Today we’d like to introduce you to Nico Carrillo.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
In high school, I found my love of weight lifting through my football strength and conditioning coach. He pushed me to do powerlifting and I fell in love with lifting weights. At the same time, though, I knew I wanted to be a strength and conditioning coach just like my Coach Gibbons. After high school, I went to college and had too much fun, partying and skipping classes. Then spur of the moment a friend and I went and enlisted in the Army while home for the summer.
In the Army I tore my pectoral tendon and after having surgery, I stepped away from weight lifting to focus on boxing. A new guy(nick) came into our unit and we instantly became friends, we ended up talking each other into trying to go to special forces and began training right away. After training with him and getting to know him he told me his dad owned a supplement shop out in Nevada called Phil’s Discount Nutrition so we had the hookup on supplements. We ended up failing selection and went back to our unit and just continued to train together.
Four years later, I got out of the army and went to college to focus on getting a degree to become a strength and conditioning coach while nick stayed in the army two more years. When nick got out, I was nearing graduation and he was opening up a second Phil’s Discount location in Nevada. He was always urging me to open a shop here in Central Texas. I always told him no, I was too focused on working and going to school. Once I graduated though, I had nothing else going on and my wife was pregnant with our second child. Nick used the baby to talk me into it haha, convinced me to open the shop and I could bring the baby with me every day instead of paying daycare.
So that’s how I got involved in Phil’s Discount Nutrition.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
There’s been a lot of obstacles with opening up the shop. Of course, the year I finally decided to open a shop was hit by a global pandemic. Covid really made it rough to begin with not only getting people in the store but I could not go to gyms to advertise the shop and spread the word we were open. On top of all that, I had never worked retail before and was learning as I went. As well as taking care of a baby all day.
As you know, we’re big fans of Phil’s Discount Nutrition. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
We are a family and veteran-owned sports supplements shop. We carry top of the line products and brands. We cater more towards bodybuilders but carry supplements that everyone can use and benefit from. What sets us apart is the customer service and atmosphere, I try to give customers the shopping experience I wish I had as a customer. We use both our knowledge and experiences to help customers choose products that will be best for reaching their goals. Two more things that set us apart is that we have a power rack in the shop and we also have a private posing room in the back for bodybuilders. The power rack is mainly used for bench press challenges we do for giveaways but we also use it to help customers with questions on form or tips for improvement.
The posing room is available for use to our customers at no charge. It is the only private posing room in the area with the best setup you will find.
Contact Info:
- Email: Philsdiscountrr@gmail.com
- Website: Philsdiscount.com
- Instagram: Philsdiscount_tx
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/philsdiscounttx/
