Mark Andol from the Made in America Store, talks about his journey, having everything 100% made in the USA and touring the country, with MyFixitUpLife.
Mark: We’re made in America, 100%.
Theresa: We are.
Mark: Right here. Born in these United States.
Theresa: Yes.
Mark: My wife born.
Theresa: Yes, Theresa, Mark, yes. I understand. Head count.
Mark: Our guest, Mark Andol, the Made In America Store.
Theresa: Yes.
Mark: Made in America. I’ve been dying to hear your story.
Mark Andol: All right. Thank you for having me on. I’m from Buffalo, New York. Scraped the ice on the window there this morning again. Started my Made In America store back in 2010, April 2010. Started out of my Dad’s garage in 1985 as an entrepreneur, and started Mark’s Small Engine and Welding Service. Went from there, grew that business four years later to become General Welding and Fabricating with a motto, You Dream It, We build It. I grew that business from 1989 to 2007 to have four plants in Western New York and 70 employees. Of the 70 employees, I had 18 family members and three guys I went to kindergarten with.
No rich uncle and just beat the pass. We’re a very tight group, but in 08, I lost a major account to overseas competition, making a steel post that goes inside PVC fencing and the post, I grew it from cutting it with a hacksaw to turning it into automation, and I shipped it to six regional support centers across the country over a 10-year period, but they wanted more and more money out of the post, so I couldn’t do it. They said we found somebody in Florida to take it over and it wasn’t Florida. It was China, China to Florida back up to Western New York, and they took half business overnight, a three million dollar account.
Recession hit 08, 09, 10. By 10 of 2010, I had closed two of my plants, laid off 40 of my workers, and down to the brother-in-law, and Christmas is not the same when you start laying off family. My father said they’d understand and it was a tough time of my life. I went across the street. It was an out of business Ford dealership and I said to Jay, the owner, I said I’d like to open a rental front from you. He said what are you going to do? I said open a Made In America Store, stand for our country, soldier American worker, and God above, and he said the world’s full of crazy people. Go for it.
Mark: You did just that.
Mark Andol: April 3rd 2010, I launched the store and started with 50 products. In our store, it’s 50 products made in America by Americans with American materials. That’s our concept. That’s our core value. Six hundred people showed up in a parking lot, usually it’s family, for the free hat, and we grew from that day. My life had changed four years ago. Associated Press did an article released around the world and that brought in the Japanese and the Russian TV One. Japanese did Project Wisdom, Project Re-shoring.
They all wanted to explain to the world what not to do. Don’t become the factory. Don’t become the buyer of the world or retail experience, China is the factory of the world. That changed me and from that day, I am proud to report today I have four stores in Western New York, two websites, madeinamericastore.com and an amazon site, and just at the show here in Los Vegas, we’re launching our wholesale madeinamericastore.com site. Many people believe in what I’m doing and we make it easy for you, so if you have a store, you want to put products in, you can get them from our website.
We’ve had 300 buses visit our destination in Alma, New York outside of Buffalo. I never thought I’d be a destination, but people, we’ve got a common belief, we love our country, and I support our veterans. My nephew served, so everybody gets 10% that ever served our country. They’re the heroes.
Theresa: I love that.
Mark: DIYer.
Theresa: Yes.
Mark: Truly DIY, from blow torch, cutting torch, plasma cutter to business owner, entrepreneur.
Mark Andol: I was. I took apart batteries and my parents said I burned more rugs up than anything, but we’ve got a shortage of skilled workers. I’m looking for welders today and that’s what we’ve got to get back in our schools, shop and metal classes, things I took. I had a great father that taught me everything. He didn’t take nothing in to fix it. We fixed it.
Mark: Amen.
Mark Andol: He ball and chained me in the garage is what he did.
Mark: Well, that’s not our problem.
Theresa: You’re here at the National Hardware Show. Are you looking fo
r more products? Is that what you’re going, scouting around looking for … because there’s so many small businesses here that are showing off their inventions, their innovations here, especially the smaller booths too. Are you looking for those kinds of products?
Mark Andol: It’s three-fold why we’re here. We’ve got a booth in the lawn and garden section, 10072 the booth if you’re here. We’re launching our new wholesale site, wholesalemadeinamericastore.com. Then we have two featured products, all American grill, which was one of my inventions. It’s 20 pounds or a little less, great for tail-gaiting. It’s all stainless steel 304. It was my latest invention. Then I got the Beverage Buddy, which holds the beer or a pop or a water while you’re playing horseshoes and whatnot. Then also I was asked to be the keynote speaker for launching the USA Day at the show today with John Ratzenberger.
I met John Ratzenburger today and he’s awesome. He believes in everything we’re talking about today. We’re always looking for products so I brought my buyer also to find the hottest products. At the show, they have two Made In America sections, which we became friends with the show. One thing I’d like to mention, there’s a new movie out, American Made movie, you would really appreciate. It shows where America was after World War II, where we are today, and what we need to do for our children’s future. It’s on video on-demand. My daughter is 11, so everything I do is for her.
Mark: We know the story.
Theresa: Yes, yes, yes.
Mark Andol: She’s my boss, so my daughter, I’m worried about her future.
Mark: Our lumbar yard, the lumbar yard that we choose to go to, which is about an hour from our house to do our projects, one of the things they do is like a micro Made In America story. He seeks out, he might even be here, Niece Lumber, might even be here. Anyway, they seek out American made products whenever possible to get them to give to sell to their customers for the exact same reasons you’re talking about, because we all work here. We all live here.
Mark Andol: You should, I say, support the country you live in, 50:50 fair trade. This is not about me or about whose listening. It’s about all of us. It makes sense and we need some common sense back in the country. I say vote with your dollar. A consumer has a lot of power, and we can change the country. They are, they’re demanding made in America, so I tell everybody ask it. Bug the cashier. We want more made in America product.
Mark: It’s also fun because we were talking for just a few minutes before, and by the way, I have some advice for you. Could you just pick your energy up a little?
Mark Andol: Okay, yes. I don’t sleep much. My team is happy I’m in Vegas, but I’m bugging them today.
Theresa: That’s awesome.
Mark: You were talking about, you actually tour the country and are playing music and doing events all over the place.
Mark Andol: Yeah, I love who you’ve got here at the booth today. Hats off to him because I met a Ricky Lee out of Altoona, PA through this whole project four years ago, and he wanted to sell his CDs in our store. Youll appreciate this.
Mark: Tim Williams, timwilliams.com.
Mark Andol: Tim, Tim. I became a roadie four years ago too, so I said no, you can’t sell the CDs. They’ve got to be 100% made in our country. He said are you serious, Mark? I said yeah, so we set out to make the first CD 100% in our country. Found a carbon you record on down in Dow Chemical and we got Rainbow Records on the West Coast produce in our cardboard packets, right down to the glue, so we’ve got 100% made in America CDs.. It’s pretty neat. We can always connect, but music’s a great tool.
Theresa: That’s unbelievable.
Mark Andol: We have a ball. I’ll do a speech. He’s sing to the kids and we’ve had some late-night stories and a lot of fun.
Mark: Tim goes to bed at seven.
Theresa: Down to the glue, though. Really, down to the glue, you have to, when you’re thinking about made in America and all of the things that you’ve uncovered, probably for so many people to understand every single
bit and piece to make sure that it’s also made in America.
Mark Andol: Yeah, really people started not to like me. Are you serious? You’ve got to hav
e
the glue, the package? We carry letters of authenticity in all of our products, 6500, three pages on each one. Then we’ll place
it. If you change on me, I’ll throw you back out of the store just because that’s my concept. Everybody can’t be 100%. We hav
e nothing that plugs in or takes a battery in our store, which is sad. I said we’ve been to the moon. You can’t build me a toaster? That’s the type of …
Mark: I’ve talked with tool companies about this. You’re talking about globalization and it’s here to stay. It’s not going anywhere.
Mark Andol: Right. We’ve got to get used to it.
Mark: It’s not going anywhere, but it doesn’t mean we can’t do it better here.
Mark Andol: No.
Mark: We champion that. We champion that you’re leading the way, the tip of the sphere, the ball of the point.
Mark Andol: We’ve got to work together.
Theresa: You’re ridiculous dear. You’re just ridiculous, absolutely.
Mark: I’m inspired.
Theresa: Yes, so where…
Mark: Made In America Store.
Theresa: Madeinamericastore.com, and you guys are on Twitter @miastore? Is that right?
Mark Andol: Yes, yes.
Theresa: I think we follow you guys.
Mark Andol: Very good, and if you’re ever up in Buffalo, New York, we’ve got four stores there, and that new wholesale site we’re launching, is wholesalemadeinamericastore.com, which makes it easy. You might have a store. You might want to have an end display or a Made In America section. We can help you. It’s about growing our manufacturers, putting food on their table. I have 400 manufacturers I support and I feel good when I write a check. It goes in our country and we became close friends. We’ve got to stick together.
Mark: We support you wholesale market.
Theresa: I love that. Thank you so much, Mark.
Mark: We’ll be back with more of MyFixitUpLife.
