the whole supplement thing, is how do you deal with people that buy something from you and come into the store and they go, Trevor, you said this was going to help me know whatever.

0:17:40

I was going to have a better complexion, right? Let's talk about things like that. Or I was going to sleep better. I'm not sleeping.

0:17:47

You know, I'm all about explaining what a product does and setting the right expectations from the gate. But at the same time, not everything works for everybody. If you're having issues with, say, acne and we're trying to help solve that with a natural vitamin to help your skin complex, well, there might be a hormonal issue in there as well. That supplement is not going to fix. So there's a little bit of trial and error for everyone.

0:18:19

And that's something that has to be understood is the supplements are not going to be a one size fits all kind of solution. And it's part of a whole, just one piece, the whole puzzle. And that's what I honestly love about supplements, is they are adding to everything else that you're doing and there are no shortcuts. So when you do get where you want to go, you can feel really proud of that, that you put in the work to get.

0:18:47

Yep, yep. Good stuff here, guys. We're getting another break. We're going to come back. We're going to find a little bit more about with Trevor's insider information that he has now having his own company, et cetera, is what are some things we should consider as we're looking to buy supplements? What are some things to look for, some things to have a relatively good mindset about it, things like that. So come back after the break on Mr. Biz radio.

0:19:11

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0:19:41

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0:20:13

Check out all three of Mr. Business best-selling books at mrbizbooks.com. Now, once again, here's Mr. Biz.

0:20:21

All right, welcome back to the show. And I want to dive into this. We've only got one segment left here. We've got about nine minutes, and I want to make sure we can pick Trevor's brain and all get a little bit more out of this because Trevor, as folks are out there right now and someone says, man, I've been taking a multivitamin for ten years, 15 years, whatever. What are some things I should be looking for? There's some things that we should be concentrating on, maybe just in general, not even specific to any type of supplement, but things to look for that are maybe red flags on a label or manufacturing or fillers or anything like that.

0:21:01

I do think some people take for granted that not all supplements are created equal. So you might not see a difference between getting your bananas from Walmart versus your neighborhood grocery store, but buying a vitamin from the grocery store Walmart versus your local supplement store. There probably is a big difference. You know, I'm all for the local mom and pop supplement stores. I have one. But they are a specialist in that business.

0:21:41

They are there to provide the best products in their category. So really taking advice from those kinds of people, I think it's hard to really be educated about supplements, one in a short period of time and two at all when you don't have the right kind of people and information around you and there's a lot of misinformation online, so it's really hard to get that real information. So finding a brand and people that you can trust, it's not easy, but once you do, then that'll make it much more easy to get on track. And those people often want you to have all the right answers and want to help you. So when you find those kind of people, reach out for help and get the answers that you have.

0:22:35

As far as Facebook, Instagram ads that you see everywhere, landing pages that you come on, there is a lot of claims that shouldn't be made. One, because they're not true, and two, they shouldn't be making those claims legally. But also there's a lot of faked reviews and testimonials and transformations. If it looks like a gimmick, it's probably a gimmick in the back of your head. You want whatever they're telling you to be true, but they're also playing off of those emotions. They don't care about them getting that sale and then you being a repeat customer and a good customer for them, they're just going for that one sale.

0:23:20

You can usually tell the difference between a brand that is being real and honest versus one that is going to be more kind of gimmicky. So those things are definitely ways to try to find the more quality supplements. A lot of it is just going to be through experience your own trial and error sometimes. And that's the same thing with fitness. You find what works for you, but trying to find the right information and going off of people that you can trust I think is the first step.

0:24:03

Yeah, for sure. And again, I feel like I had a big, massive advantage when I was going through all this because I could take a supplement that I was considering, send it to my nutritionist, have them lab test it. Oh my gosh. And again, I know I'm preaching to the choir here, Trevor, but the differences on what they say is in it and after it gets lab tested, and again, there can be variances by batch, but I'm not talking about like a 10% difference, I'm talking like, and again, I'm sure you know this very well, weight more than I do, but when a scoop of protein is supposed to be 24 grams of protein and you have it tested in the lab and it's like six, so it's 75% off of what the claim is and they're charging ridiculous amounts because it's a big name so they have, as you mentioned way earlier, they've got a big marketing budget, and so maybe you buy another product from them. So now they start pushing the protein to you. I mean, it's just absolutely insane.

0:25:02

But I think, as you mentioned, finding someone who knows what the heck they're talking about. And not just, no offense, but if you go to a chain store and you got, again, no offense, but you got a teenage kid there that maybe doesn't know a whole lot, they might know something. Maybe they're like you were in college trying to transform their body, and they're taking some supplements a little bit, but maybe you're trying to find something that helps you sleep better.

0:25:26

More than likely, a 20 year old kid is not worried about sleeping. So they don't know anything about sleep supplements. So finding someone who's been there, done that, I think is very important. I used a silly analogy, but it is somewhat more applicable here. Would you hire a personal trainer to help you lose weight? And that trainer was like, 50 pounds overweight. Probably not, right? Because you think this person doesn't know how to do it for themselves. How can they help me do it? So I think it's very important. What you said is finding someone who knows that and that you can trust. And once you find them, man, stick to them, be loyal.

0:26:00

And I think kind of the way you guys are approaching it makes all the sense in the world, is having those realistic things, setting the precedent of people like, hey, this can help you. In addition to your workouts, in addition to your dietary changes. This can help supplement the results you're getting, but giving them some reasonable expectations on that and that they're not going to lose 30 pounds in two weeks or whatever, because those ridiculous claims are just everywhere, especially with weight loss stuff nowadays.

0:26:32

Yeah, I'd much rather your expectations be exceeded than for you to be disappointed. And I think that's one of the things that makes me most emotional in this industry, is seeing a lot of these products, making these claims and doing all sorts of things that end up, at the end of the day, they're discouraging people. When you're not getting where you think you're supposed to be going, then you're discouraged.

0:27:05

There's a lot out there that almost wants you to feel like you're not getting where you want to go. And they have the product and service to help you get there, but most people are not going to actually pay for that product and service. So they're sharing the message that there's something wrong there's. Something off, there's something you're missing. And honestly, I hate that because we all need more support.

0:27:32

We need each other. And knowing that you're on the right track, doing the right things, knowing that it takes time, we all have setbacks. We have physical, mental, emotional setbacks and challenges that we're all going to go through. Like I said, we're all going to have plateaus. It's staying motivated to keep pushing past those building. As you mentioned before, habits. Habits can be the devil, but they also can be so wonderful because all you have to do is change them slowly.

0:28:12

It's very hard to break a habit, but once you build a good habit, then again, it's very hard to break that habit. So using that to your advantage and continuing to just want to improve day by day is the way to look at it. I am a strong proponent, focusing on how far you've come in the journey versus how far you have to go. Yeah, I love that. Looking back and seeing how far you've come, that makes me feel good.

0:28:44

Yes, I have these goals to go further, but it's only when I compare myself to the past is when I really feel fantastic about myself. And then just taking it one day at a time. Like I said, building those habits, taking it one day at a time. You have these really big goals, these amazing things you want to accomplish, but it all happens one day at a time. And if you break it down task by task and really focus on that, it makes it so much easier.

0:29:18

It's a physical game, but it's also a mental battle. And I hope those tips can be really helpful for everyone.

0:29:25

Yeah, really appreciate it. Trevor, we're out of time. Trevor, I really appreciate you coming on the show. That was awesome.

0:29:29

Yeah, I appreciate you having me. Thank you.

0:29:32

Yeah, absolutely. Guys, thanks for watching. Thanks for listening, as always. Have a fantastic rest of your week. Don't forget, as always, cash flow is King.

0:29:38

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