Hey Gents.
So I had about an hour long discussion with Rob Powers today, the owner and administrator of Swole Source.
He's had more then alot on his plate for the better part of nine months or so mostly concerning the merchant account vendors that are necessary to have a seamless payment system for the purchase of goods and services online. The body building and supplement world lately has been under attack by the banking institutions mostly likely from government pressure. Back in November of 2017 many big name supplement companies had been having their assets seized by their payment processors and ultimately the refusal to process any more business from them. For smaller companies, it's the death blow of their business.
Alot of these companies despite popular belief run on VERY small profit margins. Having assets held for six months or more is all it takes to shut them down. And then by adding insult to injury, they stop working for the website altogether making it very difficult for people to purchase things through their sites anymore.
Ontop of this, many of them were also having their raw materials seized at customs, so even if they did manage a work around for taking payments, they had no product to work with. This again ties up tens of thousands of dollars in materials that would have been used to make products, ultimately leading to a small profit, but more importantly, a continuation of the business.
Long story short, the industry has been under attack.
Thankfully, Rob managed to stay in the game under extraordinarily tough circumstances. This alone is fantastic news for not just the supplement world, but for us here at Swole Source.
He's been watching the growth of the PFS section here and has seen what it has organically become over the years. I'm not sure alot of you know this because there are only a few "original" members left here (thankfully they've been cured and moved on with their lives) but the PFS section here started as a complete surprise. I Had originally thought it was a bad idea.
I was actually disappointed that so many PFS guys started flooding over here. It was just a solid, lifting and Pro Hormone forum that had nothing to do with PFS. Back then it was one of the more popular boards around. We had a solid community of guys here from around the country AND world. It was like a nice little body building family.
Once they started coming here in droves Rob was the one that actually added the section, completely taking me by surprise.
I now think that was one of THE best decisions concerning this forum to date. Over the past four or so years we've build a solid, supportive community that helps guys when they really need it most. A place where they can come and heal and separate themselves from the overwhelming negativity that permeates the PFS community like a cancer.
Because of this, going forward the PFS section has been upgraded to it's own complete category. I'm going to add sections to this brand new category that will allow us to better organize the posts and group them into their own sections. A subsection for sleep, one for exercise, one for cleansing, supplement rotation, etc. I'm going to mimic the categories to match the breakdown on my site. This will allow for much greater organization and make it much easier to find specific information concerning ANY part of the protocol you may need clarification with.
Rob see's the potential just as much as I do, for that, I'm grateful. Remember, this is from an outsider looking in. Luckily he never had to deal with the nightmare that is PFS. But he sees the posts, he sees the ultimate good this place is doing and we are going to get a much better spot and better exposure because of it.
I'm going to ask going forward...please, when making purchases, for anything protocol related, I'm going to ask that you use the affiliate links on my website. That is "technically" what is supposed to make it somewhat worth while to me, although I don't make much from it at all. I ultimately do it, because I love doing it. But I still have to justify spending so much time here.
The same with prohormones and other fitness supplements. I'm going to ask everyone to purchase those things from Rob's business.
We need to be able to keep the lights on to bring this new version of Swole Source's PFS section to life
Other issues are going to be fixed, like the ability to "like" posts again. I didn't realize how much that one little thing made such a difference, but it does!
I'm excited about our upgrade and excited for the future of Swole Source. With YOUR support, we will be able to keep this going for the indefinite future....with YOUR support.
On top of that within the next month or so, TMO will be getting completely revamped! We have also started using our Facebook page daily: https://www.facebook.com/Totalmaleoptimization/ to provide content that pertinent to the TMO brand. Please take a couple minutes and follow the page. The more exposure we get, the better of an experience we can provide here on the forum.
Good things to come guys.
