Latest / The Ric and Dan Show / "We were both too young to be scared": Tyler and Mitch Smith of Greenway Equipment

Transcript

"We were both too young to be scared": Tyler and Mitch Smith of Greenway Equipment · The Ric and Dan Show

• 0:00
  (Transcribed by TurboScribe. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) Guests of the Rick and Dan show run screaming like school children from the podcast after the recording session with lovely parting gifts from our exclusive sponsor.
• 0:08
  Coffee Hound Coffee Company.
• 0:11
  Wander, explore, caffeinate, coffeehoundcoffeeco.com.
• 0:14
  That's where we have the product here in the studio.
• 0:16
  So Dan can look over and see, am I saying the right words?
• 0:19
  Yeah, I think I need better glasses or it just needs to be in front of me.
• 0:23
  Or more caffeine.
• 0:24
  But I got it right.
• 0:25
  Hmm.
• 0:25
  Wander, explore, caffeinate, Coffee Hound Coffee Company.
• 0:28
  What's the website again?
• 0:29
  Coffeehoundcoffeeco.com.
• 0:31
  He's Rick Tyler and he's Dan Cashman.
• 0:34
  And I'm Tyler Smith.
• 0:35
  And I'm Mitchell Smith.
• 0:36
  And we're on the Rick and Dan show.
• 0:38
  In Maine, we often hear, you can't get there from here.
• 0:41
  These are the stories of the risk takers, the trailblazers, those who turn obstacles into opportunities every day and found their way to get there from here.
• 0:50
  And today they're on the Rick and Dan show.
• 0:54
  Confession, I too once dressed up like Peter Criss.
• 0:59
  I'm the man Kiss for Halloween.
• 1:02
  And my best friend growing up in high school was Ace Frehley.
• 1:08
  You guys did the same?
• 1:10
  Yeah.
• 1:11
  Well, he made me do it every, all the time.
• 1:15
  Not just Halloween?
• 1:16
  No.
• 1:18
  Every night.
• 1:19
  Regular Sunday morning.
• 1:22
  Honestly, I shouldn't even be admitting this, but we lived in Washburn for one year.
• 1:26
  We moved from Prescott to Washburn.
• 1:27
  I was in fourth grade.
• 1:28
  And that was right when Ace Frehley's solo album came out in New York groove.
• 1:32
  Back in the New York groove.
• 1:33
  And I signed, I learned how to sign his signature.
• 1:38
  And for some reason, I don't know why, but I signed it on one of the papers I turned into the teacher and she called me Ace.
• 1:45
  So then I figured it was all right to do it.
• 1:47
  So the rest of the year I signed Ace to everything.
• 1:49
  Do you dress up and go stand in front of like Sperry's IGA and try to sell copies or something?
• 1:54
  I've dressed up a few times like that.
• 1:57
  So the embarrassing thing though, is we did this when we were like, what, seven and ten years old.
• 2:03
  I kind of outgrew it.
• 2:04
  But once I was in high school, he was still dressing up as Paul Stanley.
• 2:11
  Have you seen him in concert?
• 2:12
  Oh yeah, we've seen him a bunch of times.
• 2:14
  Never missed one.
• 2:15
  When they were here in Bangor at the waterfront, did you go?
• 2:17
  Yeah.
• 2:17
  Wow.
• 2:18
  Yeah.
• 2:19
  Mitchell's, the last comment Mitchell made to me, like Tyler, he goes, when they start coming out with wheelchairs and stuff, we got to call it a day.
• 2:26
  But you're not.
• 2:27
  Before you were doing Greenway, before that, 1994, right?
• 2:31
  Before that, Carl Smith Foods?
• 2:33
  Yeah.
• 2:34
  Well, yeah, that was.
• 2:35
  It's audio.
• 2:36
  You just can't.
• 2:37
  There's no video.
• 2:37
  You can't just nod your head.
• 2:39
  I was just thinking of the dates.
• 2:41
  We grew up in the food business.
• 2:43
  That's where our family was in.
• 2:45
  It was a food wholesale business, Carl Smith Foods, which started in Presque Island and eventually moved to the Bangor area.
• 2:51
  And then we worked there through high school and college.
• 2:54
  And I personally have worked there all through college.
• 2:58
  But our family sold that business back in, I think we were freshmen or so.
• 3:03
  But my father stayed on and ran it as Carl Smith Foods.
• 3:06
  And so that was kind of where I was heading.
• 3:09
  I was the sales manager there when I graduated college down at USM.
• 3:13
  I came back.
• 3:14
  What were you doing at the time?
• 3:15
  My senior year in 1994, I graduated in 1994.
• 3:19
  And this opportunity came up about a equipment business in Ellsworth that was for sale.
• 3:25
  And we come from both sides of our family, a lot of farmers, potato farmers.
• 3:30
  So we were familiar with John Deere and John Deere name.
• 3:33
  And we had John Deere lawn tractor growing up.
• 3:36
  So we heard about that opportunity.
• 3:39
  We were looking for, my father was, in particular, was looking for, you know, to get back into a small business, something that the three of us could do.
• 3:46
  And so we looked at a lot of businesses.
• 3:47
  And then when someone presented Greenway Equipment to us, we went down and looked at it.
• 3:52
  Dad was looking for something for the three of you to do.
• 3:54
  Yeah.
• 3:55
  Were you looking for something for the three of you to do?
• 3:58
  With dad again?
• 3:59
  Yeah.
• 3:59
  We all, we all wanted to get back into our family business, wanted to own something.
• 4:04
  So we did.
• 4:05
  We kind of just wanted to just, you know, look at a lot of different businesses.
• 4:11
  And I honestly, personally was probably happy where I was going.
• 4:16
  When I graduated college and I'd worked in that food business and I worked for the company that owned Carl Smith Foods and was kind of on my way.
• 4:23
  So I, after it was all said and done, I kind of had come to the feeling that maybe this wasn't going to happen and this is where I was going to go.
• 4:31
  But when the opportunity arised, we were ready to do it.
• 4:34
  What was the span of time between the end of Carl Smith Foods or your ownership of it and the purchase of Greenway?
• 4:41
  I think if I remember right, I think we sold the business, I think in maybe 84.
• 4:47
  No, 87.
• 4:48
  87?
• 4:49
  Was it 87?
• 4:49
  Okay.
• 4:49
  You got sold the business in 87 and then we stayed on.
• 4:53
  The family stayed on and then we bought Greenway in 1994.
• 4:58
  So the transition going from ownership to staying on to back to ownership, that's a seven year curve.
• 5:05
  But in a nutshell, how did you navigate those waters?
• 5:08
  Did it feel weird to have somebody telling you what to do all of a sudden?
• 5:12
  Well, yeah.
• 5:14
  You guys are married, right?
• 5:17
  So just saying.
• 5:19
  Personal experience.
• 5:21
  This is true.
• 5:22
  This is true.
• 5:24
  Yeah.
• 5:24
  It wasn't, again, during that Carl Smith Foods era, we were high school, college, worked there part time, really worked for the management that was there.
• 5:36
  So we didn't really answer, so to speak, to anybody else but the people that were there.
• 5:42
  So it wasn't until I got moved along a little bit in the food business, I started doing the purchasing and I became a sales manager and then all of a sudden I was going to, the company that owned us was out of Canada actually.
• 5:54
  So at that point I was going to Canada to their other branches and then was answering to somebody else.
• 6:00
  So we missed the autonomy.
• 6:01
  We missed, I guess, being our own boss and just wanted to do something.
• 6:05
  Well, growing up in the business, we were kids, basically, and if we weren't involved in school or athletics, we had to work.
• 6:12
  Since we were really, really young, since we were 12 years old, we were working Saturdays and nights after school.
• 6:19
  So we always had supervisors and we always had the pressure.
• 6:23
  And one thing, our daddy didn't want to show favoritism.
• 6:25
  So we were expected to work hard and work harder than some of our peers, didn't want to show any favoritism.
• 6:32
  Totally can see that.
• 6:33
  Did you know that extra sense of pressure at the time or was it just sort of inherent in you that this is how you work?
• 6:39
  Well, I mean, I think the hard work was definitely advantageous now looking back.
• 6:45
  Not at the time when you're laying there on a Saturday morning, like, I hope my dad went to work, all of a sudden the door would open up at 6.30 and all your friends are at home sleeping and get up, it's time to go to work.
• 6:59
  That happened pretty much every Saturday.
• 7:00
  I think we felt this, you know, I think being in the family business, you feel a sense of duty to want to help.
• 7:07
  Yeah, but there are child labor laws.
• 7:09
  They don't apply, not in Arista County.
• 7:11
  No, they didn't exist back in the day.
• 7:12
  I think for family businesses, they're exempt, aren't they?
• 7:15
  Yeah.
• 7:15
  Well, you know, to be honest with you, Rick probably knows, I mean, we grew up in Presque Al and I get out for harvest in sixth grade.
• 7:22
  And so instead of the potato field, I went to the warehouse.
• 7:26
  And so, you know, it was kind of just what we did.
• 7:29
  You didn't have to watch the potato picker special on WAGM because you always knew you were going on time.
• 7:36
  But I do remember that show.
• 7:37
  Absolutely.
• 7:39
  Lifelong dream.
• 7:40
  Someday I'll get to host the potato picker special.
• 7:42
  Dan, it could be the two of us on AGM.
• 7:44
  Sure.
• 7:44
  Let's do it.
• 7:45
  You have to get up really early.
• 7:46
  That's fine.
• 7:47
  Really?
• 7:47
  I have no problem with that.
• 7:48
  You bought Greenway Ellsworth, 1994.
• 7:52
  Where was the vision of making Greenway and Ellsworth and Bangor business?
• 7:57
  Where'd that come from?
• 7:58
  Well, so here we are, a couple of 20 year old kids and father's helping us.
• 8:05
  We're getting into business together and John Deere's looking at the two of us thinking, I don't know.
• 8:10
  We're John Deere.
• 8:12
  We know green and you guys look really green.
• 8:14
  And, you know, it was a small, small business.
• 8:17
  And really from a financial point of view, it really was not going to support three.
• 8:22
  And it was barely going to support Mitch and I.
• 8:25
  But we weren't married.
• 8:27
  We didn't have houses.
• 8:28
  We didn't have cars.
• 8:29
  We didn't have a lot of bills.
• 8:30
  I mean, so we were able to go in there, roll up our sleeves and not take a lot of income out of the business.
• 8:36
  But what we liked was in talking to John Deere, they told us that they would like to have a dealer eventually in the greater Bangor area.
• 8:44
  And there was a dealer in Newport.
• 8:46
  There was a dealer in Milo.
• 8:47
  It was a dealer in Lincoln at the time.
• 8:49
  And there was a dealer in Bangor in the 70s and 80s, ML Coffin on Broadway.
• 8:55
  And they went out of business or closed down the business.
• 9:00
  And so there was a void there.
• 9:02
  So we moved to Bangor.
• 9:04
  We went to Brewer High School, both us Brewer grads, moved down when I was in eighth grade.
• 9:08
  So we really lived most of our life in the Bangor Brewery.
• 9:10
  So when we heard that they wanted a dealership in the greater Bangor area, we thought, hey, that's a great opportunity because we felt everybody comes to the greater Bangor area to shop.
• 9:21
  Did you hear this year one?
• 9:23
  We did a year one.
• 9:24
  But I'll tell you, we learned a good lesson when it was all said and done.
• 9:27
  We told Deere, we asked them if we could have the opportunity to go to Bangor.
• 9:33
  This is before we bought the business.
• 9:35
  Because other John Deere dealers were still in business and we wanted the rights to the market.
• 9:38
  So John Deere says, I'll tell you what, we give you the rights to the market, but you got to go.
• 9:43
  And so within one year of not knowing anything about the business, new owners were trying to learn the ropes.
• 9:49
  And then all of a sudden we're faced with opening up another dealership in the greater Bangor area.
• 9:53
  So those were kind of trying times.
• 9:56
  Ooh.
• 9:57
  Who was scared?
• 9:58
  Who was the brave one?
• 9:59
  I think we were both kind of too young to be scared.
• 10:04
  Looking back, they were tough times.
• 10:06
  I mean, we didn't make a lot of money.
• 10:08
  As a matter of fact, I got tired of living with roommates and I bought this old house on Pine Street.
• 10:13
  It was an apartment house, actually, and it was condemned or they shut it down, was all boarded up.
• 10:19
  And a guy told me about it because the only way I could afford to have my own place is it turned into a duplex.
• 10:25
  So I bought it for $18,000 and I think my dad was going to have a heart attack.
• 10:32
  Showed him what I was going to do.
• 10:34
  So you know, we weren't making a lot of money and I actually qualified for a mainstay housing at the time because of the level of income that we were making.
• 10:43
  And funny story, we talk about interest rates today, I think at the time, this was back in like 96 or 97, interest rates were like 9, 10% and I qualified for 6.5% and I was laughing all the way to the bank, you know, on a 30-year mortgage.
• 11:00
  But that's considered high, I think, today's standards.
• 11:03
  But yeah, that's what I did, roll up the sleeves and renovated it.
• 11:06
  And I still own it to this day, you know, and that helped me subsidize my cost of living.
• 11:12
  You know, my favorite memory back then is we just started in the business and so we bought that business, we, through the purchase of the business, we, one, we bought two pickups with it.
• 11:22
  One pickup had 150,000 miles on it and the other one had 180,000 miles on it.
• 11:27
  Six months, we lost the engine in one and lost the transmission in the other one.
• 11:31
  And we figured out that the one with the engine was a better shape so we fixed that thing up and Mitch and I carpooled together for six months.
• 11:38
  Well, we had a little pickup truck at the same time and we had a salesperson that lived in Levant that commuted.
• 11:45
  So for like two weeks, all three of us were riding this little Nissan pickup truck back and forth from Bangor to Ellsworth.
• 11:53
  You said you were too young to be scared.
• 11:55
  Were you old enough to know the risks?
• 11:57
  Oh yeah, I mean, we got a good education on the risks the first year after the bank came to look at how we were doing.
• 12:04
  And at the same time, your dad's looking over your shoulder for a time, right?
• 12:08
  No, we did.
• 12:09
  We did know the risk.
• 12:10
  I mean, we really honestly talked about the fact that, are we willing to, as young guys, go into a business and not really take much money out of the business, really be good to the business.
• 12:22
  My father gave us some really good advice over the years and he always said, be good to the business, the business will be good to you and don't be afraid to put back into the business.
• 12:30
  But John Deere looked at us and said, can these guys really be happy working like this and not making a lot of money for a lot of years because there was going to be debt service and stuff?
• 12:39
  So we put our own money into it too, money that we had.
• 12:43
  I mean, it really wasn't given.
• 12:46
  We had some help, but we also invested ourselves.
• 12:48
  So we knew right from the beginning, you know, we felt the pressure of the business and we knew that the only way we could really make this thing work is we did have to grow and we had to grow it a lot or it just was not going to be right for the two of us.
• 13:02
  And we were young.
• 13:03
  I mean, yeah, we did know the gravity of the situation.
• 13:05
  But I think when you're 23 and 25, you're indestructible.
• 13:10
  You don't have a lot to lose because neither one of us was married.
• 13:14
  We didn't have mortgages.
• 13:15
  We didn't.
• 13:16
  We felt a lot of pressure.
• 13:17
  Our parents gave us the loan to put down for a down payment.
• 13:20
  We paid them back plus interest.
• 13:22
  But we could have taken that money and could have bought a couple of Corvettes and skipped down, you know.
• 13:27
  But we were given an opportunity and I think my, you know, I think my mom and dad actually probably took the most risk because they had that amount of confidence in us that we would work hard.
• 13:40
  And we did.
• 13:41
  I mean, we worked seven days a week, 80 hours a week, and we worked hard.
• 13:47
  But looking back now, I mean, those were some fun times.
• 13:50
  We didn't have a lot of extras to spare and we didn't have a lot of opportunity to make bad mistakes.
• 13:57
  But it was fun.
• 13:58
  You ever seen on TikTok a fun game that people play where they ask a question?
• 14:03
  The two people will point to whoever they think is the person that's the answer, right?
• 14:08
  So we're going to ask you the question and whoever you think, which brother is most likely to fit, you need to say that person's name.
• 14:15
  You might be saying your own name.
• 14:16
  You might be saying the name of your brother.
• 14:17
  All right.
• 14:18
  And you've got to answer on the countdown.
• 14:21
  Dan, question number one.
• 14:22
  Who is more likely to buy a piece of equipment than say, we'll find a use for it later?
• 14:27
  Three, two, one.
• 14:28
  Tyler.
• 14:29
  Really?
• 14:30
  Buy it now.
• 14:31
  We'll figure it out later.
• 14:32
  Really?
• 14:33
  Interesting.
• 14:34
  Question number two.
• 14:35
  Who is more likely to say, don't worry, I know what I'm doing.
• 14:39
  Three, two, one.
• 14:42
  Neither of you.
• 14:44
  Maybe both of us.
• 14:45
  Maybe both of us.
• 14:47
  But the question was more likely.
• 14:49
  Yeah.
• 14:49
  More likely.
• 14:49
  More likely.
• 14:50
  Let's try it again.
• 14:51
  Three, two, one.
• 14:52
  Tyler.
• 14:53
  Who is more likely to win the argument at work?
• 14:56
  Three, two, one.
• 14:58
  Tyler.
• 14:59
  I'd say both of us.
• 15:01
  We're very competitive.
• 15:03
  But when you're arguing with each other, one person's got to win.
• 15:06
  Somebody has to win.
• 15:07
  Well, I don't know.
• 15:09
  We're brothers.
• 15:09
  You know, first of all, we're brothers and then, you know, business partners.
• 15:12
  And I think that, you know, that really hits on something that is something that we have to establish right from the beginning.
• 15:20
  We had to agree to disagree.
• 15:22
  We've had some knockout drag outs, but- Literally or figuratively?
• 15:26
  Well, we have figuratively, but, you know, I know the question was, but I honestly think that at the end of the day, we both really kind of say our sides and we really kind of talk it out.
• 15:41
  And I think when we walk away from the argument, I think I don't remember a lot of times where really one got the best of the other.
• 15:47
  How long have you gone not talking to each other?
• 15:50
  Maybe a couple of days.
• 15:51
  Yeah.
• 15:53
  But is that count texting and emails or verbally?
• 15:57
  I think all of the, any form of communication.
• 16:00
  Oh, I mean, we've gone about a week or so.
• 16:03
  I mean, you know, I'll be, you know, we go.
• 16:05
  But I mean, not when you're on vacation.
• 16:07
  There's an understandable difference.
• 16:09
  It's like civil war, but it's not blue and gray.
• 16:11
  It's all green.
• 16:12
  See what I did there?
• 16:13
  And it's brother versus brother.
• 16:14
  And maybe you had a bit of an argument and then, okay, let's just cool it down.
• 16:18
  You don't talk to each other for- We typically average, I'd say a day because we work pretty much during the busy season, six days a week.
• 16:25
  And then Sundays he does his thing and I kind of do my thing.
• 16:28
  And, but if you're asking if we've had an argument and, you know, there's a cool off period, I'd say, you know, I'd say probably a day.
• 16:36
  But I don't remember unless Mitch can tell me, I don't really remember a lot of arguments where we didn't go back and say, look, you know, I maybe was a little wrong, you know, and I understand your situation.
• 16:47
  But again, you know, you just have to understand where I'm coming from.
• 16:49
  This is how I, and then he will say the same.
• 16:52
  And so I think at the end of the day, we both feel better about it.
• 16:55
  I think there's some family owned businesses in our part of the world that wish they had that level of confidence in their relationship with their siblings to be able to do what you just said.
• 17:04
  Well, it's, it's, it's hard.
• 17:05
  I mean, I, when you're working together with your family, there's like a button over here that you can push that you can't push with anybody else.
• 17:12
  And it doesn't take five seconds to push that button because, you know, there is always emotions attached to it.
• 17:18
  And so, you know, that's very important.
• 17:21
  We had to learn to understand each other, you know, Mitchell has tremendous strengths in
• 17:27
  certain parts of the business and I'd like to think I have some in certain parts and
• 17:31
  that's kind of his wheelhouse and that's kind of my wheelhouse and we try not to step on
• 17:36
  each other's shoes too much and it's not that we don't talk to each other and, and, you
• 17:42
  know, and share our feelings, but I kind of stay out of the things that he does and he
• 17:48
  kind of stays out of the things I do.
• 17:49
  Have you two always been like that?
• 17:51
  No.
• 17:53
  We grew up, probably if 30 years ago, we'd be in a fistfight by now.
• 18:03
  That was one of the questions we had, it's fine, who would win the fistfight?
• 18:06
  It was funny, funny stories.
• 18:08
  I mean, we, I mean, blood's thicker than water.
• 18:11
  I mean, we're two and a half years apart and we did everything together growing up with our friends.
• 18:17
  I mean, everything, but man, he'd look at me the wrong way or vice versa and we would just let her fly.
• 18:23
  We used to play a lot of pickup basketball games growing up and then in high school we'd have our friends and next thing you know, he and I are swinging at each other and our friends are trying to break us up and they ended up getting hit more than we got hit.
• 18:37
  Who took more elbows to the face in the pickup basketball games?
• 18:41
  We took a lot.
• 18:42
  I took one and that was the only cue I needed to not play pickup basketball with my brother ever again.
• 18:49
  When you came to the Bangor market, was the Bangor market as welcoming as you had hoped?
• 18:54
  I think the biggest challenge, I think Tyler touched upon it a little earlier, is we overestimated.
• 19:00
  We thought the John Deere name was going to set the place on fire, you know.
• 19:06
  It's a well-known, at the time, I think it was one of the top three most recognized trademarks and it just didn't happen that way.
• 19:13
  Business was really tough for the first couple of years from 96 to 98 and it was a grind.
• 19:19
  And I think looking back on it, there were a couple different John Deere dealers over the years.
• 19:23
  There was a gentleman that had it over on Wilson Street, there was an old John Deere dealership years ago and then, like I said, ML Coffin had it on Broadway and I think the customer base wanted to see if this new John Deere dealership was going to stick around and service what they sell.
• 19:40
  So, it was a grind.
• 19:42
  We learned a good lesson, sometimes you get in the business and you don't use short-term capital for long-term goal.
• 19:51
  And so, we had a credit line like any business starting out and we figured, we'll open up that Bangor store and we're not going to borrow any money and we'll use our short-term credit and get going because we're going to do the business and this is going to be a no-brainer.
• 20:07
  And as it turned out, it was a big brainer.
• 20:11
  After one year being there, we did less business than the year before with two locations and extra people and we were looking at each other like, wow, it's just, you know, it's a seasonal business, right?
• 20:23
  So, I can't, you know, if it doesn't rain, the grass doesn't grow, if you don't have a lot of snow, you're not, you know, you're not using tractors, the economy, it's just everything kind of played into place and we had that first year and we're looking at each other going, wow, I don't know, maybe we haven't done the right thing here.
• 20:38
  This is crazy.
• 20:39
  Was there a sales side of the equation that helped buoy the service side, maybe the service side buoyed the sales side through those tough times?
• 20:47
  Yeah, I mean, there was.
• 20:49
  One of the things that we did and people don't know, but we took on the snowmobile line, the Ellsworth store.
• 20:56
  We were a Skidoo dealer, actually Bombardier, I guess is the correct name, and we figured, you know, hey, you're not going to mow grass in the wintertime, so the sleds would be something we could, you know, generate some cash flow and be busy in the wintertime.
• 21:10
  So we did some things like that to try to supplement the business a little bit.
• 21:14
  But Bangor just didn't come like we thought it was.
• 21:17
  We just automatically thought, hey, we're open, we sell tractors and they're coming to see us.
• 21:22
  And it really wasn't like that.
• 21:23
  It was, it took us a while to get our foundation underneath us.
• 21:27
  Was there a point where you said, we've just got to cut our losses, Bangor was a mistake?
• 21:32
  We had quite a meeting with my father and Mitch and I, I'll never forget, I think it was over at the coach house actually, over breakfast, and there was talk about this is a mistake, this may not work, but we just felt that, you know, if we cannot do this, then it's just not going to be viable as a whole for us.
• 21:52
  So there's really no going back.
• 21:54
  We've got to make this work.
• 21:56
  The growth potential, the whole reason we got into the business with John Deere is we wanted, number one, we wanted to nail down that opportunity to come to Bangor.
• 22:05
  They gave us that opportunity and we knew we needed that opportunity to grow the business to where it would, you know, accommodate both of us.
• 22:14
  We could eventually take more money and grow the business.
• 22:18
  So if that door shut, the Bangor market shut, there wasn't a lot of growth opportunity just out of Ellsworth, Maine, because 40% of our business at the time was in the Bangor community.
• 22:29
  Yeah, that was probably at the point of where we did a lot of self-reflecting and felt the pressure.
• 22:37
  Were there glimmers of hope along the way or did something change?
• 22:40
  We had a couple different opportunities, you know.
• 22:43
  You know, it's a funny story, I always remember this.
• 22:45
  I had a customer, he's passed away now, but I always looked up to him, he was very successful, and he said to me one day, he says, you know what, you need to be successful.
• 22:54
  And I said, what's that?
• 22:55
  He goes, well, you got to have a good product, you have to have a good location, you have to have good people, you're going to have to work hard.
• 23:00
  There's no substitute for working hard, but even if you have or do all those things, you'll never be successful without this one element.
• 23:08
  And I said, well, what's that?
• 23:10
  He said, every now and then, you got to have a little luck.
• 23:14
  You got to have a little luck.
• 23:18
  And looking back, he's absolutely right.
• 23:21
  And so we had a couple instances where we had a little luck, which really turned things around.
• 23:27
  Can you tell us about that?
• 23:28
  So we had that tough time.
• 23:30
  And so we really then started, like any business, started really focusing on the expenses, you know, looking at what we could cut and what we, you know, where we could trim and where we become more efficient, which is hard because you've got to grow and you got to spend some money to grow.
• 23:46
  This really seems kind of crazy, but at the time when we bought the business, our life and our health insurance and our business insurance was through John Deere.
• 23:56
  They were in the insurance business as well.
• 23:58
  So they had Deere health insurance and we had Deere business insurance.
• 24:04
  So I decided to tear into that a little bit, just to assume that, you know, being a Deere dealer, we would renegotiate our health insurance and it was quite a bit of savings, you know, in a small business.
• 24:15
  It was quite a bit of savings.
• 24:16
  It was substantial.
• 24:18
  And then we had a couple of competitors that we competed with fiercely and they went out of business and that really opened up some opportunities to get some of those other customers.
• 24:30
  So we, I tell you, we had some great fellow Deere dealers, even though we competed.
• 24:36
  And you know, we had a dealer that I was friendly with that gave us some good advice.
• 24:42
  And we had a dealer in between us, I won't mention names, but that dealer was really making it tough on us, selling at a lower margin.
• 24:51
  And something happened and his business model didn't succeed.
• 24:57
  And so I found out, Mitch and I, and I called that other dealer and said, hey, I just heard about XY, you know, and he said, do me a favor, hang up the phone right now.
• 25:06
  He says, and you call John Deere right now and you tell him we're going to leave that market open.
• 25:09
  You and I can handle that market together.
• 25:12
  And you know, we can, we can service that together, you know, and, and, you know, that will give us more market share and give us a better opportunity.
• 25:21
  And so that was kind of a real big break right then when we needed it.
• 25:25
  Yeah.
• 25:25
  You mentioned when you started in Ellsworth, John Deere wanted some, I'll call it an assurance from you that you would reach to the Bangor market.
• 25:33
  Was the deal that you'd reach for the Bangor market or you'd get into and stay in the Bangor market?
• 25:40
  At the time that you were at the coach house and you're thinking, geez, maybe we made a mistake.
• 25:44
  Was there any pressure from John Deere to keep at it because you made us a promise to serve the market?
• 25:49
  We didn't really have any communication with John Deere at the time.
• 25:53
  It was mostly internal between, uh, you know, the three of us.
• 25:57
  Was there ever a time that someone came to you now as an independent dealer and said, well, come under our umbrella now?
• 26:04
  That's just happened, Rick.
• 26:06
  You know, we're only one of two independent dealers now in the state of Maine.
• 26:10
  Yeah.
• 26:11
  For John Deere.
• 26:11
  For John Deere.
• 26:14
  So consolidations and mergers and acquisitions has been something that's going on all over the country.
• 26:19
  You know, it just has been slow to get to the state.
• 26:21
  So we got a call a few years back from Deere saying that, you know, there was a larger dealer that wants to grow their business and would like to come up and explore the opportunity of purchasing some existing dealerships.
• 26:33
  Would you guys be open?
• 26:34
  Of course, at first Mitch and I were like, well, you know, we didn't, you know, at first you're a little bit taken back, but then, you know, you realize it's business is business and, you know, you always listen to everything.
• 26:44
  And so we listened and we just felt that the timing wasn't right for us and still isn't right for us.
• 26:50
  And we have a good, nice niche.
• 26:51
  We like doing what we're doing.
• 26:52
  We like to think we're still young.
• 26:54
  And so, but, but lo and behold, the dealer ended up purchasing the majority of all John Deere dealerships and then even up through New England.
• 27:03
  So a little tougher now for us in some sense, because, you know, we're no longer, you know, a two-store dealer back 25 years ago was a pretty good sized dealer.
• 27:12
  A two-store dealer today is probably a house account, you know, so it's, you know, it's changed the volume levels have changed, the goals have changed, but, you know, we have a great little niche and, you know, you can't beat service.
• 27:26
  How does the team feel?
• 27:27
  How do your employees feel about, we're still independent for us?
• 27:31
  I think they had, this was back in 2019 when we were approached.
• 27:37
  And I think there was some apprehension on their part and waiting for the other foot to draw up because it was a four or five year period where, and then a dealer sold out to them and then another dealer sold out to them.
• 27:52
  And you know, we just, we would answer our people if they asked us, we answered them directly and just said at the time, we liked the business.
• 28:00
  We're too young to retire and too old to want to do anything else.
• 28:05
  And that's the truth.
• 28:07
  And love our people and love our customers and still enjoy getting up and going to work every day.
• 28:12
  Like doing what we're doing.
• 28:14
  You say you love nothing more, but we hear that fly fishing is a thing.
• 28:18
  Yeah.
• 28:18
  We like to fish once in a while.
• 28:20
  We're not very good at it, but no, we're not.
• 28:22
  The fish are winning.
• 28:23
  Yeah.
• 28:24
  We caught more, we got more real flies last week than we did regular fish.
• 28:29
  Where do you go?
• 28:29
  We go up on the Rustic River.
• 28:31
  We go up into the main woods.
• 28:33
  We've been going for the last, probably 10, 12 years with a bunch of friends.
• 28:37
  We go in outpost cabin, you bring your own food and, um, but it's more about fellowship and hanging out and a little bit of fly fishing.
• 28:44
  Does anyone catch anything?
• 28:46
  Oh yeah.
• 28:46
  We caught some fish, but, uh, Mitch and I have gone salmon fishing a couple of times up in Canada.
• 28:52
  Hmm.
• 28:53
  Good.
• 28:53
  Because fishing was one of the questions we had on our list for you.
• 28:57
  We'll be getting, we're not, we're not pros.
• 28:58
  Who is more likely to catch the bigger fish when fishing?
• 29:03
  Okay.
• 29:05
  Really?
• 29:05
  I don't know.
• 29:05
  You didn't even have to finish the question.
• 29:06
  Well, he's, he's, the last couple of trips we've gone, he's actually caught the biggest fish the last two years.
• 29:12
  So maybe my luck will change.
• 29:13
  Who knows?
• 29:14
  Who's more likely to tell the fish tale about the one that got away?
• 29:17
  Three, two, one.
• 29:19
  Didn't even have to count it down.
• 29:21
  He supposedly caught the biggest fish he's ever seen in his life up on the canoe one year.
• 29:24
  It was.
• 29:25
  It was big.
• 29:26
  I saw on the Bangor Daily, I'm telling you, I saw on the Bangor Daily where the guy found a fish that was stolen, I guess, his mount, and it was supposedly the biggest Atlantic salmon caught in the state of Maine.
• 29:40
  And I'm like, Jesus, it's not that big.
• 29:42
  The one I lost was twice the size.
• 29:45
  The key is keeping it.
• 29:47
  You can't lose it.
• 29:48
  You gotta keep it.
• 29:49
  Who is more likely to remember every customer's name, tractor, mower, dog, and driveway?
• 29:54
  Mitchell.
• 29:55
  It's funny, sometimes I don't remember a customer's name.