From $1.5M in Debt to a $219M Contract

0:00Being uncomfortable or being comfortable being uncomfortable, I think that's the biggest thing. So I look for veterans everywhere. We have about 16 employees and 80% of them are veterans and a lot of them have never had any or never done government contracting until they show up with us on their first day. Chris Lovell is a dedicated mission driven Marine Corps veteran and the founder CEO of Lovell government services. Drawing from over 24 years of military service, he bridges the gap between commercial medical innovators and federal health care systems to ensure America's war fighters and veterans gain rapid access to life-saving, cutting-edge resources. So I sat there and he said, who is the opportunity? It's a national security project, it's drugs, and they need to pack it in a certain way. We're not really sure what to do with it. So I said, I know what to do with it. Give it to me. Yeah. I said, I'll do this. I said, I'll bid this. I'll be the distributor and know exactly what the government wants. We went out of our way to make that package happen with the FDA and we gave them the proposal with the exact package that they wanted, the exact dimensions, the exact weight.

1:01And that's what did it. In reality, we were the most expensive did. Sorry, started the company. No revenue, it was about a year and a half into it. And I was just sitting at the kitchen table and my wife's looking at me and she goes, really, really want to do this. It spans the globe like a super high school. Internet Elvis. Ready? Today Apple is going to reinvent the box. It's not over until I win. The living your legacy podcast for those who live to leave a legacy. It's extremely, very impossible. Oh, that is sensational. Open. She covered with the way you said. Fall is the box is not on the planet. You can live your dream. Hey, welcome back everyone to another episode of living your legacy podcast. I'm your host again, Jason Langen. And yeah, we have the privilege to speak to some of the, you know, best entrepreneurs around the country, the disruptors and the experts from doctors to, I mean, basically

2:08everything. And so we have a special guest here today looking fly in a suit from Penscola. What's the name and what's your business? I'm Chris Lovell on the owner, founder and CEO of Lovell government services Incorporated. All right, level government services. All right. So what's that all about? So level government is a reseller of medical, surgical and pharmaceutical products into the federal government medical supply system. So the VA hospitals, the Department of War clinics, hospitals, Indian health services, hospitals and clinics and any other government agency that uses drugs or medical supplies. Okay. Were you the guy buying up all the COVID stuff when we were looking for masks? That was you. So my customer is the federal government. We've expanded into the private sector. But yeah, during COVID, my, my customer was the federal government and it wasn't my fault. It was just the customer demand. So yes, so they wanted PPE and a lot of other things. And so, so yes, I was buying some of that for the government.

3:10Correct. All right. So what's the, what's the hardest part of your job? You know, give me the instant out. Because this is just not my real house. You know, I'm like, yeah, government stuff. I'm like the opposite direction. Yeah. I love, I love my job. It's hard to say what's hard because the, the, what I love about it is the, the difficulty and the solutions that people want. And so, you know, the challenges are that there's every customer is different, right? Every vendor that wants to sell into the federal government has a different product. They have a different need and a different set of things they're looking for. And so, levels tag is, our tagline is custom solutions proven results. Yeah. And so, we listen to the customer. The customer is also, we have three customers is the, the manufacturers of the product, whether it be a pharmaceutical or a medical device in service surgery, application, neuromodulators, et cetera. Okay. You know, we, we listen to them. They have a certain need. They want to sell into the government. The other customer we have is the federal government.

4:11There are certain things they're looking for. Yeah. Because they want to see the product presented to them so they can easily procure it, right? Select it. And then the other customer, really the ultimate customer is the patient. And so, we always focus on all three with a primary focus on how does all this impact the patient's health? And we try to bring the best that the world has to offer in terms of private industry and healthcare. Yeah. To really take care of the veterans and the two team members to make sure they've got the very best care available to them through their providers. Yeah. Great. So, procuring, I mean, I, like, how does one get to do business with the government? How much time do we have, do you? I know. You could do like a 50-hour podcast. No, so I was, I'm retired Marine. I spent 24 years in the Marines. Okay. And so, 70 those 24 years, I was a procurement official supply logistics supply chain. So that's like one of the, because I do a lot of operations, CEO, right? A lot of like, you know, vets, they go into the civilian life and like, how am I going

5:14to use my military knowledge in the civilian world? And you are like a direct using their knowledge in the civilian world, right? Yeah. It's a little different, but it's kind of a flip. But the, you know, when you understand how the government wants to buy in the systems they need, that have to be aligned for the procurement to happen, the contract or the purchase order to happen, I just kind of use that to say, how do I, how do I use my passion in the military to, to continue doing that after I retired? And so, yeah, I hire a lot of veterans, what's, what's amazing is you talk about, you know, veterans asking like, hey, how do I use, you know, what I've learned in the military on the outside? And what I'll say is really that the core principles are really intangibles, which you learn. It's really not that, I mean, yeah, you can learn supply and I, I did. I loved it. But it's really those intangibles like integrity, you know, work ethic. You know, courage, commitment, right? Being on, being uncomfortable, or being comfortable, being uncomfortable, I think that's the,

6:18the biggest thing. So I look for veterans everywhere. We have about 60 employees and 80% of them are veterans and a lot of them have never hanged or never have never done government contract until they show up with us on their first day. Yeah. Also systems, right? A lot of people talk about, yeah, we always have systems and kind of like SOPs that we have to follow. And so, yeah, that's why they think hiring from the military is amazing because they're green at systems. Yeah, the greatest systems they want to, they want to, you know, if there's chaos or if there's on something's unorganized, it's just a nature of somebody in the military, you want to organize it, right? That's your job. But I get to, I have to organize the chaos. And so that's what I love about veterans. That's why I hire them and surround myself by is because they just, they see something to go, I can make this better. Yeah. I can improve this and I can, I can excel and do great things and it's amazing to watch and do it. And so where do you, what resource do you tap into to hire veterans from?

7:20Yeah, LinkedIn. LinkedIn's our biggest. Yeah, we use LinkedIn. There's a couple, you know, we use the, it's a skill bridge program that a lot of the military branches have. It's where they'll allow, we're a skill bridge, you're going to certified company. They'll allow a veteran who's transitioning out whether you've done six years or 26 years. You can do six months with a company and it's kind of get a feel for, you know, the private sector and really get really like a six month job interview. So we hire most of our skill bridge participants. We hire. Well, you're done. And you said you had 16 employees? 60, yep, 16. 16. Wow, wow. So tell me about that growth. I mean, it wasn't always 60. It was, you know, were you solopreneur boots dropping it and then you grew into that first employee, right? Or your business partner, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Tell me, tell me about that growth because 60, that's a congratulations on that growth.

8:20So how'd you start? Were you bootstrapping yourself? You have a business partner? Yeah, well, my, I like to say my, my first business partner was my wife. Yeah. So people ask you, a lot of people say Kevin O'Leary, a lot of people say, hey, the most important business decision you'll ever make is who you're going to choose to be your spouse, right? You know, that Jay right? So like, it's important. And so, you know, I retired from the Marines and I was, yeah, I was bootstrapping it. I had done a couple of different things. I had worked for Amazon.com, a fulfillment center, kind of supervisor manager for a large, you know, fulfillment center in Pennsylvania. Then I worked for, you know, the defense logistics agency briefly as, you know, doing distribution. And then I worked for Lexmark International, okay? So in copiers, printers. And so I was walking around, you know, traveling to the southeast and my job was to sell to the veterans affairs and all the military installations, these copiers, printers. And I'd walk in and say, hey, what do you need? Like, man, we don't need copiers. We need a service disabled veteran on small business that knows what they're doing because

9:22we need to buy from them. And there's not enough out there. And they're the ones that are out there don't understand exactly what we need. And so when home started level, that was July 18th of 2013. And it didn't go as planned in the first, say, year and a half. Yeah, yeah. I had clients and I was like, no, it's not that entrepreneur journey. Like, who, like, please come to the studios if it goes as planned. Well, I want to talk to you. Yeah, I don't think there's, and I didn't know. I thought, you know, a short company, be easy, you know, said no one. But anyway, I think that's how you feel when you first start out. You're very, you know, you're very optimistic. You're like, yeah, it's gonna work. And so when I, when I started, I had a couple of clients and things were good. I was covering my operating expenses, right? What I needed, the things I acquired. And then lost clients all at once. Not anything that I had done just that they were not interested in the process of half. I call that the run of the bank almost. Yes. But you're just not your people, right? This is all your clients, all that one. And it's just like, well, they were kind of tied.

10:24It was a project for a hemostatic cause, which is up, it's, you know, it helps stop the bleeding for like trauma on the battlefield. Things like that. And they were interested in developing, you know, they had a product. It was five, 10K approved. And so it was approved by FD. They were just trying to get into the government. Once they were short, the, you know, the folks they had a disagreement. And here I am with really no revenue. So I started the company, no revenue. It was about a year and a half into it. And I was just sitting at the kitchen table. And my wife's looking at me. She goes, you really want to do this? And she said, I think I can, but this really is now fun. This really, this is painful. She goes, well, she goes, if you want to do it, you have to sell everything. And I said, what do you mean? She goes, I understand there's a path, a pathway to success. And she goes, she goes, if it means that we have to endure some suffering for a while, financially, so I'm okay with it. So I had a, I had a love my truck. We had a great, you know, a European sports car. And she said, sell it. She said, sell the camper, sell the, you know, the additional rental house that we had.

11:25She goes, she went out, found a, a used minivan with about 30,000 miles on it. And we used that for about six months. But in that conversation at the kitchen table, she goes, we're going to have yard sales. And she goes, and I want you to start selling some stuff. She took off her engagement ring. Yeah. Put it on the table. She goes, sell that first. Wow. And I was like, wait, are you trying to tell me something? No, she goes, she goes, hey, she was, you're just going to take, she's going to take the resources that we have. And so really if it wasn't for page level, really wouldn't exist. All the 60, I tell the 60 employees, I say, you see page around, if you see Mrs. Lovell, give her a hug, tell her thanks. Yeah. Because she was really true, initial investor. All right. And so, so yeah, so struggle a little bit. So raising, raising money by yard sales. That people, okay. That's right. Yeah. Don't go to VCs. No. Go to your closet. That's right. That's right. What you can, you know, paint off and put a tag on it. I think it's really kind of self reliance, you know. It was kind of like we just, we didn't go to family, we didn't go to anybody, we just kind of, you know, max the credit cards, we, you know, maxed out personal loans and we

12:28could sold assets and then just kept the company going, kept the vision alive with that. And then there was a time really in the first, I mean, probably a year and a half after that, it was, we were about a $1.5 million in debt, trying to keep the company going, trying to cover our expenses. And I had some bad contracts. Yeah. And so I had signed some bad contracts and in some of the, some cases, I was distributing for a loss. So every time I sold something, I was distributing at a loss. I was paying to do business for some of these companies. And so it was, it's kind of a different version of beta play. Yeah. It is. It is, it is beta play, but it's painful. But what happened was, you know, I had some good clients. I had traction. I had a, you know, a pathway to, you know, revenue, you know, a good P&L, a good balance sheet. And it was just me. And I was really working out of a, a small office that I had rented in an office complex downtown, Pensacola. And it was just me.

13:28It was 2018. I think we were doing probably about 3 million in revenue a year, just me, right, processing for about five different companies into the federal space. And I had a call from someone who was with a pharmaceutical company, he said, hey, we had this opportunity. We're not sure what to do with it. It's kind of like, it was like a war dog story. You've, you ever see that movie war dogs with, yeah, yeah, Jonah, Jonah Hill, yeah, great social, great actor. And so, so I sat there and he said, this is the opportunity. It's a national security project. It's drugs and, you know, they need to pack us in a certain way. We're not really sure what to do with it. So I said, I know what to do with it. Give it to me. Yeah. I said, I'll do this. I said, I'll bid this. I'll, I'll, I'll be the distributor. And I know exactly what the government wants. I can, I read the tea leaves. And I said, it's got to be this way. And so my first contract, my first large breakthrough was a $219 million contract. No. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, Mark Cuban, you know, I listened to what he says a lot, a lot of the, the great entrepreneurs I listened to what they say. The thing they call my attention most with Mark Cuban is sales cure all.

14:29Well, it did. Yeah. It just changed my life. And so once I won the high rack and cure all. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I thought, well, this is fun. Let's make it. Let's make it more. Yeah. Let's keep this going. That's what I freak. Let me rewind a bit. So that 20 is, you said $219 million contract, right? But that's the contract size. How much are you taking off fun on the back? Oh, that's, that's a great question because yeah, it's not all, you see that number. You're like, arrest. Yeah. I mean, then you could like, if everything goes wrong, it's like, oh, shit. I just paid $219 to play again. You know, like, that's right. So, so that was the profit on that was about $13 million. There you go. Boom. So, so that covered really all my, you know, debt. Yeah. Did you buy some stuff back from the neighbors from your yard sale, right? Maybe a new ring for Paige. Yeah. Oh, no, that's what I was going to tell you. Yeah. So we did, we did do that. So her ring now is like fantastic. And so, you know, it's, it's very like, it's rewarding to go and say, hey, thank you,

15:30Paige for like, you know, believing in the vision, right? Yeah. And, and, you know, for better, for worse, right? Yeah. Because I like to think that a business is like a marriage too. It's going to be better and it's going to be worse sometimes. Yeah. And so really, it's like, you can't leave. You're going to stick with it to make it work. And so, yeah, we were so happy to go do that. It was several years back. We went and got our seat. We could pick out what you know, let's have fun picking one out. Yeah. So, yeah, her return on the investment in terms of the ring size was, was very good. So, there you go. So, yeah, so it was good. But yeah, that, so we, you know, with that, I started hiring people. Yeah. Because I thought, well, this is going to be a big fulfillment. It was over six months we delivered 250 three trucks to truck loads. Full. I kind of rewind, rewind back to because it's like when you were like, I know it's do that. You know, I know exactly what to do with that. Did you already, but I was like, oh my god, this guy is just holding a gold mine, right? Or you didn't know how big that contract was going to be? I knew the opportunity.

16:30I didn't think, you know, I thought there's the probability that we were, where wind was pretty good. The probability that we would win was pretty good. It was probably 25% chance. Yeah. And we, we competed against the biggest of the big boys in Pharma, you know, Merck, Eli Lil, and we beat them. We beat them. This is the kind of the story that I like to tell. You know, people are like, hey, how do you, how are you successful? How do you, listen to the customer and the government wanted drugs in a certain way. Drugs that have been around for 50 years. It was an antibiotic, right? It's sensitive. It's not classified, but it was an antibiotic in the government wanted to package in a certain way. And if you read between the lines, you'll see what they wanted. But the larger company said, well, we're going to give it to in a bottle. They did with bottles. We did it with a different, the exact package they wanted. We went out of our way to make that package happen with the FDA and we gave them the proposal with the exact package that they wanted, the exact dimensions, the exact way. And that's what did it. And in reality, we were the most expensive bid and on that because we gave the customer

17:35exactly what they wanted. Yeah. And so that was the win. And that's the spark. That's when I knew it was like, okay, we're on the something. I'm on the something. Okay. Now I get why it's like that movie. Yeah. What's the movie again? More like war dogs. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Cause he's bidding again. It's all the big competitors and everything. Yeah. But he bid way less. He would way low. Yeah. And then they're like, no. And that's based on a true story. Yeah. Yeah. And then by you took the opposite path on that and you were the highest bidder, but you didn't know that you were the highest bidder, right? I didn't. Yeah. I didn't know. I didn't find out I was the highest bidder until three years later. And then the guy that gave you that contract where I didn't know what to do with it. Did he get anything kind of like as a broker of that or was he like, oh my God, I just gave up this mega. Oh no. We, I mean, I love him like a brother, but we did a handshake. Yeah. I said, you know, Howard, look, if we win this, I'm going to make sure you get your commission

18:37and referral commission. There you go. And he did. Yeah. He really did. Right on. And it was no paperwork. And that's, and he was another veteran. And so that's what we love. That's what we love about, you know, the veterans because, you know, the handshake means some stuff. Yeah. So then after this deal, I guess the growth to 16 employees is, it's almost like that scene and Scarface. We're here in South Beach, right? You're ocean drive Scarface when he's counting the money and then the business is growing. That's right. That's right. I used that meme sometimes. Yeah. You were talking on the phone and laughing and then the money's counting. Yeah. Yeah. That's what it was like. It was like that at first. And then, well, it was supposed to be reality. It was a $650 million contract. Mm. Because it kept on going and going. It was the end doing. Yeah. What happened was, and I hired a lot of staff to do that and then do some of the things they were already doing for medical surgical, but what happened was a little thing called COVID, right? Yeah. So the government shifted their priorities. And so they were supposed to buy three purchase orders, three years worth of that $219 million.

19:44They only did the first year. And so what happened was I was calling him like, hey, you're going to place the second order and the government's like, no, or all the money's going to be shifted and focus on COVID response. And so that's the thing about the government. Governments are middle name. We understand the government. And the government does what the government wants with the funds. Yep. So if they say we're not going to do a second year of this contract, they can do that. So what we do is we just really had to adjust and then we adjusted with the people strategy. We never let anyone go during COVID. We just adjusted how we sold to the government and how we onboard clients. Perfect. And we grew from the baseline of three million. If you don't count that $219 million, we grew probably a thousand times from COVID. Because of what we did to set ourselves up for success. And it was really higher the right people and then invest in systems. Even if you can't afford them, invest in them anyway. Prepare yourself for growth because you know, it's, I was never comfortable with just

20:48a flat line. Yeah. I want to make what I made last year. My thing was, well, if you've got the right system in place and you have the right people in place, you're going to grow exponentially every year. And that's what we've done since COVID. Amazing. Well, how can people find you, man? Oh, we have a website's level government services incorporated. It's www.levelgov as in government.com. Okay. And on our website, there's lots of different ways to reach us and purchase your products. All right. And then are you on LinkedIn? Can people follow you on LinkedIn? Yeah. Chris leveled LinkedIn. All right. Yeah. Happy to connect. I get LinkedIn messages all the time like, hey, we have a new product and can you help us, you know, sell to the government? And that's really the lifeblood of what we do. Perfect. Well, it's been amazing to have you on the show. Talk about your journey a little bit. But yeah, you're about to hop in your session. And if you guys want to tune in more when his session and his show comes out, right? Learn about this whole path entrepreneurial journey where he's going to dive into the details of that.

21:49But it sounds like an amazing journey. Congratulations on your journey on your road and everything. And that ring, right? Hey, page. Yeah. Yeah, page is happy. Shout out to page. Shout out to page. Shout out to all the wives out there, right? Sure. Or all the husbands supporting their wives. So it's really, you know, a couple's path, right? It's entrepreneurship and a business is like another kid. It's true. You watch it from seed to growth. And hopefully they're going to turn out to be an amazing kid, right? Hopefully. That's the goal. That's the goal. All right. Well, thank you, everyone, for joining us. And we'll see you next time here on Living Your Legacy Podcast. Cheers, everyone.