Why You Need To Build Your Platform with Chris Gronkowski Founder of Ice Shaker

Chris Gronkowski is the founder of Ice Shaker. Ice Shaker is a vacuum-insulated, stainless-steel protein shaker that holds ice for over 30 hours and is the chosen shaker bottle for people like Alex Rodriguez and Mark Cuban who are both investors, Marshawn Lynch and of course all the Gronkowski brothers - Glenn, Dan, Gordie and Rob. Chris is a former NFL fullback who played for the Dallas Cowboys, Denver Broncos and Indianapolis Colts. He played college football at the University of Arizona. He was on the hit TV show Shark Tank and received an investment from Mark Cuban and Alex Rodriguez for 150K for 15% and just 1 year after being featured Ice Shaker grew from 1 product to over 80 SKUs. Today, you can find Ice Shaker in over 3,500 GNC locations and UFC gyms across the USA.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

• [1:50] Jeremy welcomes his guest, Chris Gronkowski.
• [3:30] The lowest moment in business for Chris.
• [6:30] A moment that Chris is proud of.

In this episode…

Did you know that relying on sites like Amazon or Etsy can stunt your growth as a business? It’s true! Too often, business leaders are so focused on other aspects of their business that they fail to build their own platforms. On this episode of Inspired Insider, you’ll hear from business leader and former NFL player, Chris Gronkowski. In his conversation with Jeremy, Chris opens up about a low moment on his journey, lessons he learned along the way, what it was like landing that one big partnership, and much more. Don’t miss a minute of this fascinating episode featuring Chris’ story!

There is nothing wrong with using a platform like Facebook, Amazon, or Etsy to get your business off of the ground and running. After all, Amazon and Etsy have a built-in audience; you’d be crazy to not have a presence on those platforms. The challenge comes when those big organizations decide to make a change with their terms of service and change the rules of the game overnight. What would your business do if a major player went under suddenly? Would you be able to rally your audience back to your website? Learn from Chris’ story and don’t let your business get caught exposed and lacking a platform!

As easy as it is to learn from mistakes that others have made - learning from positive steps can be difficult! What went well for one business might not be applicable for the next business - you’ve got to learn how to read between the lines. Chris’ work with Everything Decorated and the Ice Shaker proves that tenacity and resilience will pay off. With each of his businesses - Chris and his wife faced significant challenges, but they were able to bounce back and recover. Some say that the only thing that makes you a failure is giving up - that didn’t happen with Chris! What can you learn from his story?

Resources Mentioned on this episode

• Ice Shaker
• Everything Decorated
• Shark Tank
• Alex Rodriguez
• Mark Cuban
• Intro Music by Kidd Russell

Sponsor for this episode

Rise25’s mission is to connect you with your best referral partners and customers.

We do this in 3 ways…

1. Our Done for you Media - We help your company completely run and launch your own podcast. we distribute your show across more than 11 different channels including a dedicated blog post and social media. You simply show up and talk and we do everything else. Our team has been working with podcasters since 2009. I personally credit podcasting as the single best thing I have done for my business and my life. It has allowed me to connect with the founders/ceo’s of P90x, Atari, Einstein Bagels, Mattel, Rx Bars, and many more. Besides making best friends and finding my business partner..podcasting has led to relationships with countless customers and referral partners.

1. Our Done for you Lead Generation- We manually send a consistent flow of customized outreach messages to your ideal clients and referral sources that you want to connect with to generate more business and clients - this is not paid traffic by the way.

1. Our Done for you VIP Events - We do live in-person VIP Days and receptions. These are 100% outsourced VIP days for software companies and conference organizers so we can help you serve your highest level customers.  It may or may not involve Elvis costumes - See video

Rise25 VIP Days have a proven track record of helping companies to get more referrals, increase retention with their VIP customers, and get more engaged new customers without adding extra work to that company’s plate.

Rise25 has hosted VIP events in cities such as Austin, Chicago, Santa Barbara, San Diego, New York, Sonoma, and Las Vegas to name a few.

Since these each require a lot of humans to do the work we have limited bandwidth and only want to work with the right company. so if any sound interesting to you go to Rise25.com and contact us or email support (at) rise25.com.

If your company wants to attract and connect with your highest level customers and referral partners then you can learn more and contact us to find out if your company qualifies at Rise25.com.

Rise25 was cofounded by Dr. Jeremy Weisz and John Corcoran.