Mark Werner (2:39)

You might have heard of a werner ladder, about 85% market share. So there's quite a few of them out there. But when they started it, when my grandpa started it, who was a lieutenant colonel in World War I and World War II, he just started with a mission statement of making dinner money for his 11 brothers. And sisters, you know, it's very simple. It was a glorified lemonade stand, just, you know, just dirt poor, just trying to do something to make kind of dinner money. It was just kind of brick by brick, and then they built that up. But they were all inventors and engineers, and that's kind of been the history of my family for multiple generations. So when my dad invented the fiberglass ladder, I was his little lab assistant when I was a little guy growing up through the years. So I learned a lot about polymer technology and then joined the business. I then was the fiberglass manager working in there. So what I learned was that that's what we call a structural polymer to make the fiberglass ladder. And I ended up making memory foam type pillows, mattresses, et cetera. And that's a comfort polymer. So I took that learning and transfer over to the mattress and comfort side and then filling that out. I started this business with my wife because I wanted a family business. I came from a family business, and family business, to me is very important. It's a binder to keep you together. You work all day, have dinner tonight, you know, at night. So it keeps your family together over generations. So I kind of missed that when we ended up selling the Werner company 25 plus years ago. So I started ghostbed with my wife and my kids. They were a little younger at the time, but two of my three kids work full time here, and we're super excited about that. But the reason I got into mattresses, because I didn't really know anything about mattresses 25 years ago, other than I slept on one, is that I've had three neck surgeries. So I've got all this titanium metal screws and rods fused together and very uncomfortable. And it gets worse and worse as I get older. So I couldn't find a pillow or a mattress that really worked for my situation. So I decided just, I love this memory foam, which was a new type of material. So I said, let's just make my own, because through the years, I've just kind of saw a problem and solved it. So that's kind of how I got into the mattress business. And now we're going 25 years, we're in multiple countries, the US, Canada, the UK, Puerto Rico, soon to be Mexico. So we've expanded, but we're still a family business. And all of our people that work here, we consider family. We treat everyone like family, and we just like that environment. And that's kind of our ethos, who we really are.

Dr. Laura Schlessinger (5:18)

Well, families have Skirmishes. So how do you. How do you folks deal with the. I did that on time. No, you didn't. How do you folks deal with that when you're mixing family and business?

Mark Werner (5:31)

I was very fortunate in the Werner ladder business that everything was handled in a very professional manner and a very polite manner. And there really wasn't the arguments. I mean, believe it or not, my mother's now deceased, but my parents would have been going on. My dad's still here at 95, going on 65, 70 years of marriage. They never had one fight. So in all my years growing up, you might find this hard to believe, especially in your profession. They never had an argument. So I didn't know anything about know arguing in that sense. And it was very low key. In fact, the first time my wife, when I was first married, 40 plus years ago, I mean, I'm still married. Was that she. She got angry at me for something. I called my mother. I said, yeah, I think I'm getting divorced. And said, why? I said, well, Donna's, you know, upset with me about something. I don't even know what it is. She goes, no, no. Married people argue, Mark. You just never saw it in your life. But that's normal. You never saw it. I'm like, okay, good, because I didn't want to get divorced because she's upset with me, and I was just too naive to even know. But, you know, I'm not embarrassed to admit it.

Dr. Laura Schlessinger (6:36)

So how did you make her feel better when she was mad? How did we resolve that?

Mark Werner (6:41)

I just tried to find out what the problem was, and I was just very low key about it, like I am today. I'm not a confrontational person. So I find out what the issue is, and I just let it kind of relax a little bit, and it comes back to normal.

Dr. Laura Schlessinger (6:56)

Good. Excellent.

Mark Werner (6:58)

Now, three kids and five grandkids later. Wow.

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Mark Werner (8:01)

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Dr. Laura Schlessinger (8:38)

the Serta counting sheep why aren't we counting anymore?

Mark Werner (8:41)

Well, the all new SERTA Perfect sleeper has the Q4 support system that helps relieve aches and back pain. We'll never get counted again.

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Uh, nope. Save this Memorial Day. Shop at a retailer near you.

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Dr. Laura Schlessinger (9:27)

Now. When your neck got messed up, how do you know that? The kind of pillow or mattress you're making, it may be good for you, but you're selling zillions of them with the notion that it's for repair restoration. How do you know that it covers all those different necks?

Mark Werner (9:46)

Well, couple answers on that. So for my neck surgery, we have several pillows, but the first one I made that I patented is our gel memory foam pillow. So I made it with enough support and comfort that I knew it worked for me. And so I figured it would probably work for at least 50% of the country. And it's turned out that's correct. But I also know the second ingredient is most people like myself, sleep warm no matter what and so sleeping cool is a really important attribute. And being able to sleep cool puts you in a better rest and a better REM sleep. So it's a better thing to do that. So I focused from day one on cooling technologies. Unfortunately, I've gotten several patents on it. And it's been part of our ghostbed story is everything we're doing is cooling the pillows, our sheets. I make our sheets with Tencel, which comes from the eucalyptus tree and long staple cotton from California. It's made on three or four different continents. It takes almost six months from start to finish. And you wake up every morning. I wake up and I say to my wife, these are the greatest sheets in the world. I mean, I made them and I invented them and they're fantastic. And we take everything about quality from the quality of the materials on our fitted sheet. Dr. Laura, we have a 2 inch elastic band that goes around the sheet.

Dr. Laura Schlessinger (11:01)

Why didn't I know you make sheets?

Mark Werner (11:04)

I didn't know that they're the greatest sheets in the world. I mean, every morning I wake up, it's like Groundhog day. I say the same thing every day. Greatest stuff. And I'm so proud of it. And so with that 2 inch elastic band on the fitted sheet, they never pop off. So you never have that argument with your partner. Like, the fitted sheet came off, you go pick up the heavy mattress and put it back on. Doesn't happen with ghostbed sheets. Doesn't happen with our sheets. We, we have the same thing on our mattress protector, which makes no noise, it's cool, it's waterproof and stays fitted on. And even our memory foam toppers, which are unique, we have a great cover for that also with that 2 inch elastic band so it stays in place. We try to think of everything for the customer so they're really happy and they never have to think about it.

Dr. Laura Schlessinger (11:52)

May I ask you offer that you use it, you don't like it, send it back to us. How the heck do you get that into an envelope and send it back to you?

Mark Werner (12:04)

Well, that's kind of tricky. It comes compressed as, you know.

Dr. Laura Schlessinger (12:09)

Yes, I uncompressed it and turned into a mattress.

Mark Werner (12:13)

Like those toys in the bathtub when you were a kid, sponges. So what we do is we give you 101 nights to try it out. So over three months to try it in your own environment. Hopefully most people take the Mark's mattress quiz. So they kind of size up their with the type of mattress that they need and that we offer. So that takes care of A lot of the problem, but for the people that it doesn't work out, what we do is we pick it up and we pick it up, and 95% of the time it's going to some charitable organization across the whole country. We have a server.

Dr. Laura Schlessinger (12:47)

I was just wondering how I would ever jam that back into a Wheaties box.

Mark Werner (12:51)

Yeah, okay, you can figure that out, let me know. I mean, I know how to do it, but you need a big machine that cost a lot of money.

Dr. Laura Schlessinger (12:56)

Yes, exactly. I'm not going to send it back to you if I first have to get a machine, but I love the mattress, so it's not happening. Now, where the heck did you get a name like Ghostbed? I mean, really.

Mark Werner (13:08)

So when I was a kid, I was afraid that there were ghosts under my bed. So when we were first starting, I was talking to my sales manager and I was telling him the story and he said, you know, that would be a great name for the brand. And I'm like, okay. And I really love it because it's easy to remember, it's certainly easy to spell. It gives you an idea of the product category and it's fun. And we've got the little ghost guy in the home. So we can have them with a top hat on for New Year's or just all throughout the seasons and play around with it. And it's just a fun type of a name and it works well.

Dr. Laura Schlessinger (13:44)

So you've been evolving and developing this for about a quarter of a century, but you seem young enough that the brain is still working really good. So are you coming up with any new stuff and invention?

Mark Werner (13:57)

I am. I'm coming up with a very big product that I've been working on for 10 years that's very important that I've got multiple. I have multiple patents issued on it already.

Dr. Laura Schlessinger (14:09)

Hint. What part of my body would I use it for?

Mark Werner (14:13)

Well, it's going to be help if you snore. It's going to have an automatic anti snore feature. So for most of the people that snore, it's not deviated septums, it's just passageway. So if it kind of lifts you up a little bit, it will kind of open that passageway and you'll stop snoring. So you don't have to get the elbow from the partner or the flying pillow or any of those kinds of things.

Dr. Laura Schlessinger (14:37)

I used to do that a lot

Mark Werner (14:39)

and I'm super excited. Right. It's such a common problem. In fact, there's something called like sleep divorce because 20% of the country sleep in separate rooms because of snoring issue or I like a different mattress. It's another thing with Ghostbed. You do the split King. You can pick the mattress you want you at the height and massage features and things that you want. So we lean into that Split King. But yeah. So this new product comes out in about June. We're very excited about it. Long time in the making. I know it's going to make a lot of people happy and.

Narrator/Announcer (15:15)

Excellent.

Dr. Laura Schlessinger (15:16)

Yes, excellent. Well, I'll be able to refer now when people call how she put me in the other room and now we don't cuddle.

Mark Werner (15:22)

Yeah, no problem. We've got that. Oh,

Dr. Laura Schlessinger (15:28)

how many kids do you have?

Narrator/Announcer (15:29)

How old are they?

Mark Werner (15:30)

So I've got a daughter turning 40 who's worked for us for almost 19 years and she's terrific. Ashley. She has three kids, so three grandkids there. My son Jeffrey in the middle works for us and he's got two, two babies. And my youngest boy is getting married later this year and I expect him to have quite a few grandkids for us.

Dr. Laura Schlessinger (15:52)

Does he work with the company also?

Mark Werner (15:54)

He lives it. We're based in South Florida, originally from Chicago, so he lives in Dallas and he's into commercial real estate and he loves commercial real estate. So whatever makes anybody happy and especially my kids, if that makes him happy. He's doing terrific attic. He's a wonderful boy. So we're happy for him. Would I love him to work in the family business? Absolutely. But I also want him to do what he wants to do maybe one day in the future.

Dr. Laura Schlessinger (16:21)

Well, I'm really impressed with you. In addition, you seem like a really nice guy. You sound like you'd be a great boss.

Mark Werner (16:31)

I try to be a full time gentleman and always very nice and I try to make everyone, you know, happy. And so that's kind of the environment here. And we don't have a lot of turnover. So I think it's pretty indicative of that.

Narrator/Announcer (16:43)

Explained it right there.

Dr. Laura Schlessinger (16:45)

Well, thank you so much. I've been talking, I still am talking to Mark Werner about Ghostbed and all the other things he's doing and I. Did you have a mattress that massages? Yes, I think I ought to have access to it. An experimental mattress probably.

Mark Werner (17:09)

So my dad massager was 95 and when you get older, you know, you get up a lot to go pee and the restroom so hopefully catheterized. Right. What happens is when you get older, then you can't fall back asleep that easily. So I invented this massage mattress. And think of a massage chair. Those expensive massage chairs. This has all the attributes of that, but it's a horizontal platform, really very comfortable. We make it in all foam and a hybrid foam with pocketed coils, and it's the first of its kind. So with my dad, I put him on this massage mattress and he goes to the bathroom, comes back, he turns it on. In five minutes, he's out like a light. And he goes to the bathroom nine or ten times a night. So, I mean, this is catheterized. He doesn't want to do that, but this game changer for him. And people just love the massage mattress.

Dr. Laura Schlessinger (18:07)

Thank you so much, Mark. It has been really a pleasure to hear your backstory. I like people to know. Yeah, there are people who make products and the products are okay and great and wonderful and all of this, but the people behind them make so much more value for the products when they're like you. So thank you very much.

Mark Werner (18:24)

Thank you so much. And you can use the Dr. Lore and get an extra 10% off at the ghostbed website.

Dr. Laura Schlessinger (18:31)

How about that? All right. Extra 10% off.

Narrator/Announcer (18:34)

I love it.

Dr. Laura Schlessinger (18:35)

Thank you so much. And now you've taken my mind off the worry of how to get it back into a package. But it's.

Mark Werner (18:41)

Yeah.

Dr. Laura Schlessinger (18:42)

Have a great. Have a great day. Say hi to your family.

Mark Werner (18:46)

Thank you, Dr. Laura.

DSW Announcer (18:47)

Bye.

Mark Werner (18:47)

Bye. Bye.

Angie Hicks (18:54)

Hi, I'm Angie Hicks, co founder of ANGIE from roof repair to Emergency plumbing and more. When you use Angie for your home projects, you know all your jobs will be done well. Angie, the one you trust to find the ones you trust. Find a pro for your project@angie.com.

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