Latest / Buying Local Podcast / Cornell’s Auto Parts Commitment to Community | Buying Local S3E43

Transcript

Cornell’s Auto Parts Commitment to Community | Buying Local S3E43 · Buying Local Podcast

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  Buying local. I'm your host Mike Nelson from 5
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  Towers Media recording today from our this is officially
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  guys, you didn't know this. This is officially our last
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  episode here in my kitchen. We've been doing it for like, I
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  don't know, a year, year and a half now in my kitchen since we
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  moved out of our office and went fully remote.
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  And my, my mic is like very testy right now.
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  But as we were talking about before we started and we're
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  tearing the kitchen out, so can't be recording here while
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  we're doing that. And of course, the studio's not
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  done yet, so we're in a pickle. We.
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  Wanted to be on the finale so. Yeah.
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  Is that the, the, the send off? Oh yeah.
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  So we're, we're going to, it looks like we're we're going to
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  be doing mostly zoom a little on location when we go to people's
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  offices or wherever we go, but mostly going to be zoomed for
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  the next couple of months. But the next episode, we do live
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  here on the farm, will be in the new studio.
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  So I got to get to work. Great.
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  It is great. We have a conference room if you
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  need it. That's true.
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  You do 02/2 conference rooms, you get that nice one across
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  from the from the Firehouse. Thank you.
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  Help yourself. All right, I'll let you know.
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  Careful, careful what you what you OfferUp out there folks.
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  So just to do some introductions here for our guests today, we're
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  joined by Casey Cornell from Cornell's Auto Parts.
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  Used auto parts. I mean what the official names
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  used auto parts right? But auto parts is.
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  Used auto parts originally we kind of morphed into auto parts
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  only Cornell's auto parts, yeah, we sell new and remanufactured
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  so. Based out of Greenfield Center.
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  Yes, Sir. Yes, Sir.
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  And you're born and raised. Yep.
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  That's nice. I'm a transplant.
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  You're a transplant. Might call that everyone.
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  Yep. Yep.
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  You're. Did you finally.
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  Did you move in to the new digs? Not yet.
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  Not yet. Hopefully a week or two out.
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  Waiting on the closing? Yep, that's a process.
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  Sure. Is this this?
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  One's been an extra process. Yeah.
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  You know, it's funny because when we we closed here, I think
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  our closing got pushed off like 3 times.
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  Like we were supposed to close and then got bumped.
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  It's supposed to close, got bumped.
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  Don't. Don't tell them that.
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  Don't tell them. Please don't.
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  I got everything lined up, movers, renovators.
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  Oh my God. It's and the other one sold.
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  And you got to get out of there. You can come stay here.
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  Our kitchen will be ripped up. But you know, we got barn.
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  I mean, I got a few pigs out there, but they keep themselves.
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  Oh my God. When we moved in here, my wife
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  was pregnant so and we didn't do movers.
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  I moved the whole thing by myself like.
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  No. Good, I couldn't even count any
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  of my friends out but I actually don't have any friends so but I
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  can't. Do that.
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  That's I did it twice already. I'm I'm done.
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  Moving. Oh my God it's the worst.
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  I know you guys listening can can appreciate Moving sucks.
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  Absolutely the worst. Yep.
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  Maybe you want to plug the moving guys you got.
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  Oh, you got moving, guys. Yeah, moving made easy.
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  Oh yeah, What's his name? John is.
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  It John. Ouch.
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  Jeez, I should know this. I didn't know.
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  I actually used them years ago when I did some moving too.
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  They're great. That was pretty awesome.
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  Yeah, it it seems pretty. They came to my house, gave me a
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  quote and everything. And yeah, so it's easy.
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  Yeah, moving made easy. And they'll pack your stuff too,
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  right? They did.
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  I'm not going to have them do that but save a couple extra
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  bucks but. Yeah, no, they will, but they
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  will. Yeah, they'll pack it up for
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  you, put it in the truck, bring it over, set it up.
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  It's amazing service. Absolutely.
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  I love what people do for money, man.
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  I'll tell you, you know what I'm saying, though.
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  Like that's one of my favorite things about small business
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  owners. And like, entrepreneurship is
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  like, if you can think about something you don't want to do,
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  guaranteed someone out there does it for money. 100%.
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  It's amazing. They identify a gap in the
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  market and you move right into it, man.
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  It's it's sweet, absolutely. It's a beautiful thing.
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  What a country. They can have that market, yeah,
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  not. Interested.
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  Nope for sure. So I know we're going to talk a
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  little bit obviously about Cornell's, just for our folks
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  out there that have not heard of Cornell's, but I know we're here
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  specifically though to talk about some of the work that you
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  guys do in the community, specifically with breast cancer
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  awareness coming up. So Casey, you want to just kind
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  of give us the rundown real quick first about Cornell's who
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  you are, what you do? Yeah, sure.
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  Cornell's auto parts. Oops, is that?
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  For me. Yeah, started out in 1972.
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  My dad started it selling parts to local people around town and
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  stuff, and I got involved about 22 years ago.
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  Took it over when he got ill and never expected to be there but I
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  ended up there and spent a great 20 years. 20 plus years.
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  Started out from just one guy, myself and one other guy and now
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  we're 43 or so I maybe got. 42. 42 employees, so exciting.
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  It's been a great ride. Mike here's general manager
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  taking over some of the stuff I don't want to do anymore and
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  it's going good. That's nice.
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  See, I identified that gap in the market, right.
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  That's yeah. And Mike, you've got a bit of
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  experience in the, the auto parts industry, right?
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  Yeah, yeah. I started about 15 years ago as
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  a salesperson for Jerry Brown's Auto Parts out in Queensbury, JB
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  Corporation. I left there, I went and worked
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  remote for a few years for a yard out in Vermont, selling
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  auto parts out of my house, and then moved over here.
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  The whole remote thing wasn't for me.
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  I was going to ask. It's it's tough.
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  It is tough. So.
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  You never get to leave work, it's always there.
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  It's always home. Right, like there's no.
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  No retreat. Find yourself, you know, 7:00 at
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  night, somebody mess you for a party, walk in there.
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  Type it up. You know, it's, you know, you
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  don't have the separation. Yeah.
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  Which now I don't either, but I like it a lot.
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  I I enjoy what I do. I I really do.
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  How's Casey to work for? He seems pretty tough.
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  Great, great. Well, you know, don't get him
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  sometimes, but it's, we've developed a great relationship
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  over the last few years and and he's probably one of the nicest,
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  most genuine guys I know. And his family's great and they
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  accepted me in and it's just, it's been great these last few
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  years. Have I truly do what I I enjoy
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  every day? Yeah.
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  So it's not a job. It, you know, you go to work,
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  you hang out with your family and that's, that's really it.
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  It's it's it's good. What's there's a statistic out
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  there that like you spend more time with people you work with
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  than you do your actual family? I'm sure it helps to enjoy that
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  time. Yeah, no, we, we definitely got
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  a great crew. It, it took some time, but
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  everybody there is there for the right reason.
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  And you know, it's kind of we're, we're going through an
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  EOS, you know, we're, we're implementing EOS, yeah.
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  And it really makes you sit down and, and you know, people
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  analyse and, you know, right now we got a great crew, good core
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  values, you know, we're, we're going in the right direction for
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  sure. And for those of you listening
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  that don't know and own a business, you might want to
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  listen up here. EOS is Entrepreneur operating
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  system. Gina Wickman is the creator of
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  that. It's a pretty amazing system.
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  I've worked with a few companies over the years.
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  There's a great book that Gino wrote called Traction.
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  We had Dave Borland in here maybe a month or two ago talking
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  about EOS. Are you guys, you guys working
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  with Borland, Right. I love Dave.
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  He's nice. He's pretty funny guy.
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  Yeah, yeah. Great guy and he knows his
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  stuff, obviously. I mean, he's he's been, he's
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  been in it for sure. From a business standpoint, do
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  you think it's Casey's dry sense of humor?
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  Is that the thing that because as, as I've been getting to know
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  him over the last, you know, year ish, that we've been
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  working together? I'd like every once in a while
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  he says something and I'm like, oh, he's messing with me right
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  now. Every once in a while, he gets a
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  side smirk. Yeah, that's how you know, it's
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  a, it's a joke and not serious. I, you know, I want to ask you 2
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  cases. Second generation.
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  Yep. Was that tough coming on board
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  and taking over from your dad? It would have been, I mean, it
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  was, yes, because you got the, oh, your dad used to do this or
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  he did it this way, I mean, a little bit.
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  But we changed how we changed the business model pretty
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  quickly. So the people that came around
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  to, you know, pick their own headlight bulb or something like
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  those people weeded out pretty fast.
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  So in the beginning, yes, it was tough.
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  Now it's not. It's gone now.
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  It's not as tough. Yeah.
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  I, I'm just always curious about that because I, I've seen and,
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  and I always think it's really cool, like when you see a second
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  generation business owner really take a business that their,
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  their parents built and then really bring it to a whole
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  nother level, which it seems that's what you guys have done.
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  And, and no disrespect to the first generation in any of those
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  situations, they, you know, first generation and 2nd
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  generation have different problems, right?
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  Like first generation, you're scrapping, you're doing all you
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  can and then you're you get a business that's usually pretty
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  chaotic, I would imagine when you take over, right?
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  Not a lot of systems, more like a lot of stuff in people's
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  heads. And and then second generation
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  comes in. It's got to learn the chaos and
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  learn how it and then improve upon that.
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  Just a whole another set of problems, but always fascinating
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  to watch. I think when you come in and and
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  there's not systems, it makes you realize so fast how there's
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  got to be a different way to do this that makes more sense and
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  that I can keep track of. And I had some corporate
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  background and insurance company, so computers were on
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  the verge of jumping into auto recycling.
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  So I kind of grabbed it all and started plugging it in and it
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  just changed everything so fast. Yeah, yeah, hopefully made it
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  easier, right? Just a different set of
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  problems, different brand of chaos.
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  It's always good to get that new idea too.
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  You know, the old generation, new generation, they got
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  different ideas, they got different processes that they
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  would do to complete the same task.
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  So we kind of feed off that, you know, we're always looking for
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  the next great idea. Yeah, so.
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  The vehicles have changed a lot too.
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  So things that you could do 2530 years ago you don't do anymore.
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  You would break the part, you know?
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  So that has changed and the tools have changed.
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  Everything's changed. Continuing to change now with
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  EVs. That's a whole nother bottle of
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  wax I've bet for you guys. Yeah.
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  We're dodging. Dodging them as much as you can.
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  Yeah, it's a we'll see how all that stuff plays out.
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  So let's talk about what you're doing.
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  You guys do a bit of work in the community, first of all.
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  So it's not just the one that we're talking about today, but
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  obviously October's coming up. This episode's going to come out
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  right around the beginning of October, and we'll have a nice
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  little article in the paper as well about it.
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  But tell us about what you're doing with the raising awareness
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  and funds to help Charles Wood. Right?
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  Yeah. So it kind of stems off an idea
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  we did back when Jerry Brown says, you know, it's been going
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  on for years. And and last year, you know, few
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  people close to us were diagnosed with cancer.
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  So we started really digging into raising money for the
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  American Cancer Society, you know, the breast cancer
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  awareness, stuff like that. So, you know, last year October,
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  we started the breast cancer awareness shirts where all the
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  proceeds go towards the Charles Arwood at Glens Falls Hospital.
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  So reached out to Vicki over there and she's been great.
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  You know, you don't know what you don't know.
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  So I thought, you know, hey, breast cancer awareness, you
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  know, there's just let me donate the money.
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  Well, it turns out with Vicky, she messaged me back and was
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  like, you know, where do you want to put the money?
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  You know, there's, there's five different programs.
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  Oh, wow. So some are to help the, you
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  know, with the food for, you know, the, the people suffering.
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  And there's some that are helping, you know, pay for the
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  co-pays and the bills. And there's just multiple ways
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  to, to, to put the money and donate.
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  So it's definitely been a, a great process and it, it makes
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  you feel, you know, good that you're helping out, you know,
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  giving back. So we, we do that in the
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  October. So we're starting that now.
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  So if you do want a shirt, come by Monday through Friday, 8 to
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  5. Cornell's auto parts, they're
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  $20 apiece. And like I said, all that goes
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  towards proceeds for the CR Wood Cancer Society.
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  You know, you know, we also do the golf tournament for the
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  American Cancer Society. So every Wednesday we're we're
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  golfing nine holes and. Drive out cancer.
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  Drive out for cancer. So as much as we can, we always
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  try to get back. Yeah, and and now this is
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  obviously there's no want for charities that you can donate
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  money to. I'm sure you guys get a lot of
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  calls for a lot of different things.
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  It cancer just had such an impact on you guys, just from
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  people you know, that's why you go in that sector or is.
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  Well, I think we kind of got in the sector from the drive out
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  cancer that we kind of stumbled into with Miller.
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  Yep, they're a big donator to that cause.
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  So I think it was just last year we said, oh, let's do some
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  shirts for, for October. I think I saw one somewhere or
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  whatever. But we try to do certain things
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  like maybe 4 * a year different causes.
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  We've done double H We've done cancer, we've done.
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  Franklin Community Center. Folds of Honor.
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  So we try to kind of spread that around.
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  But I mean, obviously we all know people that have cancer.
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  Yeah, these days. Yeah.
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  I mean, I know people that have it right now.
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  I know people that we've lost, people that have gotten over it.
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  So it's it's pretty close to a lot of us.
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  Yeah, real close to them. It's crazy how many people are
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  getting cancer these days. Yeah, you don't realize it.
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  And there's a ton of programs out there for help.
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  I, I think that's the biggest, biggest thing we need to get out
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  there is there's, there's a ton of programs that will help you,
• 13:58
  your family, you know, Bill stack up like it's, it's crazy.
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  There's a lot of a lot of charities out there.
• 14:06
  Yeah. How do you now, you know, you
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  said kind of spread around a little bit, you choose different
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  ones each year. Like, do you evaluate?
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  Like how do you choose who you're going to work with each
• 14:15
  year to year to year? I mean, we're fortunate to know
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  a lot of people around, so we kind of by association, we pick
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  a charity, we do some other fundraising in our PRP group
• 14:32
  that we're in, and we usually give that to a more national
• 14:35
  charity every year. And for those we look at, you
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  know, how much dollars actually go back to the cause, 'cause
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  sometimes there's some charities out there that take 90% of it
• 14:47
  and they give 10 to the 'cause. So we haven't had to really deal
• 14:51
  with that in this situation, but I think it's usually we know
• 14:56
  somebody who knows somebody is how how we end up picking the
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  cause. The power of the networking.
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  Excuse me, Absolutely. What you know, as as I was
• 15:07
  getting ready for this, one of the things I was thinking about
• 15:09
  was with the things that you guys have done in the past, Like
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  are there any examples of like anyone in the community that
• 15:16
  like you've, you know, that you've helped impact?
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  Or like, you know, we talked about connecting those dollars
• 15:21
  back to local stuff for people, you know, and trying to help
• 15:26
  people in certain ways. Like do you know, I mean, do
• 15:29
  they ever share that information with you?
• 15:30
  Or do you, I know you have some kind of sense of where the money
• 15:33
  goes for what kind of help it provides, but not necessarily
• 15:36
  who it goes to? Yeah, no, we don't really know
• 15:40
  who exactly it goes to. We just hopefully that gets
• 15:44
  spread out and helps everybody as much as they can.
• 15:46
  I, I mean, I guess with all the HIPAA laws around around that
• 15:49
  stuff these days, not like they're going to say, yeah, you
• 15:52
  know, although I know they do that like with, I feel like I
• 15:55
  just saw, like with organ donors, they do that sometimes.
• 15:58
  I just had a buddy donate a kidney and you have to meet the
• 16:02
  recipient afterwards. I thought that was pretty cool.
• 16:04
  That's pretty cool. That way if you ever walk by
• 16:06
  someone and you feel weird, you know, Yeah.
• 16:10
  A little tingle or something, right.
• 16:11
  OK, that guy's got my kidney. Oh man, what you know, as you
• 16:17
  guys are are looking to do this, What do you think's the the
• 16:19
  biggest challenge or obstacle that you face when you're trying
• 16:21
  to raise money? You're trying to like, you know,
• 16:23
  sell shirts to raise money to what?
• 16:25
  What are some of the things that get in the way of that?
• 16:27
  I don't. Know if too many obstacles get
• 16:32
  in the way, it's just you want to sell the most you can to help
• 16:36
  out the organization. You know, you, you just want to
• 16:38
  keep promoting it. And we, we are, you know, we
• 16:41
  have 42 employees, so a lot of them will buy a shirt, you know,
• 16:45
  just to get out of that network, you know, give them to the
• 16:47
  drivers to sell on the road to the customers.
• 16:50
  It's just, you just don't want to fail it.
• 16:52
  You know, you purchase 100 shirts and you sell 70.
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  Like that's not, it's good. It's still going to charity, but
• 16:58
  I want to sell 100. I want to, you know, maybe I
• 17:01
  want to order more to sell more, you know, so it's, that's the
• 17:05
  biggest obstacle. It's just making sure you don't
• 17:06
  fail at your goal. Same thing with the car Folds of
• 17:11
  Honor. I went in there, I wanted to
• 17:12
  race $10,000. Yeah, you know, and you just
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  keep promoting it and promoting it.
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  And if I came in under, like it's still a good 'cause, you
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  know, you're still donating a lot of money.
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  But yeah, we were fortunate enough to come in over and nice
• 17:24
  and all that. So how much to raise?
• 17:25
  10,500 and. 50 Nice. In a rainy crappy.
• 17:29
  Yeah, that was kind of bad weather.
• 17:32
  Yeah. And that was for the auto show
• 17:33
  we're talking about specifically, right?
• 17:35
  In early May, yeah. So these guys, if you're
• 17:38
  listening, if you don't know and you haven't been, so they do an
• 17:40
  auto show every year over at Cornell's over the in
• 17:43
  Greenfield. And they had, I mean, you guys
• 17:44
  had, I know two years ago you had a great turn out.
• 17:47
  You had great weather. This year, obviously it was
• 17:49
  pouring freaking rain. Yeah, some tents and stuff.
• 17:56
  And that one's that goes to Folds of Honor, you said.
• 17:58
  Yep. So all that went to Folds of
• 17:59
  Honor. I mean, we do 5050, all the cars
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  register. We had great food sales because
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  we're all tucked nice and close under our tent.
• 18:07
  So all they did was eat because it was raining so bad.
• 18:09
  But so that helped. But but I think this year will
• 18:13
  be be good. I'm thinking about running it
• 18:15
  back again for them. So we'll give them a full go at.
• 18:20
  It. Yeah, yeah.
• 18:21
  And pray for better weather. Right?
• 18:23
  Like, do the cars still come out in the rain?
• 18:25
  Some do. Yeah.
• 18:27
  The diehards do. They're not putting the hoods up
• 18:29
  though, and the doors open I. Think we had 60.
• 18:33
  Yeah, just almost 70. You still have.
• 18:35
  That many cars, even with the weather, even with the weather.
• 18:37
  Wow, year before we had 180 so. It's a lot of cars, man.
• 18:41
  Yeah, that is a lot of cars A. Lot goes into that too.
• 18:45
  So it's it's not just so let's have a car show on Saturday.
• 18:48
  It's going to start planning here probably about December,
• 18:51
  January. Yeah, start getting ready for
• 18:53
  It's a lot of moving pieces. How many cars you have Outback?
• 18:58
  Last I checked the other day there was almost 1700.
• 19:01
  Wow. Yep.
• 19:03
  So, and are there any ones that like you rotate those in and
• 19:06
  out, right? Like it's not like they're
• 19:08
  always that many cars or like there's not ones that are
• 19:11
  sitting there for 10 years or something along those lines.
• 19:14
  No in and out. In and out.
• 19:15
  Like they it's a constant rotation.
• 19:18
  So when we buy 10 this week, 10 go out this week pretty much or
• 19:24
  like I said about 16. So we got to pick out.
• 19:29
  Your industry is fascinating to me, by the way, like the whole
• 19:32
  buying part of it where you have to sit there and you have to
• 19:35
  find these things and then you have to know, like, I would be
• 19:39
  lost. I wouldn't know what that doing.
• 19:40
  Oh, yeah, looks like, looks good, man.
• 19:42
  But like, you're literally, I assume anyway, just from our
• 19:45
  conversations, that you're trying to buy a car that you're
• 19:48
  going to be able to get the most parts out of, right, to make the
• 19:51
  most amount of money off that car also.
• 19:53
  And just like when you're buying a car, you're trying to get as
• 19:55
  cheap as you can, meanwhile you're bidding against.
• 19:58
  Everybody, everybody around the, around the countries, different
• 20:01
  countries, different countries, exporters, Yep, Yep.
• 20:05
  I, I was buying this today. And you know, you see
• 20:08
  Afghanistan and Berlin, like, I mean, you're, you're, you're the
• 20:16
  world. You're competing against the
• 20:17
  world. That is wild.
• 20:19
  Yep. Like how, how do you, how do you
• 20:21
  manage that? Like how?
• 20:22
  I mean, how do you like, do you have a formula like how does
• 20:26
  that when you're looking at cars, like how do you know which
• 20:27
  ones are a good buy and a bad buy?
• 20:29
  There's a computer program we use, yeah, to sort out.
• 20:32
  It looks at what we have on in stock, what we've sold and what
• 20:37
  we need. And then it ranks the cars by by
• 20:41
  those qualifications. So that's why.
• 20:44
  Yeah. So because when you first
• 20:46
  started saying that, I was like, well, doesn't everybody, but
• 20:48
  everybody has different needs as far as what they're looking for,
• 20:50
  parts you're looking for and all those things.
• 20:51
  So a car might be worth more to you than it's worth to someone
• 20:54
  in Afghanistan, and vice versa as interesting.
• 20:58
  Stephanie Loft goes into it. Do you ever, like, get really
• 21:00
  pissed? Well, like, you don't get a car
• 21:03
  that you're trying to bid on. And yeah, it's frustrating.
• 21:08
  But you don't just push the button till you lose money, you
• 21:13
  got to go on to the next one. You got to move on.
• 21:15
  Yeah, well, right. You got to not get emotional or
• 21:17
  try not to anyway, right. So that you can keep your head
• 21:19
  on the next car. And So what are so you said, I
• 21:25
  guess help me understand like to unpack what makes a car like
• 21:31
  like orders you already have in the system?
• 21:33
  No, it looks at our past orders. OK, not, not something we're
• 21:37
  waiting for, but say newer Silverado pickup, we sell all
• 21:43
  the transmissions. So if we're out of a
• 21:44
  transmission, it's going to rate that transmission very high and
• 21:47
  say you're out of this, you need it.
• 21:50
  So it'll give that truck a higher score when it lists the
• 21:55
  auction. Is that a common issue with
• 21:56
  Silverados? By the way, I have a Silverado.
• 21:58
  Yeah, which year? 2017 yeah, we got you got a
• 22:04
  transition we. Got you covered.
• 22:07
  Remanufactured if you want, used, low mileage, mid mileage.
• 22:11
  You tell us what you want. Something about those Chevy
• 22:13
  transmission that's actually man, that like I was actually at
• 22:17
  ABC transmission not too long ago because my previous car
• 22:20
  before I bought this truck transmission was going on it.
• 22:24
  And he's like, Oh yeah. He's like these things are we
• 22:26
  see these things all the time. Yep.
• 22:28
  Come on, Chevy. It's not just Chevy.
• 22:31
  No. It's a lot of different cars.
• 22:33
  Is this like the whole functional obsolescence thing?
• 22:35
  Like you're just building things to brake now.
• 22:37
  I mean, that could be part of it.
• 22:39
  And the more everything's computer controlled and then
• 22:46
  they don't get reflashed or reprogrammed, they don't get
• 22:48
  updated when things wear and then people just keep driving
• 22:52
  them. It takes them out.
• 22:54
  He might have said that there was a little bit of silver in
• 22:57
  the transmission fluid, which I didn't know what that meant at
• 22:59
  first, but it sounds like metal shavings, yeah.
• 23:02
  Yeah, don't. Worry about that just coloring.
• 23:04
  Yeah, no, it's fine. It's fine with that stuff.
• 23:06
  Just I don't know, it was skipping 'cause it was happy.
• 23:08
  Yeah, that's. Right.
• 23:12
  What, so 17? I'm just trying to think about
• 23:15
  this whole thing of managing and balancing 1700 cars.
• 23:18
  Or like, do you ever get well above that?
• 23:22
  No, 'cause it's like we feel this table with beer cans.
• 23:28
  Yeah, we can only fit so many on the table.
• 23:30
  So when we get in a new new one over here, we got to take one
• 23:32
  off over there and slide them all over.
• 23:35
  And and what about like do you guys crush them up?
• 23:38
  Like do you crush them into those like mafia movie style
• 23:42
  they. Get flattened like a pancake.
• 23:43
  Flattened like a pancake and then you sell it for salvage or
• 23:46
  or like scrap weight For scrap weight.
• 23:49
  Yeah, so but you still get to sell it though, right?
• 23:52
  It's not like you're that's pretty sweet.
• 23:54
  I'm always fascinated also by businesses that have a, a way to
• 23:58
  sell a, a product out, but also the by product of, of the
• 24:01
  service or the product that you make.
• 24:03
  Like, like I always use the, the example of trees.
• 24:06
  Like the tree guy comes, he cuts down your tree and then he gets
• 24:09
  to like mulch up all the shavings and stuff like that.
• 24:13
  And but you get charged for that.
• 24:15
  And then this tree guy gets to take that and gets to sell those
• 24:18
  wood chips to somebody else. I'm like, that's amazing.
• 24:20
  Good for them. I was talking to a guy out on
• 24:23
  the West Coast on our other podcast, blue collar Startup,
• 24:27
  and he does grease traps. So he goes into like restaurants
• 24:30
  and like cleans out grease traps and then he takes the, the brown
• 24:34
  grease and he sells it for like biofuel and, and they make it
• 24:37
  into, I think one of the things he said was like jet fuel or
• 24:39
  something like that. Like some of it.
• 24:41
  And it was like, yeah, well, it's like, that's wild to me.
• 24:44
  Like I'm obviously made some bad decisions since high school
• 24:47
  'cause I don't have that in my business.
• 24:48
  And like he go, he gets paid to come in and get rid of that
• 24:52
  grease for these guys, and then he gets to take the grease and
• 24:55
  resell it. I just think that's just
• 24:57
  fascinating. Whenever you get a business like
• 24:59
  that, I think it's amazing. I think that it just builds
• 25:01
  resilience in your business so that it's, you know.
• 25:04
  You pretty gross trap. Oh yeah, the grease traps.
• 25:07
  Oh, yeah, he's crushing it out there, too, man.
• 25:09
  He's a powerhouse. It was.
• 25:10
  He's really interesting guy. He's absolutely crushing it.
• 25:15
  He's basically covering the whole state of Washington
• 25:16
  starting to move out into the East.
• 25:18
  It's a grease traps man. That the moving job they can go.
• 25:23
  Well. Away from me, I don't need.
• 25:25
  That it's those services, right? Like not a lot of people want to
• 25:27
  do that stuff. And if you're willing to go and
• 25:29
  get your hands dirty like, you know.
• 25:32
  Yes, have at it. So is the on that line, I'm just
• 25:37
  curious is the ratio of cost to buy the car versus cost of the
• 25:42
  scrap? It's.
• 25:45
  It's not one to one I would assume but.
• 25:47
  Oh no. Like a tenth to one or.
• 25:51
  Well, it's a volatile market, changes every day.
• 25:54
  So I don't really play the market on the scrap side.
• 25:59
  Like that's our garbage basically it's our byproduct.
• 26:02
  What we get, we get when we don't have room to store it
• 26:04
  anymore. We got to get rid of it.
• 26:06
  So what it brings, it brings, but it can go, you know, 10-8
• 26:14
  years ago, I guess it's longer than that now. 10 or 12 years
• 26:17
  ago, scrap cars was at 3:40 a ton, something like that.
• 26:23
  Right now it's about 110. Oh, interesting.
• 26:26
  OK. But I can remember when I was a
• 26:28
  kid, like my dad had five or 600 cars in a pile and I can
• 26:33
  remember him saying, man, you know, it's at like 28 bucks if
• 26:37
  it could just get to 30, like that was a big deal.
• 26:40
  A ton. Yeah, a ton.
• 26:41
  Wow. So we're not in a super horrible
• 26:44
  place to get rid of our garbage for $110 a ton.
• 26:48
  Yeah. So what's what's?
• 26:51
  It's not a factor in buying that part.
• 26:54
  No, because you can't, because you know if you buy, you buy a
• 26:57
  $10,000 Range Rover, you're still going to get the same a
• 26:59
  ton as you are the $1000 car. You know it's.
• 27:02
  But you're going to pay more for the Range Rover on the front
• 27:04
  end. Yeah.
• 27:04
  Yeah, those parts are a lot more expensive.
• 27:06
  Do you? Like, I was, I was just thinking
• 27:09
  about it when you're saying it. I'm like, man, you know, we like
• 27:12
  save our cans and and take them back for a little bit of extra
• 27:15
  money, right. You do something like, I'm like,
• 27:16
  you could save cars up for a while and then send yourself on
• 27:19
  vacation or something or buy some new shoes.
• 27:22
  I don't know. Is that is that your strategy?
• 27:24
  You let them pile up and then. We pile them up, we pile up.
• 27:27
  I think the last month we crushed, we had we crushed 7 or
• 27:31
  800 of them. Holy moly.
• 27:33
  So we we definitely pile them up and then we just put that money
• 27:39
  towards new cars, Yeah. Just put it back in the Kitty.
• 27:43
  So, so to talk about your business a little more too,
• 27:47
  because I, I kind of jumped away from that a little earlier and I
• 27:49
  should have. But you had mentioned, you know,
• 27:54
  like you don't do like the light bulb, the headlight light bulb
• 27:57
  thing or like kind of small one off parts.
• 28:00
  So who, who are the kind of people or what are the kind of
• 28:03
  businesses that you're doing or business you're working on right
• 28:05
  now? What does that look like?
• 28:10
  Our main buyer is your ABC transmission.
• 28:15
  Those kind of guys, repair shops, body shops, dealerships.
• 28:20
  We run 6 delivery trucks a day from pretty much Plattsburgh to
• 28:25
  Albany, Newburgh, Newburgh, up and all the way up and down the
• 28:30
  Thruway N Way. And then we go out as far as
• 28:33
  like Shorty, Utica and then all the way over into Vermont,
• 28:38
  Bennington, north of North Adams, Mass, Rutland.
• 28:42
  So we cover a big territory, wholesale shops.
• 28:47
  Then we have our, you know, walk in people that need, you know,
• 28:52
  we'll sell a tail light or something like that to a guy
• 28:55
  mirror broke off on his mailbox. But the small stuff, you can't
• 29:02
  afford to pull it and pay somebody to pull it and doesn't
• 29:06
  work. So you're not doing the whole
• 29:09
  it's out bad, go find it. Can't.
• 29:13
  Do it anymore I bet. I imagine there's too many
• 29:16
  liability issues at this point. Someone goes out there and cuts
• 29:18
  their hand or something or drops the truck on them.
• 29:21
  Well, you can get by that part. There's insurances and waivers
• 29:24
  and there are U pullets. That's a thing.
• 29:26
  We don't really have a population here for it.
• 29:28
  And, you know, you don't turn a guy loose looking for a door
• 29:33
  handle and he tears apart your $1000 door.
• 29:36
  Yeah, that's going to go to Kohl's collision tomorrow or
• 29:38
  something. Yeah.
• 29:39
  So you have to kind of pick a lane there.
• 29:41
  I. Was just thinking about the last
• 29:44
  time I got it. Must have been 20 years ago.
• 29:47
  The last time I like went to buy parts when I was still trying to
• 29:50
  do my own work. I can't even change my own
• 29:52
  freaking battery anymore. They're so complicated.
• 29:54
  I think I might have said that guys before.
• 29:56
  Like I tried to change the battery on my traverse and then
• 29:58
  I go to get it off and there's 17 connections and I'm like what
• 30:01
  the hell is all this? Yep, can't even change my own
• 30:04
  battery. The way in the world now.
• 30:05
  Holy moly, man. But I remember the guy.
• 30:09
  I was so intimidated. He's like, yeah, he's like, it's
• 30:12
  Outback, you know? He like gave me directions where
• 30:14
  it was like, you're going to go out, there's going to be a
• 30:16
  stump, you're going to take a right, you're going to go back
• 30:19
  about 10 cars or so. You can't miss.
• 30:21
  It was like for a Honda Civic or something, right?
• 30:22
  It's like, it's going to be back there, you know, just get
• 30:25
  whatever you need out of it. I'm like.
• 30:27
  That's how my dad did. It I don't have a screwdriver
• 30:30
  with me, let alone know how to do it, I did it.
• 30:34
  We got four guys that'll pull it for you.
• 30:36
  I got six, six to seven. That'll clean it for you, you
• 30:38
  know, another six to seven that'll deliver to you so.
• 30:42
  Yeah, well, that's something I know now too.
• 30:44
  You guys like you're not just it's, you know, my thought about
• 30:49
  what used auto parts was like, you know, you're grabbing some
• 30:52
  old dusty, you know, part right off of some wrecked, rusted up
• 30:56
  something or other. But you guys are pulling parts,
• 30:58
  you're washing them. Like tell me a little bit about
• 31:01
  that whole process. Yeah, so I mean, the car will
• 31:04
  come in, you know, the engine sold, we'll pull the engine for
• 31:08
  you, you know, tag it, it'll go up to our QC process, gets
• 31:12
  looked over. All the cut wires are getting
• 31:14
  off of it. So it's not looking like you
• 31:15
  from a scrap yard, you know, it's getting pressure wash
• 31:20
  cleaned and capped off nice so there's water not getting in
• 31:23
  there and sprayed off nice and polished and you know.
• 31:27
  Strapped on a pallet. You know, strapped on a pallet
• 31:29
  and it's going on our truck and, you know, you're going to get a
• 31:33
  nice engine on a pallet that's, you know, 98% of the time going
• 31:37
  to be run tested. It's comes with a six month
• 31:39
  warranty. We stand behind all of our
• 31:41
  parts. Yeah, it's not like, like you
• 31:45
  said, you're not going to go to the stump, make it right and go
• 31:49
  over there in the pile and pick something.
• 31:50
  Out right. Totally.
• 31:52
  Different. It's not going to be like in in
• 31:54
  the plastic new, but it's going to be pretty damn close, just
• 31:57
  not in the plastic from what I've seen.
• 31:59
  Yeah, right. Is that fair?
• 32:00
  We try. That's what we try to do.
• 32:02
  Yeah. What what happens in this in the
• 32:04
  case where you can't get it there?
• 32:07
  Well, depending on the age of what it is, you can't get there,
• 32:10
  you know, if it's a 15 year old Silverado part and it's got some
• 32:15
  rust on it, you know, we'll do the best to clean up.
• 32:17
  We can maybe sometimes try a little spray paint, just get it
• 32:21
  as close as we can. But you have to have an
• 32:23
  expectation, I guess. If it's 15 years old, it's not
• 32:27
  going to look brand new especially.
• 32:28
  In the North Country. What do you mean that salt is
• 32:32
  good for that stuff? What?
• 32:38
  And you guys have some environmental stuff that you do
• 32:40
  too, right? Like, as far as like being a
• 32:42
  green organization and, and trying to help the environment
• 32:45
  as much as you can, which I'd imagined is a challenge when it
• 32:49
  comes to wrecked auto cars that you pull in parts from.
• 32:53
  Can you tell me a little bit about how that works?
• 32:57
  So, yeah, the cars come in, you know, they get set in a certain
• 33:01
  spot. Nothing goes out back in the
• 33:04
  backyard that has any fluids in it, you know?
• 33:09
  You know, we use all the fluids, all the oils and stuff like that
• 33:11
  for heating in the winter, the big storage tank.
• 33:14
  Which I think is also amazing. This goes back to that whole
• 33:17
  wood chip pile thing, right? It's like, you know, you've got
• 33:19
  all this these waste things and you're finding a use form.
• 33:22
  I just, I love it. All the other waste we can't use
• 33:25
  gets, you know, purchased by another company, not sure really
• 33:28
  what they do with it, but you know, get sucked out of our
• 33:32
  holding tanks and goes there and you know, we have a company
• 33:37
  called vet. They come twice a year.
• 33:38
  They, you know, walk through, they, you know, we send them
• 33:41
  water samples. You know, we have certain
• 33:43
  runoffs in certain areas of our yard.
• 33:45
  We send them samples. So we're all, you know, abiding
• 33:48
  by their, you know the. Yeah, like the.
• 33:52
  Regulations. In the old days and and even
• 33:56
  before my dad's time, when wrecking yard started, people
• 34:01
  would just flip them on their side and just tear out what they
• 34:03
  wanted. All everything would run on the
• 34:05
  ground and there was a lot of environmental messes are
• 34:11
  surrounded around salvage yards, which they called junk yards
• 34:14
  back then. It's not like that anymore.
• 34:18
  We don't. Everything's taking part inside
• 34:20
  controlled environment and once it's clean and everything's out
• 34:24
  of it outside, it goes so very different.
• 34:27
  Yeah, I went. I'm wondering, you know, just
• 34:31
  made me think of that like about the, the good part of this for
• 34:39
  like your average consumer, right?
• 34:41
  Like 'cause you know, I know you guys were talking about, you
• 34:42
  sell mostly to wholesale or to auto body shops, mechanic shops
• 34:47
  and they're looking for used parts or used engine.
• 34:51
  Obviously there's, I'd imagine it's cheaper right, than buying
• 34:55
  new. That's what that's one of the
• 34:56
  big reasons why those guys would do it.
• 34:59
  And is that like like if I get if I get in a wreck, can I go in
• 35:04
  and be like, hey, can we source used parts as opposed to new
• 35:07
  parts? Like is that an option when
• 35:09
  people go into auto body shops or?
• 35:11
  Insurance. Insurance companies help us out
• 35:13
  with that. OK.
• 35:15
  They they. They prefer it and.
• 35:16
  Require that they write used or in some cases aftermarket first.
• 35:23
  A lot of the dealers will like GM will match a lot of times use
• 35:28
  price or aftermarket price. But I mean, as far as what we do
• 35:32
  for the consumers, it's it's a cost savings.
• 35:37
  You're you're silver Silverado tranny.
• 35:39
  If you went to the dealership that transmissions probably
• 35:44
  5200, sixty, 200 something like that.
• 35:48
  We can sell you a remanufactured 13250I believe and used
• 35:53
  depending on mileage anywhere from 1800 to 2500.
• 35:59
  So you know, when you start at the, the new price of 6250, we
• 36:03
  cut it more than in half. So we're saving you money in, in
• 36:10
  I've, I've had talks with other people in the, in the industry,
• 36:14
  like say they did try to shut all of us down.
• 36:17
  What do they do with all the old cars?
• 36:19
  They have to go somewhere, you know.
• 36:23
  Would they try that? Like are there pushes for that
• 36:27
  to try to get rid of? Not currently, but you know, you
• 36:32
  hear rumbles of, you know, they're trying to get rid of all
• 36:34
  combustion engines. So that's a big, big part of our
• 36:38
  our sales as engines #1 seller that that's a big deal for us.
• 36:44
  So yeah. Selling engines like whole
• 36:48
  engines. Yeah, yeah #1 seller.
• 36:50
  Number one. Makes up about 50% I think of
• 36:53
  our of our sales. That's wild.
• 36:56
  Why is it? Why is it that I would have
• 36:57
  thought it would been like like auto body stuff like doors and
• 37:01
  tailgates and all the shit that I always dent I.
• 37:04
  Mean that's the other 50%. Just just the one single part
• 37:08
  would be an engine as a top seller.
• 37:09
  Yeah, engines 1, transmissions 2.
• 37:12
  You know, if you figure doors a a really expensive doors maybe
• 37:18
  1012 hundred, your average transmission or engine is 2000.
• 37:24
  So that's why it's part partially why it's #1 seller.
• 37:28
  Oh, guy. Yeah, dollar value, dollar
• 37:30
  value, not necessarily quantity. Yeah, yeah, yeah, OK.
• 37:33
  Because I was, I'm like sitting here like, why would all these
• 37:35
  people need engines, man, That's freaking wild.
• 37:37
  Like head on collision. You need a new engine.
• 37:39
  No, 90% of that is because they don't take care of them.
• 37:43
  And they don't change the oil and they seize up.
• 37:45
  Yeah, change your oil, folks. Yeah, really.
• 37:48
  Nowadays engines, the tolerances are so tight, if you don't
• 37:52
  service them all the passages start plugging up and once they
• 37:56
  do, oil doesn't get where it belongs and it's all over.
• 38:00
  So when I go into the mechanics and they tell me that no oil
• 38:03
  came out when they pulled the the nut on the oil pan, that's a
• 38:08
  bad day. That's bad.
• 38:08
  Yeah, it's probably a good thing.
• 38:10
  Good indicator I'm going to need a new engine at some point.
• 38:13
  Yeah, I don't do. That all your friends over at
• 38:14
  Cornell's Auto Parts. That's right.
• 38:15
  That's what that means. I need a new engine, you know?
• 38:20
  Oh my God, Casey. Well, and both of you guys would
• 38:24
  like obviously not throwing New York State under the bus, but I
• 38:29
  would. But running a business in New
• 38:30
  York State's freaking hard, right?
• 38:32
  And I think anyone that's running a business in New York
• 38:35
  State knows that it's one of the toughest states to run a
• 38:39
  business in. I always say like if you can run
• 38:41
  a business and be successful in New York State, you do it
• 38:42
  anywhere and crush it. Maybe not California.
• 38:46
  Maybe not California, yeah, they're they're the like New
• 38:49
  York and California kind of run neck and neck with who's the
• 38:51
  hardest on small business owner, but we're any size business
• 38:54
  owner for that matter outside of New York State.
• 38:58
  Like what are some of the bigger challenges that you guys are
• 39:01
  seeing with what you do? Well, I mean, inside New York
• 39:09
  State, though, it's still tough. Like, you know, we can't sell
• 39:11
  used airbags in New York State. They've been fighting that for.
• 39:14
  30 years now. You can sell them in other
• 39:16
  states. Yeah, every other state like.
• 39:18
  If they have not been deployed. Yep, Vermont can call me.
• 39:21
  I could sell them an airbag. Send them an airbag tomorrow.
• 39:23
  New York can't sell a single one.
• 39:24
  Why not you? Don't know it's good.
• 39:28
  That's a good question. Well, it's a state in
• 39:30
  Washington. It's a state law.
• 39:33
  It's not Washington. It's Albany.
• 39:35
  Well, yeah, come on, Kathy. You know, we we're part of the
• 39:40
  Automotive Recyclers Association of New York.
• 39:44
  We've been fighting that battle in Albany for years.
• 39:47
  We thought we had traction on it last year.
• 39:50
  It was going pretty well and it got totally shut down and enough
• 39:55
  that I don't think we're going to fight it anymore.
• 39:57
  It's, it's just, it doesn't make sense to fight it.
• 40:00
  We're the only state in out of 50 that can't sell one house is
• 40:04
  so hard. We've wasted so much money on it
• 40:06
  and. What they found out is they just
• 40:10
  don't understand what we do. You know that that's the main
• 40:13
  thing is they just don't get it. Right.
• 40:16
  They don't see the but they're passing laws about it though,
• 40:18
  aren't they? Yeah.
• 40:20
  I want to turn this into that kind of podcast, but I'm saying
• 40:23
  I have some opinions here, guys. What are the kind of challenges
• 40:28
  you guys see like from a general business standpoint day-to-day?
• 40:33
  I mean, for a while we were having a lot of staffing
• 40:35
  challenges. That's been actually very well.
• 40:38
  Now, you know, COVID with all the free pay and all that that
• 40:46
  went on in the world, kind of really took a a hurting on
• 40:50
  staffing. Yeah, people didn't need to go
• 40:53
  to work. Yeah, yeah.
• 40:55
  And, and then I think people thought, well, maybe they'll
• 40:57
  give us another round and they kind of waited it out.
• 40:59
  And I think most people have come back to the reality that
• 41:03
  you have to work to get paid now.
• 41:05
  And, you know, we've been trying to work on our our culture and
• 41:10
  get better people and make sure that they understand the goals
• 41:14
  that we have and what we're looking to do and where we're
• 41:16
  going. And I think.
• 41:17
  That's all getting them to buy in is probably the biggest thing
• 41:20
  is, is and that's what this EOS journey is taking us on.
• 41:23
  Like just, you know, sometimes you work for a company, they're
• 41:26
  not open, you don't know where they want to go, you don't know
• 41:28
  what they want to do. Or, you know, we set goals and
• 41:32
  EOS is telling us to, you know, let, let all the employees know
• 41:35
  the goals so they can help you get there.
• 41:37
  Because if they don't know, they don't care.
• 41:40
  So it's getting, you know, we're getting ready.
• 41:43
  We haven't even, you know, implemented it fully to our, our
• 41:46
  staff yet. We're, we're planning on, you
• 41:47
  know, doing that here shortly. But it's, it's definitely an eye
• 41:51
  opener and it's just getting everybody by and getting them
• 41:53
  all on the same page. You know, what we do, why we do
• 41:57
  it, who we do it for. So.
• 42:00
  Isn't it wild how impactful that kind of stuff can be on the
• 42:04
  business? Like, you know, it used to, I
• 42:07
  mean, you know, we'll say 20 years ago, right?
• 42:09
  Most time you hire an employee and it's like, just do your job.
• 42:13
  That's why you're here, right? I'm going to be giving you
• 42:15
  money. And then now it's people want to
• 42:19
  know why they're doing it and what the what they're working
• 42:22
  like. They need to feel like they're
• 42:23
  working towards something and, and in a lot of cases, working
• 42:26
  towards something as a team. Like what are we doing other
• 42:28
  than just showing up to work every day?
• 42:29
  Yeah, they want to be this new generation wants to be part of
• 42:31
  the growth. What it?
• 42:32
  Is it's. The plan to they want to be part
• 42:35
  of the plan and they want to be have input and I can't say it's
• 42:39
  a bad thing. Yeah, no, I mean, it's
• 42:41
  definitely a culture change. I mean, like you said, 15 years
• 42:44
  ago, you I was selling car parts.
• 42:47
  I knew that I was going to go in, I was going to sell car
• 42:48
  parts. You know, every now and then
• 42:50
  they'd say, hey, load the delivery truck, go pull apart.
• 42:52
  Like it didn't matter. I was working, I was getting
• 42:54
  paid. Now it feels like they want, you
• 42:56
  know, structure. They want to know what they're
• 42:59
  doing every day. And so it's.
• 43:02
  Yeah, they're not just trading their time for money anymore.
• 43:05
  It's more than that. And I I'd sometimes struggle
• 43:08
  putting my thumb on it, right. But it's like it's just more
• 43:12
  it's they're not, they don't just want a job, they want
• 43:15
  something else they want a job with.
• 43:17
  Purpose yeah newer generation likes more time off than pay
• 43:21
  come and. Find out that's you know, it's
• 43:23
  it's interesting. I actually, I think 3 or 4 years
• 43:27
  ago I was trying to, I, I, you know, I'm, I'm a Gen.
• 43:32
  X, Gen. Xer, right?
• 43:33
  So like to me, I've always been motivated by promotions and
• 43:38
  raises from a financial standpoint when it came to jobs.
• 43:41
  And so like if someone offered me my dogs in the background
• 43:46
  when someone offered me the opportunity for a raise and a
• 43:48
  promotion, like, OK, that's growth.
• 43:50
  That's what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to get to that next
• 43:52
  spot. And recently, like, just a
• 43:56
  couple years ago, I was doing that same thing with my team.
• 43:59
  Like, OK, I'm going to offer you a promotion.
• 44:00
  You're going to accept more responsibility, your job is
• 44:03
  going to change, and I'm going to give you a pay raise in
• 44:05
  return. And they were like, no, I don't
• 44:07
  really want that. And I was like, what?
• 44:10
  Like, what do you mean? No, thank you.
• 44:12
  Legitimately. Yeah.
• 44:14
  No, I don't really want more responsibility.
• 44:15
  I don't really want more money. And so then I was like, what the
• 44:18
  hell do I do? Like, I need to grow my company,
• 44:21
  and I need the people inside my company to grow.
• 44:22
  So how do I do this? And so I like started to have
• 44:25
  conversations with him and I'm like, So what is like, do you
• 44:28
  want Stewart's gift cards? Like what do you want?
• 44:30
  And everyone of them, to your point, said PTO.
• 44:33
  Yep, everyone that's. Every single one of them I want
• 44:37
  PTO and I was like, that's wild. All right, you don't want to
• 44:42
  raise, you don't want you don't care about a promotion title,
• 44:45
  any of that bullshit. You want PTO, give me a paid day
• 44:49
  off or lots of them. So we did.
• 44:51
  We enacted this whole PTO policy in ways to either earn PTO or
• 44:57
  how you, whether it was like we did a, a personal excellence
• 45:02
  program. So we would work with you to set
• 45:04
  goals personally and professionally for the year and
• 45:06
  when, and we would assign a PTO value to them.
• 45:09
  So if you achieved that goal, you would earn this amount of
• 45:12
  PTO and that was your, and it didn't even have to be a work
• 45:15
  goal like what one of my people wanted, like read 50 books in a
• 45:18
  year or something like that. I was like, all right, well,
• 45:20
  here's the PTO value. If you read all those books and,
• 45:24
  and they loved it. And then the other thing we did
• 45:26
  too was, you know, so we, you can work up to, and this was
• 45:30
  part of our retention. You can work up to four weeks of
• 45:33
  PTO every single year, right? So it's like you need a month
• 45:37
  off. You got to put your time in with
• 45:39
  it. You got to be with us for five
• 45:40
  years to get that month off. And you can't take it all at
• 45:43
  once because that would totally screw our workload.
• 45:47
  But you can take a week or 10 days and you've got four weeks
• 45:51
  of PTO at that point. So it's and they loved it.
• 45:54
  So it was huge. We actually have our our first
• 45:57
  employee now that is taking advantage of all that stuff.
• 46:00
  And she's hitting that five year mark and first time in my life
• 46:03
  I've got a five year employee. Nice.
• 46:05
  So you know, hey, but to your point, though, PTO, that's
• 46:09
  that's the thing that you they would take less money.
• 46:13
  It's wild. It's me.
• 46:14
  I'm like give me all the money, I'm going to work, you know, 100
• 46:17
  hour work week anyway. Might as well make more doing.
• 46:20
  Wow, Casey, how many? 20 what years?
• 46:27
  27. No 22. 22.
• 46:31
  Maybe 23? It's getting blurry.
• 46:34
  It's getting blurry. Yeah, well, we're getting older.
• 46:35
  Brain fog. What do you think the most
• 46:38
  unexpected lesson you've learned in that time is?
• 46:43
  Wow. You didn't have this on the
• 46:45
  cheat. Sheet I did, I did.
• 46:46
  I just read it from there. You didn't show me the CHEAT
• 46:49
  SHEET. I sent you a picture.
• 46:50
  You didn't have your glasses. Didn't have my glasses on, I
• 46:54
  couldn't even read. That or it could be just the
• 46:55
  biggest lesson, like obviously I'm sure you're learning things
• 46:58
  all the time in business and especially as it changes, but is
• 47:00
  there any one overall thing that kind of jumps out at you?
• 47:04
  Well, yeah, I mean, when I came into this, I was 2628 years old,
• 47:12
  I think. And you might have a tendency to
• 47:18
  overreact on things. So now I have people say to me,
• 47:23
  wow, Michael, say to me, you didn't even get mad.
• 47:26
  You. Know.
• 47:28
  What for? Like what does it do?
• 47:31
  Get mad, yell, swear, throw things?
• 47:33
  It doesn't help so. Raise your blood pressure.
• 47:35
  Turns out, yeah, it does nothing good, Yeah.
• 47:38
  It does nothing. So I think that the biggest
• 47:40
  lesson is is you know, come whatever comes at you, you
• 47:45
  handle it, take a breath and and try to correct it.
• 47:49
  But getting mad throwing a fit doesn't doesn't help.
• 47:53
  Yeah. Patience.
• 47:56
  It's definitely key. Yeah, yeah.
• 47:59
  Were you high head when you were younger?
• 48:01
  Yeah. Because I mean, I've only known
• 48:03
  you for a year or two, right? So like, you seem pretty calm
• 48:06
  every time I'm red. I mean, it's easy to be when you
• 48:10
  got a baby at home, a wife at home, you take over this
• 48:14
  business you're scraping and you know, if something goes wrong,
• 48:19
  it, it affects you, you know, right now we the guy can break
• 48:23
  $1000 headlight right now. OK, Broke it back then.
• 48:27
  That might have been like the sale of the week.
• 48:30
  And you, you take it differently.
• 48:33
  So I guess I was kind of a hot head back then.
• 48:38
  We got them to admit it on air. Yeah, it's OK.
• 48:40
  You can. Call it hot head, you can call
• 48:42
  it passionate, right I. Mean yeah no listen it young in
• 48:46
  my career I was definitely a hot I used to think that's how you
• 48:48
  were supposed to deal with situations you were supposed to
• 48:50
  get pissed yell scream make whoever did made the mistake
• 48:54
  feel bad about themselves and you know question their reality
• 48:57
  like I thought you know you watch TV that's what happens
• 49:00
  right so you think that that's what's supposed to go on and
• 49:03
  then. I would get even madder if the
• 49:06
  person get didn't get mad. Without telling it they.
• 49:09
  Be like, you know, oh, that would make me even matter.
• 49:13
  Yeah, because they just seem not to care about something that
• 49:16
  obviously had a big impact on you.
• 49:18
  Impacts huge. Impacts huge.
• 49:21
  Well, they don't know, right? Right.
• 49:23
  You know, they think you sell, you know, for round numbers,
• 49:25
  they think you sell $1,000,000. Well, they think, you know,
• 49:28
  Casey gets $1,000,000, right? They don't look at the payroll,
• 49:31
  They don't look at the insurance and look how much cost to buy
• 49:34
  the car and look at any of that. You know, it's wherever we sell.
• 49:37
  Casey must get it all. Yeah, so.
• 49:39
  But it's not the case. And, you know, like he said back
• 49:42
  in the day, that $1000 headlight could have been, you know, are
• 49:45
  you eating steak or ramen noodles that week?
• 49:47
  Yeah, or not eating at all, not eating at all, or not paying the
• 49:49
  Natty Grid bill or whatever it is.
• 49:52
  I would say that like when entrepreneurs, I'm like most
• 49:54
  entrepreneurs I've ever talked to at one point in their career
• 49:57
  were sitting there trying to figure out how they're going to
• 49:59
  pay that National Grid bill and they were stressed out about it,
• 50:02
  man. Like, I mean, I've been there
• 50:03
  more times than I'd like to admit.
• 50:06
  And most, most guys and girls like they, it's tough, man.
• 50:09
  That is real stress that like when you can't think about
• 50:12
  anything else other than the problem that's facing you.
• 50:15
  And then you've got people breaking, breaking stuff and
• 50:18
  making and it's just like, Oh my God, man, it's wild.
• 50:21
  There's a lot of stress. It is hard to be a small
• 50:23
  business owner. Very, Yeah.
• 50:25
  Hard. Now Mike hides all the broken
• 50:28
  stuff. From yeah, and even harder to be
• 50:32
  their general manager, like I'd say.
• 50:34
  Yeah, you're caught in the middle for sure.
• 50:38
  Oh, man, You know, one question I'm trying to start asking
• 50:41
  everybody, and I know we're getting close on time, but as
• 50:45
  you're looking out into the community people, you know, like
• 50:47
  who is someone that's doing something locally that's
• 50:50
  interesting or is having impact? Like a certain company or
• 50:59
  certain people? Or it could be anything.
• 51:00
  Yeah, it could be business wise. It could be just a person.
• 51:02
  I'm just, you know, who's who's someone right now that's up to
• 51:04
  something that you think is cool or they're doing some really
• 51:07
  good work in the community. I know this is a thinker.
• 51:12
  I mean, I know that like I said earlier, the, the, the Bill
• 51:15
  Miller performance industrial guys, they do a lot for a lot of
• 51:19
  charities. Yeah, they're, you know, great
• 51:23
  guys, Sean and Bill. I keep trying to get Bill on the
• 51:26
  podcast. He just laughs at me, really.
• 51:28
  Yeah, I feel like this would be right up his.
• 51:30
  Out, he said He you would think, right?
• 51:31
  He'd be fun. He'd be laughing that loud laugh
• 51:34
  he's got, you know, great. Yeah.
• 51:37
  Give him some neutrals. Tell him to gamble.
• 51:43
  With them, that's it. I've had some real fun with
• 51:45
  those guys. And they do.
• 51:46
  To your point, they do a lot of great stuff for the community
• 51:48
  too. Yeah, and I think it's, you
• 51:50
  know, I, I can't place any people right now, but you see a
• 51:53
  lot of Facebook posts and things like it's a different world than
• 51:57
  it was as far as that stuff and how you get it out there.
• 51:59
  And I think it probably makes people do it more because they
• 52:07
  want to show their appreciation to their neighbors and stuff.
• 52:09
  So I think a lot of people are doing a lot of good things.
• 52:13
  Yeah, Who's doing something here in Greenfield?
• 52:15
  I always feel like, I mean, I, I read the newsletter, which I
• 52:19
  think is adorable, by the way. It is.
• 52:22
  It's like when we first moved here and like we stopped down at
• 52:25
  the town or whatever for something.
• 52:26
  There's like this little newsletter, the Greenfield
• 52:28
  newsletter. It's like, it's awesome maybe.
• 52:30
  A couple weeks I'll start. Reading you might get, yeah.
• 52:31
  Greenfield. Though you can sign up for it.
• 52:34
  Oh yeah, that's right. Your reporters corners, I think
• 52:36
  they'd still send it to you. Same.
• 52:37
  Is. It Yeah.
• 52:39
  OK. I mean, it's, you know,
• 52:40
  essentially. Your Greenfield, your town or
• 52:42
  Greenfield? Oh, that's right.
• 52:43
  OK. All right, Welcome.
• 52:44
  All right, you're back in. You're back in the club.
• 52:48
  Did you go to the madness this weekend down there?
• 52:51
  I had to drive through it a couple times.
• 52:53
  For the listeners, there was the town garage sale this weekend
• 52:55
  down at in Greenfield Centre that I actually, I really wanted
• 52:59
  to stop. I saw some pretty good stuff.
• 53:00
  I saw the one guy on Route 9 that's always got the campers
• 53:04
  for sale, like right at the end of his driveway, like right
• 53:09
  before the school. Oh yeah.
• 53:10
  He had like an old antique motor boat motor.
• 53:13
  Like it was probably like A5 horse or something like that.
• 53:16
  I really wanted to stop it, but I'm like I'm going to do the
• 53:18
  five horse pile. I want to right up your alley.
• 53:22
  I thought you were in old trucks or.
• 53:23
  Old boats. I, I, yeah, I got my, I got a
• 53:26
  boat out there. Actually, I'm going to be
• 53:28
  redoing here in the in the spring because I don't have
• 53:31
  enough projects. I still haven't gotten that
• 53:32
  freaking fence done. They had a hell of a crowd at
• 53:36
  the pot store. Oh, did they?
• 53:38
  Yeah. They had their one year
• 53:39
  celebration along with the garage sale and they had a tent
• 53:42
  and there was there was a hell of a crowd there and a lot of
• 53:44
  smoke. It was a lot of smoke they had.
• 53:48
  Well, Stewie's was selling hot dogs.
• 53:50
  They had that crew out there doing it.
• 53:51
  It was mobbed down there. Yeah.
• 53:53
  So I don't know if I've told you this.
• 53:55
  So we caught, that's downtown Greenfield Center, by the way,
• 53:57
  the Stewart's Plaza. We call that the DTGC Downtown
• 54:02
  Greenfield Center. So DTDC was bumping this
• 54:06
  weekend. It was, it was fun.
• 54:07
  We didn't get a chance to really go and get involved in it.
• 54:11
  Did you? We, my wife and I went into the
• 54:14
  Lions Club and got a burger and fries.
• 54:16
  Nice. To support them a little bit,
• 54:19
  that's all. That's all.
• 54:21
  We buy their Christmas trees, that's how.
• 54:23
  That's how we support those guys.
• 54:25
  Hey, Speaking of which, what's the building right there next to
• 54:28
  the post office? And then we'll get out.
• 54:30
  I'll let you guys go. I'm just curious because you
• 54:32
  grew up here, like, what is that building that little empty like?
• 54:36
  Well, it used to be a hair a hair port airport it was called.
• 54:41
  It was a ladies hair stylist place.
• 54:45
  And the people that own that built the post office and leased
• 54:51
  it to The Who who who leases the post office?
• 54:57
  The government, I guess. Yeah, they owned that whole
• 55:00
  corner. Oh, OK, It's been sold.
• 55:02
  Now I was wondering what was going on with all that stuff and
• 55:04
  like I keep seeing that little storefront right there.
• 55:06
  It's just always empty. It's my dog.
• 55:08
  Everybody wants some attention apparently.
• 55:11
  Well, thank you for giving me that information.
• 55:13
  I'm glad I finally know. I've been wondering this for
• 55:16
  years as I've been here. So guys, if you want to learn
• 55:19
  more about Cornells or they want to maybe find out about shirts
• 55:23
  or they're interested in auto parts, how they find you guys.
• 55:26
  No, we're 62 S Greenfield Rd. Greenfield Center, NY 8:00 to
• 55:30
  5:00, Monday through Friday. You can visit our website
• 55:32
  cornellsusedautoparts.com and should just call 518-893-0151.
• 55:38
  Nice. Like our Facebook page?
• 55:40
  Facebook page. You'll see all the different
• 55:42
  things we do with the car show will be advertised on there next
• 55:45
  year and the shirts and everything's on there.
• 55:47
  So like our fake Facebook page? Love it, guys.
• 55:50
  Thanks for coming over to the farm.
• 55:51
  Yeah. We appreciate it.
• 55:52
  Last, thanks for having. Us last episode in the kitchen
• 55:54
  here, the finale, the finale we'll be in hopefully at
• 55:57
  somewhat soundproof studio here in a couple of months.
• 56:00
  And in the meantime, you can of course always find new episodes
• 56:03
  coming out on buying local dot US on pretty much all the
• 56:07
  platforms. So we're Spotify, Apple Rumble,
• 56:11
  YouTube. You can find you can watch this
• 56:14
  video. You can see the shirt that I'm
• 56:16
  wearing. Yeah, Casey's waving to you
• 56:18
  guys. Thanks, guys.
• 56:19
  Appreciate it.